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it's intentional disrespect simply for the sake of disrespect. As a bumper sticker a friend had on her car once said, "I hate mean people"; that was her, I simply disdain them.
The Da Vinci Code is fiction; for many, it's poking fun at Catholics and dissing them simply to show disrespect; it's protected, and arguably was a creative work of fiction. But, for many, it just goes to show their contempt, which, obviously, must be shown--I mean, contempt is a good thing, right? But there are much easier ways to show disrespect.
Same with the Muhammed cartoons. Many so antsy to show disrespect to some groups saw the intentional disrespect not intended by the publishers of the cartoons to be reprehensible. (And even if that makes little sense, it doesn't mean it's not an accurate summation of their views.) But they were also protected, because they made a point--one more valid, IMHO, than the Da Vinci Code's.
The problem is, if everybody's crap, everybody gets treated as if they were crap. That's much of what's been happening in America: nobody can accept that somebody thinks they're wrong, and must take issue with it, and nobody can accept not showing that others are wrong. Such intolerance is truly stunning, especially when it's called "respect" or "tolerance." However, respect is frequently viewed as a right owed to every individual, but which under no circumstances can be expected from that individual. Iterate over the whole set of individuals and you find the root of many a problem in American discourse.
I try to not treat other people as thought they were crap, and expect the default behavior to me to be the same. Similarly, I try treat other people's beliefs with respect, even if I don't believe them, unless there's a reason for doing otherwise.
One doesn't have to criticize everything at once simply for the sake of criticizing it--I mean, what's the point in it? Moreover, has that attitude ever produced anything worth having? (The short answer: No; it's only produced inflated egos and, at times, perceived justification for hateful attitudes by those who have grown fat on their sense of victimization and wounded pride.) This is simple nihilism, which, thankfully, was thoroughly discredited by thinking people--as opposed to unthinking people--decades back in the US and France, and decades before that in more advanced countries. Nihilism is billed as a process without a goal, but in every instance there's actually a goal present that justifies the process. Which is, of course, a sort of intellectual hypocrisy, which brings me back to the point of my post to this thread.
My minor beef with the threads concerning the Christian 'fatwah' is that they're steeped in hypocrisy: Similar threads about the prior Muslim fatwah, to which this is most assuredly is a mere response, didn't ensue. The impression is that such hate is to be expected from the religion of peace, but tolerance is expected from the religion of intolerance. But, of course, this particular double standard and the assumptions underpinning it mustn't be questioned, because it would undermine the goal of questioning everything if, well, we actually questioned everything. Why, that would be crazy.
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