Losing Their Religion

by digby

I was just watching MSNBC do an in-depth report on the controversy surrounding Madonna’s depiction of a crucifixion in her concert. (Here’s a video of one of the discussions.)

The German’s have evidently threatened to arrest her.

Madonna faces arrest over her controversial mock crucifixion.

The ‘Hung Up’ singer could be arrested when she performs in Germany on Sunday (20.08.06) if she goes ahead with the much-criticized routine.

Dusseldorf police have warned the singer that she could be in breach of their “insulting religious beliefs” law and they will be in the crowd ready to act if she attempts the stunt.

And then there’s this:

Singer Madonna is reportedly being threathened by Russian mobsters who are plotting to kidnap her and her two kids. The threat came as the pop icon prepared for her upcoming tour stop in Moscow next month.

[…]

The alleged kidnap plot is expected to have stemmed from Madonna’s controversial mock crucifixion, in which she wears a crown of fake thorns while performing on a mirrored cross, that has sparked outrage among religious leaders across the globe.

I immedately did a little check around the right blogosphere to see what the right was doing to defend Madonna’s right to mock religion. After all, the entire rightwing blogosphere wrote stirring defenses of those Danish cartoons didn’t they? They all agreed that free speech and a free press were fundamental western values and that simply because certain religious people somewhere might be offended by certain images, it was no reason to withhold them. Indeed, it was reason to publish them, which many of these right wing bloggers did, with no compunction about offending the muslims in their own communities or around the world.

But strangely, I saw nothing about this Madonna thing. Perhaps they just haven’t heard about this affront to liberal western values yet. But then, they have some rather strange ideas about what political speech should be defended and what should be condemned, don’t they? They went crazy when Jane Hamsher posted a satirical image of Joe Lieberman in blackface and didn’t even blink an eye at their own intellectual inconsistency. At the time I looked around for some of their stirring defenses of the Danish cartoons and found many. It was a certifiable cause in the right blogosphere, all done in the name of western liberal values.

Jeff Goldstein, for instance, wrote this:

This battle over the Danish cartoons highlights all of these philosophical dilemmas (which I have argued previously are the result of certain linguistic misunderstandings that are either cynically or idealistically perpetuated); and so we are brought to the point where this clash of civilizations—which in one important sense is a clash between theocratic Islamism and the west, but in another, more crucial sense, is a clash between the west and its own structural thinking, brought on by years of insinuation into our philosophy of what is, at root, collectivist thought that privileges the interpreter of an action over the necessary primacy of intent and agency and personal responsibility to the communicative chain—could conceivably become manifest over something so seemingly trivial as the right to satirize.

Whew! Only it seems it isn’t really a clash of civilizations at all, is it? Nor can it be attributed to mush-headed leftists and their relativistic po-mo collectivism. It turns out there are western nations that actually have laws against “insulting religious beliefs.” And in the case of Jane’s satirical blackface graphic the “collectivist thought that privileges the interpreter of an action over the necessary primacy of intent” was used as a bludgeon against her by “individualist” conservatives even though her intent was obviously not racist.

After all, we had Darkblack’s, the artist’s, intent right out there in black and white explaining his “intent” so Malkin and her followers should have had no problem understanding what it was:

As the composer of the work in question, allow me to make some broader points clearer. This will be my last word on the subject, but all are free to debate further, of course. Lieberman has attempted to activate a voting demographic that his strategists believe will aid him in his quest.

To this end, he has imported a figure, Bill Clinton, who has standing with the American black community, and has repeatedly asserted his personal credentials as one who has worked on behalf of that community.Yet Lieberman has engaged in race baiting (with the Lamont flyer) as a cynical attempt to game this demographic, and he has engaged in other activities which cast doubtful shadows upon this allegiance.

Thus, in my opinion, Lieberman is pretending to be something that he is not for personal gain, exactly like the vile caucasian minstrel show performers of Vaudeville. And so my artist’s impression stands. If we as a people run from controversial imagery, we will never stop running. Better to unearth and deal with the unpleasant than to live in fear.

I am not vouching for the political effectiveness of the graphic or the wisdom of using it. American political campaigns are inherently and literally conservative (even for liberals) in that they always try to avoid unnecessary controversy. Blackface is a loaded image in American culture and causes an emotional reaction that is more appropriate to political art than to elective politics. I myself balked at showing the graphic on this site during the last days of the campaign when Michael Shaw of Bagnewsnotes featured it in his ad. Normally, I would have been happy to have it there as a point of discussion, but I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire. Political activism requires such considerations and it’s not always an easy call. (But then neither was the cartoons although to hear the right tell it, only a terrorist or traitor would have thought so.)

The hysterical rightwing response to the graphic, however, was a laughable exercise in rank hypocrisy. The same people who ranted for weeks about the Danish cartoons and the principle of free speech even when it is offensive were the first ones to wring their lacy designer dew rags about leftist racism and bad taste when the opportunity came along.

I actually partially agree with Goldstein (hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, ba dum pum) when he says some of this intolerance of controversial speech comes from the mistaken notion that the feelings of an interpreter of an action take primacy over the intent. (Hate crimes, for instance, are all about intent, although I doubt seriously that Goldstein agrees with me on that.) But the idea that it is the sole province of “collectivist” or liberal philosophy is ludicrous. It’s the province of dogmatic thinkers everywhere, but it occurs far more often on the right, I’m afraid, and particularly among religious fanatics of all stripes who seek to silence anyone who doesn’t adhere to their beliefs.

When I see the right wing blogosphere showing pictures of Madge on the cross and Jane’s Lieberman satire on all their blogs as a sign of solidarity with the western value of free speech as they did with the Danish cartoons, maybe I’ll take them seriously on that issue. Until then, they are just political cartoons themselves whose braying about western values are as meaningful as Mallard Fillmore.

And btw, in case anyone’s wondering what Goldstein had to say about the blackface incident, here’s a little taste:

Lamont’s victory speech video

If you look over his shoulder to the left and squint a bit, you’ll see Jane Hamsher in blackface sucking down a beer bong filled with Dos Equis. Or maybe that’s just the shadow of doom beginning its inexorable creep across a once proud nation.

He was just “kidding,” of course. He’s a very funny guy. Still, those lefty racists are uncivil and deserve everything they get.

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