Someone reminded me that Jonah Goldberg is, in fact, a columnist for the LA Times, and so I meandered over to find out who was a fascist today. Well, it turns out that what's really got Jonah's goat, so to speak, is those damned Darwin fish--you know, the feet-sprouting icthys on the back of VW Golfs everywhere:
I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there's the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers.I am going to wade out on a limb here and suggest that it's hard to top the smugness of claiming sole authority of the eternal salvation of the otherwise-damned immortal soul. One of the curiousities of religionites of all sorts is their breathtaking failure to appreciate the extraordinary scope of their own claims.
En tout cas, Jonah finds it reprehensible that this admittedly peurile, bumper-borne provocation should be carried out in a land where one's neck is not literally on the line.
I think this is a false juxtaposition, but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.Seen and raised, card-shark!
Muslims: Your religion is as crazy as the rest of the chillun of Abraham. Its ontology is question-begging and its eschatology belongs to the lower orders of fantasy, the sort with warrior princesses battling velociraptors. The misogyny in your texts is disgusting. The notion that you can reconcile the tribal mores of a lot of desert nomads with the necessary cosmopolitanism of modern urbanism is pure lunacy. Your dietary proscriptions are silly. Your delineations between representational and non-representational art are arbitrary and untrue. Your creation myth is false. Your fashion is terrible. I live in Pittsburgh, and I know plenty of trees that would act as fine gibbets. Come an' get me!
20 comments:
Well, M. Ioz. Let me be the first to announce the Fatwa against your sorry homo ass! Jah...Err Allah(PBHN) will be done!
Seriously, why are you so MEAN??? hMMMM? You need to RESPECT them!
Wade out on a limb? Is the tree underwater? ARE YOU SECRETLY THOMAS "METAPHOR MIX-MASTER" FRIEDMAN?!
GRRRR!!!!!
>:O
Dear nony,
Think of the fish.
As Christopher Caldwell once observed in the Weekly Standard, Darwin fish flout the agreed-on etiquette of identity politics. "Namely: It's acceptable to assert identity and abhorrent to attack it. A plaque with 'Shalom' written inside a Star of David would hardly attract notice; a plaque with 'Usury' written inside the same symbol would be an outrage."
That's not actually really how "identity politics" works.
First of all, I'm tired of conservative commentators acting like identity politics just spontaneously appeared for no reason at all. The reason "African American" is an identity is that white racists created it (albeit they didn't use that exact term).
Second, the whole entire endeavor is wrapped up in history, and can't be abstracted into universal rules. drive around with a bumper-sticker reading "White Power" on it and see how long it takes before people get angry at your theoretically acceptable assertion of identity.
The whole concept is rooted in the idea that you shouldn't kick somebody while they're down. Identity politicians look at a group's history when evaluating what kind of expression should be tolerated; groups that have traditionally been oppressed and have little ability to oppress others are allowed to get away with more then those who have been oppressors and who still have substantial ability to oppress others.
Wilder may be putting himself in danger form overly sensitive morons, but he's still a member of a dominant culture kicking an already suspect minority. Liberals would have a very different reaction to Fitna if Gert was a Saudi Arabian woman.
It would be nice if people who were going to criticize something had the slightest clue as to how it actually worked.
Although I guess at this point it's kind of late to start getting mad at Goldberg for writing about something he doesn't understand. I'm never going to stop being pissed that he gets paid for this kind of nonsense, though.
As for Islam, I'm irritated that it's so important right now, because it makes me feel like I should learn more about it, and I already know much more than I want to about Christianity. I already know about the mind-bendingly stupid Protestant/Catholic split; now I have to learn the difference between Sunni and Shiite?
Couldn't we get into a big mess in India, so at least I could learn about a religion that isn't essentially the exact same thing as Christianity?
Most of the big world religions seem awfully weird to me. Whatever your religion, more than 99% of th people who have ever lived believed something else. What are the odds that you just happened to land in the exact right space and time to end up learning the completely correct religion?
may the Creative Forces of the Universe have mercy on our souls, if any
It's awfully hard to progress from description to prescription when faced with the realization that many, many people pay this anthropomorphic blowdryer to put pen to paper.
If it were true that the rich and powerful had simply resigned themselves to the intractable poverty of the human condition, I don't think I'd fault them quite so much.
So why doesn't the fat fuck just get one of those clever devices that show a bigger fish (standing in for HIM) chomping down one of those smug yuppie amphibian things? I'd like to see those Volvo-driving secularists top that.
Anyway, I'd rather the chubby one turned his keen analytical mind to the plague of "pissing Calvin" decals. The Onion said that they're a vital part of our national discourse. But I hold off on semiotic judgements until I get Goldberg's input.
-- sglover
By the way, speaking of ignorant blowhards getting paid to proudly spout ignorance, today's WaPo has Dickie Cohen yammering on because some guy wrote a book suggesting that WW II might have been more a big civilizational disaster than a noble crusade. At no time in his bloviations does Cohen indicate that he's actually read the book, or even held it in his hands. Instead, it seems very likely that all the I-centric handwringing is because of a review of the book.
Christ, there's a job that I would love.
-- sglover
Yeah, glover, you know, I almost wrote about that, but at last, alsas, not.
IOZ,
Spectacular post, as always. Alas, craptacular graphics. Green on brown? You kidding me?
Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.
bobbyp
The notion that you can reconcile the tribal mores of a lot of desert nomads with the necessary cosmopolitanism of modern urbanism is pure lunacy.
The Jews do this pretty well. Shomer fucking shabbos, dude.
but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.
So what does the fat fuckloaf suggest we do? Make YouTube videos of ourselves wiping our ass with a Koran and supplying our names and addresses in the hopes that some crazy jihadist in Yemen will see it and come voice his objections in person?
Stupid shitferbrains motherfucker's just mad that Christians have become (thankfully) domesticated to the point where they wouldn't even dream of trying to burn Dawkins or Harris or Dennett at the stake anymore.
As for me, I'll offer regular prayers to whatever deity sees fit to make this useless oxygen thief choke to death on his next cheeseburger. Thor? Osiris? Quetzalcoatl? Ball's in your court...
h'sr has the money-quote
I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it.
Because christians have never used violence on unbelievers. That and Islam being such a strong proponent of "Darwinism".
But seriously, why'd you have to go and taunt the mullahs? So you could claim moral high ground over Lucy's little boy?
First, there's the smugness. . .
Goldberg reveals his op-ed writing secrets!
obamabot: You know, of course, that in the safe confines of modern United States, we are supposed to be afraind of Islam, even if Christians do indeed use violence, to this day. Heck, we have a major presidential candidate (Re-elect President McCain in 2012!) associated with a goofball who is salivating for nuclear war in the Middle East!
this is amusing. everything is easy to shout from behind these walls. why not shout something, you know, good?
am I the only one here that expects our nation (sorry, 'our' nation) to do anything it wants or deems necessary in order to defend itself? I can no more control who bombs what from up there on the Hill than I can make myself fly with wings I grew from unicorn DNA that funny dude sold me in Chinatown.
how big the crater will be the instant the second shoe drops is what I can't wait to see. I too wish I could float out of my cubicle here into another plane of existence. alas.
"Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers."
And just for an extra chocolate syrup and cherries bit of hilarious irony about Goldberg's indignation: he's based his critique of the smugness of Darwin-fishers on a classic teleological misinterpretation of Darwinism. There is no reasonable conception of evolution in which some creatures are more evolved. No, really, they're just different.
I think I'll commission a Darwin hagfish for my car. No legs, but it can spew slime out of its ass!
Thanks Brian, I sometimes forget that fear is supposed to be irrational.
I wonder if anyone's compared Jonah's outrage over Darwin fish to Jonah's outrage over not publishing Mohammed cartoons?
I think the boldest, least smug statement of all at this moment in history might be to write an op ed column that defends beheading Americans. If he really wants to go out on a limb. So to speak.
It could be done, don't you think (hint hint)
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