When watching a video on LGF about the DC Holocaust Museum shooting, the following banner ad ruined my moment of pensive reflection (bottom of screenshot).
Is Joanie de Rijke suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or Leftism?
What causes a victim to see those that subjected her to the depths of human depravity as fellow victims? Dutch journalist Joanie de Rijke traveled to Afghanistan to show the world the “humanity” of the rank-and-file Talabani. What she saw—what they did to her—should have changed her mind, but it didn’t. Why?
From Gateway Pundit:
In November 2008 a Dutch journalist, Joanie de Rijke, was abducted by Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. She was held captive, raped repeatedly, and released after six days for a ransom of 100,000 euros ($137,000). After her ordeal, she acknowledged that her captors “did horrible things to me,” but added in several media interviews “They also respected me,” and emphasized “They are not monsters.”
Is this a classic case of Stockholm syndrome, or does something in her worldview cause such backward thinking? Given what little I know about the condition and her ordeal, it’s hard to speculate. Something in her words, however, tells me there might more to the story.
“I had the impression that afterwards he regretted what had happened. He knew it was wrong.”
“I do not want to depict the Taliban as monsters. I am not angry with Ghazi Gul. After all, he let me live.”
“In a war situation people seem only able to think in black and white. I wanted to refine the story. A person is not a monster because he calls himself Taliban.”
I could not help but thinking of Mos Def’s appearance on Real Time a few months ago, in which he questions what Americans have been led to believe about the Taliban. Not the best line of argument when you’re up against Chris Hitchens and Salman Rushdie, who cannot hide their disbelief at his utter foolishness. Then again, I’ve yet to see anyone hold their own against either of the two.
Joanie de Rijke and Mos Def may be similarly afflicted. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”, goes the saying. I have long known how this mentality permeates leftist ideology, as it once was part of my worldview. My enemy, of course, was America, and thus, my friends were all who oppose her. From a utilitarian perspective, this outlook makes sense. But Leftists rarely cop to being utilitarians and seem to pride themselves on radical idealism.
This is how they can sympathize, quite literally, with the Devil. The Taliban probably represent the most demonstrably illiberal population on the planet. They are profoundly, notoriously evil, and almost universally recognized as such. Yet, some, like Mos Def and Joanie de Rijke refuse to accept this. They see a romantic insurgency that fights tooth and nail against Western imperialism. They don’t see the burkas, the stoning of “immodest” women, the killing of schoolchildren, the execution of homosexuals.
De Rijke was so convinced of the victimhood of the Taliban, she may have refused to see her own. Her adherence to the far-Left orthodoxy is so steadfast, her own rape and tortuous imprisonment does nothing to shake her belief in the humanity of her captors.
Joanie de Rijke deserves our support and our understanding. We shouldn’t judge her. We should, however, try to understand how good people can be led so far astray.
(This was written today for my members-only ActiveRain blog, and, like Friday’s post, recieved many comments and was featured on the front page of AR. We in the Naughty Generation have to pay special attention to the line between personal and professional, as we are the most active users of Social Media. Enjoy.)
You have probably heard the acronym “TMI” before—Too Much Information. It’s usually said when someone shares something a little too personal. Context and audience have always been the keys to knowing what is or is not appropriate in behavior and speech at any given moment. This has not changed. Almost everything else has.
To frame the discussion, I asked my father to summarize an experience he had once related to me.
I had a new client, an ad agency, who sent a young producer to our photoshoot. She was about 25. She was a freelance producer, so her business card was not an official one from the ad agency, it was her own. It had her own website address on it. I went to her website just out of interest, and it had a link to personal pages of journals, photos, etc. One journal had a sentence talking about how she was not really happy working at the agency (the one she was working with currently on this photo project) and that she is looking for other work, moving back to the Bay Area, etc. Being from another generation – I found this disturbing.
First, that she doesn’t think that this may come back to haunt her, and second – that she feels no need to keep her personal and professional lives separate. In my years of working in my business starting in the early 80s, you only mixed personal and professional if you had developed a personal relationship with the client – maybe you’ve worked with them for years, had them over to the house for a party, etc. I’m not saying you don’t socialize with new clients– you go to dinner and drinks after the shoot and learn more about each others’ personal lives, but this was different. The photos and journals took it way further.
A serious case of TMI! It also lost this young woman further business from my father.
Let’s focus on the two factors we’ve already hit on: context and audience.
How has context changed in the age of digital communication and Social Media? Think of it like setting, in the most general sense. Am I in an office setting? A casual lunch? An after hours business function? How we behave changes depending on social norms attributed to each setting. If I’m making a sales presentation to potential clients, my mannerisms and vernacular will reflect as much—I will try to comport with their expected behavior, avoiding unnecessary friction. If I’m at a casual lunch with a coworker or friend, I might open up a little. Context has changed at the rapid pace of modern social networks. The rules are blurry and hard to keep up with, if rules still exist. If I update my status on Twitter or Facebook, am I doing so as aprofessional or a private individual? Is such a distinction even valid? Should I be reticent about sharing my thoughts on thorny issues on the website I built for my real estate business?
What about audience? It’s pretty obvious that everyone with access to Social Media has an ever-widening audience. We now have unprecedented access to people we may never even meet, people with whom we often have little in common. This is because it is now so easy to cultivate these networks. One click of the mouse, and you and I are now “friends”. Some people are extremely selective about who they link up with, while some go to great lengths to make their audience as wide as possible. Either way, we are connected to more people than ever before. Add to this the fact that the Internet creates a permanent record of the things we say and do, and one thing is clear:
Our voices carry like never before.
Should we hold back for fear of offending a potential client or business contact? Should we avoid boring our non-industry friends with shop talk? Should I keep my mouth shut because it might reflect poorly on my superiors? No one can make this decision for you.
One option is to create different personas. I have a personal Twitter account as well as a professional Twitter account. With the former, I probably share too much, but I’m not anxious about it harming my business. With the latter, I try to develop connections that are professionally relevant, while sticking to updates that pertain to my professional sphere. So far, so good.
Another option is to embrace the synthesis of the personal and professional and throw caution to the wind. I am reminded of branded commercial vehicles with political bumper stickers. I always wondered if those people thought about the business they might be losing by wearing their heart on their bumper, as it were. This new era mentality can be seen in almost every corner of the web. Nancy is your “Austin-area Buddhist REALTOR®.” Paul has a “Support Proposition 122” web badge on the website of his business. Danesh posts a controversial piece about immigration on his ActiveRain blog. Is there a line being crossed, or is there even a line at all? By acting in such way, have they hurt or enhanced their professional prospects? In either case, such effects are not easily measurable.
I liken our Social Media presence to attending a work-related cocktail function. We have a little more leeway in terms of how we behave or what we say. We don’t need to necessarily walk on egg shells. At the same time, we will most likely interact with these people in the future, in a setting that is more professional. How we interact and what we say should reflect the shades of gray inherent in our current context. It’s probably best to avoid either extreme, but that is just my personal opinion.
What are your thoughts?
Who Should We Believe?
(I originally posted this May 29th on my Leveraging Technology blog on ActiveRain and got a great response. Since it was accessible to AR members only, I decided to re-post it here for all to see. Your trackbacks, retweets, and comments are appreciated).
“Twitter is a fad.”
- Burt Helm, Business Week, April 2009
“Twitter is a fad that will slowly fade away.”
– 51% of Internet Evolution poll respondents, November 2008
“Twitter is next. The paradox is obvious: to grow, you need to remove friction from the medium. If it’s not easy and free to use, people won’t. But then it gets big and it becomes profitable, so people use it too much.”
– Seth Godin, May 2009
Foretelling the fall of Twitter has lately become a meme du jour. Some of this is a contrarian knee-jerk reaction; some of this is the refrain of people that “just don’t get it” or have a luddite-like predisposition. These self-styled Cassandras are quickly gaining ground.
It is no longer just the uninitiated and tech-wary that are predicting Twitter’s demise (whether gradual or spectacular). Industry sages have joined the chorus of late, lending credibility to the notion and convincing more and more to follow suit. The reasons cited for this supposed Twittocalypse are too numerous to list, and their relative merits are beyond the scope of this post (and my patience).
Personally, I see a slow tapering off, but sustained popularity. I am no guru, however, and thus my opinion matters not. But what if I were a tech luminary? Such figures, though often correct, are not infallible. Many times they are so far off the mark, we are tempted to call their supposed genius in to question.
With Twitter in mind, let me say this: gurus, sages, prophets—whatever you term them—can be woefully, laughably wrong. Don’t let them convince you that Twitter is a sham, fad, or useless time-waster. Only you can make that decision for yourself, based on your experience, intellect and usage. Almost as important; remember that even if they are wrong about this, they can still remain influential and successful. They can still be deserving of “expert” status; they can even go on to change the world.
No better an illustration of this fact can be found than PC World’s The 7 Worst Tech Predictions of All Time. All of these people were heavy hitters at the time they uttered the following nonsense. Some faded in to obscurity and some continued to move up the industrial ladder. One is the richest man in the world.
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
- Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
-Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946
“Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.”
-Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum manufacturer Lewyt Corp., 1955
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
-Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
“Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet’s continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”
-Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995
“Apple is already dead.”
-Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft chief technology officer, 1997
“Two years from now, spam will be solved.”
-Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, 2004
Desciption from the publisher:
The story of Nikolai Maslov begins in 2000 when he, then a night watchman, opens the door of Emmanuel Durand, a French book salesman in Moscow and the publisher of Asterix in Russian, and shows the Frenchman three pages from a graphic novel, asking him to finance the rest. Stunned by the intensity of the work and life in those panels, Durand allows Maslov to quit his job to concentrate for three years on his work. The result is one of the most disturbing and astonishing visual renderings of the Russian spirit…SIBERIA (originally entitled “Une jeunesse soviétique,” or “A Soviet Youth”) describes the path of a young ordinary Russian across the desolation of the Siberian countryside, and through the labyrinths of the Soviet system—from construction site, to his military service in Mongolia, all the way to the psychiatric hospital where he was admitted after the death of his brother. Drawn entirely in pencil on paper, SIBERIA bears witness to the life of the Russian people.
Nikolai Maslov’s Siberia unfolds as a series of brief, telling vignettes that portray the bleak misery and utter absurdity of life behind the Iron Curtain. A man laps spilled wine from a puddle on the floor of a pig sty. Nikolai is rejected from art school because his work does not “show the advantages of the Soviet way of life”. To the contrary, the grayscale pencil sketches in Siberia should be enough to dispel any lingering revolutionary nostalgia or apologism. Gray like his dystopian homeland, Maslov’s desolate landscapes and characters seem equally devoid of life. Nearly all who haunt Siberia’s panels have resigned themselves to a vodka-induced complacency, and even Nikolai succumbs to this prevailing dispiritedness at times throughout the account.
Siberia is created in such a way that one wonders if the author had read any other graphic novels before penning his own. It is Maslov’s apparent unfamiliarity with the genre and style that makes his memoir so unique; it is unblemished by the influence and clichés of his peers.
Like many, Nikolai seeks refuge in art and its creation. Yet an artist of his time and place must be an organ of the state, or keep his work to himself. Each sketch is pregnant with meaning, as is the very style of his work. Maslov chooses to portray the world of his youth in grim charcoal, the antithesis of the heroic, colorful celebrations he was urged to create—and this time he gets to show us.
That he survived to relate his story speaks to his thirst for life, and that we are so profoundly affected by it speaks to his abilities as an author and artist. The medium by which Maslov has chosen to share his reflections may be unique, but, sadly, the tragedy of the Soviet experience was shared by far too many.
No one is above lust. Not even Ben Kingsley.
Just watched Elegy (2008), directed by Isabel Coixet and adapted for the screen by Nicholas Meyer, from the Phillip Roth novel The Dying Animal.
Description from Netflix:
Cultural critic David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) sits comfortably in his ivory tower, divorced from any romantic or familial entanglements, that is, until a striking 24-year-old daughter (Penélope Cruz) of Cuban exiles reawakens his sense of sexual excitement. Their unlikely bond yields shocking revelations that change David’s life forever. Spanish director Isabel Coixet helms this star-studded adaptation of the Philip Roth novel The Dying Animal.
Normally, a synopsis like the one above would have me avoiding this film like an Eve Ensler biopic. The incredible cast and glowing reviews, however, spurred something inside to nag at me, as if to say, “Buck up, kid.” So I gave in.
So glad I did. Character-fueled without skimping on story, Coixet and Meyer make it easy for us to understand the perspectives and motives of each lead without asking the viewer to like or sympathize with them. Interactions are believable within context, and dialogue is natural and interesting. Although the film is about a refined cultural critic, it never itself feels pretentious (Ben Kingsley’s appropriately upturned nose notwithstanding).
Nor is the film judgmental. Once gravity is lent to what might seem a minor life crisis, the masterful pacing leaves little room to consider the defensibility of the choices made before us. Short scenes are interspersed with longer bits of dialogue, the end result being a well-proportioned mix that is constantly fluid. The shot selection keeps the film visually interesting, even in the more cerebral scenes of extended dialogue. Every once in a while, a visual metaphor seems unnecessary and contrived—as in when wilted leaves fall from a potted plant—but such annoyances are few and far between.
Kingsley is certainly in his element here, and his classical training enables him to indulge his inner British snob without guilt. His transformation from accomplished, confident sophisticate to love-struck, helpless old man is nuanced and captivating.
Not just anyone can reduce a man like that to helplessness; this feat is performed by Penelope Cruz (who else?). It’s fair to say that Cruz is often typecast as the Latin seductress, but it is a role she has perfected—even elevated—in films like Todo Sobre Mi Madre. This is her at her most sympathetic, and she manages to bring something new to a role that could have easily been phoned in.
Dennis Hopper’s performance is similarly familiar as a renowned American poet with 60’s-era ethical permissiveness and a taste for striking women far younger than he. Like Cruz, he avoids switching on the autopilot, and eschews familiarity for freshness.
Elegy is perfectly cast, beautifully shot, and refreshingly accessible for a film of its caliber.
How easily we forget.
Interesting question raised by Brian Cuban over at The Cuban Revolution.
The ugly face of Holocaust Denial is still smiling across the globe over 63 years after the last concentration camp was liberated at the end of World War II. It has become especially virulent in the area of social media where anonymity protects deniers like a white sheet.
He goes on to link to several Facebook groups that deny the Holocaust and exhibit varying but omnipresent levels of antisemitism. Sadly, I wasn’t very surprised. I have seen some vile stuff out there, and Facebook lends no shelter against the rising tide of antisemtism and hatred (as evidenced here, here, and here, and too many other places) .
Cuban wonders not whether such groups violate U.S. law, as they clearly do not, but whether they violate Facebook’s own Terms of Service, specifically the clause that states users may not:
“upload, post, transmit, share, store or otherwise make available content that would constitute, encourage or provide instructions for a criminal offense, violate the rights of any party, or that would otherwise create liability or violate any local, state, national or international law.”
Such groups may be in violation of the TOS because many European states ban Holocaust denial. Of interest to me, however, is whether the removal of these voices from the fray should even be advocated, and whether Facebook’s TOS are inherently problematic, to say the least.
I am fully opposed to making Holocaust denial illegal, and I have written about this before in the Texan:
Too many governments impose limits on free speech through the overzealous pursuit of an egalitarian ideal. Bigotry is criminalized in order to remedy historical inequality. This is the wrong approach.
… But what of hate speech that does not directly lead to violence? Unlike the United States, many countries deem this form of expression unworthy of legal protection. At the same time, the distinction between hate speech and personal intolerance is also being eliminated.
On a personal level, I struggle with how one should approach Holocaust denial and other speech that offends me deeply. Should I want to silence these people? It’s clear to me from experience that there is no point in engaging these people. Their paranoid worldview will not be shaken no matter how high the mountain of evidence to the contrary. And to some extent, I fear that debating them somehow legitimizes their views as worthy of rebuttal, when they are clearly not. To battle them inflates their importance.
There are those out there that actively work to eliminate this content from sites like Facebook and YouTube. I understand how this may seem a worthy pursuit, but what good is it? Other than angering the haters, what is the worthy cause behind eliminating their speech? Stopping the spread of hateful ideas may seem valiant, but who makes us the arbiter of what should and should not be heard? To act as such is to annoint oneself a Commisar of Acceptable Speech. It is to belittle the awesome faculties of human reason. Thinly-veiled antisemtism can be recognized by most anyone, and those who this speech wins over are unfortunate enough to have lost control of these faculties. Let them be seen and heard for what they really are; sad, lonely fools who blame everyone else for their self-inflicted suffering.
As to the second point, whether “Facebook’s TOS are inherently problematic,” I had this to say in commenting on Brian’s post, and I think it needs no revision.
This is one of the least enforceable pieces of legalese I’ve ever read. It also (maybe unintentionally) reflects a kind of relativistic view of some fundamental differences between nations, in that it makes no distinction between the laws of free societies and those of oppressive regimes. Almost any opinion or statement on Facebook can be construed as in violation of the laws of at least one country. By the standard Facebook’s TOS set out, Free Tibet groups should be banned due to their violation of Chinese law, groups concerning the Armenian genocide should be banned for violating Turkish law, groups recognizing Israel should be banned for violating the law of numerous Arab nations, and so on ad infinitum.
I couldn’t agree with myself more. I think that these TOS are trying to take in to account the internationalization of the web, but they do so poorly. When and where laws violate basic freedoms, they should not be recognized and validated by those in free societies. Facebook here makes a lame attempt to cover its own ass and hind behind respect for legal sovereignty where no sovereignty should exist.
What do y’all think?
Not even in the Muslim world...
Just watched Persepolis, a 2007 French animated feature written and directed by Vincent Parronaud and Marjane Satrapi.
Description from Netflix:
Marjane (voiced by Chiara Mastroianni) just wants to be an ordinary kid, but that isn’t easy in 1978 Iran. This profound animated film follows Marjane’s childhood in a repressive society, her adolescence in France and return to Tehran as an adult. Based on Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel, this Oscar nominee for Best Animated Feature Film also features the vocal talents of Catherine Deneuve and Simon Abkarian.
What a fascinating and tragic life Marjane Satrapi has lived. Aesthetically, the film follows the style of her graphic novels (which I haven’t read), simple and bold. But the way that it communicates the complexities of emotion, character, and history is truly superb and anything but simple.
Satrapi and Parronaud achieve a feat of subtlety in their ability to portray Marjene’s youthfulness without watering down the narrative. The viewer can understand the limited perspective of the main character, while following the developments in Iran that the film tries to explore.
The stunning Marjane Satrapi.
Something in the film’s tone is refreshingly unapologetic–Satrapi pulls no punches when introducing us to the people that have passed through her life in Iran and Europe. She describes her friends in Austria, for example, as having perfected “forced nihilism,” an obvious term of derision that I found hilarious. The heroes in her young life were communists, but they were her loved ones and composed the largest bloc of opposition to both the Shah and the Ayatollah.
The tone of the film could have easily veered toward whiny or preachy because of its subject matter, but never does. Instead, the viewer inevitably compares the struggles of their own life to the incredible hardships Satrapi has suffered. The result may be uncomfortable, but to some like myself, ultimately inspiring; it adds to our appreciation of art that is truly expressive and the tormented souls behind it that we are privileged to encounter every so often. Persepolis serves to remind us that those who create beauty in this world are often the most haunted among us.
Who are the angriest Muslims? I just read the following, from a summary of the exhaustive Gallup Poll of the Muslim World:
The radicals, on average, are not the down-and-out people in society. They are more educated than moderates, and two-thirds of radicals have average or above-average income. Forty-seven percent supervise others at work. They are more optimistic about their own lives than are moderates (52 percent to 45 percent).
Liberal Teacher: “What do we do when the facts contradict the meme?”
Class: “Ignore them!”
How did I just discover this? After all, it’s from about a year ago. No, I won’t allege a liberal media conspiracy. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that poverty spurs radicalism in the Islamic world. After all, it makes sense. But, alas, it isn’t so.
If the priveledged radical archetype sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve seen it before. It’s always the least qualified to speak that shouts the loudest. No where is this more evident than on the Left. Think of the Weather Underground and related extremist movements. Do we not see a similar phenomenon? It was never actually the proletariat that held the most radical views, at least in the West. These groups were exclusively largely comprised of whiny, rich, educated brats that thought they knew what the global poor wanted–or should want. Forget that they had never worked a day in their sheltered little lives.
When The Weathermen Went "Underground"
Remember the bomb that prematurely detonated in Greenwich Village while they were making it? The "safe house" belonged to Merril Lynch heir-apparent James Lynch.
Almost the entire leadership of Baader-Meinhof (Red Army Faction) was college-educated. The university seems to provoke a pissing contest of sorts–who is willing ot take the revolution the furthest?
“Johnny over there dropped out to join the real people, man.”
"Oh yeah? Sally just bought her ticket to Chiapas. She’s going to join the EZLN, man. Well, actually, her dad paid for the ticket, but she’s flying coach, just like the prole. He thinks she’s going to study third world agriculture or something.”
Oh, and then there is the self-loathing. Once one succumbs to the groupthink, it is customary to reject one’s past. Dress like you have no money. Move to the East Side (or whatever side is poorest and in vogue). Abandon the life that your parents worked so hard to provide for you; they were just suckers. Take your obligatory trip to the third world and convince yourself that you and the people there have anything in common. Use your birthright trip to sneak in to the Palestinian territories and learn “the real story”. You know the drill, now fall in line.
Privilege allows you to believe in ideas that the average person can see right through. It takes familiarity with the actual workings of the world to truly determine the feasibility of an idea. To subscribe to the mindsets of the extreme Left and radical Islam, it takes a special kind of stupid disconnectedness that can only be acquired through a life of privilege.