Josh McNeill

Tag: philosophy

Is terrorism art?

July 28, 2009 / / 0 Comments

art
/ɑrt/ [ahrt]
–noun
1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

That’s one of the definitions for art according to Dictionary.com.

ter⋅ror⋅ism
/ˈtɛrəˌrɪzəm/ [ter-uh-riz-uhm]
–noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

This is what they say about terrorism.

I was having a discussion about what art is recently and my answer is generally, “Anything meant to evoke a reaction.” The reply to this was, “That makes terrorism into art.” At first, I had to agree that my definition was too vague because of this but, after thinking about it more, I’m not so sure. Maybe my initial response was based wholly on the severely negative connotations of the word terrorism. People often claim that the United States is a terrorist organization because of the things we do around the world but, if you live here, that view isn’t very pronounced. Che Guevara is considered to have been a terrorist by some while people who agree with what his purpose was will say that he was a hero. Even people who appear to fit the exact definition of terrorist, like Osama bin Laden, are viewed in a completely different light by members of al-Qaeda who would say that he’s doing God’s work. Basically, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. With that in mind, terrorism becomes a lot more subjective and inserting the word art into its definition no longer requires a sense of disgust.

There are plenty of projects that have been undertaken that, while often provoking denial at first, have become widely considered to be works of art. You have John Cage’s 4’33”, Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionism, David Smith’s Cubi sculptures, architecture to some people as a whole, and the list of borderline works of art can go on and on. Eventually, it seems that people decide that these things can be classified as art even if it’s only because they’ve stirred up so much conversation and curiosity. And isn’t that exactly what terrorism does? There are times when you can’t watch or read anything about current events without running into talk about terrorism. The whole purpose of these acts is to make a statement, to make people consider something they haven’t considered before. To me, there’s a blurry line here that doesn’t help solve the problem of defining art at all. Maybe that’s the point though. If art were definable then it might not be art at all. Either way, I think it’s food for thought that’s worth sharing.

Fight genocide with genocide.

January 15, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I came across this video today:

At first, it’s easy to watch this and come to the conclusion that Jewish people are terrible and hypocrites but this is how these things get perpetuated. What you have here are Jews reacting to Muslims who were reacting to Jews who were reacting to Muslims, ad infinitum. Apparently, it’s incredibly easy to get caught up in what’s happening right at the moment without considering how we got to this point.

Right now, Israel is pretty much obliterating Gaza. Some Israelis have died too but the difference in deaths is so drastic that you might as well just say that no one in Israel has been killed in the current conflict. This is why what the people in the video above are saying is absolutely crazy. Sometimes I really wonder how someone comes to the point where they’re willing to march in the streets in support of one side of a controversial issue that they seem to know absolutely nothing about. For instance, the girl in the middle of the video who claims this is the holocaust all over again, she either doesn’t have any clue that this holocaust she speaks of is being carried out by Israel on Gaza or she’s so full of hatred and bitterness that she just doesn’t care. Whatever the reason, these people really need to step back and take some deep breaths and I’m not only referring to Jews and Israelis.

Palestinians shouldn’t be turned into martyrs either. They’re far from innocent in all this. Really, the issue here is that both sides have various reasons to be angry at the other. That’s the nature of controversy. Controversial subjects only exist when there are valid points being made on both sides of the argument. With that in mind, when one comes into contact with a topic of this nature, the immediate reaction should be to acknowledge that both sides have some solid ground to stand on. Unfortunately, humans, as a whole, are apt to act before they think and are not exactly fans of compromise.

A turning page.

January 12, 2009 / / 0 Comments

William Zantzinger just died the other day at the age of 69. If you’re a part of my generation, you probably have no idea who he was. I certainly didn’t know who he was until I decided to read about him today and I’m not too sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing.

Zantzinger was a well-off tobacco farmer who, in 1963, in a still segregated Maryland, killed a 51 year old black woman named Hattie Caroll while she was working. She was guilty of not getting his drink fast enough for him. He called her a “black, son of a bitch” and hit her in the head with a cane. She died eight hours later of a brain hemorrhage. Zantzinger was given six months in a county jail and a $500 fine and had his imprisonment deferred so that he could take care of his tobacco crop yield first.

This most likely wouldn’t go down in history as anything different from all the other screwed up things that were done to blacks in America during the first half of the 20th century except for one thing, Bob Dylan wrote a song about it:

Zantzinger was made famous because of this song which Dylan, so I’ve read, still plays up to this day.

To me, not to downplay the tragedy of the event, there’s a lot of symbolism in all this. This man, who was by all accounts a terrible racist, who was able to murder a black woman and practically get away scot-free, has died less than twenty days before a black man enters into the presidency of the United States. Also, the fact that he is, most likely, completely unknown to people born after 1980 (yeah I know I’m conjecturing) says a lot about where we are with race relations in this country.

We could very well be past the point where we need these types of stories to remind us of what racism can do. Or maybe we’re just ignorant and don’t realize, or aren’t told, how often these types of things still happen. Maybe they don’t happen anymore. Maybe we’re giving people like Zantzinger their just rewards by relegating them to the position of relics that will be happily forgotten. Maybe we’re being foolish by forgetting.

My opinion is that we just don’t need to feel angry anymore. We don’t need to ignore racism or let it slide or anything like that, but grudges from 46 years ago will no longer move us forward. It was probably a good thing that every time Zantzinger showed up in the paper that Dylan’s song showed up as well. It was probably a good thing that he has never stopped playing that song. The man is dead now, though, and the current racial challenges are different. The generation that was capable of committing such acts is disappearing and a generation that is willing to make a black man into the most important figure in our country is now at the helm. We’re one step closer to finding a balance.

Botox? Why not just get a new face?

December 17, 2008 / / 0 Comments

In all seriousness, this story has strong ethical implications.

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=1f3c75d5-4ef6-4cb0-9f33-4d3edf16d47e

A woman, who is being kept anonymous, has received a face transplant in Cleveland. This procedure has been done three other times but not in the United States and not to such a great extent (80% of her face is from a cadaver). The operation took twenty two hours and the team of experts that were involved in the procedure sound confident that it was a success. They still have to wait for swelling to go down to really know, but there’s a great deal of optimism about it.

The patient was chosen from a body of candidates who were put through all sorts of tests both psychological and physical. The drugs she has to take, for the rest of her life, will weaken her immune system so that her body doesn’t reject the face but the side effect is losing up to ten years off her life.

Mostly, I’m interested in the psychological and ethical implications of such a procedure. For one, when this person looks into the mirror they’re going to look like a human being that has died. There have been experiments recently where people are taken out of their body, psychologically, using virtual reality devices, and placed into the body of someone else and the impact is drastic. For instance, racists were placed into the body of someone from the race they hated and it was very convincing for those people. For a bit, they actually believe that they are that other person. Think of what this means for this woman when she looks into the mirror and someone else stares back at her.

The ethical questions are also numerous. What about the family of the donor? Their dead relative is practically walking around in a different life and I don’t mean heaven. What if these people met? What happens if people start entering into this procedure just because they want to look different? Is there anything wrong with that? After all, plastic surgery is an accepted reality anymore. This could be a new extension of that idea. Along with genetic engineering, we’re getting closer and closer to being able to literally make ourselves into whatever we want. For my part, I’m going to try and remain optimistic. Maybe looks will be unimportant once everyone is beautiful.

One of those questions about trees falling.

June 18, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I got into a discussion, an internet argument even, which is never a good idea, recently about whether it makes sense to label all Muslims your enemy (assuming that you’re not a Muslim) based on the fact that the Qur’an contains passages that can be read as, “Kill non-believers.” My stance was, obviously, that this was stupid. My opponent’s stance was that he labels all Muslims enemies because of these passages but probably wouldn’t have a problem with a Muslim if they were standing in front of him. His reason? He suggests that people can believe things that they don’t follow. If this were true then it would be possible for a Muslim to believe that their holy text is telling them to kill the guy in front of them and yet they don’t.

Regardless of the rampant contradictions in such a stance, the whole conversation made me really wonder how someone can believe something and yet do the opposite. For instance, in the example of the Muslim in front of my short-sighted online debating partner, does that Muslim, who we’ll assume does believe he’s being commanded to kill the guy in front of him, not follow through with his God’s command out of sheer willpower to go against his beliefs or is it that at the time he believes that it’s not a good idea to kill this person. Basically, if you believe something and then act in a way that goes against that belief, did you really just have a couple beliefs overlap each other?

Upon trying to think of some examples where someone is acting against their beliefs, I came up with a couple that were questionable. Lets take priests who molest children. These people most likely don’t interpret the Bible to be saying that it’s honky dory to ruin children’s lives in this way yet they still do it. When those particular priests are in that situation where they decide to go through with these actions, is it just some blind moment like blacking out after drinking too much or do they justify the action in the moment? If they do justify the action, does that justification enact a new belief? For example, the priest normally believes that it’s not okay to touch small children but at the time that they are doing so they also believe that it is okay to do so for such and such a reason. You can do the same thing for recovering alcoholics. They believe that they should stop drinking but they still end up drinking because they believe at the time when they fail in their endeavor that it’s okay for them to drink.

So yeah, is it safe to say that no one ever acts against their beliefs, or no?

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