1/19/2004: Swedish art provokes Israeli ambassador

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by mlandman
I do not find his actions to be idiotic at all, and I'm suprised you take such an extreme stance.

Well, lessee:

--He planned the attack
--He damaged an exhibit in a museum
--He did this based on an assumption that the intent was one thing, when he doesn't really know what the intent was...because he didn't create it
--He's a diplomat, a representative of his nation's government...a government that is always under the microscope of the world

Yep, I'd say he's a fucking idiot.

You call my stance extreme...he made a mountain out of a molehill. He could have made his thoughts & feelings known through more diplomatic means, but chose to use physical violence against an art exhibit. And his government is supporting him on this.

Now that's extreme...

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by Undertoad
Syc, axl's got you on the mat: if only the Jews would get in line and not be all uppity there wouldn't be a problem here

How do you figure? Especially when I clearly stated "Not that the Israelis are the only ones with a shitty attitude..."

Since this thread prominently featured a moronic Israeli, I decided to pick on the Israelis and Jews. Don't worry...when you post something involving another moronic Arab (which I'm confident will happen in the not-too-distant future), I'll pick on the Arabs and Muslims.

[mlandman]

--He planned the attack
--He damaged an exhibit in a museum
--He did this based on an assumption that the intent was one thing, when he doesn't really know what the intent was...because he didn't create it

And what if the exhibit was a wax figurine of a palestinian walking into a cafe filled with kids, and he had dynamite strapped around his waist? Is someone who plans to deface that exhibit a fucking idiot? If your answer is yes, then I don't know what to say to you.

If your answer is 'no', then I ask you how different is the scenario we're talking about? I submit that it's not so different such that the guy who defaces the exhibit is 'a fucking idiot'.

I don't like violence, and the idea of marching into a museum or other public place to destroy something certainly does seem way way out of line. But to say that the content of the exhibit has no bearing on whether or not it might be rational to deface it doesn't seem right to me.

What if the exhibit was a car running over your family? Would you be A FUCKING IDIOT to do something about it? Yes, clearly it's not the same thing, but now you must admit we're talking about shades of grey. So tell me, why is it SO OBVIOUS that what he did makes him a FUCKING IDIOT, and you WOULDN'T be a FUCKING IDIOT to deface an exhibit of someone killing your parents and kids? The next time you see a exhibit in a museum of someone raping your 3 year old child, remember, you're a FUCKING IDIOT if you tear it down.

Personally, if I saw you tear something like that down, I'd sympathize with you. I certainly wouldn't default to thinking you're a FUCKING IDIOT.

So which is it? Are all exhibits off limits? Or, if some exhibits are fair game, please tell me precisely why he's a FUCKING IDIOT for choosing that one.

-mike

[OnyxCougar]

And what if the exhibit was a wax figurine of a palestinian walking into a cafe filled with kids, and he had dynamite strapped around his waist? Is someone who plans to deface that exhibit a fucking idiot? If your answer is yes, then I don't know what to say to you.

My answer is yes.

The SUBJECT matter is irrelevant. It is "art" (or what can get passed off for art), and as such, regardless of how you feel about it, you should have the maturity and respect to not DEFACE the exhibit.

You can disagree.
You can rant.
You can pull funding.
You can take a million more responsible actions other than defacing the display.

Anything else is childish and, yes, fucking idiocy.

[quzah]

Originally posted by mlandman
And what if the exhibit was a wax figurine of a palestinian walking into a cafe filled with kids, and he had dynamite strapped around his waist? Is someone who plans to deface that exhibit a fucking idiot? If your answer is yes, then I don't know what to say to you.

You don't have the right to destroy someone's property just because you don't like what it looks like. If you painted your house teal, and I hated teal, it wouldn't give me the right to burn your house down. Nor would it give me the right to repaint it.

Your house would be on public display, but that still doesn't give me the right to do anything to it. Now if you lived in a housing complex that expressly forbid teal houses, there would be some viable course of action against your teal house. However, it still wouldn't give me the right to burn it down.

The fact remains: Just because you find it offensive, doesn't give you the right to do as you please to it. That makes you a fucking idiot.

The point in question isn't if the artist is an idiot, that's a whole different topic. The subject at hand is: It is not your right to destroy that which you don't like.

Well shit, that sums up the entire middle east doesn't it? You could say, metophoricly, that this art piece, and the guy's reaction is the perfect example of the middle east itself.

Originally posted by mlandman
But to say that the content of the exhibit has no bearing on whether or not it might be rational to deface it doesn't seem right to me.

It is not your right to destroy my creation because you do not like it. This is half of the problem in the world today, easily. People deciding that they don't like what someone else is doing, so they decide to "take care of it". Governments do this. (Iraq anyone?) People do this.

People should just leave eachother the fuck alone, and the world would be a way way better place.

Originally posted by mlandman
What if the exhibit was a car running over your family? Would you be A FUCKING IDIOT to do something about it? Yes, clearly it's not the same thing, but now you must admit we're talking about shades of grey. So tell me, why is it SO OBVIOUS that what he did makes him a FUCKING IDIOT, and you WOULDN'T be a FUCKING IDIOT to deface an exhibit of someone killing your parents and kids? The next time you see a exhibit in a museum of someone raping your 3 year old child, remember, you're a FUCKING IDIOT if you tear it down.

Well you've got a few problems here. One, someone raping a three year old child, even the image of such, is child pornography. As such, there are usually laws against such things. To follow this further, it wouldn't be in the museum in the first place.

Next, there was only one person actually displayed in the exibit. This is the person that blew themselves up. Now then, if anyone has right to be offended by the exibit, I'd think it was the family of the person involved, or perhaps the families of the people blown up in the bombing.

Again, that doesn't give them the right to destroy the item in question. This is a matter of personal property rights. People can be offended and what not by your property, but again, they can't come and destroy it. If they do, they have to pay the penalty for doing so.

Unless of course they have diplomatic imunity. Then you're fucked.

Originally posted by mlandman
Personally, if I saw you tear something like that down, I'd sympathize with you. I certainly wouldn't default to thinking you're a FUCKING IDIOT.

So which is it? Are all exhibits off limits? Or, if some exhibits are fair game, please tell me precisely why he's a FUCKING IDIOT for choosing that one.

Personailzed again. You can sympathize, you can think they're an idiot. Both of you are right. It's subjective. That's what art is. Subjective. One person sees something one way, another a completely different way. It still doesn't give you legal right to destroy it. Sure, maybe morally you're in the right.

But that's what laws are for. To distinguish the difference between what is morally right and what the masses say is legally right. If you don't like the laws, you either try and change them, or you go elsewhere, where laws are more to your liking.

Or you have diplomatic imunity.

Quzah.

[edit]Ah, someone beat me to the reply.[/edit]

[mlandman]

This I strongly believe is true:

When any of you have children, if someone were to make an exhibit showing them getting slaugtered or raped, you would tear it down. And you wouldn't be a fucking idiot for doing so.

End of story.

You can't have it both ways, and you can't tell me that you wouldn't tear it down. Well, I guess you can tell me you wouldn't, but I don't believe you. And if you really really wouldn't, then I submit that you're the fucking idiot, or ... I don't know what. Not an enlightened peaceful intellectual. If I happened across a sculpture of someone killing my kids, I really don't think most people in the world would think me a fucking idiot for tearing it down.

Clearly this is a radical example: who would ever 'sculpt' such a thing? Then again, how far away is this from what the artist did here? Obviously the examples I cite are more personal (i.e. a sculpture of someone killing someone's specific child, instead of a nameless face) -- but how many steps removed is this from what he did? 1 step removed? 2 steps removed?

Obviously the diplomat was very offended of a SPECIFIC SUICIDE BOMBER being glorified in this manner. And regardless of intent, this is what has occurred here. And it's been made very personal by showing her face.

I can understand debating the point of whether or not the diplomat should have done what he did. Certainly looks like it could have been handled more 'diplomatically' -- like pursuing legal methods to have it removed, etc.

However, to be as radical as to say the guy is a FUCKING IDIOT for getting clearly upset about an exhibit potentially glorifing a particular suicide bomber, over a pool of blood of his countrymen -- well, I don't think it's as simple that it can be concluded that the guy is a FUCKING IDIOT.

-m

[mlandman]

You don't have the right to destroy someone's property just because you don't like what it looks like. If you painted your house teal, and I hated teal, it wouldn't give me the right to burn your house down. Nor would it give me the right to repaint it.

But what if I painted a big sign on the outside of my house saying: Quzah lives at (your-address-here) -- please murder his children and poison his dog. While I do agree (and made this point earlier) that it doesn't grant you LEGAL RIGHTS to do anything you please (including defacing the sign) -- would you be considered a FUCKING IDIOT if you painted over your address?

CLEARLY NOT.

What if the art exhibit said the same thing? Legal rights granted to you? No... but are you a FUCKING IDIOT if you defaced it? No way, of course not!

If you still disagree, then you're saying you would be a fucking idiot to deface that exhibit, and that the only acceptable recourse would be to go through months of legal wrangling to sue him to take it down, if he objected to your polite request.

Point is, there ARE shades of grey here. Once you acknowledge that, then what's the clear boundary between 'NOT a fucking idiot' and 'fucking idiot'?

I'm done with this argument. In my opinion, he didn't have the legal right to do what he did. Doesn't make him a 'fucking idiot'.

-m

[OnyxCougar]

Yeah, quzah, but your reply was more...complete..

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by mlandman


But what if I painted a big sign on the outside of my house saying: Quzah lives at (your-address-here) -- please murder his children and poison his dog. While I do agree (and made this point earlier) that it doesn't grant you LEGAL RIGHTS to do anything you please (including defacing the sign) -- would you be considered a FUCKING IDIOT if you painted over your address?

CLEARLY NOT.

No, but I'd be considered a fucking idiot if I didn't drag you out of YOUR house and beat your ass for doing it.

What if the art exhibit said the same thing?

But it didn't do anything of the sort, so your example is meaningless.

Point is, there ARE shades of grey here. Once you acknowledge that, then what's the clear boundary between 'NOT a fucking idiot' and 'fucking idiot'?

I'm done with this argument. In my opinion, he didn't have the legal right to do what he did. Doesn't make him a 'fucking idiot'.
-m

OK.... There ARE shades of grey. But the guy can be considered a fucking idiot because of all the reasons listed in previous posts, rather than taking the diplomatic solution or peaceful way to a satifactory conclusion.

He threw a PLANNED temper tantrum.

A full grown man. The ambassador of a country already beset with problems. Destroys art because he doesn't like the message HE got from an exhibit.

So when Hitler destroyed all those books and art and superb pieces made by Jews, that's ok? He can destroy all that, and this ambassador can deface this art and that's ok???

No. The guy is an idiot. Or immature retard. Or ass-sucking moron. Those terms sit better with you?

And, I don't mean to nit pick but what is the real issue here? Capitalizing fucking idiot every time it's used makes me wonder that is another term was used, like maybe asshole retard, you'd take less offense.

[axlrosen]

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
I'm saying neither. When a representative of Israel commits criminal acts in the name of the Jewish people, it casts all Jews in the same light as his actions. That certainly doesn't help dispel anti-semitism, now does it?

Again, there are many reasons that anti-semitism exists in this world, but I don't think that an ambassador trashing an art display is one of them.

You said "Maybe Jews acting like this is why anti-semitism continues to be such a problem." So what similar actions have Jews taken in the past that have promoted anti-semitism? Certainly there must have been a number of them, if "acts like this" are what helps to keep anti-semitism alive.

This was the act of one pissed-off guy. Don't you think it's a little prejudiced to characterize a whole group of millions of people based on the act of one person?

[quzah]

Originally posted by mlandman
But what if I painted a big sign on the outside of my house saying: Quzah lives at (your-address-here) -- please murder his children and poison his dog. While I do agree (and made this point earlier) that it doesn't grant you LEGAL RIGHTS to do anything you please (including defacing the sign) -- would you be considered a FUCKING IDIOT if you painted over your address?

CLEARLY NOT.

What if the art exhibit said the same thing? Legal rights granted to you? No... but are you a FUCKING IDIOT if you defaced it? No way, of course not!

[snip]

I'm done with this argument. In my opinion, he didn't have the legal right to do what he did. Doesn't make him a 'fucking idiot'.

-m

Few more problems here:
1) You can't tell people to go kill someone. That's against the law. You'd be the fucking idiot for doing so, in a legal sense.
2) Were I to deface you property in this case, it (a) may be legal for me to do so (IANAL), and I'd probably have legal justifiable right to do so, (b) if not, I'd be 'morally' right in doing so, even if I were 'legally' an idiot for doing so, (c) in a self-preservation sense, I'd be a fucking idiot if I didn't deface it.

You can be right and wrong at the same time. You can be morally right in what you're doing, but legally a fucking moron for doing so. That is to say, if someone raped and murdered my (insert someone close here), I could morally reason that I have a right to kill them. However, in doing so, it may be legally fucking idiotic for me to do so.

Understand the difference?

On a personal level, you can sympathize with the person who destroys the art piece, but on a legal level, and perhaps on a global public relations level, it was fucking idiotic.

Layers upon layers.

Quzah.

[axlrosen]

Syc, axl's got you on the mat: if only the Jews would get in line and not be all uppity there wouldn't be a problem here

Actually Bruce was the one with the quote that I really had a problem with.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally posted by axlrosen
This was the act of one pissed-off guy. Don't you think it's a little prejudiced to characterize a whole group of millions of people based on the act of one person?

This (criminal) act of one pissed off guy (with malice and forethought) who was officially representing Israel and acting (according to him) on behalf of all Jews (except the artist).
He did this as a reaction to *his* interpretation of a piece of "art" that, as most people agree, could be interpreted hundreds of ways. It would be the same as the Scottish Ambassador setting fire to your house for painting it blue. Saying you were mocking the slaughtered men that followed William Wallace and it was an affront to all Scots.

[elSicomoro]

I formed my opinion on Mr. Mazel based on the situation and my perspective on/background in art. It wasn't flippant by any means.

I think what sealed Mazel's spot in Sycamore's Shrine of the Fucking Idiots was that the act was premeditated. Had he just happened to be there and saw it and freaked out like he did, I might have--MIGHT HAVE--been a little more understanding. But he planned to do some damage. That's not a noble act to me...that's being a bully. And it was completely uncalled for, IMO.

I thought Mike's issue might be with my choice of words, but I suspect it's more with the "extremism" of my stance. Whatever...he's done with this (Didn't that sound Dave-esque?).

So, anyway...did I tell you all that I might be getting a promotion?

[warch]

The real goof is that the museum seems surprised. shocked!
Politics, Religion, Murder, Suicide, ambiguous imagery... The artists and the presenting organization hafta acknowlege and take responsibility for the nature of the work they are presenting, or they are wimping right out. There are lines. Pornography was listed, Hate speach is another... If its about finding the line to cross...well just know that it might be crossed and be prepared, you doofuses. I actually think the ambassadors behavior has made this artwork far more "interesting" than it was before he flipped. Not sure that was his intention.

The best thing the museum/artists could do is keep the damaged work and talk about it, not cower and pout. But it seems that NOW the work actually has some depth that the artists arent able to fathom. thats a shame.