Salty Current has further thoughts on the failure of many to make the effort to understand Charlie Hebdo before declaring it racist.
I’ll repeat briefly the major point I’ve been making for the past several days: that I hate the approach that many people with basically good motives seem to be taking, which consists of a hostile-prosecutorial attitude that begins by assuming the worst, even on the basis of the most skeletal evidence and biased reports, and proceeds through various stages of half-listening to and then minimizing or dismissing evidence that contradicts or at least challenges the original impression.
Not the history of the publication and its political commitments or those of its staff, not the statements of the people who created and published the images, not their courage in defending blasphemy and going after the Right and numerous sacred cows, not the local context in which the images were created or viewed, not the history of French satire, not CH’s public reputation which would shape people’s interpretations, not films in which the artists describe their intent in producing particular images and the efforts to preclude their misuse,* not indications of the critic’s own ignorance – nothing, it seems, is enough for the self-appointed judges to pull back on their determination to smear Charlie Hebdo. The goalposts are moved again and again: from actively and openly racist to neglectfully employing racist tropes without concern for who might be hurt to insufficient efforts to make it impossible for others to misrepresent the images or use them in a harmful way. This last is simply an impossible standard, especially for a satirical magazine with a small circulation which works within local traditions and comments on current events.
It’s all that good. Read it.
Wouldn’t back-tracking on the claims of racism require some people to admit that they perhaps hadn’t really actually looked at any of Charlie Hebdo, or perhaps had just googled “Charlie Hebdo Racist” and formed their opinion from a few scattered pieces taken out of context? Because I’d bet that there are a lot of people who’d let Charlie Hebdo’s reputation be tarnished than to admit that they were lazy, or wrong, or perhaps a wee bit dishonest.
Marcus, perhaps — but if so, they would hardly be unaware of their duplicity and its implication of selfish moral cowardice. Even if nobody else knew.
Remember the research into how counter arguments tend to strengthen, not lessen people’s beliefs?
Even the self-satisfiedly rational commentariat of FTB? Say it ain’t so!
@1-4,
Everyone else is biased or ignorant? But also dishonest? Really.
Really, Bernard? Because that’s a hit piece if ever there was one. Everything about it screams bias.
Yes, I think if we’re concerned with bias and intent, then we really do have to weigh the source of the documentary evidence we link. A disgruntled ex-employee is hardly an unbiased source.
I wish there was a way to “like” or “recommend” articles on FTB because I’m really just posting to say thanks for this article and your other writing on this topic, SC. Your writing really reflects what I’m thinking and it’s nice to see it out there.
Thanks, sambarge!
@SC, #6 & sambarge, #7,
Embarrassingly, I pasted the wrong link into each tag – switch them around; bias should point to sff9’s post. I can see how that undermined my point. Ignorant should point to the insider, bias to the not obviously biased observer. Carelessness on my part.
I’m perfectly willing to accept the possibility that Olivier Cyran may be utterly unreliable, but I’ve not found anything to demonstrate that. At face value, what you have is someone who is deeply unhappy with the managment practices and the direction of the magazine because he sees it as a betrayal of the values he signed up for (all of which is consistent with everything we know about the passion and commitment of the CH staff). Clearly there is an explicit agenda, and definitely it is to impugn the management practices and post-2001 political direction of CH (and in a way that I really am not qualified to judge and haven’t tried to argue). In that regard, hit piece isn’t quite right, because I don’t think the intent is hidden. I also don’t think that means it should be dismissed; the claims in that piece are argued and referenced, so if you’re saying that this is bias to the extent of making up allegations from whole cloth, then I don’t see that. It reads perfectly plausibly as someone who is disenchanted by exactly what he claims.
I’m not saying that I will pretend to know whether the details of the inner workings are fair and correct, but I think it takes a more careful rebuttal than to simply write off that source as irredemably biased (and it clearly isn’t ignorant).
SC, I have little issue with your piece, even though I clearly don’t agree with your assessment of the lack of fairmindedness of commenters (my) approach – you’ve carefully argued a case which I don’t fully accept. I do have issue with the first comments here which cast this as merely a vanity issue, as though the truth is so bright and simple that anyone still discussing it must be defective.
Okay, Bernard, you’ve given us ONE source you consider reliable. Here’s another source, who cites multiple sources of her own, who contradicts your allegations:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/yemmynisting/2015/01/12/the-charlie-hebdo-tragedy-the-five-crowds-that-are-getting-it-wrong/#comments
Another thing we need to remember, is that it is now routine practice for racists, and supporters of racist policies, to label their critics “the real racists” every time they say anything critical of white people’s treatment of others. Given that ongoing practice, the same allegations are no more credible when applied to CH than they are when applied to critics of US police misconduct.
Everyone else is biased or ignorant? But also dishonest? Really.
When the cartoons they cite clearly don’t say what the critics allege they say? Yes, really.
That the cringing worship of Islamist terrorists can be expressed in PC terms says something vast and horrid about the emotional balance of people who THINK they are ‘progressives.’
I suspect that it goes back to 1956, when Nasser sought and accepted Soviet support. Right up until ’89, the whole rubber-stamp brigade of useful idiots became uncritical supporters of ANY group that looked vaguely ‘arab’ or advocated the murder of Jews.
Old political lies never die….
Meh, I don’t think dishonest, though of course it’s possible some are. Biased, sure–we’re all biased, and I don’t think anyone can get clean away from their biases, though good on those who do their best to be self-aware and fair.
johnthedrunkard: Are you sure your comment is in the right thread?
First, I think you’re reading too much into my description of it as a hit piece and what that means for our evaluation. I don’t think the intent of a hit piece has to be hidden – quite the contrary. Nor do I think that the fact that someone has written a hit piece means that their work is automatically “utterly unreliable,” that it should be immediately dismissed or written off, or that everything it says is invented out of whole cloth (in fact, hit pieces work best when they’re somewhat based in reality).
This latter is included in what I’m arguing against, which is a weak epistemic approach. Think of it this way: If one of the bloggers who’s been kicked off of FTB or left on bad terms were to write a hit piece like that about FTB, I would read it very critically and in light of my knowledge, the totality of the evidence, and my awareness of the person’s axe to grind. (I would pay close attention to red flags like this article’s assertion that CH had “Charia Hebdo” but not “Talmud Hebdo” – that’s the weak tea of character assassination.) I wouldn’t just accept the examples offered at face value but would investigate them in context – including in the context of the large number of potential examples they had to choose from – and try to understand them from the other side. Hell, even in the case of someone whose work I really dislike – Andrew Sullivan, say – I would take an article like this with a pile of salt. Once again, this is how I would hope people would approach such a hit piece if it was about me. I’m not saying “attend to and accept this positive portrayal and dismiss that negative one.” I’m saying “Stop approaching the matter from an accusatory position with the understanding that people have to disprove allegations entirely or let them stand.” (And I’m not saying it to you specifically, but to the many people who are clearly taking that tack.)
Well, I guess we’ll just have to disagree, because the pattern I’ve seen and described is evidence to me of a lack of fair-mindedness, which I think people would recognize if it were the approach to characterizations of themselves or people they respect or care about.
If I implied that, I didn’t mean to. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand why so many people are taking this approach in this case. I think my latest post is kind of a development from some of the previous ones, in that it focuses more on rational fears and other causes (generally being in the position of victims of bigotry or their defenders rather than of the accused and so on). But I also think there is some posturing going on in some cases, which isn’t inconsistent with these other motivations.
Speaking of biases, I’d like to admit one of my own: in my opinion, however spot-on about Islamofascists or Christofascists they may be, the CH cartoons are just plain ugly and badly drawn, and that makes them less funny, and less intelligent-looking, in my eyes, just like so many of the ugly, badly-drawn characters I try to ignore in the comic pages. I suspect I’m not the only person who has that opinion, and I further suspect that the ugly drawing style is affecting how at least some people perceive their content or messages. It’s a little harder to respect the complex thoughts and brilliance behind a work of satire when it looks like something a middle-schooler drew based on crude bathroom humor.
^ Yes, definitely. I’ve been saying that all along. I can’t like most of the cartoons even if I try; I just do not like that style, at all. I’ve never liked R Crumb, for that reason. I do think a lot of people are seeing the style and thinking “racist” even though the style is used for everyone. (That one of the American couple is gratingly hideous.)
They’re all gratingly hideous, to the point where I’m almost embarrassed to be explaining and defending them. It’s the kind of drawing style that gives me the strong impression that the artists WANT to highlight the ugliest and most repulsive features of every single one of their characters, just for the sake of being mean. I find it kind of demoralizing to look at such drawings, just like I find it demoralizing to look at stoopid horror movies where everyone is portrayed in the most demeaning and unsympathetic light possible, even before the mad killer or monster or whatever shows up.
Funny, so do I – it’s not just that I don’t like it but that I want to get away from it, just as I want to get away from an ugly treeless street or similar. I do find it demoralizing; apt word for it which I’d never thought of.
I would say they aren’t all gratingly hideous though. The new cover for instance – it’s not beautiful but it’s not g.h. either, I think. Which is good, because I want to stick it on my wall somewhere when I get around to it.
Yeah, the latest cover is still crude, but relatively pleasant to look at.