[Martina]

I was reading an article cited in the article Dreadgeek is quoting from. Not Stanley Fish's, but one they describe as admirably summing up the psychology of the protesters.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that that writer agreed with Rushdie's point about how the protesters construct their identity:

Soon you have a subculture: a sub-community whose very cohesion is based almost exclusively on shared grievance. Then you have an identity that has nothing to say about itself; an identity that holds an entirely impoverished position: that to be defiantly angry is to be.

Frankly, Muslims should find that prospect nothing short of catastrophic. It renders Islamic identity entirely hollow. All pride, all opposition, no substance. ''Like the Incredible Hulk,'' observes Abdal Hakim Murad, a prominent British Islamic scholar, ''ineffectual until provoked.''

On the way home I was listening on the radio to the PBS news broadcast and was so happy to hear that Syrians are using these events to disarm some of the militias. And to bring them more under the rule of law. That is a wonderful turn of events. I wish the press were covering more of that story. Maybe Newsweek will be forced to after the twitter responders showed them up re their Muslim Rage cover.

I am going to go read the Fish article. I shudder after that review of it.

One of my college professors had Fish as his dissertation advisor at Johns Hopkins back in the day. We all read Surprised by Sin (about Milton), Self-Consuming Artifacts, and Is There a Text in this Class. Even then, before he was a college administrator and later a public intellectual, it was clear Fish was carried away with the idea of the community of interpreters creating reality. Great literary theory. Interesting philosophy. Not a world view.

I agree with Dreadgeek and the article she cites. There are universal values based on what is good and healthy for human beings. For example, torture is bad, and eating nutritious food is good. Those are pretty universal.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press may not be the most essential values, but they protect us from us from having to endure serious human rights violations. Iran today has used the youtube video as an excuse to limit its people's access to google. Exactly what some people are saying is the motivation behind the protests. The film is an excuse to clamp down on secular influences.

I was thinking of Foxconn thing -- the workers rioting in the Chinese factory that makes, among other things, Apple products. It's just INSANE that we don't know what is happening on a day to day basis in those factories. This stuff could happen in a second in the United States. In a second -- if we didn't have our First Amendment rights. Did anyone see that report about the Microsoft data barns in Quincy, Oregon. Also in the Times.

First, a citizens group initiated a legal challenge over pollution from some of nearly 40 giant diesel generators that Microsoft’s facility — near an elementary school — is allowed to use for backup power.

Then came a showdown late last year between the utility and Microsoft, whose hardball tactics shocked some local officials.

In an attempt to erase a $210,000 penalty the utility said the company owed for overestimating its power use, Microsoft proceeded to simply waste millions of watts of electricity, records show. Then it threatened to continue burning power in what it acknowledged was an “unnecessarily wasteful” way until the fine was substantially cut, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

“For a company of that size and that nature, and with all the ‘green’ things they advertised to me, that was an insult,” said Randall Allred, a utility commissioner and local farmer.

A Microsoft spokeswoman said the episode was “a one-time event that was quickly resolved.”

Internet-based industries have honed a reputation for sleek, clean convenience based on the magic they deliver to screens everywhere. At the heart of every Internet enterprise are data centers, which have become more sprawling and ubiquitous as the amount of stored information explodes, sprouting in community after community.

But the Microsoft experience in Quincy shows that when these Internet factories come to town, they can feel a bit more like old-time manufacturing than modern magic.

I guess one could argue that Western Europe is still free enough and safe enough (safer even) with some limitations on speech. But it's still hard to speak back to power in Europe. It's harder than it is here. The EU has regulation to protect folks (as should the U.S.), but if something is wrong that is in the best interest of the elites, good luck with that. Also, EU privacy laws may protect ordinary people from data mining using facial recognition software, but they also keep the halls of power pretty private and unapproachable.

In any case, we AREN'T Europe. As the article from the Daily Beast points out, the West is not monolithic. And freedom of speech and the press protect us from abuses like the ones attempted by Microsoft. They weren't that afraid of the regulators, I'd bet, but they sure are afraid of public opinion. Anyway, sorry for the rambling. I am getting to be an old crank. I can hear it in my tone.

Actually, not done yet. Also from that Daily Beast article Dreadgeek cited --

There are deep traditions of pluralism within Islamic theology and Arab culture. Moreover, there is no tradition of mob protests associated with insults against Islam or the Prophet Mohammed. This mob reaction to perceived insults is not "traditional," but rather grounded in a concatenation of circumstances, new interpretations of religion, and emergent political ideologies that developed during the 20th century.

Fish should know that. Anyway, if Fish's article is correctly characterized, then it is just a more sophisticated instance of throwing up one's hands and saying, "Oh, it’s just the Muslims, nothing to be done."