Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Piss Mohammed

40 Comments

Mario Loyola has a brilliant idea:

Every last person who complains will have to explain why they said nothing during the 20-plus years that the revolting Piss Christ has been touring art galleries around the world. They will be forced either to treat Islam and Christianity the same (i.e., stop trashing the latter) or finally admit the cowardly truth, which is that their degree of respect for any given religion is proportional to its proponents’s propensity for violence.

Breitbart would love it.

40 thoughts on “Piss Mohammed”

  1. For someone who calls a lot of other people dumb, you appear to have fallen for the fallacy of the excluded middle.

    2. Here’s the irony, Bob. Barack and Hillary have been buying ads in Pakistan making a huge deal about the fact that the U.S. government had nothing to do with the video. But Serrano was in fact paid by the U.S. government to insult Christians.

    3. I don’t see how that’s a fallacy of the excluded middle, unless you’re arguing that it’s okay to mock one religion but not another because there are inherently mockable and non-mockable religions, that the middle is where we happily mock Christianity (with no violent results) and avoid mocking Islam (to avoid violent results) because they’re just different things. That strikes me as inconsistent and philosophically lazy, like agreeing with the logic of a bully who only picks on people who won’t fight back.

      1. Here’s two cases in the middle which were excluded:

        1) Many people sincerely believe that Serrano’s work was not *intended* to be sacrilegious, and some not entirely intersecting set of people sincerely that it isn’t sacrilegious, regardless of Serrano’s intent.

        (There is an opportunity to get sidetracked here, regarding whether you, the person reading my comment , thinks the work is or is not sacrilegious, and there is a similar opportunity to get sidetracked regarding the reasons *why* other people believe the work was not sacrilegious. We needn’t get sidetracked, so I’m not going to get into all that. If you’re interested, read about Serrano and his other works. )

        It should suffice to say that a person who sincerely finds artistic merit in Serrano’s piece, and/or does not think that Christianity is being mocked, but who does find some reason to think that Piss Mohammed might somehow be mocking Islam, or might be sacrilegious, or might have sacrilegious intent, would have cause to complain about Piss Mohammed and not complain about Piss Christ, and not fall into categories like “cowardly” or “philosophically lazy”.

        2) For people who DO find Piss Christ to be sacrilegious and/or mocking Christianity, they might have chosen not to complain because they believe that there is no need to complain — they believe that Christians will not react violently, that they’ll be able to handle mocking and sacrilegious content. And those same people might have very patronizing views toward Islam. They might believe that Muslims simply can’t handle mocking and sacrilegious content, and so, these people believe, the right thing to do is to patronize Muslims by pointing out that Piss Mohamed is terrible, just oh so terrible, really just gosh darn awfully sacrilegious, and then, lay it a little thicker by asking HOW DARE THEY DO SUCH A THING, in an outraged tone. The motivation here needn’t be cowardice. The goal here might be profit – someone doing business in the middle east could reasonably take the position that “the customer is always right”, and if making some outraged noises will keep the cash flowing and keep the company afloat, then making outraged noises is the right thing to do for the employees and for the stockholders. But note that these people might have MORE respect for Christianity, not less, so they also fail to fall in the two categories identified by Mario Loyola.

        And that’s just of the excluded cases. I believe there many more.

        2. The intentions of the artist have nothing to do with whether someone will be offended or not. That’s the problem with bowing to the offended, they get to dictate what is and what is not offensive.

          In this case, a p*ss Mohamed is exactly the same (minus the use of tax payer dollars) as a p*ss Christ. The artist in either case can claim the work represents what some have done to the religion, but that won’t stop people from being offended. The only difference is that in one case the offended were told to sit down and shut up, while in another (after rioting and death), our government is going out of its way to let everyone know it didn’t have a hand in it.

          1. And we know Loyola wants to offend. He’s quite clear about that.

            No, he’s not clear about that at all. His goal is not to offend, but to make a political point about the hypocrisy and cowardice of the politically correct Left.

          2. The intentions of the artist have nothing to do with whether someone will be offended or not.

            Case in point: according to the author himself, the portrayal of Mohammed in The Satanic Verses was intended to be “essentially respectful toward the Prophet of Islam, even admiring of him.”

          3. Rand said ” [Loyola’s] goal is not to offend, but to make a political point about the hypocrisy and cowardice of the politically correct Left.”

            I explicitly acknowledged (downthread) that Loyola wants to make a political point. But how do you suppose he expects to expose the supposed (or real) cowardice of anyone if he doesn’t expect Piss Mohammed to offend someone to the point where they threaten violence? The intent is to offend, so that violence will be threatened, so that cowardice can be exposed.

            Of course, I’m only addressing the idea of Piss Mohammed as put forth by Loyola, for the particular purpose he had in mind. Some other Piss Mohammed project could be about all sorts of other things – it depends on the artist and it depends on the viewer. But then it wouldn’t be the project as described by Loyola.

          5. “There is no need for new threats of violence for Loyola’s project to work”.

            Well, ok. But there is a need for the project to be perceived as offensive for Loyola’s project to work as intended. And you were disagreeing with me about whether there was an intent to offend.

            I see nothing wrong with being afraid of Islamists. They blow people up. I’m certainly afraid of Islamists. But I’ll defend to death, ( with knees knocking, but with resolute patriotism) anyone’s right to create a Piss Mohammed. But if I have to die defending the 1st Amendment because of Piss Mohammed, then I’ll go to my death knowing that I’m not a hypocrite just because I think Piss Mohammed is less artistic and more petty than The Satanic Verses or Piss Christ, and that Loyola’s project is more worthy of complaint than Rushdie or Serrano’s work.

        3. I still don’t see the excluded middle. There are many Muslims who don’t care if some Egyptian made a Youtube video mocking Muhammed, just as there are many Christians who didn’t get offended by Piss Christ. But there are some in both groups who do get offended, so should we ban all religious mockery, allow all religious mockery, or go with Obama’s idea of only banning the mockery of Islam?

          1. George, my reference to “excluded middle” referred to Mario Loyola’s false choice. Mario Loyola requires a response from any person who complains about Piss Mohmmed but didn’t also complain about Piss Christ . Mr. Loyola suggests there are only two possible responses: either admit that Piss Christ is equivalent to Piss Mohmmed in its horribleness, and agree to stop “trashing” Christianity, or admit to being a coward whose respect for a religion is proportional to the liklihood that its adherents will be violent.

            But there are other reasonable responses!

            One reasonable response: someone who doesn’t think that Christianity is being “trashed”, but does think Islam is being “trashed” might complain about Piss Mohammed but not Piss Christ. Please understand: there are plenty of artists and art aficionados who will insist with complete sincerity that Piss Christ does not constitute religious mockery. Mario Loyola appears to not understand this.

            ” so should we ban all religious mockery, allow all religious mockery, or go with Obama’s idea of only banning the mockery of Islam?”

            Regarding Obama, that’s nonsense.
            Regarding rights, of course I’m all for them.

            But Loyola wasn’t talking about rights, he was talking about grounds for complaint, and that’s what I addressed above.

          2. Okay, so there is a middle, and it’s the hypocritical position that Piss Muhammed is offensive but Piss Christ is art. The fact that some people certainly believe that doesn’t make it a less hypocritical or more valid position.

            One of the other issues the Piss initiative raises is that many Muslims feel their own religion should never be mocked, but not only feel free to mock and deride the followers of other religions, but in many cases feel it’s their duty to convert or slay followers of other religions. Letting that mistaken belief continue, and even reinforcing it from the White House, doesn’t do anyone any good.

          3. George,

            I *know* your first paragraph is completely wrong. I know that there are people — good people, good Christians – who sincerely believe that Serrano was being reverent when he created the piece, despite the use of urine, despite the use of the term “piss”, and so forth.

            If you can just believe me on that point, or at least stipulate it for the sake of this discussion, then we can ask ourselves “what’s Piss Mohammed”? It is an imaginary piece of art, right? What’s the purpose? What’s the intent? Maybe you don’t care about the artist’s intent, but some people do, and it is those people I want you to think about. Piss Mohammed is a project proposed by Mario Loyola to make a political point. That’s good art! That’s the point of (some kinds of) art! But good art can also be intentionally offensive. And we know Loyola wants to offend. He’s quite clear about that.

            It would be totally reasonable of you to say “Well, that’s Serrano’s intent too”. But someone else, maybe someone who knows Serrano, might say “No, I believe Serrano had no intention to offend, whereas Loyola was clear about his intent to offend.” And that person wouldn’t be at all hypocritical if he or she complained about Piss Mohammed (because of its intent to offend) but didn’t complain about Piss Christ (because the person didn’t believe there was an intent to offend, perhaps due his or her acquaintance with the artist).

            I’m not saying I *agree* with any of the above people I just described, but since one of them is a family member of mine and is a person who loves to debate this sort of thing with me, I’m pretty damn sure she isn’t being a hypocrite.

          5. Bob, the question doesn’t hang on artistic intent, much less on opinions about artistic intent. The people burning our embassies don’t do nuance and could care less about why the Prophet was insulted, and in some cases don’t care if he actually was insulted, only that they think he was.

            To illustrate the vast gulf between your concern over artistic intent and their concern over transgression, regardless of intent, I’ll mention the case of a girls school in Saudi Arabia that caught on fire. The young girls fled into the streets without their hijabs, and were forced back into the burning school (where they died) because their intent (not wanting to burn to death) was irrelevant compared to the fact that they were in public without proper head coverings.

            If I encountered people painting “Death to the Jew!” on the wall with the blood of their murder victims, I wouldn’t imagine that they’re in the frame of mind for an intellectually stimulating conversation about Andy Warhol.

          6. George, I don’t understand why people keep telling me artistic intent doesn’t matter to the terrorists. What they think is irrelevant! The only issue here is whether someone is a hypocrite if they complain about Piss Mohammed but don’t complain about Piss Christ. Artistic intent matters to me. That’s why I might complain about Piss Mohammed but not about Piss Christ, and still not be a hypocrite. Yes, terrorists don’t do nuance. I do. Do you?

          7. So you don’t complain about Piss Christ because you don’t care if Christians get upset, because many of them likewise don’t care about artistic intent, put you do complain about Piss Muhammed because you do care if Muslims get upset?

            So you also don’t complain about Muslims who insult Christians and Jews, with the intent of upsetting Christians and Jews (just read the signs at any of their rallies), but do complain when a Christian insults Muslims, with the intent of upsetting them.

            Perhaps that’s not hypocrisy if you’re never taking the stand that it’s not okay to mock a religion, or that it’s always okay to mock a religion, in which case bigotry is a better term (it’s okay to diminish one religion but not another).

          8. So you don’t complain about Piss Christ because you don’t care if Christians get upset, because many of them likewise don’t care about artistic intent, put you do complain about Piss Muhammed because you do care if Muslims get upset?

            I completely don’t care if Muslims get upset about a piece of art. Getting upset about art is usually silly (certainly in the case of Piss Christ or Piss Mohammed, and getting violently upset is immoral. But I do care about provocateurs. If their only goal is to be offensive, then shame on them (too).

            So you also don’t complain about Muslims who insult Christians and Jews, with the intent of upsetting Christians and Jews (just read the signs at any of their rallies), but do complain when a Christian insults

            No, no, not at all. The anti-semitism, the anti-Christian sentiments, the ant-western and anti-American sentiments, the anti-women sentiments, the anti-freedom sentiments, and many many more sentiments commonly held by Muslims in the middle east are all cause for great complaint from me. What a screwed up place! I regularly make pro-Islam comments here because I also believe that there are many very perfectly nice Muslims and I don’t like to see Muslims treated as a monolithic block. And of course, I feel the same way about Christians and Jews too. I do make an exception for Quakers, and I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about.

        4. Bob,
          the Mohammed with a bomb turbine wasn’t seen by everyone as sacrilegious either, it didn’t bother me at all, and yet…Muslims worldwide went bonkers. Oh, wait, not ALL Muslims rioted or swore out fatwas. And some Christians DO react violently on occasion, remember the Atlanta Olympics?

          You left out the real category on this too IMHO, hypocritical.

          1. I *know* your first paragraph is completely wrong. I know that there are people — good people, good Christians – who sincerely believe that Serrano was being reverent when he created the piece, despite the use of urine, despite the use of the term “piss”, and so forth.

            So here’s a new strategy. We give Nakoula Basseley Nakoula a good sized NEA grant, and have these people do their moral laundering thing. Then “Innocence of Muslims” becomes a sanctified work of praise for Islam and we can all be happy!

          1. Saying that is as silly saying that the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is racist because it uses the N-Word. Huckleberry Finn gets banned in schools from time to time by people who only take a look a superficial look at the book – the see the words, but they don’t read for comprehension, and discover its anti-racist message.

            Why not take a moment, look up the work, and read for comprehension?

            I’m not exactly a fan of Piss Christ. But I know you can’t judge a work by its title.

          2. Bob,
            the n-word wasn’t IN the title AND that word was used as description when Twain wrote the book, not insult, curse word or pointed punctuation as it is now. Please tell me when ‘piss’ is or was used in common language as other than a foul word for urine? “…I’ll be right back Reverend, I need to piss.”

            Even ‘pissed off’ goes down as foul in most cases and although quite common to hear isn’t shouted in polite company.

            I’ve seen the ‘art’ in question Bob, I actually went what am I to comprehend from a Crucifix in piss? Or Mohammed? Or Buddha? All I can find to ‘comprehend’ is this clownish artiste playing to the typical lefty atheists and it worked.

            And you’re right about one thing, and we actually agree on this one, you can’t judge things by their title or name even. All the Bob’s beyond ‘1’ are probably glad of it too.

  2. I’m a complete atheist. Yet, I don’t understand the compulsion of some people to make “art” work such as Piss Christ and what not which are offensive to Christians.

    1. It comes across to me as a juvenile shouting dirty words knowing nothing bad will happen to them. They see themselves as being repressed by Christians but know nothing bad will happen to them. They don’t have the balls to say anything about Muslims because they know Muslims have no sense of humor about their religion.

  3. I have been thinking about this very artwork lately. Since I am of zero religious affiliation, Piss Christ barely passed the threshold of interest to me. But now we have a very clear case where we can throw it in the face of anyone who is so hypocritial as to be offended by the current bruhaha but NOT by the other. Personally I would care as little about Piss Christ as Piss Mohammad or Piss Buddha artworks… the only thing which I would find mildly amusing is the self-identification of the various folks who believe in freedom of speech so long as it is only their speech. We libartarians are for freedom of speech of everyone, every time, even if we do not like it. It is a rather solid litmus test for the true liberal.

  4. While I agree with calling out liberals on their hypocrisy, I don’t think Muslims’ propensity toward violence is the real reason for it.

    I think it’s primarily their core anti-Westernism that causes them to see Christianity (which they associate with the West) as an oppressor religion and Islam (which they don’t) as a victim religion.

    For one thing, I don’t think most liberals ever expect to be victims of Muslim violence, just like they don’t expect to be victims of gang violence. If they were actually afraid of violence they wouldn’t be such strong advocates of gun control.

    In my opinion, anyway.

    1. Micheal,
      I don’t see the Radicals asking for belief in Christianity, or even Islam, before the set off the blast du jour and spread flying human parts around.

      As to violence and guns, if the Left believed in the entire Constitution and Bill of Rights as they say they d, they’d require every adult to own a gun of some sort.

  6. As Fouad Adjami remarked recently, the entrance to the modern world should be inscribed with the admonition, “The price is: Prepare to be offended by something.”

    Precisely. Anything else risks totalitarianism, whether in medieval or modern forms.

  7. The Left is firmly opposed to insulting Western Civilization. On the other hand, they also think Sandra Fluke is the true representative of Western Civilization (you may recall their reaction to Rush Limbaugh’s treatment of Ms. Fluke) and those religious dudes are trying to hijack it.

  8. Though I’m a libertarian leaning atheist, I do think though people shouldn’t trash religious symbols.

    To me it’s about personal responsibility and respecting other peoples property, and to me “property” includes religious symbols which I think should be able to have the same protection as commercial and personal symbols – using a company or persons name in a way as to cause them harm, (though that might not mean much in the US compared to, as an example, European countries).

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