Happy anniversary to Aster Roids and Emma Roids, and Amy Hardigan and Willie B Hardigan.
More fake names than real
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[quote=“Ryjkyj, post:115, topic:85494”]
It doesn’t really support the perspective that she was angling for a fight.[/quote]
The video posted starts at 56 seconds. Watching from the beginning it seemed to me that she was intent upon confronting him.
And, I want to thank @daneel for posting that video and alleviating my annoyance at the whole drama, and maybe not so much for causing a beverage out of the nose moment.
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They don’t even need to be Buddhists. If I step out my door (Tokyo) and ask the first 100 people I’ll probably get about 70% saying “manji” and the rest would be tourists using a mix of “swastika” if they’re from the ‘west’ or another world for manji if they’re from elsewhere in Asia.
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You’re dad?
“HI ‘DAD’, I’M CHILDLESS HERMIT!”
I’m actually beginning to be concerned my ability to maintain progress with technological innovation is failing. I can fully see a lawsuit emerging from that kind of situation, and I’d be in the middle of it.
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Did you know that the largest volunteer army ever compiled (over 2.5 million troops from one country) was during WWII? Guess which country…India.
Why assume people from a different part of the world know nothing about the history of other parts of the world? (And why put quotation marks around the word Hindu?)
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I would not assume anything of the kind. What I said was that not all people are going to default to the one specific cultural context behind a symbol when many millions more associate it with other things, and have done for millennia. That does not require being ignorant of history. It is the difference between being able to make the association, and being compelled to assume the association and no other.
Although I do think that at least in US culture, people appear to be more attuned to what happens in Europe than they are other places. I have spoken with others who know that Nazis were evil without knowing anything specific about them, while they and others at times appear to have no such strong judgements about genocide in Cambodia or Rwanda.
I did so because I was using the word in a religious context, as in when people talk about “Hinduism”, an idea postulated in the West. That serves as a very loose catch-all for many disparate practices of India. One can go to a temple of Siva or Vishnu or Kali but there does not appear to be a unified thread recognizable as a general-purpose Hindu religion. One could perhaps speak of those who follow the Vedas, but even that itself covers a lot of ground.
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I appreciate that you understand symbols can mean different things to different people. However, the people you are talking to right now have a strong interpretation of that symbol. It would be constructive if you acknowledged that–it wouldn’t change your position, but situational awareness about powerful symbols is a good thing.
On that note I feel like the topic has been derailed enough, so I’m gonna hit the lounge 
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I’ve been a pro-choice, equal pay feminist all my life but, that lady went off half cocked (pun intended). She sounded like she was spoiling for a fight from the beginning. What a stupid thing to go off on. She particularly detracted from her side’s view of the project. How dumb!
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I don’t think I can add anything to 129 replies. But I’ll do it anyway.
What right does she have to point a camera to anyone and go asking for people’s names? That’s the civilian equivalent of “papers, please”.
Guy made a joke – while he could have just asked her to fuck off – You don’t have to find it funny.
edit note: of course she has the right to point a camera and ask anything she wants – just needs to be prepared to humongous fuck-offs.
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Are we seriously debating here if we’re “cool” with the swastika? The Nazi’s weren’t the only ones using this symbol for their acts of filth, you know. Worldwide it is still the symbol for neo-nazi’s, racists and white-supremacists. And since they seem to be putting their foot in the political door these days it is even more important to not be cool with it. Unless you’d like that symbol flying on flags around Europe again, or North America for that matter.
And, don’t get me wrong, if I’m in a Buddhist temple in Asia and see a swastika I don’t expect them to be Nazi-Buddhists. But, if a Buddhist temple in Europe uses that symbol, you can bet your ass they will be asked to take it down.
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You quoted me but seemingly did not bother to watch the beginning of the video; here, I’ve cued it up.
If Ms. Joshi wasn’t already agitated before Mr. Pantoja spoke, I’ll eat my hat.
If people were thoroughly reading what I was saying here, I think it would be readily apparent that that is not the point I was making at all. Somebody else brought it up and I said that it is illustrative of why interpretation of any symbol always depends upon context. Which I think is directly relevant to the topic at hand. People NEED ro be mature enough to be aware that there are always multiple cultural realities.
Also it relates to what I think is the main failing of the left, which is a discomfort and refusal to control the cultural narrative, even their own specifically. The “pejoration dance” is one of giving up ground. We need to be able to take any slur, any symbol, and own it, and make it mean something better. If it has a good meaning, and you gravitate towards the shitty meaning, that’s just defeatist - and destructive. It keeps the left reactive and largely ineffectual, which I think is both personally and socially a grave problem.
It is easy to say “context matters”, and apparently also to draw a line and say “context matters except for this!”, but those strongest, most uncomfortable areas might be where context matters most.
Grant Morrison said years ago at a Disinfo con that how the memetics of culture work is that you succeed by audacity, by exploiting the unthinkable. By putting something out there that “the other”, your opposition, etc simply cannot, will-not process. That refusal wastes energy in precisely the ways that re-contextualizing it does not. Like being in a freestyle rap battle and losing your flow because you let your buttons get pushed. Once you do, it’s over.
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Not so re. the swastika. Both orientations have been used for at least five thousand years by just about every culture on earth, from holy sites like Buddhist temples and Jewish synagogues to popular culture items like lucky coins and postcards…right up until the Nazi’s appropriated it for their evil doings. See, for instance, the Edmonton Swastikas (women’s ice hockey team, ca 1914) in the lower left: http://reclaimtheswastika.com/photos/. Wikipedia has a good round-up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_use_of_the_swastika_in_the_early_20th_century
As some commenters above have noted, we should not surrender this ancient and beautiful sacred symbol to a small group of evil pricks who acted over a very short historical period. A major reason the swastika continues to hold power as a symbol of hate is because we allow its expression to be the sole province of those who use it for hate. The sooner the world reclaims the swastika to its rightful place as a sacred symbol the more the Nazis will start to seem like what they were (and are) – hateful psychopaths with with appropriated graphic design.
The best way to defang neo-Nazis is to compliment them on their swastika tattoos and wish out loud that it brings them the same good fortune it has for Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Navajos and others throughout history.
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Thank you - came here for this, satisfied, etc.
A true golden oldie. I remember this circulating by email in a Word document with embedded sound clips!
And how were you expecting to ever take a symbol like the swastika and make it something better?
ha! I think I had that word document.
it’s from Chris Morris’ radio show originally, found the original clip:
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I’m very aware of the long history that the symbol has and its many contexts; I’ve seen it used in religious (and secular) architecture, on sports uniforms, and used spiritually. All of that is wonderful.
It doesn’t change the fact that the only experience that the overwhelming majority of Americans and Europeans have with it is as an icon of evil that denotes violent antisemitism. If you would like to try to change people’s minds about the swastika by reminding neo-Nazis that it’s a Buddhist icon, more power to you as you push that boulder up a hill.
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Now that I’ve seen his calculated manipulations, and especially that smirk, I am convinced that he knew exactly what he was doing (didn’t act that way for the professional camera, you’ll notice).
Thanks for making it clear to me. Prior to your link of the full exchange, I thought maybe it was possible that she bore some of the weight for things getting out of hand. You’ve convinced me that the guy knew exactly what he was doing, and goaded her repeatedly to provoke things.
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Yeah, I still can’t tell from watching the complete video. She certainly is intent on recording him and she certainly is already agitated. But when he confronts her, the first thing she does is turns away from him.
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