The Holocaust is a “sensitivity” in the country I grew up in?
No kidding. Fuck you, Facebook. The denial of industrialised murder of innocent people base on racial ideology is no “sensitivity”. The shoa was crime against humanity, and so is denying it in the face of the victims, their families, and everyone else on this planet.
Fuck this shit. I would throw your fucking frozen peaches in your face if you told me that I should be ok with this.
Sensitivity. My arse. And in the same league as censorship based on religious ideology, no less. Seriously, Facebook: you should just get your ethics board fired.
I dont think holocaust denial should be a crime. I’d much rather see who expresses such ideas publicly than have them hide in the dark.
Laws which ban expressions of an idea are always just a fig leaf so dogoodniks can pat themselves on the back because they’ve “solved” a problem when in fact they’ve only swept it under the rug. It is impossible to legislate ideas or modes of thought.
And “dogoodniks” is just another term to insult political opponents. “Gutmenschen”, we had this term used ironically in the 1990 - and completely unironically, it is back today. Appropriated by 20+ year old “identitarian” assholes who are “not racist, but”.
Excuse me being blunt, but the Anglo-American idea of “expression of ideas” and “free speach” is massively overstated and overquoted, and simply not applicable to holocaust denial.
But as I used it, factually correct: someone who thinks they are doing a good thing but in fact has done nothing to solve the problem they claim to solve.
Hate speech & holocaust denial laws hide the expression of the ideas not the ideas themselves nor do they reduce the existence of the ideas themselves.
Be as blunt as you like. Also FYI, the Anglo folks have a completely different idea of freedom of expression than the Americans do. See for example how libel law works in Britain vs the US, to say nothing of the Constitutional issues involved.
In the US (and here in Japan thanks to the US written Japanese Constitution) freedom of expression equally protects “them” and “us”. As a result when denialist articles have come out in the press, other press comes out with refutations based on evidence.
As a Jew I’d much rather live somewhere that doesnt try to pretend the problem doesnt exist.
I think we could stop any discussion right here, because you just proved my point re:Anglo-American “free speech”.
[quote=“Israel_B, post:4, topic:101559, full:true”][quote=“LutherBlisset, post:3, topic:101559”]
And “dogoodniks” is just another term to insult political opponents.
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But as I used it, factually correct: someone who thinks they are doing a good thing but in fact has done nothing to solve the problem they claim to solve.
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So the -niks ending isn’t used to imply an inherent perogativ meaning? Please. What kind of free speech would you like, exactly? The one where everyone screams at each other so they don’t need to listen to other ideas?
Last time I looked, most people weren’t pretending antisemitism, and racism in general, weren’t existing in countries which have outlawed the denial of the industrialised slaughter in concentration camps during the Nazi reign.
And FTR, as far as I am aware, Japan isn’t the best example to bring up for free speech in regard not only to law, but especially to societal and political taboos. That is a different issue, but I guess you might be very aware of the Korean-Japanese and Chinese-Japanese relations in regard to, again, talking freely about issues of the second world war.
Free speech looks very different in different places, but humanism does not. And “sensitivities” is just the word which not at all should be used when someone claims that the murders didn’t happen. This isn’t even just insulting.
Read the whole thing. If you dig further, its more likely that the usage is actually of Yiddish origin in English usage. See also for example the particular allrightnik and chainik examples. The plain or ironic meaning of “associated with a thing” works equally well in the “doogoodnik” case.
I already answered that above.
Then may I offer that your awareness is in fact quite limited especially given the examples you put forth. I’ll make an allowance for the fact that Westerners are very likely to be ignorant on this matter due to the way it is covered in the English language press.
In fact if you were to go to a local bookstore or check on Amazon Japan you could find hundreds of books in the anti-war/war guilt spectrum. Even the most conservative major newspaper here, the Yomiuri, runs articles in this very spectrum. Same for the more serious editorial weekly/monthly magazines. If you dont read Japanese you wont find this stuff though.
You might sometimes see the English language press covering present day anti-war as a concept/pro Article 9 demonstrations. My own neighborhood in Tokyo has lots of Japan Communist Party and Democratic Party of Japan posters along those same sympathies. Again you need to read Japanese to understand them. Understanding the context behind them requires more effort however.
Believe you me, the Japanese take their constitutional right to freedom of expression very seriously.
Agreed
Disagree. Westerners are often under the illusion that the rest of the world (or at least the “enlightened” parts) sees things the same way as they do. In fact this isnt true. Even in the West you will find disagreement on what humanism means.
I never said it has anything to do with sensitivites.
