Joyce Carol Oates is another useful idiot. That doesn’t perturb me as much as for instance Prose, because I have never liked Oates’s writing, to put it mildly.
Deborah Solomon @deborahsolo 16 hours ago
Thank you, @PENAmerican, for honoring #CharlieHebdo & not bowing to the pressures of literary correctness. http://nyti.ms/1GmLLYeJoyce Carol Oates @JoyceCarolOates 4 hours ago
@deborahsolo @PENamerican It is a very delicate issue to honor “freedom of expression” without seeming to endorse seeming “hate speech.”
I wonder what the scare quotes are for. If Oates doesn’t think it is hate speech, then what is she talking about?
Joyce Carol Oates@JoyceCarolOates
@deborahsolo @PENamerican Have you actually seen these “satirical” images? If they were of Jews would be “anti-Semitism.” No?Daniel Mendelsohn @DMendelsohn1960 3 hours ago
@deborahsolo @JoyceCarolOates but the cultural context is quite different in France. Surely that is a factor?Joyce Carol Oates @JoyceCarolOates 2 hours ago
@deborahsolo That may be. But you would not give “Mein Kampf” a National Book Award if you were a judge–right?
Oh dear god – she compared Charlie Hebdo to Mein Kampf.
Ike Aramba @shmarxism 1 hour ago
@JoyceCarolOates @deborahsolo One of the CH journalists was murdered for being Jewish – now you’re comparing it to “Mein Kampf”.
Quite.
Ah, another case of ‘Dawkinsing’ (spouting off without engaging the thinky bits because: famous!)
In comparing Charlie Hebdo and Mein Kampf the point isn’t murder or Jewishness. That particular comparison, of two publications, the point is that one is satire in the service of human rights and the other is totally serious in the service of power for a small group. That’s why the comparison is nonsense. It’s comparing a locomotive to a constellation. Bringing Mein Kampf into the discussion betrays a complete inability to understand the issues.