Joss says it like it is.

[elfs]

I don't "get" Joss Whedon. I mean, in some respects I do. I admire his take on strong, powerful characters, and the way they interrelate. There are other aspects to him that I think Michael Straczynski does a much better job of capturing in fiction. I lost patience with Buffy early, for reasons not worth going into here.

But when it comes Joss's blog entry, Let's Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death, I'm right there with the man. He's completely right on this one.

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I want to start by saying that I agree that women are equals as human beings. But there's a problem with this article. It completely fails to address the fact that the new world is about the only place in the world that isn't deeply entrenched in centuries-old religion and tradition. We in the western world look at the stoning of this woman in a completely different view. She didn't kill anyone. What did she do to deserve this fate? Someone should stand up for her! Her only crime was the suspicion of the mere moral transgression of marriage and conversion to That Religion Over Yon Hill. Honestly, we don't know about the social dynamics of the region. They're probably not unlike the social dynamics of Bosnia or Transylvania or Ireland where a civil war could break out at any time over the fact that the folks of That Religion Over Yon Hill massacred the folks of This Religion Over Here 500+ years ago (and likely both sides continued to do so ever since). With ancient tradition and history come everlasting hatreds like this.

The best analogue I can think of for this to happen in America would be if some woman, living in rural Tennessee, had married a Nazi war criminal and converted to Satanism. You wouldn't be able to hold back the mob with a fire hose. The only difference would be that they'd hand out the stoning to a man if he'd done the same (like they've done in Ireland in recent history).

Would Joss Whedon toe the line and defend the Satanist, certain of his martyrdom? Would it make a difference, or would the mob (and very likely, the media too) just accuse him of treason and Nazi collaboration and kill him on their way to her? Do you really think that anyone in that mob would get a fair trial anywhere in America?

We see this sort of thing through a different pair of glasses, and they're not entirely clear either. Remember that exactly this sort of thing used to happen in America not so very long ago, and the only thing that stopped it was the fact that half of the country was of a different mind. I highly doubt that things would have worked out if it was only a quarter.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

We see this sort of thing through a different pair of glasses, and they're not entirely clear either. Remember that exactly this sort of thing used to happen in America not so very long ago, and the only thing that stopped it was the fact that half of the country was of a different mind. I highly doubt that things would have worked out if it was only a quarter.

So that excuses it?? I'm sorry, but no, that doesn't at all. It wouldn't excuse it even if that sort of thing happened here, in this country, *right now*. Because even when that *was* happening in this country (hanging "niggers" because they...well...were) more than half the country felt that this was wrong.

But even more so, the reason she was stoned wasn't because she did these things. It was because she was *suspected* of doing these things. They didn't even get proof before they decided to mete out their "justice". Meaning that they weren't meting out what they thought was justice. They were attempting to make sure that no one even considered thinking about this idea. It's the widespread prevention of free thought.

I don't care whether this is something that they have been doing for centuries. I don't care whether 500+ years ago the ancestors of the folks over the hill might have killed the ancestors of these folks (just how long is any human allowed to carry a vendetta, from a moral standpoint, and allow the species to continue propagating?)

The majority of the human species find this an abhorrent activity. Which means there is something inherent in the human species that says it is wrong to mete out justice without a proper process of some sort...and just making the accusation isn't good enough.

Oh, and as for your example of a woman marrying a Nazi war criminal and converting to Satanism? If she chooses to do so, then she can as far as I'm concerned. American Satanism is a social commentary on Catholicism. And it's her conscience she'll have to deal with as far as the Nazi war criminal (though I'd wonder how he'd be in this country and not have been turned over to the war tribunal, which is *still*, to this day, trying war criminals, and I would probably lobby for him to be facing his own justice for his previous activities). If a mob were to do what you described, I'd be the first one in line to have them locked up and tried for murder.

Because that's not how we, as Americans, do things in this country. And it's not how we, as human beings, should do things in this world.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

The point is, that no matter how wrong you think it is, these people think it's the right thing to do. And moreover, just ensuring equal rights for women isn't the solution here, because the women probably don't see it any differently. Even if this place had an exact replica of America's courts, she would be formally charged with Marrying That Evil Man Over Yon Hill and convicted by a jury of her peers.

A more precise analogy would probably be what happened in France after the second world war with Nazi collaborators. France at the time *had* equal rights for women and proper courts and democracy. And yet women whose only crime was falling in love with a member of the occupying force were put to death. The French really did *not* see anything wrong with that.

And while you and I *do* see something wrong with that, what precisely can be done about it? Joss Whedon says we can solve it by giving women equal rights everywhere, but I think I've just proven that won't do a damn thing when the women of the region also think that the stonings are justified. The only thing that *would* make this horror go away is if you change the people's minds about what's right and wrong, and personally, I don't see how that's even possible. I know for absolute certain that it wasn't possible to make the French see the light. If anything, we just helped them out by prosecuting the war criminals and putting them to death.

[woggie.livejournal.com]

So you're trying to say that murder outside of a court system is not wrong? Is that basically it?

Collision of Worldviews

[(Anonymous)]

No. What he's saying is that the people doing it think they're doing exactly the right thing, according to centuries old tribal law and custom. Law and custom that are older than the very existence of United States and has ruled their fathers, grandfathers and forefathers to n:th generation. In their view, only reason USA can interfere with this traditional law is superior force. Not moral right, not legal right, not even religious right. Only the right of superior force.

Funky thought experiment: Aliens land and are horrified of what they consider mass delusion of religion. With superior technology and overwhelming firepower they rapidly throw out government and suppress resistance, violent or otherwise. People professing religion are rounded up for "re-education" and have their children removed to foster care.

What would be the reaction of Joe American be? My bet is that a significant percentage would pretty rapidly start thinking about strapping on an explosive belt and blowing up an invader while screaming "Jesus is Love" (with apologies to Robert Zubrin.)

ObDisclaimer: I'm not saying that they're right. In fact, I think exactly the opposite. But this is the reality what civilization is against. The methods Brits had to use in India to end Suttee were ...rough. I'm not altogether certain that this problem can be solved without equally rough measures.

Re: Collision of Worldviews

[(Anonymous)]

And those laws and customs are continued because, for the most part, they work; they were codified to create a uniform code by which separate tribes and clans could be brought together and minimize friction. But that code was bound and frozen, allowing only interpretation where the meaning was not clear, whereas European culture took its laws and allowed them to grow and evolve as the culture did. Imagine what 'abuses of human rights' would occur if European society was still culturally bound to the laws set out in Deuteronomy. Think of all the people who could be stoned to death for wearing cotton/poly shirts, or a cotton/wool blend suit, because of the Deuteronomic prohibition "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together."

Muslims have preserved the code that Muhammed laid down in the Koran because it has held their culture together, allowing it to build great empires, as Timur-e-Lang did. But it did not provide a way for them to rise above the differences that divided clan and tribe -- look at how long the Shia-Sunni divide has polarized Islam. Strict adherence to that code has perpetuated their societies, allowing cooperation without resolving differences between adjacent groups.

European culture tore itself apart and rebuilt over and over again, resolving old divisions and creating new ones, to be resolved violently in their turn, until philosophies evolved that spoke of human rights. And Islam will contest against other cultures, resisting the changes that we want to see made in their society; it has preserved its societies by maintaining its dominance (look up 'dhimmi' or 'dhimmitude'); the changes that accepting the values and ideals of other cultures into its society would bring threaten to tear apart the balances that have kept the separate groups within it from tearing each other apart, as we see happening in the violence between Sunni and Shia in Iraq.

Re: Collision of Worldviews

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. Now, the next question is "what exactly we can and will do about it?" Expressions "Imperialism" and "White Man's Burden" still have rather negative connotations...

Re: Collision of Worldviews

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Now, the next question is "what exactly we can and will do about it?

Well, for starters, we have 100 men on that video committing murder. Why not make sure that they are punished for their crime?

Re: Collision of Worldviews

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

No. What he's saying is that the people doing it think they're doing exactly the right thing, according to centuries old tribal law and custom. Law and custom that are older than the very existence of United States and has ruled their fathers, grandfathers and forefathers to n:th generation. In their view, only reason USA can interfere with this traditional law is superior force. Not moral right, not legal right, not even religious right. Only the right of superior force.

There is a model for dealing with customs like that:

"You may follow your custom and put that woman to death. And then we shall follow our custom and hang you."

Works wonders.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

No, I'm saying "what the hell can you do about it?" and "Joss Whedon doesn't have the solution".

[woggie.livejournal.com]

Well, he didn't mention one... :)

I do like the t-shirt idea, proclaiming that it takes 100 men to take down one woman, though. Ridicule has always been good for inciting public change. A billboard might also be good...

[whatthehay.livejournal.com]

//Joss Whedon says we can solve it by giving women equal rights everywhere, but I think I've just proven that won't do a damn thing when the women of the region also think that the stonings are justified.//

This is the part of your statement that caught my eye. As long as other woman agree that they are weak and deserve the crap they are handed out, it is unlikely that much will change.

There are so many examples from the horrific-a mother holding her daughter down while a woman with a piece of jagged glass cuts out the girls clitoris to the shameful-how many women came out against the ERA back in the 70s.

As long as woman allow being placed into servitude, nothing will change. No man is going to change it. Right now its all stacked in his favor, for the most part. Why screw up a good thing?

Sometimes women have to think a little more shrewdly to operate in patriarchy. Man beats you and the kids? Poison him, set him on fire...you know where he sleeps. Man keeps you from making a living wage? Find a rich one, marry him and then take him to the cleaners.

Man, does that suck.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

As long as other woman agree that they are weak and deserve the crap they are handed out, it is unlikely that much will change.

Who said anything about women being weak? If they lived in a matriachal society, I'm absolutely certain equal cruelty would be meted out to those who violate its most cherished rules. Human beings are like that.

I also think that in this particular story, the story we don't hear is about what the mob did to the man in this relationship. I doubt that he escaped their wrath, it's just that we find it more horrible and archaic that this woman was stoned to death.

[whatthehay.livejournal.com]

Most women ARE more physically weak than men are. My husband is almost a foot taller than I. He automatically has muscles that are stronger than me. There are always exceptions. But I also meant weak as in not standing up for ourselves.

Sadly, I'm afraid that you are right that women can be just as ugly as men. It's all about power.

From what I heard, the man in the supposed relationship ended up in jail, but I know he was not punished in the same manner as she was.

[mundens.livejournal.com]

My partner and I knew of that stoning a month ago when it first happened. We knew because we have native friends in the Middle East, who told us about it because they too were disgusted. We were also furious, I in a way that if I had a red button that destroyed the relevant province I would probably have pressed it, which of course proves that I haven't evolved enough to ever be given a red button.

That's the same sort of rage that may have led to the killing, only in my case it comes out in the face of injustice and intolerance, but it means I fully understand it because I have to control it in myself .

But it wasn't just the act, the thing that really got to me was the total cowardice involved, as our friends also told us that there were over a hundred men involved. In some ways one can use it as a moral or propaganda victory. It took a hundred men to kill one woman. Let's put that on a t-shirt and let it show our contempt for the cowards involved. Reportedly they have now arrested four of those men for the killing.

I'm told the male of the pair wasn't let off lightly either, though he is at least still alive.

As to Joss, his genius is mainly in his ability to write some amazing dialogue and design some cool characters. Not necessarily great characters, just cool ones! I would fully agree that his plotting and general writing talents are nowhere near those of JMS and he's not much cop as a director either. :)

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Just to say, Whedon and JMS both have the same failing: they bite off more than they can chew.

Nothing to do with this issue, and I don't think writing a female character such as Buffy or Ivanova is anything all that spoecial in this context.

What matters is that we live in a societ in which entertainment characters of that sort exist. We live in a society where this sort of killing is wrong. And, to pick up on an old line from the British rule of India, if your traditions tell you ro kill women, my traditions tell me to treat you as a murderer.