Friday, February 03, 2006

This is not a Pipe. This is a Cartoon of Mohammed


Truepeers sent this in. Please copy and paste the url below for the proper link.

Voltimand said...
If I draw a tree and call it Mohammed is it a picture of Mohammed? If I put the name "Mohammed" (or better: "this picture of a tree is a picture of Mohammed") under the picture, is it a picture of Mohammed? If, having done so, I erase the name "Mohammed," is it a picture of Mohammed or a picture of a tree? I would argue that there is no difference between the tree and the picture of some human-like person with the name "Mohammed" or interpretive surrogate phrase under it.

I put these interesting conundums in order to isolate the utter arbitrariness of the notion of "picturing Mohammed." How much of the "idolatry" involved is the consequence of something intrinsic to the picture, and how much of it is a matter of someone drawing a (potentially rather complicated set of semiotic) conclusion that it is a picture of Mohammed and therefore "idolatrous"?

From another perspective: Does anyone know what Mohammed looked like? If you don't know what Mohammed looked like, how can you be sure that a picture of "Mohammed" is a picture of Mohammed, and therefore idolatrous?

This is worth thinking about, because it isolates the functioning political point in this whole silly business: something will make you mad if you decide that that something is something that will make you mad. It it wasn't the picture of "Mohammed" or a Koran down the toilet, it would always be something else. Muslims are angry because anger is what they do with with their lives, and of course anger is like one end of an electrical cord: it must be connected to another terminus for the anger joice to flow.

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2006/02/interesting-times.html#113899623173091780

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dag, brilliant, beautifully, simply, brilliant.

Dag said...

Thank you. I blush. I grin. I laugh.

Dag said...

I refer to the photograph of the young child and her (out of shot) 38 year old father: how does one reform a religion that prompts a man to destroy a child like that? There can't be any compromise in that situation.

Anonymous said...

Listen you scummy!
If your weapons succeeded with us you wouldn't have tried to use this cheap desperate last card!

Dag said...

I'm an idle lover too, but I draw the line at Mohammed.

Anonymous said...

WE THE FOLOWERS OF THE GREAT MOHAMMED (PissBUM)IT IS TIME TO RISE UP!! YES WE ARE REVOLTING!
YOU WESTERN PIGS WILL NEVER KNOW HOW REVOLTING WE CAN BE TO U!!!




someone had to do it....