A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job • Hacker News Board

Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#211

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

yucky wrote: post #193

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then I don't get it. Putting up depictions of Mohammad can easily be viewed as inflammatory discrimination against Muslims, but that's ok? Again, I don't think this teacher should have been fired. But the arguments against it in these comments seem hypocritical when support is given to other types of censorship only because they happen to disagree with what was being suppressed.

> Well then I don't get it. Putting up depictions of Mohammad can easily be viewed as inflammatory discrimination against Muslims, but that's ok? Although it was unnecessarily inflammatory in my opinion, it isn't a universal belief among Muslims that Mohammad can't be depicted and it certainly isn't a core tenet of Islam. If anything, one would argue that depictions of Mohammad should be treated the same as depiction…

Ps, side question. How do you make the quoted part of the comment come out in a different font like that?

Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#212

Post by kergonath » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 5:34 PM UTC

posterboy wrote: post #155

kergonath wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is Islam at all compatible with secular values in the same country? It is. There are plenty of more or less practising Muslims who behave perfectly well and are strongly opposed to theocracy. In the same way that there are plenty of white Christians who don’t feel the urge to take a gun and mow down blasphemers. > And second won't work because Shariah law gives very concrete directions on dealing with non-believers…

>It is. There are plenty of more or less practising Muslims who behave perfectly well and are strongly opposed to theocracy. Bit of a false scottsman. Not every Italian eats Tagliatelle and joins the Mafia but it's still an Italian recipe.

> Bit of a false scottsman.

That’s a bit disingenuous. It’s easy to see who is Muslim and who is not: you just need to ask them. I don’t see a reason to say they aren’t when they identify themselves that way and believe in that religion. I am not saying that only moderates are true Muslims, just that there are more believers than the fundamentalists.

> Not every Italian eats Tagliatelle and joins the Mafia but it's still an Italian recipe.

I’d be surprised if Italians were the majority of tagliatelle-eating people these days.

Wahhabism is a view of the religion. It is the mirror image of Christian supremacism, just with a different book and different sound bites but with the same goal of subjugation. I would not say that all Christians are murderers, either.

Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#213

Post by TomSwirly » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 5:58 PM UTC

yucky wrote: post #181

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't the banning depictions of mohammad also be 'perfectly reasonable' because it university classrooms are not places of intellectual freedom, they are places of indoctrination. I can't think of any good reason for a teacher to want to violate this policy unless they want to push their own agenda onto the students. See how generic your defense is? It can be used for anything you disagree with. 'I need a new but…

> Critical race theory is being muzzled at the university level by the government in florida. Are you angry about that overreach by state? Critical race theory needs to be treated the same as other pro-discrimination ideologies. Either they're all ok or none are ok. Picking and choosing one type of racial discrimination to support is in fact racist. After all, Ibram X. Kendi who is generally regarded as the foremost…

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Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#214

Post by krainboltgreene » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 6:07 PM UTC

Sakos wrote: post #98

jnovek wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was the wrong decision. It seems like it. It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before taking action. > Liberal institutions in the west have begun to increasingly yield to the demands of extremist minority views and doing so only emboldens them. You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country bu…

I'm not alt-right and I'm not white and I'm not religious. I agree completely with that view.

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Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#215

Post by krainboltgreene » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 6:08 PM UTC

kergonath wrote: post #56

The fact that people describing themselves as progressive are fighting to forbid blasphemy has got to be the worst “freedom is slavery” newspeak in the last decade. When did it become acceptable for one sect to dictate what we are allowed to talk about? They are the enthusiastic useful idiots for dark age theocrats, the exact translation of our despicable white nationalists and Christian supremacists.

> The fact that people describing themselves as progressive are fighting to forbid blasphemy has got to be the worst “freedom is slavery” newspeak in the last decade.

Thankfully this isn't happening, so crisis averted I guess.

Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#216

Post by boruto » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 6:17 PM UTC

CJefferson wrote: post #118

gnull wrote: post #61

Is Islam at all compatible with secular values in the same country? In the end, you will have one of the two encompass the other. Either you have a secular country living by democratic, progressive law which allows people to be Muslims modulo this. Or you have a Muslim country living by Shariah law, but tolerating secular non-believers in it. First won't work because Muslims (in the traditional sense) won't tolerate…

Saying Islam feels far too strong. There are still groups of Christians who demand the death penalty for practicing gays. Certainly some Islamic groups are incompatible with secular values.

> Saying Islam feels far too strong. There are still groups of Christians who demand the death penalty for practicing gays.

If you read the news there is certainly a stronger impact by one group.

Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#217

Post by ModernMech » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 6:19 PM UTC

yucky wrote: post #181

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't the banning depictions of mohammad also be 'perfectly reasonable' because it university classrooms are not places of intellectual freedom, they are places of indoctrination. I can't think of any good reason for a teacher to want to violate this policy unless they want to push their own agenda onto the students. See how generic your defense is? It can be used for anything you disagree with. 'I need a new but…

> Critical race theory is being muzzled at the university level by the government in florida. Are you angry about that overreach by state? Critical race theory needs to be treated the same as other pro-discrimination ideologies. Either they're all ok or none are ok. Picking and choosing one type of racial discrimination to support is in fact racist. After all, Ibram X. Kendi who is generally regarded as the foremost…

> Either they're all ok or none are ok.

Ibram X. Kendi is making a few points in the quoted passage.

The first is that it's not enough to just say "no more discrimination" after the entire system has already been set up to discriminate. That just results in a system that perpetuates discrimination.

To illustrate with an example: you and I sit down to play a game of Monopoly. Except instead of letting you play from the beginning, I tie you down and you have to watch me play the game alone until I control the bank, and have hotels on every space. At this point, I untie you and invite you to join me playing by the usual rules of the game.

"But that's not fair, you're obviously going to win." you say

"How is it not fair? We're both playing the game by the same rules."

--

The second point he's making is that there's no "end" to discrimination. The entire idea is just nonsense given the dynamics he describes, and it shouldn't be a goal much like eliminating all bias to appear fair and balanced, or vowing to never make a mistake again in order to be competent. Even if you declare it at an end, and try your hardest to end it in practice, discrimination still happens. It should be our goal to think long and hard about how to deal with discrimination rather than to endeavor to eliminate it.

Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#218

Post by Gnob » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 6:21 PM UTC

afroisalreadyin wrote: post #58

If Muslims are not OK with their religion and its figures being talked about in ways that are not within the rules of their religion, they shouldn't bring it up, and we should act as if it doesn't exist. You think your prophet was righteous? I don't care, I can't talk about him anyway, so it won't be part of my world of ideas. This has been my position on this topic since I got scolded by a Muslim for not referring t…

Not sure why any Muslim would scold you about that, as far as I am aware it's not obligatory but strongly encouraged This encouragement doesn't apply to non-Muslims, like at all.

I think there are shortcomings on our side speaking of explaining our religion to the western audience but trust me it's not easy because any conservative Sunni Muslim who speaks out is being silenced and you're being left with Shia and liberal Muslims, and you're not going to get anything related to Islam from these people, for now you can follow Daniel Haqiqatjou and Sheikh Uthman Ibn farook.

One final thing I have to clarify is, Shia aren't representatives of Islam, why? simple as their books are based on dreams this is the short version, the long version is something you have to research for yourself.

Sorry about your bad experience.

Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#219

Post by boruto » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

noisy_boy wrote: post #171

laxmin wrote: post #74

Unfortunately, the world is such that losing a job is the least pain and torture. In India, a Lady, Nupur Sharma merely quote the Hadith about Mohammad's marriage to Aisha and she had to go underground. Many people lost their lives. The Islamists call for 'San Tan se Juda' - Separation of the Head from the Body. The Islamic world needs a renaissance.

> In India, a Lady, Nupur Sharma merely quote the Hadith about Mohammad's marriage to Aisha and she had to go underground. This is not equivalent to the case in question (to be clear about my stand, I think the firing of the lecturer was completely wrong). However, there are few things to consider in Nupur Sharma case: 1. Nupur Sharma is not a random Lady, she was the spokesperson of the ruling party BJP. As part of…

I guess the focus of OP comment was the death threats she received, the beheading that followed of a tailor.

But it seems your comment sort of justifies all that because nupur is a spokesperson of a party.

Re: A Lecturer Showed a Painting of the Prophet Muhammad. She Lost Her Job

#220

Post by pnf » Sun, Jan 08, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #206

pnf wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3-5 year contracts are maybe better than employment at will for faculty but they are of a kind with deleveraging the profession vis a vis the institution. The institutional character has shifted to big-E Education. Like big-H Health it is a rationalization of the industry that disempowers the "productive" professionals in favor of the "managerial" professionals (administrators) who manage the economic relationships (…

Honestly I feel like it gives me more leverage. Every 3-5 years the administration has to be ready for me to walk, and they need to make competitive offers to keep me. These are not like tenured positions that only open up once a generation, so it's actually worthwhile to see what else is out there, so threats to leave for greener pastures are more credible.

I wonder if it will really depend on market demand for your specialization. Free agent poetry profs may have to wait tables and go begging but STEM profs can write their own ticket? What kind of university does that create? I think it sounds better than it is. High-skill jobs always have some built-in leverage. Heck, this is HN. We all know this. But technics is not merely crystallized knowledge at a point in time. After a while, all but the top 20% are competing at a disadvantage. Factor in reach/amplification technologies and I wonder if the university's pursuit of market efficiencies isn't going to expose contract work as more precarious than not.