[kj] OT: Culture Virus

[culture.virus]

At 02:33 PM 12/20/03, you wrote:


>:::sigh:::
>
>Cripes, when did you become such a hateful little creep?

Truly Alex, I'm not hateful regarding this. As a matter of fact in general 
I hold you in pretty high esteem.

>Or is this just some sort've wind-up?

No, but I admit that I can wind things up abit.

>In any event, here's my bottom line on the issue: I may fundamentally 
>disagree with Peter West on a variety of issues, but he's still as 
>entitled to his opinions as I am of mine.

I don't take your responses as being such that you truly think that Peter 
was entitled too them. You and others IMO rightfully slapped him a bit for 
some of his statements. He wasn't just "entitled" too them because the list 
response was to tell him what an awful idiot he was and that his position 
reeked of intolerance and possibly racism. I think you and others on this 
list often display similar tendencies towards anyone that is a Christian.

>  I'd also like to re-emphasize the fact that the discussion he and I (and 
> several others) were involved with dealt with matters of larger scale 
> than dealing with something as ultimately trivial as entertainment/rock music.

I granted you that before


>Secondly, I think ChristianRock *DOES* suck. I think I resent it because 
>it comes across as entirely agenda-driven. That may not bug you, but it 
>bugs me. It doesn't mean I think they should all be rounded up and exiled, 
>it just means I'd prefer they kept their particular brand of 
>prosthletyzing to themselves.

Agenda driven music can be distasteful. And it occurs all over the popular 
music scene. But you didn't say that. You didn't say that Xian rock sucks 
or even that agenda driven music sucks. You said music by Xians is 
automatically moot/sucks. Now maybe didn't mean that.

Evanescence's music isn't of the prosylitizing variety as I pointed out in 
another post so they may suck in general but they are not like what you 
described above. In my experience most Xian artists just want to make the 
best music they can and not betray their beliefs. Do you really know that 
many bands in the little world that is the Xian rock scene?

I think we would both agree that making quality music is not easy. In 
addition to the mastery of an instrument it takes things such as 
intelligence, drive, artistic vision and more. To me to say that a person 
of a particular faith is by default not capable of achieving such a high 
level mastery of particular area of human endeavor is the equivalent of 
other negative stereotypes. Do you see why I found your statement offensive?


>"IMO you are protraying the trait of prejudice in your stance because you 
>don't automatically despise the output of people who are of other faiths, 
>only Xians. Therefore by displaying prejudice, and since it would appear 
>you view prejudice as a negative trait, you are in fact hypocritical. Now 
>most people, yourself included, might say that this is a minor issue, 
>we're only talking about entertainment. But anyone observing this list 
>from the outside would see that we hold popular music in high esteem. We 
>value it not only for it's artisitic qualities but for it's potential to 
>impact popular thinking and change society as we know it. So to 
>automatically write off an individual artists output solely because of 
>their faith is to not only limit your own listening choices, but it says 
>something about how you view Xians as a whole if you are so willing to 
>write off their artistic endeavors in a media that you hold in very high 
>esteem."
>
>I didn't say I *DESPISED* Christians (that's how you spell it, by the way)

Yeah I know, what is it with you and Ross and this spelling thing?

>  because of their music, but rather that I don't think it's very good, or 
> at least it's not my cup of tea, or simply that I think it SUCKS (and I 
> still think that) for reasons I've expressed above. For what it's worth, 
> let's expand this.....I prefer my rock music to be ENTIRELY SECULAR.

I can respect that you on the whole would prefer not to be prosylitized 
while listening to music. I can also respect that it's not always easy to 
be indifferent to music if it's lyrical content is something that you find 
particularly offensive or distasteful. Hell that's one of the things that 
conservative religious types will agree with you on. But look at your music 
collection. I'll bet we'll find music by acknowledged pagan and magickal 
types, Rastafarians, Buddhists, a Hindi or two, same with Islam, probably 
someone Jewish. I'll bet that some of that music has lyrical content that 
speaks of life from their particular spiritual knothole. Just to keep this 
on-topic, Jaz' lyrics are often spiritual in nature. I'd be willing to bet 
that you wouldn't automatically write-off all those artists just because 
they happen to share a bit about their beliefs in their music. If someone 
comes to you and says "this is a great a band, they've got a unique sound, 
they've got really good songs and they're Xian". Do you automatically say 
to yourself (or out loud), "Xian? No thanks, I already know it sucks" or 
"They could be the band of the decade and I still wouldn't own their 
records"? If your response is similar, but you wouldn't have that same 
response to the same description with the word Buddhist or Hindi inserted 
instead, then I'd say that yes you are prejudiced against Xians on that 
level and perhaps others as well. BTW just to show that I know you're not 
as bad as all that I'll bet you do have at least one release by an 
acknowledged Xian. Fer instance alot of people will have a Moby disc.

Damn, long paragraph. Sorry to ramble so.

>I do not decry other people for their respective faiths, but I'd rather 
>not be subjected to music that extols the tennets of said faith. If they 
>want to listen to it, bully for them, but don't ask me to enjoy it.
>
>"And after another 20 years you haven't matured enough to stop thumbing 
>your nose at a strawman? You should really be discussing this with your 
>parents and possibly a professional counselor. You're obviously horribly 
>scarred."
>
>You seem to think that I'm plagued by this, when in truth, I couldn't give 
>less of a damn. But, clearly, you're out either to wind me up or exact 
>revenge for touching on a nerve of yours with something I said earlier. 
>Either way, I resent your tone and your sentiment, and I'd thank you to 
>leave my parents out of this.

That part was a bit of wind up.  It was supposed to be laced with sarcasm. 
My apologies for my tone.

Yes you did touch a nerve, I don't like intolerance and I always find it 
distasteful after seeing someone else bawled out for it. As I said, I see 
it on the list often in reference to Xians while intolerance of other 
religious groups would be roundly chastised. Did you see what I said about 
ragheads and god-botherers?

>Shove it up your ass, while you're at it.

Look being accused of intolerance is pretty harsh. I know it's something 
that most of us think we're above. And we may not see it in ourselves. 
People will often say things they don't realize may be offensive to people 
of groups that they may not know well. I think you're statements were 
intolerant and show some prejudice. You feel I'm blowing shit way out of 
proportion and that you are not at all intolerant towards Xians. I don't 
think you deserve to be censured or viewed as a mind-numbed bigot. That's 
not how I would describe you. I do think you should consider what I said.


>Merry Christmas,

Same to you, seriously


>Alex in NYC

I am culturevirus