I've been thinking about my reaction to this, in the light of some other comments made. I agree with you that arguments over depictions of religious figures in general, and a good many other religious debates of a similar nature, are ludicrous.
What put the upset into this for me, I think, was the underlying anti-semitism. No one is coming out and saying it (and the bit about the paintings being rejected by the Holocaust symposium was surely put in there to persuade readers that there couldn't be any anti-semitism here becasue see, the Jews didn't like the painings either.
But I can think of legitimate reasons for a Holocaust symposium to decline the showing of these paintings, starting with a very simple "off-topic." I can't really think of any reason for Christians to get upset about these paintings that doesn't have at least some, and likely a lot of, anti-semitism behind it.
The thing is, I couldn't at first put my finger on the reason why this felt so much more wrong than so many other examples of stupidity one sees everywhere - blindness of privilege - but I knew it really bothered me.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2006-09-07 10:29 pm (UTC)What put the upset into this for me, I think, was the underlying anti-semitism. No one is coming out and saying it (and the bit about the paintings being rejected by the Holocaust symposium was surely put in there to persuade readers that there couldn't be any anti-semitism here becasue see, the Jews didn't like the painings either.
But I can think of legitimate reasons for a Holocaust symposium to decline the showing of these paintings, starting with a very simple "off-topic." I can't really think of any reason for Christians to get upset about these paintings that doesn't have at least some, and likely a lot of, anti-semitism behind it.
The thing is, I couldn't at first put my finger on the reason why this felt so much more wrong than so many other examples of stupidity one sees everywhere - blindness of privilege - but I knew it really bothered me.