Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Effective Counter-Protest at Comic-Con

Prior to Comic-Con, a group of Baptists announced their intention to protest.  Okay, it's America, free expression is a right.  What exactly were they protesting?  Oh ... idolatry.  *ponder*  They actually had a point in terms of pouring energy into an image to give it power, although most comic readers would not use the terms "idol" or "worship" in reference to comics.  As we shall see shortly, however, the power and the images may have actually played an active role in this event.

So the Baptist protesters showed up to find ... a fannish counter-protest.  A horde of fans, mostly in costumes and waving magnificently creative signs, demonstrated in favor of diversity and whimsy and good plain fun.  The Baptists quickly left.  There was no violence -- the fans simply weirded them away.  Highly conservative people evidently are not comfortable with brightly colored spandex and signs that say "God Loves Gay Robin."


One of the guest speakers also posted an account of the convention, with a mention of the protest and counter-protest.

Two interesting things occur to me here: 

1) On a practical level, this counter-protest worked.  It is therefore worth remembering in case other groups need to stage a counter-protest later.

2) According to Huna, or Hawaiian shamanism, "Energy flows where attention goes."  Comics are popular; lots of people read them.  Many of the characters are based on archetypes.  A few are even based on deities.  (Note the Thor  sign reading "Odin Is God.")  A prevailing theme in comics is justice: the idea of fighting to make the world a better place.  Suppose we consider for a moment that there might be something to the idol-worship concept.  We have a bunch of people pouring their attention into symbols of justice, valor, and good; those symbols can sometimes take on a life of their own and deliver a boost when invoked.  When challenged, those comic fans dressed up like their heroes and stood up for what they believe in.  So in other words ... they did something heroic.  And it worked.  And nobody got hurt.  That is made of 100% gold-plated WIN.
Tags: activism, fantasy, magic, networking, news, spirituality
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  • 42 comments
...go 4 levels up... Expand
xiphias

Re: Hmm...

xiphias

July 24 2010, 00:22:18 UTC 10 years ago

Oh, I certainly want all those other methods in play, too -- such as having school systems that include the kinds of ethics that you need to participate in a free democracy, and having policies that support the ability of parents and guardians to spend time with their charges.

But trying to make it illegal to use offensive and controversial speech to goad people into attacking you? That seems difficult. I don't like when laws include figuring out intent in order to figure out whether a crime has been committed (which is why I'm not 100% comfortable with "hate crime" laws -- but, since I DO think those laws serve a purpose, and I DON'T have a better idea of how to serve that purpose, I don't speak out against them).

I do think that considering "intent" is a fair thing to do when a judge is passing a sentence -- I'm comfortable having "intent" be part of figuring out how severe a punishment should be. But I don't like it when "intent" is part of figuring out whether something punishable happened in the first place.
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Hmm...

ysabetwordsmith

July 24 2010, 01:33:28 UTC 10 years ago

>> But trying to make it illegal to use offensive and controversial speech to goad people into attacking you? <<

For me, it's not the offensive speech that makes this a problem -- that's actually what I'd prefer to protect. The problem is goading people into attacking you. There are two things wrong with this: 1) it causes people to break the law, a type of instigation which is morally wrong (and I think already illegal, one way or another) and 2) it sets someone up to be harmed, which is entrapment, which is also morally wrong (and illegal for officers to do, although I'm not sure it's illegal for an ordinary citizen to do).