tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post115752665370750791..comments2024-03-15T00:12:57.489-07:00Comments on Covenant Zone: Fear of the Sacredtruepeershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post-1157589537840529702006-09-06T17:38:00.000-07:002006-09-06T17:38:00.000-07:00Felix, having said all that, I agree with you that...Felix, having said all that, I agree with you that if the crew had reason to believe the passengers were so upset by the sight of a guy praying, that they might have acted irrationally, then indeed the crew had to do something. They might have asked the guy if he would mind not praying. But it appears he probably only spoke Yiddish and Hebrew - did they ask if anyone on the plane spoke these? If they could not have talked to the guy, the correct action, in my view, would not have been to say "majority rules", but to ask the fearful to leave the plane, not the Jew. <BR/><BR/>However, I suspect the flight attendants may well have been complicit in stirring up the fear. Judeophobia is a common failing.truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post-1157588297445867512006-09-06T17:18:00.000-07:002006-09-06T17:18:00.000-07:00Felix, sure people might object; but is that a rea...Felix, sure people might object; but is that a reason to ban prayer from airplanes, let alone kick the praying off? On the other hand, there may well be good reasons to be suspicious of suspiciously-behaving Muslim men on airplanes: the Jihad is a very real and potentially deadly thing, as experience has shown. There is no equivalent in Judaism. <BR/><BR/>Let me reduce your argument to the absurdity I think it tends: some people are scared of women with big breasts and a killer smile; if the fearful get a little religion, or paranoid, or whatever, and start complaining, should we insist that all such women on planes hide their cleavage - "because it might provoke someone to do something crazy?" Well, if experience shows big breasts visible on planes really are a risk of causing irrational violence, then indeed you have to do something about it, however irrational is the problem. But if there is no experience or ratioanl expecation of danger, doing something about big breasts is a sign of irrational fear. And to my mind, fearing a Hasidic Jew because he rocks when he prays is just as irrational as fearing a sexy woman, if not more so.<BR/><BR/>Irrational and Gnostic thinking leads inevitably to totalitarianism as I fear your last comment suggests. As FDR said, the only thing we need fear is fear itself. Dictating that everyone on planes sit in an upright position with a straight face will no more make us safe or help win this war than waving a magic wand and shouting abracadabra - terrorists can lean to play along.... Such dictates would entail nothing but a mistaken belief in the magical-ritual power of conformity to dictates, a self-deluding appeasement of one's own fears.<BR/><BR/>What will win this war is a revitalization of reason and faith in the western mind. And here the hasidic jews have something to teach us. For example: "the average Hasidic family in the United States has 7.9 children." (<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasidic_Judaism" REL="nofollow">Wikipedia</A>) You see they care enough about one important element of western culture to commit themselves to truly reproducing it. I would trust members of this culture of life long before I trusted the average Canadian or American nihilist that I see on public transport every day.truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post-1157586181188254442006-09-06T16:43:00.000-07:002006-09-06T16:43:00.000-07:00truepeers,People who fly are in a confined space f...truepeers,<BR/>People who fly are in a confined space for a number of hours. So if they perceive, however incorrectly it turns out, that one of the passengers may act out or present a problem, then they might object. There have been several recent examples of people refusing to fly with what they perceived to be suspicious looking middle eastern (Muslim) men on board.<BR/><BR/>I understand you are trying to talk about the public religious display of this individual, however the public will have to get used to more of a conformity of deportment while flying.felixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13454247713504768144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post-1157575486595484092006-09-06T13:44:00.000-07:002006-09-06T13:44:00.000-07:00No doubt it's often necessary to distinguish among...No doubt it's often necessary to distinguish among different kinds of relationships to the sacred and maybe I should have in this post. We can simultaneously fear and desire the sacred, because it is an inherently paradoxical force that attracts and repels our attention. "Look, respect, represent, but don't touch", is its basic message. It's often said that fear of the sacred (or of its divine guarantor) is the basis of wisdom. That's very true. But it can also be the basis of unwisdom, which is what was on my mind when I posted.truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post-1157574331628582352006-09-06T13:25:00.000-07:002006-09-06T13:25:00.000-07:00Sure retrack, they bug me too. But that's not the ...Sure retrack, they bug me too. But that's not the question; it's, why do people think a Hasidic Jew praying is something weird?truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post-1157570802792325652006-09-06T12:26:00.000-07:002006-09-06T12:26:00.000-07:00People who act wierd on airplanes bug me.ReTrackPeople who act wierd on airplanes bug me.<BR/><BR/>ReTrackAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post-1157565709285609942006-09-06T11:01:00.000-07:002006-09-06T11:01:00.000-07:00keith, you may be right, but I don't think it chan...keith, you may be right, but I don't think it changes my analysis much. Antisemitism is just a more intense fear of the sacred than what I was imagining, at first.<BR/><BR/>Felix, of course the crew have to be in charge; but that does not excuse their stupidity.truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post-1157546224221434772006-09-06T05:37:00.000-07:002006-09-06T05:37:00.000-07:00Not sure how to respond to this incident. The cre...Not sure how to respond to this incident. The crew was probably wrong, but we have to allow them to be in charge on the plane, they can't all be experts on various religious activities and rituals.felixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13454247713504768144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25624602.post-1157545489935578512006-09-06T05:24:00.000-07:002006-09-06T05:24:00.000-07:00Were the folks who complained, if actually anyone ...Were the folks who complained, if actually anyone did, Muslim? Have you taken into account the strong thread of antisemitism that runs through Quebec? An Air Canada flight from Montreal would have an all-Quebecois crew. Furthermore, Air Canada crew do not hesitate to use their positions of authority to abuse passengers for political or cultural reasons. I have seen a middle-aged francophone woman refused service by an Air Canada on-board attendant because she asked for a newspaper in English. I don't doubt that Air Canada crew would hassle a Hasidic Jew, out of outright hostility, or just because they had been brought up to fear Jews.Gordon Pashahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07287636937675789779noreply@blogger.com