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-- thus do we refute entropy.
Tue, Jul. 27th, 2010 02:46This past Thursday in San Diego, the first day of CCSD 2010, an ebullient horde of our fellow geeks put on a hilarious "anti-protest" outside the convention doors, just down the street from Those Idiots From Westboro. While I've seen no pictures of representatives from Warhammer 40K (how awesome would it have been to see an Inquisitor with the WBC-style sign, "PURGE the UNCLEAN"!), I was overjoyed to see Buddy Christ prominently featured. I've got to try to get that guy's autograph (and info so I can credit him) this year at Dragon*Con.
Some folks have been saying that any reaction to the WBC protests -- even a deliberately silly one -- is a poor idea for similar reasons to the Internet's "Don't Feed the Trolls" rule: the WBC loons want the attention, want to make people react, and plan carefully to make money by punishing said reactions. I in no way disagree with this description of the WBC's motivations, but at the same time I wholeheartedly reject the theory that it is bad to respond in any way at all.
Sure, the WBC lunatics are set in their ways, and cannot be persuaded toward enlightenment of any sort. I grant that.
And, sure, their "message" is internally inconsistent.
I'll even grant that what they're doing is definably evil, and immoral, and possible only because we live in a nation that preserves the right of a citizen to say something utterly horrid in the sole hope of causing the greatest amount of misery possible.
That last is, in fact, exactly why I see the anti-protest as an ideal response to what the WBC intends: the latter want to create misery and spread it through all of existence, for whatever purpose they claim as justification. The former, the silly, self-deprecating, delightfully humorous mockery of the WBC's message itself, creates and spreads joy.
And joy, as storytellers have shown us for thousands of years, makes the universe work better, and the body, and the soul.
Isn't that the purpose of religion, anyway? To spread joy?
Some folks have been saying that any reaction to the WBC protests -- even a deliberately silly one -- is a poor idea for similar reasons to the Internet's "Don't Feed the Trolls" rule: the WBC loons want the attention, want to make people react, and plan carefully to make money by punishing said reactions. I in no way disagree with this description of the WBC's motivations, but at the same time I wholeheartedly reject the theory that it is bad to respond in any way at all.
Sure, the WBC lunatics are set in their ways, and cannot be persuaded toward enlightenment of any sort. I grant that.
And, sure, their "message" is internally inconsistent.
I'll even grant that what they're doing is definably evil, and immoral, and possible only because we live in a nation that preserves the right of a citizen to say something utterly horrid in the sole hope of causing the greatest amount of misery possible.
That last is, in fact, exactly why I see the anti-protest as an ideal response to what the WBC intends: the latter want to create misery and spread it through all of existence, for whatever purpose they claim as justification. The former, the silly, self-deprecating, delightfully humorous mockery of the WBC's message itself, creates and spreads joy.
And joy, as storytellers have shown us for thousands of years, makes the universe work better, and the body, and the soul.
Isn't that the purpose of religion, anyway? To spread joy?