Hey Frank. I loved what you had to say about people having the “right” to not be offended and to have their comfort zones forcibly protected. I was wondering if you knew of a brilliant author named Phillip Pullman who’s been under attack lately for saying pretty much the same thing.
My lover Tyr and I are huge fans of Phillip Pullman. He’s an atheist who believes that organized religion has caused immeasurable levels of bigotry, conformity, and violence in the world. He is also the author of the young-adult trilogy His Dark Materials, which include The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass. The books encourage children to THINK. At that age I remember a deep appreciation for the respect for children’s brains that came through in the writing, when many people have the unconscious or conscious belief that children are inferior, less intelligent beings. These books are some of the most sensual, enlightening, wonder-inspiring books I’d ever read, and I enjoy reading them even more than I did as a child.
Recently he wrote a new book called The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ. He’s been under attack lately from a lot of people who say that this new book and its title are offensive to Christians. Some have demanded that he publicly apologize for “offending people”. Here is a wonderful 2-minute clip on what he had to say about that. It’s very close to what you said about people having the “right” to not be offended ‘and to have their “comfort zones” be respected, honored, and forcibly protected,’ and I literally cheered to watch it.
http://www.thinkatheist.com/video/philip-pullman-answers-a
PS, who’s Paul Krassner? That name sounds incredibly familiar, a person I may have been exposed to in the last couple of days in some way.
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that is a great clip /quote, Katie! I will play it on my Berkeley community public access cable show. One of the functions of art is to go outside of the margins of the NORMAL /ACCEPTABLE to explore and question and expand, breaking down the old boxes. All of this threatens and offends those who are invested in the RIGHT /COMFORTABLE way.
Also the big lie is we are weak, fragile, so we need to be careful, need to protect ourselves, to always be just dipping our toes in the water instead of going all the way, instead of living with irresistible abandon. The truth is being careful is what creates fragility. Getting dirty, tasty, going all the way gives you a freedom and a healthy immune system!
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krassner for the overview of Paul Krassner. Basically he’s one of the Counter culture’s mothers… And one of my heroes since high school when I got into trouble for getting THE REALIST, his no-bars satire zine. And check http://www.eroplay.com/krassner.html which is my interview with him I did in the mid- nineties.
In Freedom,
Frank Moore