Read a wonderful column on the cartoons controversy by Jaakko Heinimäki, a theologian, philosopher and writer, and though that I'd do a quick translation. The part about religion and humor is good, as is the point about us having a very secular notion of property. Something of Your Own The inventor of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, supposedly said that the man who first threw an insult instead of a rock, invented civilization. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that we have learned to replace rocks, bombs, bullets and other destructive items with the pen. Rocks fly among insults. The purpose of the cartoons published by the Danish newspaper was to insult Muslims. For some reason Jyllands-Posten saw it necessary to order cartoong of the prophet, despite the fact that Islam considers mere pictures of Mohammed insulting, and pictures that mock much more so. Fanatic have replied to slander with slander: Danish flags have been torched all over the world. But it hasn't stayed at the level of insults, human life is worth little when fundamentalists get all fired up for being called violent. Most of the world's Muslim population is peace loving, and are doubly tormented by the controversy: The unthinking schoolboy humor insults more due to its rudeness, than due to the pictures as such. On the other hand, the image of Islam is once more increasingly violent, thanks to a small group of fanatics. Irony and satire seem to belong to the Danish mental landscape. Great 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard did his doctoral dissertation on Socrates' irony. He also argued that of all approaches to life, it is humor that is closest to religion. To him humor was religion in disguise. But Kierkegaard made a sharp dichotomy between irony and humor. The Ironist regards the tragedies of life as insignificant, nothing matters to him and he feels no responsibility for anything, he just laughs bitterly. The Humorist on the other hand looks suffering straight into eye, and his smile doesn't fade despite the suffering. A good Humorist sees the tragic and the comic as inter vined. Religion that doesn't keep humor as its sister turns into fanaticism, as we have once again seen. On the other hand, without the religious depth as a sister, humor turns into heartless and cynical scorn, which we have also seen. On these bases, I am willing to back the Danish Philosopher on the kinship between humor and religion. For us secular moderately social democratic - Lutheran - manic depressive Finns, understanding the Muslim anger is difficult, for we have nothing so sacred, that we would collectively get all upset about it. If our tolerance is to be tested, the critical points would not be our commitments. Our tolerance should be measured by violating property, which we deem sacred. Our laws seem to protect property better than man. On the other hand, it is about property in Islamic tradition. Perhaps the cartoons feel so insulting to Muslims because the Danish with no care what so ever touch upon that is own the Muslims. Have we secular Westerns lost the sense that property can be something else than worldly and material? My comment: It is written for a popular daily, so I'll ignore the few populism. The issue of believes coming under test, things people take for granted, as cultures meet is a thorny one. As a wise lady once put it, internationalism isn't _nice_. I don't have much else to say on it at the moment, and I doubt there are easy answers here. Humor, the kind that acts against the pompousness, however certainly helps. Cheers, Teemu Helsinki, Finland __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html