"Justice [Aristotle] said, consists in treating equals equally and
unequals unequally, but in proportion to their relevant differences.
This involves, first, the idea of impartiality ... Impartiality implies a
kind of equality - not that all cases should be treated alike but that
the onus rests on whoever would treat them differently to distinguish
them in relevant ways .... That is what is really meant by the right to
equal consideration-to be treated alike unless relevant differences have
been proved." (Stanley Benn, Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Cannot
help but note how the ferocious boycotters in the comments pounce on the
author for laying out with simple, rational arguments the black hole at
the centre of their supposedly 'pro-Palestinian' advocacy. There is no
light to be had from them. They will never understand why something
that feels so intuitively just to them is actually another dot in a long
tradition of Jew-loathing (there, I said it!)
The principle to be
extracted from the quote about justice, equality and onus, is very
simple: If you single out Israel for special treatment (BDS) you need to
be able to explain in simple, rational arguments why. Why Israel, only
Israel and none but Israel, deserves to have a world-wide movement of
millions (billions, actually, if you consider the entire Muslim world is
automatically in boycott of the Jewish state) people who feel it is
necessary to boycott and suffocate it. There must be furnished one
cogent argument as to why only Israel is boycotted. The fact that it
feels right to the variegated boycotter does not meet the threshold of
reason,
"the opera may portray the murderers in a more sympathetic light than many might prefer,"
"when it comes to Kissinger, Adams and Goodman turn him into a clownish villain."
In an interview
for the Guardian, Goodman says:
"This, she argues, was her mistake: to depict terrorists as human
beings and their victims as flawed. In one particularly caustic attack
in the New York Times in 2001, Richard Taruskin denounced the opera for
"romanticising terrorists". Taruskin noted that Adams had said the opera
owed its structure to Bach's Passions.But in Bach's Passions, argued
Taruskin, every time Jesus is heard, an aureole of violins and violas
gives Christ the musical equivalent of
a halo. Klinghoffer has no such halo, while the Palestinian choruses are accompanied by the most beautiful music in the opera.
What upset Taruskin was giving beautiful music to terrorists," snaps Goodman. "They have to sing ugly music"
So
these two librettos sprang from the same mind and the flaws you have
noted (in the quotes I provided) are also not unconnected. The same mind
that decided to clownize Kissinger, a Jew with a German name, lionized
Palestinian terrorists who killed a Jew with a German name.
This cannot be a coincidence.
1 comment:
Hello. Just came back to recommend you go back to this post to read WigWag's comments - Ww was in the protest, and also adds more about Goodman, the librettist.
And, Ww always posts most insightful comments.
I add the Met's motive in staging this has something to do to the Met's geographical proximity to Lincoln Square Synagogue:
The Met's proxy war with the 'settlers', although LSS has been there longer :)
K2K
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