Log In | Register
The film director Lars von Trier was kicked out of the Cannes film festival the other day. But every day many people freely publish outright dangerous statements.
Come on guys, Trier is not a talker, he's a director. He was asked about the change in his life in discovering he was of German rather than Jewish descendance then started rambling about Hitler, Israel and Kirsten Dunst performing oral sex in his next movie. Half his sentences weren't finished and the entire seance clearly influenced by his disdain for the press, bizarre even without his mistimed joke about all Germans being Nazis.
Yet that didn't stop every Holocaust awareness group you ever heard of from calling to arms. In all respect: Dear genocide mourners, your purpose is higher than attacking poor neurotic art movie directors. I don't want to defend Hitler, Zionism, pornography, freedom of speech or anything else here: I just want to point out the outrage is a bit misguided.
I hate to make comparisons like this - I feel like I'm entering the sphere of false discussions a la Bjørn Lomborg - but take a look at Holocaust denial versus climate change denial. The former is a historical event, a scar in the collective memory of humanity. Very important, yes, but it happened. Past tense. Catastrophic consequences of anthropogenic influences on Earth's complex climate will happen. Future tense.
Nothing will bring back the millions of innocent victims of the Nazi regime. Installing solar cells on your house will save African children.
While outrage is the norm when silly people are babbling in microphones it is quite acceptable to spread misinformation and lies about climatology and environmental policy. Estimates of future unnecessary deaths resulting from unmitigated climate change are uncertain by nature but high. Spare time rocket scientists spend countless hours denying their responsibility for and the reality of impending disasters that will devastate societies, kill thousands and turn our world upside down.
I am not entirely certain of the damage they are doing? Are the people they are preaching for simply too dumb to make a difference anyway? Are anyone really listening? Could careful education of their target groups have a positive impact or is it as impossible a job as teaching genetics to a drunken neo-Nazi?
What is certain, however, is that the unreflecting litany of misinformation is utterly despicable. I am ashamed of a culture that celebrate people pissing down the back of those who actually try to have a positive impact. Nazis and Holocaust deniers are worth a bit of pity perhaps. And now that I ended up as someone mixing Lars von Trier into a text about global warming - why is nobody talking about the perhaps a bit disrespectful aspects of discussing the possibility of Kirsten Dunst doing a four hour pornographic movie with extensive fellatio (latin for "cock sucking") scenes at a press conference where she is present too?
Lars von Trier (24.dk)
