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Perhaps just a simple white mask should become the norm for groups?
Let's face it, as good as V for Vendetta the comic book was, protesting as a comic book character isn't the best idea, especially since the groups usually doing the protesting aren't the types to bomb and kill people as the character did.
Why isn't it the best idea?
Do you support the idea that what someone looks like is more important than their message?
Do you want to encourage that kind of thinking?
Do you think that constantly giving in to such people, who look at the messenger instead of the message, is going to change their minds/opinions/views?
Close minded people should have no say in politics and law.
Either educate them or eradicate them from the system. But stop placating them.
It takes a lot of argument
to convince most people
that they are lying.
#53
Don't advocate mass murder on these forums.Either educate them or eradicate them from the system.
My Interceptor is better than your Interceptor.
#54
Eradicating them from the system could in this context mean simply marginalising them to the point of political irrelevance, or outright disenfranchisement. I'm personally a big fan of universal sufferage, but I'm also all for marginalising idiots. Ad hominem argumentation is, after all, a logical fallacy. We're not exactly discussing a philosophical gray area here.
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
Starblade: I was not advocating mass murder.
As Aron_DeTomado correctly states, given the context of the thread and my post, as well as the many other possible meanings of "eradicate", I was expressing the idea that I believe those kinds of people should no longer be part of the system (Thus, eradicated from it) because their presence in the system is detrimental. Their exclusion from said system would be beneficial on the whole.
However, educating them would be a much more worthy goal. But until they are educated, their backwards thinking and closed minds should not be pandered to.
I was reading a while ago that some point after V for Vendetta came out, Alan Moore was asked what he thought about some recent protesters wearing the Guy Fawkes masks and he said he found it quite amusing.
Beware The Shadows.
#57
I think it is sweet irony that a lot (note I didn't say all) of the folks who wear the V for Vendetta masks are protesting in some way, shape or form at big business and capitalism and the money they buy the masks with? Oh, that would be going to Time Warner then.
#58
Seems like it would be pretty difficult to find something so easily acquirable for so many people which wouldn't be supporting "big business". That's more a comment on capitalism's all-pervasive nature in society than it is on irony.
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#59
No, it isn't.
If the popularity of wearing the mask as a symbol of protest had simply been down to a graphic novel then those wearing it could be seen to be making a statement. As the mask only became commercially available after the release of the film (as official merchandise I hasten to add) it shows a level of naivety at best on the part of those wearing it and at worst? I think the word hypocrisy fits the bill nicely.
And as for Time Warner? Well, let's just say the irony and hypocrisy isn't just reserved for the protesters.
Original Article
#60
Moore has the right idea, whereas I find it bizarre that you think a person's purchase of a mask somehow invalidates their position. What about if they go and buy something from Tescos afterwards? Is an anticapitalist a terrible hypocrite because she stops to fill her petrol tank at a BP garage? If you assumed every capitalist purchase (which is just about all of them) invalidates an anticapitalist position then you're going to have an incredibly narrow view of "true" anticapitalists.
#61
Could you please point out exactly where I said that someone who has purchased a mask is invalidating their position? Or indeed where I've criticised those who choose to wear them for protesting.
What I've said in both of the previous posts is that the purchase of the masks for use as a protest tool is ironic.
Which it is.
It would be much less ironic if people (as alluded to in the quote I posted previously) followed the Spanish protesters example and made their own.
#62
When have people protested against capitalism and worn Guy Fawkes masks?
#63
currently. yes. panic buying fuel needs to stop in the UK.What about if they go and buy something from Tescos afterwards? Is an anticapitalist a terrible hypocrite because she stops to fill her petrol tank at a BP garage?
#64
Sorry, I took you to mean you did want to kill them. My apologies.Starblade: I was not advocating mass murder.
#65
Apologies straight away for using the Daily Mail as a source; I'll accept any amount of slagging for that. But if you look here, you'll see a few anti-capitalist protesters in Vendetta Masks.
I think, as Moore correctly explains in your own earlier link, that what little irony there is in protesters buying the masks and a cut going to Time Warner - what little irony there is in that - is nullified by the irony of Time Warner's support of protesters protesting against them - by supplying them with the masks in the first place.
So it's a bit of a moot point.
#67
Again, I say it is ironic that the masks being used as protest tools. I don't think that irony can cancel out irony.
Quick search on Google using the search term 'irony of vendetta masks' returned 'About 9,650,000 results (0.23 seconds)'. I'm in Scotland so your results might differ.
Apparently this is a really big deal for you.
I don't think anyone else much cares.
The world is full of irony. I don't see why this particular case of irony is somehow more, or different, than the countless other little ironies one would run across every single day.
EDIT:
This might be a better search showing only 6,010 results.
It also has this thread as the 8th result...
#69
No, not really; I was just pointing out something that I thought was relevant to the topic and then defending my point of view.
Hmmm, why are you still posting about it then?
Hammerguard: I'm sorry. I thought you were going to defend your view so that you could give me something to think about and possibly help me to reach a point where I, too, care.
What you were pointing out as "relevant" to the topic doesn't seem to actually mean... well, anything.
So I was hoping you would explain your position rather than turtle up and get defensive about it.
Edit:
See, here you expand your position to not only entail 'irony' but to also include 'naivety' and 'hypocrisy'.
It really does seem to me that you have something to say, but you won't say it. Instead you keep harping on about an irony that doesn't mean anything.
Last edited by LoCo; 2nd Apr 12 at 1:01 PM.
#71
The only point I've been trying to make is that there's an irony in using the masks as a protest tool, in fact I've said that 4 times previously.
That, funnily enough, is something that the guy who invented them acknowledges; but, hey never mind, highlighting his opinion of the hypocrisy and irony of their use (by both sides) into a thread which is discussing Vendetta masks isn't relevant.
Guy Fawkes was a patsy just like Lee H. Oswald. He was set up, the pulver plot should and could never happend. It was just a set up and just people who don't read but love to play the revolutionary run around with those masks.Do they add to or detract from protest movements?
They are a joke. Just like Anomynous, another Emanuel Goldstein like Joke.
#73
I don't think you can write V off as a psychopath anarchist. He is seeking revenge for abuses done against him but more than that the end of the abuse. As such he represents the bitterness of the oppressed and he crosses the line which the most recent Batman hero figure would not cross, between the search for justice and the instinctive urge to punish one's foes. However the destruction of a building and his several antagonists is not just simple revenge, is is also a symbolic means to a greater end.
IMHO the message of the masks which the film communicates is that an unjust but powerful minority cannot stand against a united majority who are sick of being abused by them. Mathematically I think that is true. In the end it is the group of people finding the courage to stand together wearing his mask and oppose their unworthy rulers which is V's triumph. Under the protection of anonymity which the mask provides it is possible for the intimidated to admit to wanting to oppose their intimidators.
Protestors wear such masks for their own reasons but my interpretation would be that they do so to recall that principle and show solidarity with each other and remind other would be protestors that they have a part to play. It also implies an accusation and an acceptance of enmity levelled at their rulers, because one does not need to wear masks in a truely free society but I feel this is hyperbole.
The ethical quandary IMHO is that there are some people who when given power will not act out of compassion to other people to gain their trust and cooperation, instead they push and push and push them until they are forced to stop. The only way the passive and apathetic majority can stop megalos is to band together and stop them, physically if needs be. Isnt that the justification for much historical conflict?
Isn't the Arab spring an example of this principle in action? When they do it it is noble but when protestors at home do it it is ignoble, is that true? Or is that vested interest speaking?
My own take on this is that change does not need to be violent if one can maintain dialogue with leaders, looking at Mynamar here who have persisted peacefully and admirably in bringing about change, not just because of Aung San Suu Kyi but because it is what they all wanted, peace and change, the whole country. They really have my admiration and respect for doing that so patiently. I think they have proved that is possible and so this means IMHO that the mask is just an artful product of the dramatisation of the problems of power, it is a means of communication and sends a message. It is not a license for, or incitement to, criminal acts.
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