Ship of Fools: Purgatory: Does a vague resemblance to something bad matter ?

Thread: Purgatory: Does a vague resemblance to something bad matter ? Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000991

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

BBC story about Manchester United FC logo

I am a bit at a loss as to why people complained about this or why Manchester United felt the need to apologise unreservedly. It's clearly not meant to be a swastika, so does it matter if it slightly resembles one ?

[ 10. January 2014, 21:12: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]

Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :

I just had a look at it. As you say, the resemblance to a swastika isn't eye-wateringly obvious, though it is there. But placing it alongside a headline which reads 'New Order'? You cannot convince me that there is anything unintended about this. It's absolutely inconceivable to me that a marketing team came up with this and didn't notice the undertones. It's entirely possible they were in fact intentional, to garner publicity - and if the publicity comes in the form of apologising for unintended offence in seventy daily papers and however many news broadcasting services you have over there - well great. It's not only effective, it's cheaper than actual advertising. Hell, even I've heard about it now, and I'm on the other side of the world...

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Fascist symbolism matters. The Nazi use of the swastika being one of a number of possibilities that far right groups have uses, particularly when Nazi symbolism is banned. This one obviously was not vetted properly, that is, unless the team wants to appeal to some rightest groups. So it is quite appropriate that this is discussed.

Some links:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-black/fascism-and-soccer_b_3018401.html

http://sports.ndtv.com/football/leagues/epl/news/205973-sunderlands-new-manager-has-a-large-fascit-tattoo

http://www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index=article&articleid=14396

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I'm with anoesis - the combination of the two makes the whole thing look definitively extreme-right-wing. Yes, it might have been an oversight, but it is a serious oversight to miss the significance. Which makes me think it was not an oversight.

And yes, it does not completely look like a swastika on its own, context is important. We interpret what we see in context. We see patterns even when they are not definitively there (which is why we see faces when there aren't faces.)

Communication is important, and it is done by far more than just the words used. the context, the imagery, the media are all important too. They all make the communication.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

Although a bright young designer, probably under 30, ought to know what a swastika was, that logo doesn't look much like one. I think he or she would be much less likely now to know the phrase 'New Order' had any connection with the Nazis, and I don't think it's any longer reasonable to expect them to. 1945 is 68 years ago. There's no reason why things that resonate for my generation, should do so for today's youngsters.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Do bright young designers get to skip history in school?

Also, the coloring of the logo contributes to the resemblance. If the thing had been done in shades of blue & white, there might have been less concern.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Do bright young designers get to skip history in school?

Also, the coloring of the logo contributes to the resemblance. If the thing had been done in shades of blue & white, there might have been less concern.

Agreed. For me the black and red is what makes it look more distinctly swastika-ish. And certainly modern history lessons are so focused on Germany from WWI-WWII (to the extent that medieval and early modern history gets rather ignored) that I would be very surprised if 'New Order' didn't have resonance for them.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

Well, I did history up to GCSE, meaning that Nazi Germany featured quite prominently, and I thought I was quite well-informed about history, but I have never associated the phrase New Order with the Nazis.

If anything the phrase suggests to me either some vaguely Masonic conspiracy theory, or else Novus Ordo as in Vatican II, but the latter is probably due to over-exposure to the Ship.

Wikipedia thinks it refers to a 1980s rock band, without even a disambiguation page or header.

As for Red and Black, they're kind of Man Utd's colours, so no ulterior motive needed.

Also, wouldn't some of these guys discourage Nazis from supporting Man Utd?

[ 27. October 2013, 22:15: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

I have never heard the phrase 'New Order' in connection with nazism. I have searched for the German Neue Ordnung, but didn't come up with much. I understand that there was an Italian right-extremist movement Ordine Nuovo, founded some time after WWII, but that wasn't on my radar. Upon seeing the phrase 'New Order', I wouldn't associate it with nazism/fascism.

[ETA: The phrase Neue Weltordnung ('New World Order') exists in German, but that is mostly associated with the US hegemony at the end of the 20th Century.]

[ 27. October 2013, 23:03: Message edited by: LeRoc ]

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

I doubt that it's the specific phrase "new order;" it's more the concept behind it, with the Nazis claiming to establish world dominance under their rule. "New World Order" has that ring about it, too.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Wikipedia thinks it refers to a 1980s rock band, without even a disambiguation page or header.

As for Red and Black, they're kind of Man Utd's colours, so no ulterior motive needed.

This. In fact New Order weren't just a 1980s band, they were a Salford band who played a key role in defining the Manchester music scene of the mid 1980s. They're still essential listening for anybody who wants to know about British music of that period.

And yes, red and black are Manchester Utd's colours. And yes, the logo looks nothing like a swastika - it's very obviously the letters MUFC arranged in a square-ish pattern.

It's possible someone is trying to cause trouble for Man Utd - they're very popular, which means they're also very unpopular. But as someone said (Theodore Adorno? Maybe not?), the meaning of a communication is the response it gets. So maybe someone needs to go back to whatever people use instead of drawing boards these days.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

There does seem to be a prominent association of the phrase with Nazism.

I guess that if you asked me "Does new order associated with Nazism" I would have said "possibly/probably". But if you asked me in a non-leading way "What does new order make you think of" I think I'd be with adeodatus in remembering music before politics.

[ 28. October 2013, 09:01: Message edited by: mdijon ]

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

I'm no apologist for Man Utd, but this bullshit actually makes me feel sympathy for them. What a bag of crap.

1 - it looks absolutely nothing like a swastika. I had to really concentrate to see any such resemblance, and that was after I'd been told about it.

2 - "New Order" is a phrase with Nazi overtones? Rubbish. Utter rubbish.

3 - What's next? If a future newsletter has a feature on Antonio Valencia will the offenderati be up in arms because it uses the phrase "right wing" to describe the position he plays? Or maybe someone will work up some indignation against Newcastle Utd because they play in black shirts - a blatantly fascist motif?

Honestly, what's wrong with these people?

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

The swastika - shastikia - may have been used by Hitler, but is an ancient symbol of peace used in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm no apologist for Man Utd, but this bullshit actually makes me feel sympathy for them. What a bag of crap.

1 - it looks absolutely nothing like a swastika. I had to really concentrate to see any such resemblance, and that was after I'd been told about it.

2 - "New Order" is a phrase with Nazi overtones? Rubbish. Utter rubbish.

3 - What's next? If a future newsletter has a feature on Antonio Valencia will the offenderati be up in arms because it uses the phrase "right wing" to describe the position he plays? Or maybe someone will work up some indignation against Newcastle Utd because they play in black shirts - a blatantly fascist motif?

Honestly, what's wrong with these people?

1. A swastika was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. It looks very much like one, particularly because of the colours used.

2. I believe mdijon has answered you there.

Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
1. A swastika was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. It looks very much like one, particularly because of the colours used.

2. I believe mdijon has answered you there.

I agree entirely with JC on both these points. A Google image search for MUFC logo comes up with the normal club badge. Why did they come up with the idea of not using this? I am sure they don't have links with nazism, but I do find it a crass way to get publicity, as if they needed any.

ETA Of course there is no way round using those colours, they are the club colours.

[ 28. October 2013, 10:05: Message edited by: Jonah the Whale ]

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

That absolutely screams swastika to me. I'm not saying that it's intentional, but with the amount of money they can throw at this it's stunning that nobody pointed it out - I'd have thought that experienced designers check these things all over for any unwanted implications like this.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

No, nothing like a swastika - the colours and the angle of the blocks is probably what people are seeing and then putting an incorrect interpretation on.

In any case, the swastika was around long before the Nazis. Fact is, at the end of the 19th century it was a very popular design for young ladies to produce in lace to edge tablecloths for their hope chest - I know, I've got one: made for a wedding in 1903 with a magnificent deep edge border, fantastic linen, no stains. I can't use it because the lace is a double (!) row of swastikas ...

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
1. A swastika was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. It looks very much like one, particularly because of the colours used.

The colours are thoise of Man Utd - they play in red shirts and black shorts. Should that mean they should be banned from using any imagery featuring angular diamond shapes in case someone mistakes it for a swastika?

quote:
2. I believe mdijon has answered you there.

I didn't say they never once said the phrase in question - I denied that it had specific connections to and connotations of Nazism. I'd imagine virtually every political movement has used it at one time or another. The Labour Party certainly has. Those fascist Nazi bastards.

I honestly do not understand this. What exactly are you really comnplaining about - are you suggesting that Manchester United are engaging in a covert plot to convert their fans into Nazis or something? Or that by forming a logo out of their club's initials and colours and using it with an article about their new young players that happens to be headlined "the new order" they are somehow promoting fascism? Help me out here, what's the fucking problem?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
In any case, the swastika was around long before the Nazis.

Probably most widely imported to the UK from India. Although the swastika in India was the other way round and had dots. I'm not sure why the Nazis wanted to change it. Or why it has the "a" on the end - the Hindi word is pronounced "swastik"

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

It seems that it looks more like a swastika to some of us than others. I often start at the end of Purg thread until I find where I last read, so I can't say whether it would have looked like a swastika to me, but having seen Jade's comment first BOY does it STRONGLY resemble that to me.

In my job I work on a team where we make sure at least five in-house people read everything we produce on a regular basis, and that's for a comparatively minor piece of writing. I suspect the main mistake Manchester Utd made was to not have enough people review the logo. Anything that important should be looked at by quite a few people.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
... black shorts...

Oh no! It's true, then!

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
It seems that it looks more like a swastika to some of us than others. I often start at the end of Purg thread until I find where I last read, so I can't say whether it would have looked like a swastika to me, but having seen Jade's comment first BOY does it STRONGLY resemble that to me.

In my job I work on a team where we make sure at least five in-house people read everything we produce on a regular basis, and that's for a comparatively minor piece of writing. I suspect the main mistake Manchester Utd made was to not have enough people review the logo. Anything that important should be looked at by quite a few people.

I think you're right, it certainly seems to be in the eye of the beholder. It doesn't look much like a swastika to me. And I've never ever heard the words 'New Order' in relation to Nazis, so count me as another person who evidently never did history at school.

For me the first thing New Order said (in fact shouted) was the band, and if anything, the logo reminded me vaguely of the red hot chilli peppers logo, so music again.

Given that there seem to be a lot of people here who, like me, wouldn't have noticed any Nazi link, I think anoesis's suggestion that it was somehow intentional is rather conspiracy-theorist. I think it was probably just the case that not enough people checked it to spot the link, and given that the Manchester / New Order (the band) link was intentional, any Nazi undertones would have been harder to spot.

So yeah, vague, unintended Nazi link, but of course once it's been pointed out, the club would have to apologise (organisations are always having to 'apologise' and it's often fairly meaningless). Storm in a teacup, as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

What Marvin, Adeodatus and Enoch said; I've always associated the words "New Order" with the Manchester/ Salford band and never come across this term in the context of the Nazis.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
but of course once it's been pointed out, the club would have to apologise

That's one of the most depressing parts of the whole story for me. A bunch of panty-wetting halfwits concoct a bullshit offence and no matter who their target is, it inevitably backs down and says sorry even though it's done nothing wrong.

I'd love, just once, for some organisation, club, company or whatever to react to this sort of manufactured outrage by issuing a statement saying "grow up and get the fuck over yourselves". This modern vogue for kowtowing to every claim of being offended, regardless of merit, is ridiculous. Being offended doesn't automatically make you right.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
1. A swastika was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. It looks very much like one, particularly because of the colours used.
The colours are thoise of Man Utd - they play in red shirts and black shorts. Should that mean they should be banned from using any imagery featuring angular diamond shapes in case someone mistakes it for a swastika?

quote:
2. I believe mdijon has answered you there.
I didn't say they never once said the phrase in question - I denied that it had specific connections to and connotations of Nazism. I'd imagine virtually every political movement has used it at one time or another. The Labour Party certainly has. Those fascist Nazi bastards.

I honestly do not understand this. What exactly are you really comnplaining about - are you suggesting that Manchester United are engaging in a covert plot to convert their fans into Nazis or something? Or that by forming a logo out of their club's initials and colours and using it with an article about their new young players that happens to be headlined "the new order" they are somehow promoting fascism? Help me out here, what's the fucking problem?

I don't think it's intentional at all - just an unfortunate mistake. But it's certainly an inappropriate logo, and from the sounds of things MUFC are taking action over it. Problem solved. I was just commenting on how it really does look like a swastika to me.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
But it's certainly an inappropriate logo

Why? Because a few people happen to see a tenuous resemblance between it and a swastika?

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
... black shorts...
Oh no! It's true, then!

And referees at their matches wear black shirts!

Posted by Felafool (# 270) on :

Matt Black posted:

quote:
And referees at their matches wear black shirts!

Not often these days...more like day-glo orange or lemon! What does that make them?

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

quote:

originally posted by Gwai

It seems that it looks more like a swastika to some of us than others.

I see that, but what I don't get is why it really matters if it does remind some people of a swastika, as long as it is clear that it's not one. Surely the power of symbols, whether for good or ill, lies in the associated ideology not in the shape itself.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Felafool:
Matt Black posted:

quote:
And referees at their matches wear black shirts!

Not often these days...more like day-glo orange or lemon! What does that make them?

Pah! Somehow, "Who's the bastard in the day-glo orange" doesn't sound so menacing.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
But it's certainly an inappropriate logo
Why? Because a few people happen to see a tenuous resemblance between it and a swastika?

It matters for the same reason the unintentionally offensive thread title "Strange fruit" here on the Ship mattered -- people who saw the thread title and could think only of this and this couldn't read it as a funny thread about weird stuff people eat. "Strange fruit" is a powerfully evocative phrase. Even though it was clear that the person who created that thread knew nothing about the history of lynchings in the US, that's what the word evoked for very many of your US shipmates. You can't turn that association off, even if you want to. You can understand that no harm was meant, but you can't avoid a visceral response every time you see it. I suppose you could, over time, create a new association with the phrase, but it would take a LOT of time. And that hasn't been done yet, so this is what the phrase evokes. If you're not trying to upset people, you don't use that phrase, and if you are a decent human being, and you honestly didn't know how people would react to it, you apologize for the reaction that you inadvertently provoked.

Just as that is true about the expression "strange fruit" (and about any juxtaposition at all of a noose with a black person), it's true of swastikas, and anything else that evokes Nazism. If your allusion was innocent and unintended, you would still be horrified at having inadvertently conjured up those thoughts and images for people.

There's a reason that our local Shakespeare theater company changed the black character to a clown when they did Titus Andronicus a few years back. The character is hanged, and they didn't want the play to be about lynchings in America. They didn't say, "Well it's Shakespeare, get over it." They understood the power of words and images. They chose not to allow unintended associations to mar their play.

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
What Marvin, Adeodatus and Enoch said; I've always associated the words "New Order" with the Manchester/ Salford band and never come across this term in the context of the Nazis.

Maybe this is a pond thing. On this side of the world, failing to recognize "new order" as a Nazi catch-phrase would raise howls of indignation at the school system -- rather like those that go up when California kids can't find California on a map of the US. But, given the large number of Purgatorians who find this obscure, perhaps it is regional in its association.

--Tom Clune

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
But, given the large number of Purgatorians who find this obscure, perhaps it is regional in its association.

A most charitable conclusion.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
But it's certainly an inappropriate logo
Why? Because a few people happen to see a tenuous resemblance between it and a swastika?

I'd say it's clearly inappropriate, because no football club would want their logo associated with a swastika and that logo has caused everyone to discuss swastikas in association with Man Utd. Definitely not what they wanted, so bad logo. Not evil, or a moral failing of anyone, IMO. If I were them I'd apologize because they didn't wish to upset people, but I don't think anyone who didn't approve that logo owes anyone an apology, and the people who did approve the logo owe the organization an apology for not foreseeing it. Because that is part of one's job when looking at a design--will it have any unfortunate connotations or side effects that the organization would not want?

[ 28. October 2013, 12:45: Message edited by: Gwai ]

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Maybe this is a pond thing. On this side of the world, failing to recognize "new order" as a Nazi catch-phrase would raise howls of indignation at the school system -- rather like those that go up when California kids can't find California on a map of the US. But, given the large number of Purgatorians who find this obscure, perhaps it is regional in its association.

I was a child during World War 2, and I vividly remember the phrase 'New Order'. The logo's resemblance to a swastika might not have occurred to me without the conjunction with the phrase.

The combination is very unfortunate.

Moo

Posted by Earwig (# 12057) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
but of course once it's been pointed out, the club would have to apologise
That's one of the most depressing parts of the whole story for me. A bunch of panty-wetting halfwits concoct a bullshit offence and no matter who their target is, it inevitably backs down and says sorry even though it's done nothing wrong.

I'd love, just once, for some organisation, club, company or whatever to react to this sort of manufactured outrage by issuing a statement saying "grow up and get the fuck over yourselves". This modern vogue for kowtowing to every claim of being offended, regardless of merit, is ridiculous. Being offended doesn't automatically make you right.

Not sure it's that much of a conflict, in this instance. If I'd designed something that made a bunch of people say "Wow! That looks a bit Nazi!" I would be horrified and want to pull it.

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
I'm no apologist for Man Utd, but this bullshit actually makes me feel sympathy for them. What a bag of crap.

1 - it looks absolutely nothing like a swastika. I had to really concentrate to see any such resemblance, and that was after I'd been told about it.

2 - "New Order" is a phrase with Nazi overtones? Rubbish. Utter rubbish.

3 - What's next? If a future newsletter has a feature on Antonio Valencia will the offenderati be up in arms because it uses the phrase "right wing" to describe the position he plays? Or maybe someone will work up some indignation against Newcastle Utd because they play in black shirts - a blatantly fascist motif?

Honestly, what's wrong with these people?

You are absolutely right.

It makes not a scrap of difference whether this design looks like a swastika in some people's vivid and overactive imaginations. The fact is: it is not a swastika. And the phrase "New Order" is not exclusively associated with the Nazis. In fact, if someone used that phrase without any context whatsoever, I would not immediately associate it with the Nazis, but rather with all the paranoid conspiracy crap about the Illuminati etc, that infects the internet.

Actually I am deeply offended by Manchester United's devil badge, because in my precious opinion it sooooo obviously promotes Satanism!! [Big Grin]

(Love from a mischievous City fan... [Devil]

)

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :

The question here is not whether these guys are Nazis. I don't think anyone seriously believes that. And I guess they probably do have the moral right to say "fuck you and your overactive imaginations. The logo stays and we don't care about your feelings" if they want to. But it would be a stupid thing to do in the face of a PR faux pas. They should have looked at the design and seen this coming - that's part of the job of the people who put this together.

And as someone for whom this design screams SWASTIKA (I don't think it's nearly as difficult to see as some people are saying - it's actually pretty difficult to design something in black and red with straight lines and radial symmetry that doesn't look swastika-like, unfortunately) I'm not offended as such because I realise it wasn't intentional. But graphic design / advertising is supposed to consider "what will spring to mind when someone sees this image?" and failing to see this is a professional failure. Designers want (and are paid a decent income for) you to look at their designs and think "young" or "fresh" or "rich and fashionable" or "exciting and different!" Nobody wants "Nazi". Well. Maybe some people do. But probably not these guys. So it's not a racist affront so much as it is a monumental professional screw up. Which is almost certainly how they're seeing it and why they're apologising.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

My guess is the designer was a City fan.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
What Marvin, Adeodatus and Enoch said; I've always associated the words "New Order" with the Manchester/ Salford band and never come across this term in the context of the Nazis.
Maybe this is a pond thing. On this side of the world, failing to recognize "new order" as a Nazi catch-phrase would raise howls of indignation at the school system -- rather like those that go up when California kids can't find California on a map of the US. But, given the large number of Purgatorians who find this obscure, perhaps it is regional in its association.

--Tom Clune

I think the phrase "new order" is generally associated with authoritarianism, usually but not exclusively of the perceived "Illuminati" variety.

Which is not neccessarily Nazi, but when you combine the authoritarian overtones of the phrase(real or imagined), with something shaped like the football logo, well, it's not hard to imagine that the latter was intended to look like a swastika.

Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
In any case, the swastika was around long before the Nazis.
Probably most widely imported to the UK from India. Although the swastika in India was the other way round and had dots. I'm not sure why the Nazis wanted to change it. Or why it has the "a" on the end - the Hindi word is pronounced "swastik"

It also appears - with the arms reversed - in Native American art.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

And as St Bridget's cross.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

The designer of the covers of Kipling's books used it as part of the design - I think it was his father who did the work.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Can't see the swastika myself , although the colours red and black on a white background , together with the incline the of the design , do hint at it .

If the intention was some vague parallel to nazism then I would not have thought it a particularly clever one for a football club . Every school child , young and old the world over, knows Hitler's 'New Order' under the swastika was decisively and unequivocally defeated.

Poor old Man U seem to be all at sea without Fergie at the helm .

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
And as St Bridget's cross.

I think that's stretching things. In St. Bridget's Cross the arms stand out straight from the center. You might as well call a four-pointed star a swastika.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Carex:

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
In any case, the swastika was around long before the Nazis.
Probably most widely imported to the UK from India. Although the swastika in India was the other way round and had dots. I'm not sure why the Nazis wanted to change it. Or why it has the "a" on the end - the Hindi word is pronounced "swastik"
It also appears - with the arms reversed - in Native American art.

It's used all over the place as a symbol of Buddhism in South Korea. Though I assume it wandered over here from points west, probably India.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

As for St. Brigid's cross, this website, which purports to have some authority in the matter, says that it is made in the form of a swastika. The picture on the page would certainly look swastika-ish to many viewers, regardless of how closely it actually fits the techincal parameters.

[ 28. October 2013, 20:10: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Bene Gesserit (# 14718) on :

I had to look quite hard to see the resemblance to a swastika and even once I'd worked out how it's supposed to, I couldn't really convince myself that it does. I'm afraid that to me it's just another not-very-good logo like the tawdry Olympics 2012 one.

Having said that, I think that if people really do think it does look like a swastika then it probably does need to be changed or reworked, even if only because a certain type of idiot will adopt it!

And I'm another one who didn't know of any association between the phrase New Order and Nazism. To me New Order were a band I've vaguely heard of but never actually heard.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
And as St Bridget's cross.
I think that's stretching things. In St. Bridget's Cross the arms stand out straight from the center.

It's got as much in common with a swastika as the logo in the OP has. If not more.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I've always assumed the Bridget's cross, swastika, triskelion and all kinds of rotating or tumbling crosses were sun symbols.

I think the logo is fairly clunky and not particularly swastika-like were it not for the red/black colour way And the New Order strap line.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Then there's this...

Swastika stone

I hadn't seen the Italian version before.
I had read someone arguing that it was a representation of a comet coming head on. I don't think that two widely separated carvers would arrive at the same graphic for representing something fuzzy and of indistinct shape.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

I entirely agree with what Marvin and others have said here. I would associate 'New Order' with the group and not the Nazis. I'm really having trouble seeing a swastika in the MUFC logo. (Besides, swastikas were never multi-coloured, whereas this logo is.)

As to the comment in the OP:

quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
am a bit at a loss as to why people complained about this

I presume this is because people on Twitter are like sheep and if a crazy minority whip themselves up in to a rage of self-righteous indignation hundreds, sometimes thousands, of others feel compelled to join in without thinking what they're doing.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Maybe this is a pond thing. On this side of the world, failing to recognize "new order" as a Nazi catch-phrase would raise howls of indignation at the school system -- rather like those that go up when California kids can't find California on a map of the US.

But don't you lot have 'Novus Ordo Seclorum' (New Order of the Ages) on your own banknotes?

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Probably most widely imported to the UK from India. Although the swastika in India was the other way round and had dots. I'm not sure why the Nazis wanted to change it. Or why it has the "a" on the end - the Hindi word is pronounced "swastik"

AIUI Hindu swastikas can go both ways, but contemporary Hindus, especially in the West, tend to prefer the 'inverse' form to distinguish themselves from Nazis.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Maybe this is a pond thing. On this side of the world, failing to recognize "new order" as a Nazi catch-phrase would raise howls of indignation at the school system -- rather like those that go up when California kids can't find California on a map of the US.
But don't you lot have 'Novus Ordo Seclorum' (New Order of the Ages) on your own banknotes?

Yeah, they do. But, and some Americans can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's something that the average person would neccessarily be aware of, even if they would recognize the All Seeing Eye thing that accompanies it.

Sorta like if you were to say to the average Canadian: "From sea to sea", there's a very good chance he wouldn't know it was the quote from the Coat Of Arms. Even if he was an older person from the era when that Coat Of Arms was seen on mailboxes and whatnot.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Probably most widely imported to the UK from India. Although the swastika in India was the other way round and had dots. I'm not sure why the Nazis wanted to change it. Or why it has the "a" on the end - the Hindi word is pronounced "swastik"
AIUI Hindu swastikas can go both ways, but contemporary Hindus, especially in the West, tend to prefer the 'inverse' form to distinguish themselves from Nazis.

There is a recently deceased Canadian artist who went by the name ManWoman, and considered it his sacred duty to reclaim the swastika from its tainted political associations. Towards that end, he had his body covered with swastika tattoos, and produced innumerable paintings showing the symbol in a playful, feel-good context.

Click On: "Save The Swastika" to read his mini-manifesto

A good example of his paintings

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

If someone wore a shirt with this symbol on it, say to school, work or out in public here, because no-one knows much about UK soccer teams, and few follow them, it would garner attention because of what it resembles, and probably result in being told not to wear it. The association would be first to what it resembles not what team it is related to, and the apologist sort of response that it is about some off-the-radar sports franchise would not cut any ice. Wearing F.C.U.K. shirts also does not go over well and they are banned in schools, and it seems B.U.M. Equipment shirts are passé.

This sort of thing seems to me to be an attempt at being cheeky and cute, and idea that the team and/or the designers were simply too stupid to perceive a possible resemblance is incredible. They have poked the bear haven't they?

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
Maybe this is a pond thing. On this side of the world, failing to recognize "new order" as a Nazi catch-phrase would raise howls of indignation at the school system

For me, "New Order" doesn't necessarily scream Nazi - the Nazis were neither the first, nor the last, to use some variant of the phrase.

My mind goes first and second to the 80s band and second to the conspiracy theorists. Juxtaposed with a swastika, I'd go to Nazism first, but I didn't see "swastika" in the logo, either - but then, I didn't see the amorous couple that everyone else saw in the London Olympics logo.

But none of that really matters - once a significant number of people start saying "that looks a bit Nazi," you have no choice but to apologize and move on.

There are plenty of words that are intimately associated with that era that are acceptable in common parlance or a comedic reference - Anschluß, blitzkrieg, kamikaze, and German Overalls - but swastikas and anything related to the "Final Solution" are out.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
idea that the team and/or the designers were simply too stupid to perceive a possible resemblance is incredible.

So, you're calling at least half the Shipmates on this thread stupid by association, yeah?

I get that for quite a few people it looks like a swastika. But for at least as many is doesn't at all. Whatever - neural pathways are complicated things.

So, assuming that the many of us that don't perceive a possible resemblance aren't lying, and given that there are quite a few of us, why is it so incredible that the handful of designers that came up with the thing happened to have their brains wired in the same way as those of us who don't see the resemblance?

Countless logos are designed every day. Even if there was, say, ten people ultimately responsible for this logo, ISTM statistically very possible that a bunch of designers & their managers could come up with a logo that some other people think looks like a swastika, even if they don't. So, no, I don't see the "incredible" at all in your statement. And I don't think brain associations boil down to stupid or clever.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
If someone wore a shirt with this symbol on it, say to school, work or out in public here, because no-one knows much about UK soccer teams, and few follow them, ....

Isn't that part of the point. Here, Manchester United is famous. Everyone knows what it is. In the US, presumably hardly anyone has heard of it. Over there, they don't even play what we would regard as the proper sort of football.

It's very noticeable that by and large it seems to be those west of the Atlantic to whom the alleged resonances of the logo are obvious, and those east of it that have difficulty seeing it. Yet, in a way, does it matter what resonances a logo might have in a far away country where nobody is likely ever to see it?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
But none of that really matters - once a significant number of people start saying "that looks a bit Nazi," you have no choice but to apologize and move on.

Whether they're right to say it or not? That's ludicrous.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

Well, quite: perhaps another response would be to challenge them as to why you think it isn't.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

Like on this thread? And yet there are still those here who are arguing that so long as someone thinks it's vaguely reminiscent of a swastika it shouldn't be used at all...

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Where on this thread?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

People in America decided to express howls of outrage over a 'racist' KFC ad here in Australia a few years back.

The basis of their outrage was completely misconceived. But it led to the ad being pulled from Australian television screens. Whereupon there were bigger howls of outrage here in Australia (including from me) about how we were letting idiotic misinformed Americans dictate what appeared on Australian television screens.

I certainly don't like the proposition that if enough people get the wrong end of the stick and express erroneous outrage, then the solution is to give in to the error.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Given that these are matter of opinion it seems difficult to avoid some form of numbers game to determining one's reaction to the opinions expressed.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Well, some things are a matter of opinion and some things aren't. "Does it look a bit like a swastika" is a matter of opinion. "Is it a swastika" isn't.

Which question is more important?

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
But none of that really matters - once a significant number of people start saying "that looks a bit Nazi," you have no choice but to apologize and move on.
Whether they're right to say it or not? That's ludicrous.

Practically surely this si true though? Imagine that that was your brand that instead of Manchester. Would you want your brand associated with an argument about Nazis? If you keep it then the discussion will keep coming up and people will keep discussing whether you are keeping it because you are stubborn or because you are a Nazi-supporter. Other people will notice afresh that it does resemble a swastika to them. While, if you pull the design, in a week or two the whole discussion will have blown over. Economically, I there there's no doubt which decision is wiser.

Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :

For as long as I've liked New Order (let's say 25 years) I've known, and been a little bit uncomfortable with the reference to Nazism. As far as I'm concerned, it's an intentional reference, given New Order is what was left of Joy Division (also a reference to Nazism).

So it's not what I would have picked as an approach to marketing.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
But none of that really matters - once a significant number of people start saying "that looks a bit Nazi," you have no choice but to apologize and move on.
Whether they're right to say it or not? That's ludicrous.

If people didn't think it looked Nazi, they wouldn't say it, would they? Nobody says the McDonald's arches look Nazi. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Where on this thread?

Every single person who objects to it!

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Practically surely this si true though? Imagine that that was your brand that instead of Manchester. Would you want your brand associated with an argument about Nazis? If you keep it then the discussion will keep coming up and people will keep discussing whether you are keeping it because you are stubborn or because you are a Nazi-supporter. Other people will notice afresh that it does resemble a swastika to them. While, if you pull the design, in a week or two the whole discussion will have blown over. Economically, I there there's no doubt which decision is wiser.

The upshot of that is to say that people who see things that aren't there should have all the power over what is and isn't acceptable. It's like insisting that because a decent number of people think 9/11 was an inside job by the US government it must be true.

Surely at some point we have the right to stand up to the conspiracy nuts and swastika spotters and tell them that they're just wrong, and that we refuse to give any further respect to their delusions?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If people didn't think it looked Nazi, they wouldn't say it, would they?

Some people think climate change is a myth. Some people think the moon landings were faked. And apparently, some people think that logo looks Nazi. Poit is, they can think what they like, but they're still wrong. Why should Man Utd go round pretending they're right and apologising to them?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If people didn't think it looked Nazi, they wouldn't say it, would they?
Some people think climate change is a myth. Some people think the moon landings were faked. And apparently, some people think that logo looks Nazi. Poit is, they can think what they like, but they're still wrong. Why should Man Utd go round pretending they're right and apologising to them?

What something looks like TO ME is not something I can possibly be wrong about. This is a category error. And when you get a lot of people, to all of whom it looks the same way, you have a problem.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

So perception becomes reality, then?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
And yet there are still those here who are arguing that so long as someone thinks it's vaguely reminiscent of a swastika it shouldn't be used at all...

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Where on this thread?

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Every single person who objects to it!

I don't see anyone who objects to it being used claiming that the basis is that if someone objects it shouldn't be used. That's a lazy caricature of the argument.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So perception becomes reality, then?

We're not talking about reality, we're talking about perception. What something looks like to a person is perception. There is no right or wrong answer about how something looks to you. When you're taking the Rorschach test and you say, "That looks like two rabbits copulating," the psychiatrist doesn't say, "No, it doesn't." If that's how it looks to you, that's how it looks to you. It may say something about your personality (indeed that's the point of the Rorschach test), but you can't be wrong about how something looks to you.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Some people think climate change is a myth. Some people think the moon landings were faked. And apparently, some people think that logo looks Nazi. Poit is, they can think what they like, but they're still wrong. Why should Man Utd go round pretending they're right and apologising to them?

The difference is that climate change and moon landings are factual issues. Resemblance is not.

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So perception becomes reality, then?

There is no reality. We're talking about whether one symbol looks like another symbol. That is a matter of perception. I cannot think of any useful practical definition that doesn't involve some form of voting or sampling of the population.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

To what extent though should people's perceptions of reality dictate the actions of others?

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Practically surely this si true though? Imagine that that was your brand that instead of Manchester. Would you want your brand associated with an argument about Nazis? If you keep it then the discussion will keep coming up and people will keep discussing whether you are keeping it because you are stubborn or because you are a Nazi-supporter. Other people will notice afresh that it does resemble a swastika to them. While, if you pull the design, in a week or two the whole discussion will have blown over. Economically, I there there's no doubt which decision is wiser.
The upshot of that is to say that people who see things that aren't there should have all the power over what is and isn't acceptable. It's like insisting that because a decent number of people think 9/11 was an inside job by the US government it must be true.

If enough people though that I'd say the government should be doing more information about what its role really was. Again not because they are morally obliged--although governments perhaps have different obligations than private organizations, so perhaps they would be so obliged to be transparent--but because it would be good sense. Why would an organization refuse to clear up a confusion that makes the organization look bad when it could?

Besides the difference between government vs. football club, I think the comparison is imperfect because one confusion is a fact--9/11 either was or was not a conspiracy--and the other an opinion. I was reminded of a swastika when I say New World Order next to that symbol, but you were not. Since many people thought both ways, I'd presume it looks a little like a swastika to many, and nothing like one to many others. Neither group can logically be called wrong that I see.

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Surely at some point we have the right to stand up to the conspiracy nuts and swastika spotters and tell them that they're just wrong, and that we refuse to give any further respect to their delusions?

Wrong that it looks like a swastika to them? How on earth can they be wrong about their own perceptions? If I said that I don't like bacon, would you say I was wrong? Most people tend to say things like "Wow, can I have yours then?" Clearly they disagree, and perhaps they taste different things, but people do not generally tell me I am wrong. Are you saying the swastika-seers are wrong because they are in the minority--if we are? Because if so then I am wrong about bacon, and yet since people almost never tell me that, you are yourself in a minority thinking that opinions can be wrong. Does that make you wrong?

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

OK, since you mention bacon, the MUFC symbol looks like bacon to me and I'm Jewish or Muslim and it offends me - you must therefore get rid of it.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
To what extent though should people's perceptions of reality dictate the actions of others?

Define reality in the context of whether two symbols resemble each other. What objective test will you advance to demonstrate you are right and 99 others are wrong?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, since you mention bacon, the MUFC symbol looks like bacon to me and I'm Jewish or Muslim and it offends me - you must therefore get rid of it.

In my reading of the thread (although possibly not Marvin's) no-one is talking about one single individual having a veto over everyone else. The point is whether enough people see it to make it a problem. There has to be a threshold.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, since you mention bacon, the MUFC symbol looks like bacon to me and I'm Jewish or Muslim and it offends me - you must therefore get rid of it.

And if enough people agreed with you, and it became a negative association, they probably would get rid of it for that reason.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

So how many people are we talking about whose perceptions have to agree before it is deemed to be a reality?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
reality

Define reality in the world of symbols. What are your theoretical and practical definitions?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So how many people are we talking about whose perceptions have to agree before it is deemed to be a reality?

Assuming the person has a sufficiently popular newspaper article or blog, one will do it.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So how many people are we talking about whose perceptions have to agree before it is deemed to be a reality?

Is anyone saying it has become a reality? I think I, and others, are saying it becomes a practical problem for the organization. How many people make something a practical problem is something the organization decides on its own, I would guess.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So how many people are we talking about whose perceptions have to agree before it is deemed to be a reality?
Assuming the person has a sufficiently popular newspaper article or blog, one will do it.

If they are persuasive. Even if Matt has a popular article or blog, I don't think he's going to get far on the bacon thing.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

How many people would have to say they thought the Cross looked like a swastika before you'd agree to the Church eliminating it from all official publications and displays? A few dozen? A few hundred? Thousands? Millions?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Funny, the trend here is left-leaning see swastika, right-leaning do not.

I cannot unsee the swastika myself as it was suggested in the OP. But someone saw it without any suggestion, so the potential is there.
It is actually very easy to accidentally create a design which resembles a swastika when using spirals and/or offset squares. But, given ManU's colours, one would think they'd be extra cautious.
New Order is a common phrase for radical change/control, often not in a positive light.
Adding it all together, it is a fail for the organisation, intentional or not.
It is more reasonable for them to apologise, which they have, than to double down and throw up two fingers. Because they are a business, not just a bunch of blokes playing a game.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

If some bizarre disaster happened such that millions of people really thought of terrible tragedy whenever they thought of the cross, I am quite sure many churches would stop using it. I cannot tell even one church what to do let alone the Church, but if it were up to me, I probably would look into other symbols. I'm super into communication though in the sense that I want to pass along a particular message to my audience. If that message includes Christianity, Christ, and his sacrifice then I don't want to pass along the distracting message of TERRIBLE SACRIFICE THAT SCARRED MY FAMILY. Just wouldn't be productive. But again it's all a practical choice to me not a matter of should.

ETA: And no, there is no symbol I can think of that I would hold onto rather than the message behind it. I can't imagine an association bad enough to make me change my name--a simple serial killer with the name Rachel wouldn't do it as there are too many Rachels--but even my name, which I care about every bit as much as teh next person--well when I tell someone my name I want them to think of ME not that other thing, so in theory even that I might drop in favor of my middle name.

[ 29. October 2013, 15:46: Message edited by: Gwai ]

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
reality
Define reality in the world of symbols. What are your theoretical and practical definitions?

By 'reality' I mean where the symbol has to be changed because it is offensive. How many have to find it offensive before it becomes offensive? What sort of people (ie: (wo)man in the street or influential vox pop sort of people)?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
How many have to find it offensive before it becomes offensive? What sort of people (ie: (wo)man in the street or influential vox pop sort of people)?

These are the sorts of questions we need to deal with to get to the practical definition of whether there is a resemblance. Implicit is the theoretical definition that perceptions are just perceptions and there is no reality beyond that. (I think we have to leave the term reality out of the discussion - it doesn't capture anything of meaning).

I'm not sure if you are asking the questions expecting the answers to demonstrate that the definition is necessarily arbitrary and therefore unworkable - I'll agree that it will be arbitrary, but I don't see any alternative definition. Do you?

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

I have the impression that two questions might have become mixed up here: "Should an organisation (for example legally) apologize when it publishes something that to a number of people resembles nazi symbolism?" and "Would it be media-savvy for an organisation to try to avoid publishing something that to a number of people resembles nazi symbolism, and to apologise if they inadvertently do?"

I would say "No" to the first question (although I guess it would depend on the degree of resemblance), and "Yes" to the second question.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
By 'reality' I mean where the symbol has to be changed because it is offensive.

This is Humpty-Dumpty speak. And as has been said above, it depends on what the organization is willing to deal with. If they don't mind people saying they find it offensive, or people boycotting because they find it offensive, then bully for the organization, and steady as she goes. You're wanting to make this very black and white, and people's feelings about things like stupid logos that some moronic designer didn't realize look like a swastika isn't a matter of black and white. People's perceptions, and people's emotions, don't work that way.

quote:
How many have to find it offensive before it becomes offensive?

What does "becomes offensive" mean, other than "is found to be offensive"? You seem to think there is some agreed-upon, objective measure of whether or not something is offensive, over and above how people feel about it, that's comparable to whether or not something is more than a foot tall, or whether or not something is blue. Offensive isn't like that.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

The word niggardly means stingy. The resemblance of this word to the word nigger seems to mean something. But it really doesn't have anything to do with nigger.

Controversies about the word "niggardly"

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

I quite agree with Gwai that the practical thing for Manchester United to do is change the campaign, as they are doing. But I am a bit wary of the idea that physical likeness to something bad has moral significance.

To take a bit further Gwai's argument here :

quote:

there is no symbol I can think of that I would hold onto rather than the message behind it. I can't imagine an association bad enough to make me change my name--a simple serial killer with the name Rachel wouldn't do it as there are too many Rachels--but even my name, which I care about every bit as much as the next person--well when I tell someone my name I want them to think of ME not that other thing, so in theory even that I might drop in favor of my middle name.

Suppose you had a resemblance to Joachim Ribbentrop or Joseph Goebbels ( unlikely for a woman I know ) - should you wear a disguise or have plastic surgery before you can get a job because 'you look a bit Nazi' ? I assume not.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

There are so many levels on which that doesn't follow I don't know where to start.

The lack of choice involved, the extremity of the action required, the element of coercion implied regarding employment... it's just not really the same is it?

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

OK, what if Gwai's name was 'Myra'; should she change it? Bonus point: would your answer be different if she lived in Manchester?

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
To take a bit further Gwai's argument here :

Suppose you had a resemblance to Joachim Ribbentrop or Joseph Goebbels ( unlikely for a woman I know ) - should you wear a disguise or have plastic surgery before you can get a job because 'you look a bit Nazi' ? I assume not.

What mdijon said. Also: practically, I doubt very many people would recognize either man on sight. But if everyone said I looked tons like Hitler, I probably would lose the mustache. Wouldn't you?

[ 29. October 2013, 17:07: Message edited by: Gwai ]

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, what if Gwai's name was 'Myra'; should she change it? Bonus point: would your answer be different if she lived in Manchester?

Certainly not living where I do, because I don't even know what Myra you are referencing! I seriously can't think of any female name that approaches the level of notoriety I'm thinking of. Hitler would be an example of what I'm thinking of.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Are we going to play "silly-example-whack-a-mole" for the rest of the thread or does anyone have an alternative to taking a consensus regarding popular views in order to determine whether a particular symbol or statement causes offense by its similarity to something else?

(Can I anticipate the freedom-of-speech thing by saying that no-one here appears to be arguing for banning offense, just determining how to define it).

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Funny, the trend here is left-leaning see swastika, right-leaning do not.

I'm left leaning, and I didn't see it.

But then, I find myself disagreeing strongly with both 'sides' over different things. I think the suggestion that the design agency did this on purpose, or are somehow vile or stupid for not realising the connection ridiculous, because I wouldn't have seen it myself had it not been pointed out. But I also think that, once the connection has been pointed out, and it has been noted by a large enough number of people, of course it's the decent thing to drop it and change the design. But again, conversely, I would be strongly against anyone being disciplined or sacked over this. It's just one of those things that happen because we're complicated human beings. Apologise for any inadvertent offence, make a new design, and then get on with life.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Are we going to play "silly-example-whack-a-mole" for the rest of the thread or does anyone have an alternative to taking a consensus regarding popular views in order to determine whether a particular symbol or statement causes offense by its similarity to something else?

What's not clear to me is whether the symbol offends a lot of people or whether a bunch of shouty people on Twitter are making a lot of noise.

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

My example was not really meant to be about what to do when lots of people are offended by a resemblance to something. In this case it seems very sensible to change the logo.

But I was trying to get at where the offence was coming from. For me the moral significance of a symbol is in what it represents rather than what it looks like. A swastika can represent Nazism. This logo represents Manchester United, which is not an evil thing, so I see them as two completely different things, even if they have a physical likeness. As other people don't feel the same, I wondered what they would think about the physical likeness of a person to an evil person.

I would say that being a Nazi and looking like a famous Nazi were completely different, and that no moral significance at all attaches to the latter unless the likeness is done deliberately. So it was quite interesting to me that the response was not that, but that I had made the stakes much higher in my example by talking about disguises and applying for jobs. It's true that I did, but I did that by accident rather than on purpose.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
How many have to find it offensive before it becomes offensive?
What does "becomes offensive" mean, other than "is found to be offensive"?

How about defining it as being the point at which it becomes a moral requirement to stop doing the thing? The point at which other peoples offense overrides your right to continue doing whatever it is they're offended by?

Posted by Dinghy Sailor (# 8507) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, what if Gwai's name was 'Myra'; should she change it? Bonus point: would your answer be different if she lived in Manchester?
Certainly not living where I do, because I don't even know what Myra you are referencing! I seriously can't think of any female name that approaches the level of notoriety I'm thinking of. Hitler would be an example of what I'm thinking of.

Surely that's Matt's point? Myra Hindley is (or was) probably the most notorious murderer in England. Does this mean that there should be a moratorium on the name Myra? Alternatively, should anyone who finds the name offensive, be told to grow up and stop holding everyone else to ransom? An American such as yourself might be called Myra perfectly innocently, so should they/you be controlled by other people's over-sensitivity?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
How many have to find it offensive before it becomes offensive?
What does "becomes offensive" mean, other than "is found to be offensive"?
How about defining it as being the point at which it becomes a moral requirement to stop doing the thing? The point at which other peoples offense overrides your right to continue doing whatever it is they're offended by?

I didn't realize anybody had suggested this. But again, I don't think that there is an objective number here. You're trying to make this black-or-white, and it isn't.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, what if Gwai's name was 'Myra'; should she change it? Bonus point: would your answer be different if she lived in Manchester?
Certainly not living where I do, because I don't even know what Myra you are referencing! I seriously can't think of any female name that approaches the level of notoriety I'm thinking of. Hitler would be an example of what I'm thinking of.
Surely that's Matt's point? Myra Hindley is (or was) probably the most notorious murderer in England. Does this mean that there should be a moratorium on the name Myra? Alternatively, should anyone who finds the name offensive, be told to grow up and stop holding everyone else to ransom? An American such as yourself might be called Myra perfectly innocently, so should they/you be controlled by other people's over-sensitivity?

This discourse does remind me of the stand-up show that comedian Richard Herring did, where he grew a toothbrush "hitler" moustache to see how people would treat him. It's an interesting show, not so much for the way people reacted to him, but how paranoid he obviously became for having it himself.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
How many have to find it offensive before it becomes offensive?
What does "becomes offensive" mean, other than "is found to be offensive"?
How about defining it as being the point at which it becomes a moral requirement to stop doing the thing? The point at which other peoples offense overrides your right to continue doing whatever it is they're offended by?

Huh?

All sorts of people get offended by all sorts of things, sometimes things which are diametrically opposed to each other. That's life. In addition, it's perfectly possible to offend unintentionally. I think the logo looks reminiscent of a swastika (and others don't), but for me it's not a question of being offended. Why should I care what this outfit calls itself or uses as a logo? There's no moral issue here, nor am I remotely persuaded that "swastika" was the look the outfit was going for.

The team is a commercial enterprise. Support for the team no doubt translates into money. If you want to build support & make money, common sense dictates that you label yourself with names and logos likely to generate support, and unlikely to put people off.

Call me crazy, but this is a question of stupidity, not morality.

Morals may enter the picture when a group or an individual becomes deliberately offensive; that is, once told they've offended someone, the offending party carries on with whatever was found offensive.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Are we going to play "silly-example-whack-a-mole" for the rest of the thread or does anyone have an alternative to taking a consensus regarding popular views in order to determine whether a particular symbol or statement causes offense by its similarity to something else?

(Can I anticipate the freedom-of-speech thing by saying that no-one here appears to be arguing for banning offense, just determining how to define it).

I think the problem, which has already been adverted to, is that it's not about a consensus or popular views. In this day and age it's about who can generate the most noise over an issue, regardless of whether a view is popular or fringe.

The media is quite happy to run with 'stories' based on a minority opinion. All you need is one source and one quote. Two of each will make you look especially credible. But we don't often stop to think, when reading these stories, whether these one or two sources are representative of a larger group or whether they are in fact the ONLY one or two people the media could find putting forward the relevant view.

It's always enlightening when you know a bit more behind a story. I can remember my Dad telling me about someone who was always in the media speaking for a particular industry, with an organisation name that sounded right for representing that industry, but who in fact 'represented' a tiny fraction of the industry and kept saying things that were completely at odds with what larger representative bodies thought.

He was good for a catchy quote and giving the impression of a large-scale controversy when in practice he was trying to generate a storm in a teacup. But the general public would never be shown the teacup.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The media is quite happy to run with 'stories' based on a minority opinion. All you need is one source and one quote. Two of each will make you look especially credible. But we don't often stop to think, when reading these stories, whether these one or two sources are representative of a larger group or whether they are in fact the ONLY one or two people the media could find putting forward the relevant view.

Quite true; thanks for pointing this out.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, what if Gwai's name was 'Myra'; should she change it? Bonus point: would your answer be different if she lived in Manchester?
Certainly not living where I do, because I don't even know what Myra you are referencing! I seriously can't think of any female name that approaches the level of notoriety I'm thinking of. Hitler would be an example of what I'm thinking of.
Surely that's Matt's point? Myra Hindley is (or was) probably the most notorious murderer in England. Does this mean that there should be a moratorium on the name Myra? Alternatively, should anyone who finds the name offensive, be told to grow up and stop holding everyone else to ransom? An American such as yourself might be called Myra perfectly innocently, so should they/you be controlled by other people's over-sensitivity?

Bloody ridiculous example. There'd be nearly no names if this example were enough.
Still plenty of people called Dennis, Harold and Peter. Oh, yes, and Jack.
The symbolism the Nazis used is tainted beyond our lifetimes, regardless of previous use.
Want to find a different example of "Christian" name, go ahead. But unless it is Adolph, you'll find this a hard road.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's like insisting that because a decent number of people think 9/11 was an inside job by the US government it must be true.

No, I don't think so, because "does the logo look a bit like a swastika" isn't really a question of fact, it's one of perception.

I'd call it more like the discussion over the use of the word "Nigger". White people can never, ever get away with calling a black person "Nigger", "My Nigga" or anything similar in public, even if it's some kind of jest, irony or whatever. I seem to recall a recent case of a white American football player and his black teammate who are old friends, and call each other "Nigger" and "Honky" as nicknames. Fine in private, and obviously neither guy is offended by it or is being racist, but, as the players themselves admitted when a comment was overheard, never going to work in public, whatever the intention.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I think the problem, which has already been adverted to, is that it's not about a consensus or popular views. In this day and age it's about who can generate the most noise over an issue, regardless of whether a view is popular or fringe.

I certainly see that problem. I agree there are all sorts of difficulties in trying to determine what a consensus view is, and scanning twitter, reading newspapers and looking at internet comments are not going to be a good way of doing that.

"Man United choose a logo that a few people thought might look a bit like a swastika if asked a leading question" = non-story.

"Man United reveal latent Nazi sympathies with poorly-disguised swastika" = story.

But there is a gulf between pointing out that problem and taking the view that there is some way of determining whether people are wrong or right to take offense or see similarity with the implicit idea that one could objectively define what the underlying "reality" is.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
But there is a gulf between pointing out that problem and taking the view that there is some way of determining whether people are wrong or right to take offense or see similarity with the implicit idea that one could objectively define what the underlying "reality" is.

Agreed. And the approach to take is, I think, going to be different depending on what sphere you're working in. Are we interested in legal responsibility, moral responsibility, or just the PR implications?

Australia does have laws that talk about causing offence. There are criminal laws in relation to postal and carriage services (which means telephone and also internet)*. The language used is that a person uses the service

quote:
...in a way (whether by the method of use or the content of a communication, or both) that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, menacing, harassing or offensive.

So it's deliberately cast as an objective test ('reasonable persons') rather than a purely subjective one. It's also 'in all the circumstances' which I think, among other things, is meant to recognise that some contexts are inherently more 'polite' than others.

Whether laws such as this should extend to 'offensive' is a matter that occasionally comes up for debate, but that's the current text.

*The resources put into policing these laws is perhaps a question for another time. It's probably enough to say that something would need to bring a specific incident to the police's attention, rather than there being phalanxes of officers monitoring every Australian Twitter feed.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

That's very helpful actually.

The definition of "reasonable persons" would have to be determined of course - but it is notable that a) there is no qualifier "all" before "reasonable persons" and b) we read "persons" in the plural.

The perception that matters in our "objective test" is one shared by several people, of the right sort of person, and not necessarily all of the people of the right sort. Presumably these things can all be tested in a court.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Yeah, judges are called upon to decide on what is reasonable, or what a reasonable person would think, quite frequently.

Such tests can be criticised, though, in that if you have a whole lot of white male middle-to-upper class judges on the bench, that can significantly affect their idea of what is 'reasonable'. That's the downside. The upside is that it's a formula for saying 'we want community/society expectations to be reflected', without trying to guess beforehand all the possible circumstances that might turn up.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Are we going to play "silly-example-whack-a-mole" for the rest of the thread

You mean like thinking a football club logo looks like a swastika? [Razz]

Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, what if Gwai's name was 'Myra'; should she change it? Bonus point: would your answer be different if she lived in Manchester?
Certainly not living where I do, because I don't even know what Myra you are referencing! I seriously can't think of any female name that approaches the level of notoriety I'm thinking of. Hitler would be an example of what I'm thinking of.
Surely that's Matt's point? Myra Hindley is (or was) probably the most notorious murderer in England. Does this mean that there should be a moratorium on the name Myra? Alternatively, should anyone who finds the name offensive, be told to grow up and stop holding everyone else to ransom? An American such as yourself might be called Myra perfectly innocently, so should they/you be controlled by other people's over-sensitivity?
Bloody ridiculous example. There'd be nearly no names if this example were enough.
Still plenty of people called Dennis, Harold and Peter. Oh, yes, and Jack.
The symbolism the Nazis used is tainted beyond our lifetimes, regardless of previous use.
Want to find a different example of "Christian" name, go ahead. But unless it is Adolph, you'll find this a hard road.

There's a section in the book "Is it just me or is everything shit?" that mocks the understatement in a baby-naming book which says that the name Adolf, and variants, "became less popular" after WW2. [Big Grin]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Yep, and some poor souls are lumbered with the name 'Margaret' too. [Disappointed]

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

What about the club, instead of making a cringing apology and throwing away the £000000s it doubtless spent on the logo and advert, simply giving an explanation and saying "Er...no, that's not what we meant: our logo isn't meant to look like a swastika and New Order are a famous local band".

When I was at Law College and a Goth (see avatar), I distributed a load of flyers and posters for our band round campus as publicity for our forthcoming demo tape. They had a monochrome image of the band and the caption "Children of Power - demo coming soon". The paperwork started mysteriously vanishing and it became obvious someone was removing it. Eventually I caught one of the senior lecturers in the act and asked him what he thought he was doing. It transpired that he thought we were some kind of political anarchist-type organisation and that we were calling for a demonstration on the college campus! A quick word of explanation from me disabused him of this notion and the publicity material was thenceforth unmolested.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
What about the club, instead of making a cringing apology and throwing away the £000000s it doubtless spent on the logo and advert, simply giving an explanation and saying "Er...no, that's not what we meant: our logo isn't meant to look like a swastika and New Order are a famous local band".

I also fail to see what would be wrong with such an approach.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

Going back to the OP, the BBC story doesn't say who those taking issue with the logo were, or where they were coming from.

Manchester has a large Jewish community. Doubtless many of them are Manchester United supporters. If the official representatives of that community or a specific group within the clubs own supporters have a view, the club should take that seriously. Having taken those views seriously doesn't oblige the club to defer to their wishes, but they might properly conclude that it is prudent to do so.

If, on the other hand, some political or ideological clique, with a drum of its own to bang and no obvious connection with either the club or Manchester, want to make an issue of this, then the better response is 'get lost'.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
What about the club, instead of making a cringing apology and throwing away the £000000s it doubtless spent on the logo and advert, simply giving an explanation and saying "Er...no, that's not what we meant: our logo isn't meant to look like a swastika and New Order are a famous local band".
I also fail to see what would be wrong with such an approach.

As a business matter or a moral matter?

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

Either, particularly.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

I just think it would be bad business if there really is much fuss over the logo. I'm sure Manchester knows how much they are hearing from actual people about the logo although I don't. Whether or not the buzz is generated by stupid media, if it's upsetting customers, then a business is going to care.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I just think it would be bad business if there really is much fuss over the logo. I'm sure Manchester knows how much they are hearing from actual people about the logo although I don't. Whether or not the buzz is generated by stupid media, if it's upsetting customers, then a business is going to care.

This is Manchester United we're talking about. One of the biggest, most famous and (though I hate to say it) most well-supported football club in the world. They probably have more fans in Korea than my club has in its own town. They shouldn't be losing sleep over a few outrage junkies getting their latest fix.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Manchester has a large Jewish community. Doubtless many of them are Manchester United supporters.

If they're Mancunians, then presumably not?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Manchester has a large Jewish community. Doubtless many of them are Manchester United supporters.
If they're Mancunians, then presumably not?

I must admit that most Mancunians I've known have been City supporters, but Howard Jacobson says he is a United one.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:

quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
To take a bit further Gwai's argument here :

Suppose you had a resemblance to Joachim Ribbentrop or Joseph Goebbels ( unlikely for a woman I know ) - should you wear a disguise or have plastic surgery before you can get a job because 'you look a bit Nazi' ? I assume not.
What mdijon said. Also: practically, I doubt very many people would recognize either man on sight. But if everyone said I looked tons like Hitler, I probably would lose the mustache. Wouldn't you?

It has been noted that I resemble the character Walter White from Breaking bad, but I'm not shaving the goatee off.

Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
They shouldn't be losing sleep over a few outrage junkies getting their latest fix.

So why are they changing it then?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Going back to the OP, the BBC story doesn't say who those taking issue with the logo were, or where they were coming from.

Manchester has a large Jewish community. Doubtless many of them are Manchester United supporters. If the official representatives of that community or a specific group within the clubs own supporters have a view, the club should take that seriously. Having taken those views seriously doesn't oblige the club to defer to their wishes, but they might properly conclude that it is prudent to do so.

If, on the other hand, some political or ideological clique, with a drum of its own to bang and no obvious connection with either the club or Manchester, want to make an issue of this, then the better response is 'get lost'.

And this is where the media's ability to not mention just who is involved becomes instructive. If some recognised representative body of the Jewish community was making complaint, I wager that it would add to the story and so would be mentioned.

'Girlfriend of journalist says "that looks a bit like a swastika"', on the other hand, is unlikely to make the news pages.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jonah the Whale:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
They shouldn't be losing sleep over a few outrage junkies getting their latest fix.
So why are they changing it then?

Probably because they can't be arsed fighting it. Which is their right, of course, but it just makes things worse for the rest of us. I mean, if one of the biggest and least-reliant-on-positive-PR organisations in the country is going to just back down the moment someone screams "offense!" about something they've done, then what hope have any of the rest of us got when - not if - someone screams "offense!" about something we've done?

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

I have looked at it again and again, and it still doesn't look anything like a swastika. You might as well say that the old BR double arrow symbol was like a swastika.

Much as I dislike MUFC I don't believe they are nazis, or are sufficiently stupid to go out of their way to offend people by deliberately making use of nazi symbols.

People are too ready to be offended these days.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
I have looked at it again and again, and it still doesn't look anything like a swastika. You might as well say that the old BR double arrow symbol was like a swastika.

It's already been established that perceptions about the logo differ. Your failure to see any resemblance does not indict the perceptions of those who do.

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
Much as I dislike MUFC I don't believe they are nazis,

No one on this thread has claimed that the MUFC, the designers they hired, or anyone else involved in developing and releasing the logo, is a Nazi, or has any Nazi sympathies.

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
or are sufficiently stupid to go out of their way to offend people by deliberately making use of nazi symbols.

Again, no one has suggested that the fuss (to the unknown extent that an actual fuss or complaint exists) was an effect that MUFC was intentionally trying to achieve.

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
People are too ready to be offended these days.

There are people still living -- at least in my neck of the world -- who survived imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Nazis. I'm personally acquainted with such an individual; she still bears tattooed numbers on her wrist. She still reacts with fear, rage, and grief to memories of her war years. She lost her entire birth family to the Nazi genocide.

I've no idea how she'd react to the now-withdrawn MUFC logo (I wouldn't bring this up to her). But if perchance she did see some resemblance between the logo and a swastika and reacted in kind, would you describe her as "too ready to be offended?"

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

I guess what I don't understand is why people keep saying that it doesn't look like a swastika to them, so everyone else has no right to be annoyed. Now I'm anything but annoyed by it, and I rather agree that anyone who claims to be very bothered is showing off their own issues. However, why is it reasonable say "I see X, so everyone else should too, and if they don't they have issues." That's like saying "I don't like dark hair, so everyone from x ethnic group is ugly, and anyone who says elsewise is faking it. Why would you assume everyone should think like you?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:

quote:
Originally posted by Sighthound:
or are sufficiently stupid to go out of their way to offend people by deliberately making use of nazi symbols.
Again, no one has suggested that the fuss (to the unknown extent that an actual fuss or complaint exists) was an effect that MUFC was intentionally trying to achieve.

Now, hang on a minute.

So everybody accepts that this was pure accident? Even with the 'New Order' phrase?

Because that makes any sense of being offended completely mystifying. Why would anyone be offended by something that is recognised to be pure coincidence?

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Now, hang on a minute.

So everybody accepts that this was pure accident? Even with the 'New Order' phrase?

Because that makes any sense of being offended completely mystifying. Why would anyone be offended by something that is recognised to be pure coincidence?

Did you read the rest of my post? Do you not see that each side is behaving as though the other side fails to recognize[I/] something obvious to the first?

Here we have two groups of people: those who see some resemblance to a swastika, and those who see no such thing.

The "don't see" group are mystified and claim the "do see" group are making a fuss about nothing, and [I]are offended by what they perceive as hypersensitivity.

The "do see" group are mystified and claim the "don't see" group are being deliberately obtuse and insensitive

This argument isn't really about the logo; it's about perception, and whose perceptions should be accepted as "reality" when those perceptions differ, even conflict.

It's also an argument about whether "pure coincidence," as such, actually exists. Post-Freud, however discredited parts of his theory now are, many human beings suspect that "accidents" like the logo mess-up are not true "accidents," but reveal intentions or feelings that are not consciously held by the individual(s) responsible for the "coincidence" or "accident."

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
The "don't see" group are mystified and claim the "do see" group are making a fuss about nothing, and are offended by what they perceive as hypersensitivity.

The "do see" group are mystified and claim the "don't see" group are being deliberately obtuse and insensitive

Wouldn't it be easier to use the terms "do see" and "not see"? I assure you that the fact that the latter is a homophone for a particular mid-twentieth century political movement is purely coincidental!

Plus a somewhat whimsical primer on logo design that touches briefly on this issue.

[ 31. October 2013, 13:51: Message edited by: Crœsos ]

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Wouldn't it be easier to use the terms "do see" and "not see"? I assure you that the fact that the latter is a homonym for a particular mid-twentieth century political movement is purely coincidental!

Accent permitting, of course!

(Your comment was nearly lost on this East-Pondsider!)

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Why would anyone be offended by something that is recognised to be pure coincidence?

I think offense is to some extent non-voluntary. Well, genuine offense is anyway.

I might recognize that the term "niggardly" has nothing to do with the word "nigger", and yet still flinch inwardly whenever they hear it because of the association. I'm not offended in the sense of believing that you are using a racist term, but the similarity sets off an involuntary reaction which could be described as feeling offense.

We can of course choose what to do with that reaction. I might brush it off, reminding myself not to be so silly, but regardless of my ultimate behaviour underneath it there is the experience of offense despite my rational mind telling me it is not your intent to highlight that association.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Why would anyone be offended by something that is recognised to be pure coincidence?

Why indeed? [Disappointed]

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Maybe we can see this phenomenon more clearly if we set aside its potentially explosive political implications.

One of my clients has schizophrenia. When she stops taking her meds (a couple of times a year), she will tell anyone willing to listen that I am the devil. She tells me this: "You're the devil."

It's useless to tell her she's wrong, that I am not the devil, that I only wish to help her, that it's her disease altering her perceptions. Why?

Because without her meds, she actually sees horns growing from my head (she says she does, anyway); she hears my voice as deep, raspy, and scary; she sees my skin color and facial features change into whatever her personal internal template is for "devil" -- and tells me so.

If I tell her she's wrong, she will hear that (in that deep, raspy, scary voice) as my evil attempts to trick her into believing what isn't true. She'll assume any meds offered are poison; why wouldn't she? She'll assume any efforts to restrain her from self-harm are efforts to keep her in our clutches and prevent her escape; she'll "know" -- because her perceptions tell her so -- that I and my staff mean to hurt, even destroy her.

Here we are on an Internet board. All you know about me is what I myself have put forward here. My client claims I'm the devil. I claim I'm not. How do you know which of us (if either) is telling the truth?

Prevailing public opinion has it that "the devil" -- as an incarnate evil figure -- doesn't exist. Chances are you'll side with me, and conclude that my poor client is deluded.

But is she? How can you know? Through your own perceptions. What if yours are just as off-target as my client's are (or as I claim them to be)?

If every one of you could talk to her and try to change her mind while she's off her meds, you'd fail.

We are programmed to believe our perceptions. What else have we got? We are inclined to see those who tell us we're mistaken as belying the reality we're seeing with our eyes, hearing with our ears. Why wouldn't we? It's part of the human survival kit.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
... I've no idea how she'd react to the now-withdrawn MUFC logo (I wouldn't bring this up to her). But if perchance she did see some resemblance between the logo and a swastika and reacted in kind, would you describe her as "too ready to be offended?"

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that - in part - that is what I am saying, even if nobody else is.

Clearly, it's her own life experiences which might cause her to be offended, and that's her entitlement. But whether that is relevant is affected by context. If she lives in Manchester, or is a MU supporter, she is more entitled to be overtly offended and to expect the club take account of her feelings than if she lives in a far away country where nobody plays that sort of football and she has never heard of MU until you mention it to her and show her a picture of the logo.

More generally, though, and placing the MU logo issue aside for a moment, in deciding how we treat other peoples feelings or how we are entitled to expect other people to treat ours, it is highly relevant whether those feelings are objectively rational and are proportionate to what they or we say is provoking them. The argument, 'this is what I feel; so you must give me the attention I demand' is not acceptable. It plays into the hands of the worst sort of manipulative and passive/aggressive people.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
... I've no idea how she'd react to the now-withdrawn MUFC logo (I wouldn't bring this up to her). But if perchance she did see some resemblance between the logo and a swastika and reacted in kind, would you describe her as "too ready to be offended?"
I'm going to stick my neck out and say that - in part - that is what I am saying, even if nobody else is.

I would agree.

quote:
The argument, 'this is what I feel; so you must give me the attention I demand' is not acceptable. It plays into the hands of the worst sort of manipulative and passive/aggressive people.

I would heartily agree.

Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on :

I'm sorry, but I just don't know where this sort of thing could potentially end. For example, lots of people were tortured, imprisoned, abused and murdered by the communists. They might be people out there offended by the colour red, by hammers, by sickles, by red stars, by pictures of Che Guevara. Or by anything vaguely or remotely resembling these things. Where exactly do we draw the line? Because however ludicrous such an offence might be at an objective level, if someone genuinely feels offended, it's a valid reason to make a fuss. Apparently.

I don't think you can have a society which is free and at the same time guarantees that all its citizens will be insulated from any cause of offence, even offence that is innocently caused. Everything, literally everything, would have to be studied and censored by some sort of Ministry of Being Nice. It just ain't practical.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Again, no one has suggested that the fuss (to the unknown extent that an actual fuss or complaint exists) was an effect that MUFC was intentionally trying to achieve.

From the second post on this thread:

quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
You cannot convince me that there is anything unintended about this. It's absolutely inconceivable to me that a marketing team came up with this and didn't notice the undertones. It's entirely possible they were in fact intentional, to garner publicity - and if the publicity comes in the form of apologising for unintended offence in seventy daily papers and however many news broadcasting services you have over there - well great. It's not only effective, it's cheaper than actual advertising. Hell, even I've heard about it now, and I'm on the other side of the world...

And later,

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
idea that the team and/or the designers were simply too stupid to perceive a possible resemblance is incredible.

It's exactly that suggestion, that it can't possibly have been unintended, that I, for one, have been arguing against.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Why would anyone be offended by something that is recognised to be pure coincidence?
I think offense is to some extent non-voluntary. Well, genuine offense is anyway.

So true. Although as you also point out, what we DO about being offended is in our power. The internet seems to have had a deleterious effect on people's ability to shut up. (I should know.)

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
And as St Bridget's cross.
I think that's stretching things. In St. Bridget's Cross the arms stand out straight from the center.
It's got as much in common with a swastika as the logo in the OP has. If not more.

Though painted in red and black, against a white background, with a potentially neo-fascist slogan such as 'new order' beside it one would be peculiarly dense not to see even in this lovely Christian symbol more than a glancing similarity to another type of cross, painted red, white and black and fronted with fascistic slogans.

Whether one shrugs off the associations, or embraces them is another thing. But the associations - under those circumstances - would still be there.

As for the OP, it strikes me as the kind of project someone might've attempted should they want their own logo and corporate packaging to pay tribute to the Third Reich in a dickheady, post-moderny, ironicky kind of way. Sort of 'unless you're not clever like us, you'll just lurve what we've done here!' There's nothing evil or even inherently wrong about it. It's just pointlessly stupid.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Look at me! Anselmina says I'm particuarly dense. Can you give me the exact number in, say, kilograms per litre?

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

Surely she's only calling you particularly dense if you have a red and black St. Bridget's cross with a neo-Facist slogan next to it and still think it looks nothing like a swastika.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Again, no one has suggested that the fuss (to the unknown extent that an actual fuss or complaint exists) was an effect that MUFC was intentionally trying to achieve.

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
From the second post on this thread:

quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
You cannot convince me that there is anything unintended about this. It's absolutely inconceivable to me that a marketing team came up with this and didn't notice the undertones. It's entirely possible they were in fact intentional, to garner publicity - and if the publicity comes in the form of apologising for unintended offence in seventy daily papers and however many news broadcasting services you have over there - well great. It's not only effective, it's cheaper than actual advertising. Hell, even I've heard about it now, and I'm on the other side of the world...
OK, you're right; a couple of people have in fact argued that the resemblance they see is intentional, and I myself am guilty of contributing to contention on this thread.

That said, I apparently haven't made my own point clear. Anoesis is actually claiming that what s/he sees as resembling a swastika must be a universal perception -- that anyone, even everyone, looking at that logo, would see the thing resembles a swastika, and then deliberately use it to generate bad publicity which, as we've all been told many times, is allegedly every bit as effective as the good kind.

However -- unless various posters on this thread are lying, and I prefer to take them at their word -- it's clear from this thread that some of us see a swastika resemblance in the logo, and some of us do not. Anoesis is doing exactly what I suggested above: denying that something can be "seen" in some fashion which contradicts Anoesis’s perception of it. S/he seems to claim that his/her understanding of the logo is the only "true" one, and that people who deny seeing any swastika references in the thing are in denial or are lying. Forget the logo; it's the "my perception is accurate and yours is deluded" that is the real problem here. And that, IMO, is the actual source of any offence.

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
And later,

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
idea that the team and/or the designers were simply too stupid to perceive a possible resemblance is incredible.
It's exactly that suggestion, that it can't possibly have been unintended, that I, for one, have been arguing against.

As is your right. Personally, having seen & heard thousands of verbal & imagic references to people with disabilities during my career which I have found utterly cringe-worthy while knowing the well-meaning perpetrators held only the best of intentions, I find it easy to believe that what happened with this logo was insufficient "brand-testing." But that's me. Once again, though, look at this thread.

Plainly, it's possible for some people to see the club logo as innocuous or clever or catchy. Equally plainly, it's possible for some people to see the logo as sinister, cynically-used, or as revealing some deep unconscious hostility.

Again, each side is busy claiming its perception is the "correct" one and the other side's perception is rubbish. Each side even questions the other side's right to hold its perception. This is where, IMO, the "offendedness" starts bubbling up.

Party A's denial of Party B's reality, and Party B's denial of Party A's reality, is what causes the trouble. There's no obvious way to reconcile such diametrically-opposed perceptions.

If the club withdraws the logo, that action seems to validate the PoV of people who see a swastika reference. This leaves the people who see no such reference feeling invalidated; their PoV gets no support.

If the club maintains the logo, the "there's no swastika" PoV gets validated, and the other group's perception goes unsupported.

Again, perception = reality for most of us most of the time. I think the offence here is all about whose "reality" prevails, and whose "reality" gets denied.

(Gah. Apologies for trashed code; tried to fix 3 times. Sorry.)

[ 31. October 2013, 19:50: Message edited by: Porridge ]

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
idea that the team and/or the designers were simply too stupid to perceive a possible resemblance is incredible.
It's exactly that suggestion, that it can't possibly have been unintended, that I, for one, have been arguing against.

Oh, it is possible. It is equally unlikely. Porridge mentions cringe-worthy logos done for people with disabilities. The difference here is budget. ManU likely hired a much more experienced/expensive firm. At best there was a solid fail in the process, at worst it was an attempt to get a bit of attention.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Now, hang on a minute.

So everybody accepts that this was pure accident? Even with the 'New Order' phrase?

Because that makes any sense of being offended completely mystifying. Why would anyone be offended by something that is recognised to be pure coincidence?
Did you read the rest of my post? Do you not see that each side is behaving as though the other side fails to recognize[I/] something obvious to the first?

Here we have two groups of people: those who see some resemblance to a swastika, and those who see no such thing.

The "don't see" group are mystified and claim the "do see" group are making a fuss about nothing, and [I]are offended by what they perceive as hypersensitivity.

The "do see" group are mystified and claim the "don't see" group are being deliberately obtuse and insensitive

This argument isn't really about the logo; it's about perception, and whose perceptions should be accepted as "reality" when those perceptions differ, even conflict.

It's also an argument about whether "pure coincidence," as such, actually exists. Post-Freud, however discredited parts of his theory now are, many human beings suspect that "accidents" like the logo mess-up are not true "accidents," but reveal intentions or feelings that are not consciously held by the individual(s) responsible for the "coincidence" or "accident."

YES I read the rest of your post. Why do you think I didn't? Where did I suggest it was 'wrong' to notice a coincidental association?

I didn't.

But I think it's very wrong indeed to then start hounding someone over a completely accidental coincidence that someone else happened to notice.

I can completely understand hounding someone over what is thought to be an intentional allusion, even if I think the conclusion that the allusion is intentional is misconceived.

But that is VERY different to the proposition that you are now putting forward - that people know there is not intentional allusion, but some people might nevertheless feel it's somehow appropriate to say how angrily offended they are at a complete accident.

It's strict liability gone mad.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Why would anyone be offended by something that is recognised to be pure coincidence?
I think offense is to some extent non-voluntary. Well, genuine offense is anyway.

I might recognize that the term "niggardly" has nothing to do with the word "nigger", and yet still flinch inwardly whenever they hear it because of the association. I'm not offended in the sense of believing that you are using a racist term, but the similarity sets off an involuntary reaction which could be described as feeling offense.

We can of course choose what to do with that reaction. I might brush it off, reminding myself not to be so silly, but regardless of my ultimate behaviour underneath it there is the experience of offense despite my rational mind telling me it is not your intent to highlight that association.

This I agree with. And brush it off is the right reaction, IF you understand that it is not my intent. Or possibly, just possibly, a very quiet, private polite word in my ear to point out the unintended association.

But if you understand that any association is completely unconscious and unintentional on my part, it is emphatically NOT the right response to get angry with me.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But if you understand that any association is completely unconscious and unintentional on my part, it is emphatically NOT the right response to get angry with me.

In this case, I cannot say. But as a general principle this is incomplete. If there were steps you could have, and could reasonably be expected to have, taken, but did not, I might still get angry with you. As a trivial example: if you mangle the pronunciation of someone's name from the podium, but there is a pronunciation guide on the card with their name but you just didn't bother to read those things, then you are still to blame even if your mispronunciation is both unintentional and unconscious.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
But if you understand that any association is completely unconscious and unintentional on my part, it is emphatically NOT the right response to get angry with me.
In this case, I cannot say. But as a general principle this is incomplete. If there were steps you could have, and could reasonably be expected to have, taken, but did not, I might still get angry with you. As a trivial example: if you mangle the pronunciation of someone's name from the podium, but there is a pronunciation guide on the card with their name but you just didn't bother to read those things, then you are still to blame even if your mispronunciation is both unintentional and unconscious.

Sure. If someone offered you data in that way, that's relevant.

[ 31. October 2013, 21:09: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

Old rule of thumb. Once is coincidence. Twice is happenstance. Three times is enemy action.

Would the shape on its own be enough for worry? No. Would the black and red be enough? Of course not even if I can't get those colours from the Man U strip or logo. Would the "New Order" be a problem on its own? No. Especially with the change of manager.

Put the three together and you've got some 'splainin' to do.

And remember football is the charming sport where Tottenham supporters are known as the Yid Army to reclaim racist abuse - so other fans sometimes hiss at them to bring up gas chambers or outright chant that they are on their way to Auschwitz.

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Put the three together and you've got some 'splainin' to do.

Yeah, and the very obvious explanation for the colours is that they're the Manu kit colours, the explanation the designers gave for "new order" is that it's the name of a famous local band, punning on the new young talent at the club, and the explanation for the logo would be that it's very much apparently in the eye of the beholder. All three are reasonable explanations, IMO. But maybe it was all planned, and they had those excuses up their sleeves.

Porridge, I don't disagree with much of what you say. Although I fall into the "didn't see it" camp, I feel I've been pretty clear that I understand and respect that others did see it. I think the idea that either camp is right or wrong to see it or not fails, because we can't control our perceptions. But that's also why I bristle at the suggestions that I'm stupid, inferior, uneducated, dense or whatever, just because I didn't "see" a swastika when I looked at the logo.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Would the shape on its own be enough for worry? No. Would the black and red be enough? Of course not even if I can't get those colours from the Man U strip or logo. Would the "New Order" be a problem on its own? No. Especially with the change of manager.

Put the three together and you've got some 'splainin' to do.

This sounds like you're saying that 3 independent explanations of each element's presence is insufficient. That they need a collective explanation.

Which is just completely faulty logic in my view. If 3 people separately find themselves at the scene of a crime, and each of them satisfactorily accounts for their innocent presence, that's the end of it. They can't give a group account of their presence, because the whole point is that a group explanation doesn't exist. The common factor for the group is the crime, and the whole point of the separate explanations is to demonstrate that the common factor WASN'T the reason for being there.

[ 01. November 2013, 01:12: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

While I think of it, one thing that has been bugging me about this whole colour thing is that a Nazi swastika isn't black and red.

It's black. On a white background. On a flag with red as its base colour.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

But that is not how the brain works. Red, white and black in combination are associated with Nazis, particular order doesn't matter.
As far as the swastika, shape is much more important than colour.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Sure. If someone offered you data in that way, that's relevant.

If I'm angry enough because of the sound of the word niggardly, then I might end up seeing the worst in your behaviour despite a lack of justification because it rationalizes my anger.

One could take the view that an ad agency and a big firm are not showing due diligence in so casually disregarding a similarity to Nazi slogans and symbols.

I'm not saying I agree with this stance by the way, simply trying to see how an ordinary human being might be angry because of a resemblance that may or may not be intentional.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Sure. If someone offered you data in that way, that's relevant.
If I'm angry enough because of the sound of the word niggardly, then I might end up seeing the worst in your behaviour despite a lack of justification because it rationalizes my anger.

One could take the view that an ad agency and a big firm are not showing due diligence in so casually disregarding a similarity to Nazi slogans and symbols.

I'm not saying I agree with this stance by the way, simply trying to see how an ordinary human being might be angry because of a resemblance that may or may not be intentional.

Again, I agree with all of that. But it relies on having taken 1 of 2 views: either that the perpetrator knew of the result, or that they ought to have known.

What I reacted to was Porridge's suggestion that someone could take the view that the result was completely accidental, and yet still be angrily offended about the result. That just doesn't make sense in my view, UNLESS what she was trying to suggest was that it fell into the 'ought to have known' category.

Frankly I think any argument regarding the colours that suggests Man U and their advertisers 'ought to have known' is utterly misconceived. There's really only one distinctive colour here: red. Black is so universally used as a 'colour' for printing as to be meaningless as a signifier. And the number of other possible associations with red, apart from Man U itself, are simply vast. There is simply no credible way that anyone could keep a decent list of 'red things we don't want to look like'.

Even the '3-colour' combination of red with black and white is hardly unique to the Nazis. The Nazis didn't pick it for uniqueness. They picked it as a traditional German colour combination (which, if the clues on Wikipedia are followed, probably partly derives from the choice of black and white as the Prussian colours several centuries earlier).

When it comes to shape, there might be some kind of 'ought to have known' argument. We'll leave aside for now the slight bizarreness of Western culture - even the Nazis themselves - completely ignoring thousands of years of other usage of swastikas, including its great popularity in the decades before the Nazi rise to power.

That still leaves the question of whether it's sufficiently foreseeable that people will see a diamond-shaped block and immediately think 'swastika rotated by 45 degrees in the fashion of the Nazi flag'.

I'm probably not the best person to ask about that because I naturally roll my eyes at all sorts of associations, good and bad, that other people seem happy to make and which strike me as utterly fanciful. Whether it's some of St Augustine's allegorical interpretations or resemblances between lyrics/melodies of songs, or conspiracy theories, I frequently find myself thinking that many people in this world are far too gullible, and either don't understand causation or don't think realistically about the likelihood of independent events compared to dependent ones.

For example there are only 12 notes in Western music. How many distinct melodies with no resemblance to each other do people think you can actually create with 12 notes?

And to return to your example, with only 26 letters and a limited number of phonemes available, unrelated words are going to resemble each other. If someone reacts to the resemblance I usually have the urge to tell them to just get over it, because with the number of words in the English language coincidental resemblances are inevitable.

[ 01. November 2013, 04:47: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
If someone reacts to the resemblance I usually have the urge to tell them to just get over it, because with the number of words in the English language coincidental resemblances are inevitable.

And there we have another pathway for a resemblance to turn into anger.

I think what you are leaving out is that some resemblances may be close enough to something that is particularly visceral to set someone off against any belief regarding intentionality or ought-to-have. One doesn't necessarily have any justification for anger in such a circumstance, but nevertheless might have justification to say something.

And if one is used to being told to get over it in such circumstances then the hypersensitivity builds.

I'm not building a logical case here, simply an explanation for an emotional reaction.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

The purpose of advertising is to use things like vague resemblances and visual hints to get people to buy your shit. For an advertising firm to turn around and say there's nothing to vague resemblances is base hypocrisy. They fucked up. They just need to eat it and shut up.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

If forums like this one are discussing it around the world then they have won.

Publicity is publicity.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
If someone reacts to the resemblance I usually have the urge to tell them to just get over it, because with the number of words in the English language coincidental resemblances are inevitable.
And there we have another pathway for a resemblance to turn into anger.

I think what you are leaving out is that some resemblances may be close enough to something that is particularly visceral to set someone off against any belief regarding intentionality or ought-to-have. One doesn't necessarily have any justification for anger in such a circumstance, but nevertheless might have justification to say something.

And if one is used to being told to get over it in such circumstances then the hypersensitivity builds.

I'm not building a logical case here, simply an explanation for an emotional reaction.

Okay, so I won't tell them to get over it. I'll them to get an education and understand a bit of etymology.

I'm not leaving out the emotional reaction. I'm saying, quite consciously, that it's not a valid basis for action.

What's the alternative? To change the word "history" because of the feminists who decided it looked too close to "his story"? Good luck with that.

[ 01. November 2013, 06:45: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Here's the thing about subjective opinions.

I respect them a great deal. And in fact I often find myself arguing in support of them here on the Ship.

The problem, though, is that subjective 'truth' has become sufficiently fashionable that people try to fling it around in areas where it doesn't belong.

Firstly, subjective opinions have no place when they can be shown to be demonstrably wrong. People are not entitled to their own facts. When a word from a Germanic language root happens to look similar to a word from a Latin language root, no amount of subjective assertion that the words have related meanings will alter the fact that they don't, either in English or in terms of their etymology.

Secondly, subjective opinions have no business forcing other people with different subjective opinions to act against their own conscience. Appreciation of the arts is an area where subjective opinions clearly DO have their place, but I thank God that I'm not required to believe that John Lennon's Imagine is a fantastic song because millions of other people think it's a fantastic song, and that I'm not required to listen to it just because other people enjoy doing so.

Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
As for the OP, it strikes me as the kind of project someone might've attempted should they want their own logo and corporate packaging to pay tribute to the Third Reich in a dickheady, post-moderny, ironicky kind of way. Sort of 'unless you're not clever like us, you'll just lurve what we've done here!' There's nothing evil or even inherently wrong about it. It's just pointlessly stupid.

There are three broad possibilities then:

1. Someone at MUFC is intentionally promoting fascism.

2. Someone at MUFC, while not promoting fascism, is intentionally referring to fascist symbolism for some other purpose - to be 'clever' in the way you describe, or to cause gratuitous offence.

3. It's an unintended coincidental resemblance that some people see and others don't.

Possibility 1 would be obviously immoral and would justify taking offence. Possibility 2 would be at least jerkish, and the offence would be understandable. It would be unbelievably stupid to get offended at possibility 3 – you might as well look up at the clouds and look for vague resemblances to get offended about.

In this case, no one has suggested any actual evidence at all that possibilities 1 or 2 are at all likely to be true. They might be. It's not actually impossible that the logo was designed by an actual fascist or offensive smartarse. But what with there being no reason to prefer those explanations to possibility 3 – pure coincidence – it strikes me as a phenomenally uncharitable approach to assume that the resemblance to a swastika was intended. Isn't it a moral duty not automatically to assume the worst of other people? Aren't people entitled to at least some benefit of the doubt?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Firstly, subjective opinions have no place when they can be shown to be demonstrably wrong.

Agreed the origin of the word niggardly has demonstrably nothing to do with the word nigger. But it gets tricky when you are talking about the resemblance between two symbols.

Eliab I think there's another argument to justify getting annoyed that mousethief went through upthread - that someone didn't think about it. It might be an accident, but a negligent one. I think it's reasonable to get annoyed about negligence.

You might not agree that it is negligence of course, but that's a different set of goalposts.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Secondly, subjective opinions have no business forcing other people with different subjective opinions to act against their own conscience.

I'm having a hard time seeing how calling for changing a football club's logo is forcing someone to act against their conscience. Is accepting this particular design a tenet of anybody's religion?

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Look at me! Anselmina says I'm particuarly dense. Can you give me the exact number in, say, kilograms per litre?

Let's try this again. If someone were to claim to have seen a St Bridget's cross painted red and black, on a white background, surrounded by fascist slogans and not thought, however briefly, 'oh look! an image with more than a glancing similarity to a Swastika!', then I would say they are particularly dense.

Did you claim this for yourself? No. Did I say you claimed it for yourself? No. So don't go out of your way to include yourself in a category that so far as anyone knows, including me, you don't belong to.

Posted by Dinghy Sailor (# 8507) on :

My cycling club has a black white and red strip. Is that a Nazi resemblance? What should we do if someone said it was, and that it offended them?

Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Eliab I think there's another argument to justify getting annoyed that mousethief went through upthread - that someone didn't think about it. It might be an accident, but a negligent one. I think it's reasonable to get annoyed about negligence.

If I negligently give you reason to think I'm a racist/fascist/Nazi, then I would agree that I'm at least partly responsible for any offence you feel as a result*.

But in this particular case, there really are no reasonable grounds for thinking that Manchester United is staffed by actual Nazis. It's completely implausible. You would have to abandon any pretension to fairness and justice to suspect MUFC of fascism based on that logo. It's saying "If I look at this logo in the most uncharitable way that I can, it looks a tiny bit like a swastika and therefore MUFC is responsible for associating itself with some of the most evil people in history. And even if they didn't mean it, it's still their fault for not being able to predict that I might choose to place so utterly a malicious interpretation on their actions".

Sorry, but no. That's not negligence. No-one can guard against every sort of deliberate offence-finding, and here, the possibility that the logo is actual fascist symbol is so laughably remote that to take offence about it is a deliberate choice. Volenti non fit injuria**.

(*Directly calling a black person a niggard, a word which carries a very strong risk of reminding them of a particularly hateful term of racial abuse, might well be an example of such negligence.)

(**No injury (in the sense of unjust harm) is done to a volunteer)

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Secondly, subjective opinions have no business forcing other people with different subjective opinions to act against their own conscience.
I'm having a hard time seeing how calling for changing a football club's logo is forcing someone to act against their conscience. Is accepting this particular design a tenet of anybody's religion?

Perhaps 'conscience' isn't entirely the right word. And I'm not suggesting the idea applies particularly strongly here.

I mean, we're in the realm of advertising and PR, and so therefore being liked by other people is a fairly strong motivator. The customer is always right, even when the customer is being a bit stupid.

Although it gets tricky if placating one group of customers is potentially going to piss off another group of customers. Which happened to a degree in the case of the 'racist' Australian KFC ad that was pulled to placate Americans. It would be interesting to know what harm that did to the brand in both places - in the USA because KFC was seen to have done something racist, and in Australia because KFC capitulated in the face of completely misconceived American outrage over something that was none of their business in the first place.

[ 01. November 2013, 20:35: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
(*Directly calling a black person a niggard, a word which carries a very strong risk of reminding them of a particularly hateful term of racial abuse, might well be an example of such negligence.)

I don't think the negligence has to be that you negligently make me think you are a racist. I could be quite sure you are not a racist in this context, but nevertheless feel annoyed that you don't care about my sensitivities enough to think about how a word might sound.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think the negligence has to be that you negligently make me think you are a racist. I could be quite sure you are not a racist in this context, but nevertheless feel annoyed that you don't care about my sensitivities enough to think about how a word might sound.

This is a very good point. Although as the level of cultural literacy (for want of a better term) falls into the basement in our culture, fewer people will know they are potentially treading on thin ice.

Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :

I believe some Pagans use the white, red, black colour scheme, too - to represent Maiden, Mother and Crone when they are talking about the Triple Goddess.

Posted by AmyBo (# 15040) on :

I have to weigh in here as a designer who has worked in advertising:

The fact that this got past a creative team without someone saying, "hold on a minute," means they have either a bunch of culturally insensitive fools there or they're all very design-illiterate.

It's bad craft to accidentally refer to anyone else's logo (there was a huge stink when Quark did it a few years ago); grabbing a cultural icon without noticing it is downright incompetent.

They should have anticipated the fallout from this. So everyone in that chain who had any power is incompetent, a jerk, or both.

Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think the negligence has to be that you negligently make me think you are a racist. I could be quite sure you are not a racist in this context, but nevertheless feel annoyed that you don't care about my sensitivities enough to think about how a word might sound.

I think I agree - but what you are essentially asking people to do there is show respect, and that works both ways. You* can't reasonably complain that someone is not respecting your sensitivities if you are not prepared to respect them enough to make at least a minimal assumption of good faith. The obligation not to cause unnecessary offence is balanced by the obligation not to make assumptions of bad faith in order to find offence.

People have said on this thread that it's hard not to imagine that the reference to a swastika was intentional. In fact it is extremely easy not to imagine that. It is, and ought to be, just ordinary decency to assume that some one you have no reason to think is a Nazi is not intentionally using a Nazi symbol even if you can just about manage to make one out with some sort of malicious mental squint. People who do that are not showing any respect, and, frankly, deserve very little respect in return.

(*Generic "you" - I would never suspect "you-mdijon" of anything other than scrupulous fairness)

Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on :

quote:
Originally posted by AmyBo:
The fact that this got past a creative team without someone saying, "hold on a minute," means they have either a bunch of culturally insensitive fools there or they're all very design-illiterate.

I'm glad you weighed in here. I completely agree that there are people who see the swastika and people who don't. I saw it, but I followed the link and already knew what it was about so was possibly suggestible. I tested it on Mrs Whale without showing her the "New Order" words. I asked her what the logo looked like and she said "a swastika". I am also a fan of the band New Order and have been to see them in concert (a long time ago) but for the last 30 years I have also been aware of, and uncomfortable about, the connection of the term with Nazi Germany. New Order is based on the remnant of the band Joy Division, itself a Nazi term. So the idea that the name has nothing to do with Nazism is, quite frankly, insupportable. Whether the band has fascist leanings or not is a different matter. Their lyrics don't seem to be political, and you could argue that it is just a catchy, edgy name. That is what I believe in any case.

I also think this is true of this MUFC thing. Much as I may be a Liverpool fan, I cannot believe that the guys at the top of Man Utd are fascists. But if half the people in SoF (give or take a few percent) think the logo reminds them of a swastika then it is pretty inconceivable that it could have got past some design team without at least one of them saying "hang on a minute". My conclusion is that they thought "this will grab attention" rather than "this will convince people to vote for the local nazi party". So basically crass, but not evil as such.

Or maybe there wasn't a design team involved, just a teenager on his/her iPhone?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

I'm sure there are culturally literate people working in advertising and design, but I'm also pretty confident that there are plenty of young folk who weren't even born when New Order formed.

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :

I'm with Jonah the Whale on this one. If this many people see it as having disturbing connotations, then even if it was wholly unintentional to start with, it should have been caught in production.

BTW, "New Order" has distinctly Nazi use as a term, for some reason the ship isn't allowing me to make a link to it, but look up "New Order (Nazism)" on wikipedia.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Interestingly, there is another football Nazi-ish issue about which has not received this amount of publicity.

An incident in Sarf Lun'non

Millwall seems to be of the opinion that a person needs to be a special sort of thick to think that Brighton and Hove's favoured chant, devised to counter Crystal Palace's Eagle cry, sounds like an echo of the 3rd Reich, but when I first came across it at Lewes during Bonfire, I didn't realise it referred to marine avian species, and made that error. My cousin, from Hove, has also heard the echoes in the chant.

Not being at Manchester, the echoes have not attracted a huge amount of notice.

Searching for Brighton and Hove, and the two expressions will bring up several references.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
You can't reasonably complain that someone is not respecting your sensitivities if you are not prepared to respect them enough to make at least a minimal assumption of good faith.

I hope I'm not going to fail your test of good faith, but personally I'd prefer to deal with the issue without having to guess intent. If the resemblance is close enough that enough reasonable people see it, then I think they should be asked to change it regardless of their intent. Similarly, if reasonable people don't see it then I don't really care what their intent was - it didn't work.

Of course in some egregious examples intent will be obvious - but unless it is perfectly obvious I doubt it achieves much to try and guess.

Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think the negligence has to be that you negligently make me think you are a racist. I could be quite sure you are not a racist in this context, but nevertheless feel annoyed that you don't care about my sensitivities enough to think about how a word might sound.
This is a very good point. Although as the level of cultural literacy (for want of a better term) falls into the basement in our culture, fewer people will know they are potentially treading on thin ice.

I was looking for a link that referred to the Umbro/Zyklon business, and found this collection of brand howlers including Umbro, Nike and Converse.

I think a private individual can excuse a crass reference with "I didn't know" but a company intending to sell millions of a product should make it its business *to* know.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I hope I'm not going to fail your test of good faith, but personally I'd prefer to deal with the issue without having to guess intent. If the resemblance is close enough that enough reasonable people see it, then I think they should be asked to change it regardless of their intent.

This has a very strong resemblance to this, a resemblance which I think any reasonable person could spot (hell, many of the people in the first group are even wearing red and black). As you say that intent is irrelevant, should the former group stop doing it immediately?

And if they shouldn't, on the grounds that they obviously aren't intending any resemblance to the Nazis, then why does that not apply to the logo in the OP?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Arms in the air is rather ubiquitous at all manner of gatherings, straight arms with fingers together and palms down are a bit less common.

And seen in context with arms being flung into that position with a sweeping motion from the chest would be very much less common.

I don't think enough reasonable people would recognize the resemblance between the two pictures as being close enough, and seeing the actions in context would clearly differentiate them.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Marvin the Martian: This has a very strong resemblance to this, a resemblance which I think any reasonable person could spot

It has happened a couple of times that I was in a church in Brazil where people raised their hands in a way that reminded me rather strongly of the Hitler salute. I think we should take into account that WWII isn't part of their cultural heritage the way it is in Europe, but still it made me feel slightly uncomfortable.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Interestingly, there is another football Nazi-ish issue about which has not received this amount of publicity.

An incident in Sarf Lun'non

Millwall seems to be of the opinion that a person needs to be a special sort of thick to think that Brighton and Hove's favoured chant, devised to counter Crystal Palace's Eagle cry, sounds like an echo of the 3rd Reich, but when I first came across it at Lewes during Bonfire, I didn't realise it referred to marine avian species, and made that error. My cousin, from Hove, has also heard the echoes in the chant.

Not being at Manchester, the echoes have not attracted a huge amount of notice.

Searching for Brighton and Hove, and the two expressions will bring up several references.

I'm not a football fan, or a Millwall fan, but all that link seems to show is that a reporter went with some pre-conceived ideas, wrote an article which fitted them, got busted, and made a humiliating climbdown.

I think the reason this "event" didn't get the same level of outcry is that there was nothing to see.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Arms in the air is rather ubiquitous at all manner of gatherings, straight arms with fingers together and palms down are a bit less common.

And seen in context with arms being flung into that position with a sweeping motion from the chest would be very much less common.

That's getting awfully specific, don't you think? A vague resemblance was enough for you to condemn the logo in the OP, so why isn't the same standard being applied now?

quote:
I don't think enough reasonable people would recognize the resemblance between the two pictures as being close enough, and seeing the actions in context would clearly differentiate them.

Just as in the context of a Manchester United Football Club magazine a logo made of the letters "MUFC" in the club's colours is clearly differentiated from a swastika?

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
.... as in the context of a Manchester United Football Club magazine a logo made of the letters "MUFC" in the club's colours is clearly differentiated from a swastika?

Although the Nazi colours and those of Manchester United are identical.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

mdijon doesn't need my help, but I think how many people see a similarity is relevant. Apparently many people see the swastika. Most people don't think of the heil hitler salute when they raise their hands in worship. If they did, I'm rather sure most right thinking people would indeed stop. It would certainly distract from my worship, if I were trying to think of God and began to think of Nazis. I actually know some people who did stop making a similar gesture--everyone raising their hands in the air, palm out, angled to the podium, and often raised slightly because they were all looking toward said high podium--because it made people uncomfortable. We were just making a pledge, but because of the dynamics of the room, the way people raised their hands or whatever, it was remarkably like said salute once one thought about it. As a rather young child I certainly didn't get it, but I remember it being changed, and asking why.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
I don't think enough reasonable people would recognize the resemblance between the two pictures as being close enough, and seeing the actions in context would clearly differentiate them.
Just as in the context of a Manchester United Football Club magazine a logo made of the letters "MUFC" in the club's colours is clearly differentiated from a swastika?

Once again you are projecting your feelings about what's clearly differentiated on reality.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That's getting awfully specific, don't you think? A vague resemblance was enough for you to condemn the logo in the OP, so why isn't the same standard being applied now?

First you're wrong that I condemned it and second in so far as I feel negative about it you're wrong that a vague resemblance was enough. Personally I don't see all that strong a resemblance, but many others seem to and I'd extend them the benefit of the doubt. Personally I think I'm applying a similar standard.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
mdijon doesn't need my help, but I think how many people see a similarity is relevant. Apparently many people see the swastika. Most people don't think of the heil hitler salute when they raise their hands in worship.

I'd happily wager that nobody thinks of the Nazi salute when they raise their hands in worship. The question is about what an independent observer from outside the context would see.

I'm arguing against the double standard here. When I bring up raised hands in worship, then it not being exactly the same as the Nazi salute and being of obviously different intent when viewed in context means everyone's happy to say it's fine. But with the logo that started all this off, a vague resemblance to a swastika seen by people from so far outside the context that they haven't even heard of the club in question is sufficient to condemn it. There's no attempt to be fair, no attempt to allow for context or interpretation, and no charity in the latter - take all those things out of the former and it looks pretty damning as well, IMO.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
I don't think enough reasonable people would recognize the resemblance between the two pictures as being close enough, and seeing the actions in context would clearly differentiate them.
Just as in the context of a Manchester United Football Club magazine a logo made of the letters "MUFC" in the club's colours is clearly differentiated from a swastika?
Once again you are projecting your feelings about what's clearly differentiated on reality.

What is "reality" here? The logo in question is an arrangement of the letters "MUFC" into an offset square formation, then rotated through 45 degrees. It was used in a newsletter sent to supporters of the club in question. In context it is clearly not a swastika, despite a vague similarity in design structure.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
First you're wrong that I condemned it

You said "I think they should be asked to change it regardless of their intent". Close enough to a condemnation for me.

quote:
and second in so far as I feel negative about it you're wrong that a vague resemblance was enough. Personally I don't see all that strong a resemblance, but many others seem to and I'd extend them the benefit of the doubt. Personally I think I'm applying a similar standard.

Would you extend the same benefit of the doubt to a sufficient number of people saying they thought raised arms in worship were a lot like the Nazi salute, or would you still deny the link based on specifics of appearance and intent?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
I don't think enough reasonable people would recognize the resemblance between the two pictures as being close enough, and seeing the actions in context would clearly differentiate them.
Just as in the context of a Manchester United Football Club magazine a logo made of the letters "MUFC" in the club's colours is clearly differentiated from a swastika?
Once again you are projecting your feelings about what's clearly differentiated on reality.
What is "reality" here?

That's just it. Offensiveness it not objective. There is no "reality" if by that you mean "this is objectively offensive, and that is not." This is what I have been saying all along.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
That's just it. Offensiveness it not objective. There is no "reality" if by that you mean "this is objectively offensive, and that is not." This is what I have been saying all along.

I don't think that's correct. Words and symbols have agreed objective (or at least intersubjective) meanings. Otherwise communication would not be possible at all. If the meaning of a symbol such as a red light or the characters SPOON were purely in the eye of the beholder, it would be impossible to have meaningful traffic regulations or a meaningful discussion about spoons.

Now obviously language is constantly evolving and speakers are constantly playing with it (and I would insert something about "language games" here if I knew what it meant), but to deny that it has any objective meaning at all seems false.

IOW: the letters MUFC, even in that weird formation, have a definite and objective meaning, and that meaning is not Nazism.

[ 05. November 2013, 19:04: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
That's just it. Offensiveness it not objective. There is no "reality" if by that you mean "this is objectively offensive, and that is not." This is what I have been saying all along.

OK, then how would you react to someone who said that raised hands during worship were far too reminiscent of the Nazi salute and should not be allowed due to the offense they cause?

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
That's just it. Offensiveness it not objective. There is no "reality" if by that you mean "this is objectively offensive, and that is not." This is what I have been saying all along.
I don't think that's correct. Words and symbols have agreed objective (or at least intersubjective) meanings.

Offensiveness is not meaning. It is not denotation but connotation. It's how it makes people feel, which operates on a different axis from what it stands for. You are committing a category error.

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
That's just it. Offensiveness it not objective. There is no "reality" if by that you mean "this is objectively offensive, and that is not." This is what I have been saying all along.
OK, then how would you react to someone who said that raised hands during worship were far too reminiscent of the Nazi salute and should not be allowed due to the offense they cause?

I'd find out how many people felt that way. Is this a one-off, or a general perception among people of a certain demographic?

[ 05. November 2013, 20:44: Message edited by: mousethief ]

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Interestingly, there is another football Nazi-ish issue about which has not received this amount of publicity.

An incident in Sarf Lun'non

Millwall seems to be of the opinion that a person needs to be a special sort of thick to think that Brighton and Hove's favoured chant, devised to counter Crystal Palace's Eagle cry, sounds like an echo of the 3rd Reich, but when I first came across it at Lewes during Bonfire, I didn't realise it referred to marine avian species, and made that error. My cousin, from Hove, has also heard the echoes in the chant.

Not being at Manchester, the echoes have not attracted a huge amount of notice.

Searching for Brighton and Hove, and the two expressions will bring up several references.
I'm not a football fan, or a Millwall fan, but all that link seems to show is that a reporter went with some pre-conceived ideas, wrote an article which fitted them, got busted, and made a humiliating climbdown.

I think the reason this "event" didn't get the same level of outcry is that there was nothing to see.

I picked this particular account from a number available on searching the internet, including a reference to police interest, dropped on investigation.
I looked before posting because I had heard the chant myself, and initially thought it to be German. Until I heard it at Lewes, I had not been aware that Albion used it, so the effect of its rhythmic chanting was disturbing. My cousin, as I stated, had also heard the resemblance. I was interested when I found confirmation that others heard it too.
Having heard it, I would say that the chanted "Seagulls" sounds a heck of a lot more like "Seig Heil" than the MUFC logo looks like a swastika. It is likely that the resemblance arose accidentally (in imitation of Crystal Palace's Eagles chant), and the fans probably did not notice until others pointed it out. They are not in the position of professional designers who should spot problems.
I obviously chose the wrong link if it can be so easily rejected without reference to the personal account I included as well.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
First you're wrong that I condemned it

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
You said "I think they should be asked to change it regardless of their intent". Close enough to a condemnation for me.

There was an "if" at the start of the sentence you [mis]quote. It should be obvious from the context that I was suggesting a general principle rather than making a specific statement of condemnation. (And condemnation seems a very strong word to use for that sort of wording even if it was a specific statement).

I don't know if enough reasonable people see the similarity here. Personally I don't, but a fair number of people on this thread do seem to and I think that leaves the question open. As orfeo described earlier there's a way of testing this in law.

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Would you extend the same benefit of the doubt to a sufficient number of people saying they thought raised arms in worship were a lot like the Nazi salute, or would you still deny the link based on specifics of appearance and intent?

There are two different issues. One is my personal opinion, the other is what ought to happen in practice. I'm perfectly entitled to keep a personal opinion that the people worshipping intended nothing in connection with Nazi salutes and that it really doesn't look much like a Nazi salute... but also to acknowledge that lots of reasonable people* seem to disagree with me and therefore the gesture should be discouraged.

Or vice versa, I may think it looks pretty bad to me and worry slightly about the intent, but on finding that most reasonable people disagree with me accept that it is my problem and I'd better get over it. (Or use the more nuanced language for getting over it suggested by orfeo).

* This excludes people with a priori positions trying to make a point on an internet forum.

Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
You can't reasonably complain that someone is not respecting your sensitivities if you are not prepared to respect them enough to make at least a minimal assumption of good faith.
I hope I'm not going to fail your test of good faith, but personally I'd prefer to deal with the issue without having to guess intent. If the resemblance is close enough that enough reasonable people see it, then I think they should be asked to change it regardless of their intent. Similarly, if reasonable people don't see it then I don't really care what their intent was - it didn't work.

Of course in some egregious examples intent will be obvious - but unless it is perfectly obvious I doubt it achieves much to try and guess.

Then we are addressing very different questions here (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I'm not a football fan. The chance of me ever reading any publicity material from MUFC approaches zero. There are few things I care about less than what logo that club uses, and whether it changes it in response to objections.

I do care about the (IMO) quite shockingly judgmental attitude displayed on this thread. I find it appalling how easily some people are willing to make serious and adverse moral judgements against someone they do not know, asserting that the reference to the Nazis was intentional, and therefore deliberately offensive, when there is a clear alternative explanation that it seems to me that any person of good will would prefer.

I am especially appalled by such an attitude coming from professed Christians. It seems to me that our scriptures could not be clearer that we ought not to think in that way. I've no real argument with someone who is reminded of a swastika by the logo (although personally I think the resemblance is very weak) or even someone saying that they wish it to be changed*. My objection is directed solely at people unfairly ascribing bad motives to others.

(*With two provisos: (1) the person should have a genuine interest in the change, that is, they should be an actual recipient of MUFC publicity material. Why object to unintentional resemblances in material which you are never going to see unless you go looking for offence? (2) the objection should be phrased 'I have a problem with this even though I know that no offense was intended'. Josephine's objection to the 'Strange Fruit' thread title set out above is an example - she set out why the phrase was problematic for her without any suggestion at all that the person who used it either knew or ought to have known that there could be any issue at all).

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I do care about the (IMO) quite shockingly judgmental attitude displayed on this thread. I find it appalling how easily some people are willing to make serious and adverse moral judgements against someone they do not know, asserting that the reference to the Nazis was intentional, and therefore deliberately offensive, when there is a clear alternative explanation that it seems to me that any person of good will would prefer.

It may not be helpful to go into specific posters, but it seems to me that there is a danger of lumping a lot of different attitudes together. One might wonder as a discussion point whether there seem to be suspicious features that indicate intent, one may make definite accusations, or one may case aspersions on character - these aren't necessarily the same thing.

Also it seems a little OTT to demand profoundly Christian standards on our discourse here. If we throw out gossip, slander, argumentativeness, bawdy humour and other licentious discussion there won't be a lot left.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

ITTWACWS!

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
There are two different issues. One is my personal opinion, the other is what ought to happen in practice. I'm perfectly entitled to keep a personal opinion that the people worshipping intended nothing in connection with Nazi salutes and that it really doesn't look much like a Nazi salute... but also to acknowledge that lots of reasonable people* seem to disagree with me and therefore the gesture should be discouraged.

But why would the gesture have to be discouraged even if lots of people think it has a resemblance to a Nazi salute? That's the part I don't get here.

quote:
Or vice versa, I may think it looks pretty bad to me and worry slightly about the intent, but on finding that most reasonable people disagree with me accept that it is my problem and I'd better get over it.

I think this should be the default position for everyone who sees unintended resemblances like this, except without the bit about how many people disagree. I don't think it matters how many people see the alleged resemblance - they should still accept that it's their problem and get over it.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
they should still accept that it's their problem and get over it.

This is not how it works, this is not how it has ever worked.
ManU are a service company, part of a group of service companies who are projecting image as part of their attempt to facilitate the transfer of funds from their customer's pockets to their own. Shut up and buy our stuff only works if your Apple.
The rest do need to listen to feedback.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But why would the gesture have to be discouraged even if lots of people think it has a resemblance to a Nazi salute? That's the part I don't get here.

I think most people in society don't want to look at stuff that is reminiscent of Nazi symbols. People just don't like it.

The problem with a non-democratic basis for decision making (i.e. "you should all just get over it") is who would decide what everyone should just get over, and what actually is a thinly-disguised Nazi salute.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ManU are a service company, part of a group of service companies who are projecting image as part of their attempt to facilitate the transfer of funds from their customer's pockets to their own. Shut up and buy our stuff only works if your Apple.

I think you underestimate the popularity of MUFC in the football world. They've got a committed fan base with a level of brand loyalty that Apple can only dream of.

If it had been, say, AFC Bournemouth (another red & black club) who had published a logo like this then they might be worried about loss of sales. But of course, if they'd done it it would never have got into the national press in the first place.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think most people in society don't want to look at stuff that is reminiscent of Nazi symbols. People just don't like it.

People - even lots of people - don't like a lot of things. Doesn't mean those things should be stopped.

quote:
The problem with a non-democratic basis for decision making (i.e. "you should all just get over it") is who would decide what everyone should just get over, and what actually is a thinly-disguised Nazi salute.

Why do we have to decide that at all? Why not just ignore it either way?

Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Also it seems a little OTT to demand profoundly Christian standards on our discourse here. If we throw out gossip, slander, argumentativeness, bawdy humour and other licentious discussion there won't be a lot left.

When the discussion is about offence-taking, and during the discussion there is a strong (though not perfect) correlation between being offended by MUFC, and making adverse and unwarranted moral judgements about intention, I think it is a legitimate point to make that adverse and unwarranted moral judgements are morally wrong, and, for those who care about such things, contrary to Christian ethics.

That's different from objection to an unChristian debating style - it is directly relevant to the topic being discussed. The important point is that offence that has been deliberately constructed from unfair judgementalism is not 'reasonable'. And there has been a lot of that on this thread.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
This sounds like you're saying that 3 independent explanations of each element's presence is insufficient. That they need a collective explanation.

No. I'm saying that there is a strong case to answer. Merely giving an alternate hypothesis (especially when one of the factors is (a) not directly related to Manchester United, (b) does involve fascist overtones in the name (especially as they started out as Joy Division) and (c) is hardly new, having been going since 1980) is not even close to sufficient.

I don't know that the Nazi overtones were intended. But the New Order part seems incredibly thin as a defence. And the whole thing was deliberately a coherent whole rather than three people in an unassociated pattern.

Also:

quote:
Originally posted by AmyBo:
I have to weigh in here as a designer who has worked in advertising:

The fact that this got past a creative team without someone saying, "hold on a minute," means they have either a bunch of culturally insensitive fools there or they're all very design-illiterate.

This.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
People - even lots of people - don't like a lot of things. Doesn't mean those things should be stopped.

In Mars you may be supreme dictator and do as you please. In the UK you live in a democracy and what lots of people don't like you are going to have to end up taking notice of.

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why do we have to decide that at all? Why not just ignore it either way?

The "we" that is you and I certainly don't have to decide at all. But if a groundswell of public opinion is against something the power that be - even Man U - are going to find it difficult to simply ignore it.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
That's different from objection to an unChristian debating style - it is directly relevant to the topic being discussed. The important point is that offence that has been deliberately constructed from unfair judgementalism is not 'reasonable'. And there has been a lot of that on this thread.

Speaking for myself I was trying to demonstrate how one can look at resemblance to something can cause offense irrespective of the intent. There can be a visceral reaction to certain symbols. I suspect that a lot of judgement about intent is a rationalization of that. If a symbol makes me angry I have a subconscious drive to find an acceptable reason for my anger - and since it is unreasonable to be angry with someone for a simple mistake, I may find myself thoroughly convinced of their malign intent.

Having said this, the post Justinian quotes does give me pause for thought. I wonder what other people who know about advertising and the like are saying?

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
In the UK you live in a democracy and what lots of people don't like you are going to have to end up taking notice of.

Only if you're talking about introducing a law banning the use of any image that looks vaguely reminiscent of a swastika. When it comes to something that is not against the law, it shouldn't matter if one person objects or a million people object. It's still legal, therefore it shouldn't be stopped.

Also, I note that the "a lot of people don't like it therefore it should be discouraged" line doesn't get much respect when the thing being discussed is, say, immigration. Funny that.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why do we have to decide that at all? Why not just ignore it either way?
The "we" that is you and I certainly don't have to decide at all. But if a groundswell of public opinion is against something the power that be - even Man U - are going to find it difficult to simply ignore it.

The "we" is anybody. What's so fucking hard about saying "I don't like this, but that's my problem and I'll just have to learn to ignore it as best I can"? And if that's a reasonable thing for one person to say when offended, what makes it any less reasonable when there are a million people offended?

Where did all these fucking offense addicts constantly clamouring to ban anything they don't like the look of come from? Whatever happened to live and let live, or the noble sentiment of "I hate what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it"?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ManU are a service company, part of a group of service companies who are projecting image as part of their attempt to facilitate the transfer of funds from their customer's pockets to their own. Shut up and buy our stuff only works if your Apple.
I think you underestimate the popularity of MUFC in the football world. They've got a committed fan base with a level of brand loyalty that Apple can only dream of.

Alright. They did something, people complained, they changed it. Apparently they did not have to, but they did. So what is your issue? What is with the "political correctness gone mad" bit?

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :

Companies do not, in general, want to be annoying their potential customers. Therefore if enough potential customers look at their logo and see something distasteful, it's to their benefit to change it. The intent behind the logo really doesn't matter. There's a point at which you have to say "if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's a duck." Even if it was supposed to be a goose.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0