I'm late to mention this piece by William Saletan, published in Slate August 23 ("Is a mosque near Ground Zero 'insensitive'?"), which gets to the bottom of this manufactured emotional wedge issue like nothing else I've read. After briskly demolishing the initial rumors about the Park51 development, Saletan quotes the fallback position of opponents who have questioned the sensitivity of the project: Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol... all people renowned for their respect of others' sensitivities.
Feelings about 9/11 are raw and real. Many people, including families who lost loved ones that day, find the prospect of a mosque near Ground Zero upsetting. I've heard this reaction in my family, too. But feelings aren't reasons. You can't tell somebody not to build a house of worship somewhere just because the idea upsets you. You have to figure out why you're upset. What's the basis of your discomfort? Why should others respect it? For that matter, why should you?
This kind of reflection is missing from the sensitivity chorus....
Saletan admits that, with "the exception of Palin, these are not stupid people. They're searching our sensitivity for an underlying rationale that justifies the exclusion of mosques from the vicinity of Ground Zero. And they aren't finding one.":
We aren't talking about killing Muslims or banning their religion. We're just asking them not to build a mosque near the place where they murdered thousands of our people. [...]
But if our revulsion at the idea of a mosque near Ground Zero is irrational--if it's based on group blame and a failure to distinguish Islam from terrorism--then maybe it isn't the mosque's planners who need to rise above their emotions. Maybe it's the rest of us.
Once we recognize the sensitivity argument for what it is--an appeal to feelings we can't morally justify--there's no good reason why the Islamic center shouldn't be built at its planned site, in the neighborhood where its imam already preaches and its members work and congregate. Asking them to reorder their lives to accommodate our instinctive reaction is wrong. We can transcend that reaction, and we should.
By all means, let's have a thoughtful conversation about Islam and its place in the United States. Let's ask the imam what he means when he says sharia is compatible with the U.S. Constitution. Let's confront the reluctance of Muslim clerics, including this one, to denounce Hamas. And let's demand transparency in the fundraising process so extremists don't finance the new building. Moving the building farther away from Ground Zero won't advance any of these discussions. It's the wrong fight. Let it go.
See also: "The parable of the tie, continued...
Map above from FactCheck.org. (Note St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, standing guard between Ground Zero and Park51.)
ADDENDUM (9/6/2010): Nicholas Kristof has an excellent column, "America's History of Fear" that places anti-Islamic fear in historical perspective. An excerpt:
Screeds against Catholics from the 19th century sounded just like the invective today against the Not-at-Ground-Zero Mosque. The starting point isn't hatred but fear: an alarm among patriots that newcomers don't share their values, don't believe in democracy, and may harm innocent Americans.
Followers of these movements against Irish, Germans, Italians, Chinese and other immigrants were mostly decent, well-meaning people trying to protect their country. But they were manipulated by demagogues playing upon their fears -- the 19th- and 20th-century equivalents of Glenn Beck.
Most Americans stayed on the sidelines during these spasms of bigotry, and only a small number of hoodlums killed or tormented Catholics, Mormons or others. But the assaults were possible because so many middle-of-the-road Americans were ambivalent.
Suspicion of outsiders, of people who behave or worship differently, may be an ingrained element of the human condition, a survival instinct from our cave-man days. But we should also recognize that historically this distrust has led us to burn witches, intern Japanese-Americans, and turn away Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.
Perhaps the closest parallel to today's hysteria about Islam is the 19th-century fear spread by the Know Nothing movement about "the Catholic menace." One book warned that Catholicism was "the primary source" of all of America's misfortunes, and there were whispering campaigns that presidents including Martin Van Buren and William McKinley were secretly working with the pope. Does that sound familiar?
Critics warned that the pope was plotting to snatch the Mississippi Valley and secretly conspiring to overthrow American democracy. "Rome looks with wistful eye to domination of this broad land, a magnificent seat for a sovereign pontiff," one writer cautioned.
Historically, unreal suspicions were sometimes rooted in genuine and significant differences. Many new Catholic immigrants lacked experience in democracy. Mormons were engaged in polygamy. And today some extremist Muslims do plot to blow up planes, and Islam has real problems to work out about the rights of women. The pattern has been for demagogues to take real abuses and exaggerate them, portraying, for example, the most venal wing of the Catholic Church as representative of all Catholicism -- just as fundamentalist Wahabis today are caricatured as more representative of Islam than the incomparably more numerous moderate Muslims of Indonesia (who have elected a woman as president before Americans have).
In the 19th century, fears were stoked by books written by people who supposedly had "escaped" Catholicism. These books luridly recounted orgies between priests and nuns, girls kidnapped and held in secret dungeons, and networks of tunnels at convents to allow priests to rape nuns. One woman claiming to have been a priest's sex slave wrote a "memoir" asserting that Catholics killed boys and ground them into sausage for sale.
These kinds of stories inflamed a mob of patriots in 1834 to attack an Ursuline convent outside Boston and burn it down....
32 Comments
Well, Jim, feelings have carried us for millennia. Just know that.
Feelings are also what cause animals caught in traps to chew their own legs off.
Which somehow negates a millennia of human survival?
It sickens me when people who otherwise wave around the constitution when it suits them (i.e. the second amendment) quickly abandon it when it's not so convenient.
These are the same folks who cry the loudest about patriotism yet they happily trample on one of the fundamental intellectual ideas that make me proud to live here.
Opposition to the building of the mosque may be irrational or motivated by ignorance but the sensitivities are there and real and raw nonetheless.
Though I believe the building should go ahead (as far as it's any of my business as a British bystander) maybe there is a case for respecting irrational sensitivities until the wound can be salved. I think it's fair to understand those feelings and not turn the argument into a two-way diatribe. This is not the way to educate or reconcile.
There is no middle-ground and no compromise. It is either there or not. In either case, rightly or wrongly, some people will feel wounded.
I hope it will be built and we will see opposition eventually fade away, I am sure, without incident. In the end it will be a great thing for New York.
The "sensitivity" issue is ridiculous, and no sensible defense/apology can be made for it, simply because the sort of "sensitivity" in question is merely a red herring and euphemism for bigotry and should be publicly decried as such. If anyone is offended by the presence of Muslims near Ground Zero, then that is the individual's problem, and therefore his/her own responsibility, not Muslims' or any other people.
Let me offer an analogy: Let's say that there's a middle-aged, married white couple. They have racist attitudes. The woman was even raped many years ago by a black man but keeps this fact very private out of shame. They have a young adult child who has fallen in love with, and plans to marry, a black person. Obviously, the relationship causes a lot of friction with the parents. Eventually, the mother reveals her private trauma to her child in a final attempt to prevent the wedding, pleading for respect for her sensitivities. Should the child discontinue the relationship for the sake of the mother?
What alarms me is not that some individuals are equating the crimes of a terrorist organization with a religion but that many people might be listening to them and agreeing with them (even if silently). That means something is really wrong (not only in the US but through the entire world). But what also saddens me is that there are so few political voices in the US who are countering this fundamentalist insensitive viewpoint. I see a lot of folks like you and Roger Ebert commenting on this and writing blog articles but where is the political voice against this rabble rousing? Because sometimes not protesting can be taken either as a form of cowardice or a form of silent agreement both of which might have huge long term ramifications.
I think the sensitivity argument may backfire in the following way (and this resonates with Saletan's article). While it is claimed that it is insensitive of the Imam of the proposed community center near Ground Zero, because of all the people that died that day at the hands of Muslims. It is further even more insensitive to suggest that all Muslims are culpable for the comparatively tiny conspiracy of a few hundred Muslims that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. So, Palin et al are the insensitive bordering on racist ones.
Miles Blanton
I also think Jon Stewart's clips on the issue have been some of the most thought-provoking as well, including this one.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-19-2010/extremist-makeover---homeland-edition
"if it's based on group blame and a failure to distinguish Islam from terrorism--then maybe it isn't the mosque's planners who need to rise above their emotions. Maybe it's the rest of us."
++++++
True, but it was Daisy Khan and others involved in the proposed mosque who specifically linked it to 9/11 and stated that the proximity of it to Ground Zero was one of the reasons for its importance to them, thus linking it to, at the very minimum, their personal endeavour, and in as much as they sought to present Islam in this context, it was their actions that presented that in the first place.
Still, Lolita, an Islamic community center containing a prayer room (properly called a "mosque"), built a couple blocks from Ground Zero (while other existing mosques are still in the neighborhood), may well have been intended as a subtle "healing" gesture, among its other reasons for existing. Contrast that with the distorted and inflammatory images as the language used by its johnny-come-lately opponents: "Ground Zero mosque," "terror mosque"... Public hearings were held, the people in the neighborhood (of many faiths) supported it, and the plans were approved and reported on the front page of the New York Times in December, 2009. Daisy Khan went on O'Reilly with guest host Laura Ingraham, who commended her for the interfaith work she and her husband were doing. Then, months later, somebody else at Fox decided to manufacture an "issue" -- and the misinformation campaign began...
The only thing wrong with this way of thinking (and believe me, I have nothing against this mosque myself, I live in Canada), it's that it takes for granted that people in general react with critical thinking, when they obviously don't.
It was easy to expect that given the highly sensitive nature of the issue at hand (religion, terrorism, and 9/11), the politicians would have to face a wave of opposition whether they chose one side or the other. To be honest, I'm surprised Obama didn't go with the sensitivity, because clearly critical thinking doesn't bring you very far in America in this day and age...
I think the point of the article is just what you're saying -- that people are not inclined to think, but to go with unquestioned knee-jerk emotional reactions. That's why I headlined this "A plea for..." -- and that's why Saletan is addressing his remarks to "us" and not "them." We like to tell others how we want them to behave, but Saletan is using critical thinking to show why it's we who need to rise above our emotions. Not that the emotions aren't real, or raw, or understandable -- but that they are, in this particular instance, misplaced. I felt the same way immediately after 9/11: We weren't going to change the minds of those who did this, and those who supported them; but it was a wake-up call we could learn and grow from. All we could do was to take responsibility for how we responded to this atrocity. History will judge (has already judged) that, by reacting with hysterical jingoism, self-righteous ignorance, and a falsely justified, miserably planned and executed invasion and occupation of Iraq, we failed the moral and political test disgracefully, compounding the original tragedy.
I suspect that anyone who is genuinely offended by the idea of a Muslim religious building in this location is too ignorant about Islam to be worth listening to.
The stress and grief of 9/11 won't go away, and some people will feel them exacerbated by the thought (just the thought, mind you; in reality, I'm pretty sure once the center is built, no one will really notice it) of an Islamic center so close to the site. (Logically, these same people should object to the long-established mosque in the Pentagon, but that's another story.) However, those same people conflate al-Qaeda with Imam Rauf, which is sort of like conflating Michael Moore with Josef Stalin. (Which many of these same people do, but that is yet another story.) Views like that are, quite simply, uninformed and incorrect, and no intelligent person need pay them any mind.
It is true this idea of using emotion to persuade people. It is definitely exclusive to the RIGHT. In fact, many of the LEFT's issues are founded on this idea. Take for example the outcry about the Arizona law by much of America (including politicians) who had not even read the law in question. again, we are all hypocrites unless we can see this in most of the issues of today (oil spill, Katrina, illegal immigration) I like what your discussion has brought up and I hope it allows more people to think as individuals. My only qualm is just be consistent Jim! Thank you sir.
That's an excellent analogy, Fei, and I agree completely. The sensitive feelings are real; they are raw and they are present. But so what? The fact remains that legally (and morally) there is no reason the Park51 project should not be allowed to proceed. It's as simple as that, regardless of people's prejudices and "uncomfy-ness" (as some call it).
What might be useful is mentioning one of the key aphorisms of critical thinking: No opinion automatically deserves respect, least of all deference. Respect must be earned based on the rational merits of the opinion.
I devoted a post to that very subject last year, called "No right to an opinion."
Jim -
A plea for sensible discussion has to accompany a more balanced presentation of the issue than a Slate column and some Daily show clips.
It would be the equivalent of discussing the same issue from an opposing view and linking an article from the National Review with a youtube clip from the Hannity show. It's absurd and knowingly deceptive.
This is your blog and you have the right to speak your mind as you see fit, but much like Roger Ebert's approach, you continuously cherrypick examples that isolate and support your point of view, even when opposing arguments openly diminsh some of them.
Frankly, despite the significant christian and pro-life elements in the Republican party, I strongly believe that the left champions the sensitivity censorship game in contemporary political discourse. Any educator, media figure, publication that attempts to criticize a minority leadership in the United States is immediately villified and asked to step down from public office, vocation, or mode of communication. Examples being Senator Trent Lott (alleged bigotry), Former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers (alleged sexism), NY Post (religious intolerance, racism, etc.)
However, if you stand on the left and operate in a similar capacity (ahem...Harry Reid, Journolist, The Boston Globe), the mainstream media turns a blind eye to your controversy, since their ideology is in line with the collective secular humanism of our press. The con is on.
So, if you're going to demonize Fox News for manufacturing fearmongering, which is reasonable in this instance, do the same for MSNBC. Or, NBC and CBS, for that matter. But you NEVER do. That's my main objection here. Show me an article that presents both sides of the issue, concedes failings of the left, and maybe this plea of yours would have some merit.
Conversely, if someone wished to build a Bob Jones U community center near the site of an abortion clinic where a doctor was gunned down, the right could mount the same exact dips#%t argument. Not all pro-lifers wish to take the law into their own hands, many wish to adhere to the teachings of Christ in their protest. This center aims to heal the divide, etc. etc. Yes, there is the right to do so but the temerity of such a proposal. And yet, were that the matter being settled today, there would be no Jim Emerson blog for Bob Jones, there would be no outrage at the leftist shills who would rigorously politicize that issue. You and Roger would be too preoccupied with your wag the dog techniques to comment. How about a plea for fairness when we need it now most?
The mistake is to concern yourself with "sides" rather than facts. There are more than a dozen links to source documents and other reports from that Slate piece alone. I included more direct links in the New York Times piece and have included a pretty comprehensive, even-handed fact sheet presented by FactCheck. The terms "fairness" and "balance," I'm afraid, have been corrupted to mean the presentation of opposing arguments. (This by people who were adamantly opposed to the FCC Fairness Doctrine that mandated such "balance" in televised opinions.) But I am not calling for fairness or balance. The headline says "critical thinking." That means whatever opinion you come to it must be based on solid information or it is just hot air. These pieces are trying to get past the various distorted arguments people have made to the facts themselves. The main problem with discourse today is its false equation of fairness with balance. Everyone is entitled to their position. But the facts exist for everyone, independently of their opinions. In fact, it was those on the left who originally raised the "insensitivity" argument about the Park51 project, and at that time (in comments under the Daily Show post) I said why I didn't think it was a valid position. Go back and read that FactCheck piece, and supporting links. If it makes you feel better, explore their site: FactCheck holds the left equally responsible for its distortions.
P.S. I don't know what your hypothetical Bob Jones example has to do with the Park51 case, unless someone had been claiming that it was being built adjacent to the abortion clinic and funded by pro-life terrorists out to disrupt the functioning of the clinic. Then it should be relatively easy to investigate: Where is the planned building site? What kind of facility is it? Who is paying for it? Did the project go through the usual open-hearing development process and did the neighborhood approve it? What were the reasons given? Until you know those things, any opinion you have is worthless.
Two things:
1) If you are someone who believes the government should be less involved in one's personal life, you can't also be someone who believes the government should step in and stop a someone from building anything on privately-owned land. Unless you are crazy. Or a bigot.
2) As Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and other 'liberal elites/professionals' have pointed out, the claims that people are only upset by this single 'mosque' being built and don't mind Muslims in the U.S. is undercut severely by the protests that have happened every single time a group of them has tried to build a mosque in any town in the country, big or small, and without any correlation emotional or otherwise to ground zero.
As for using emotion to argue points and how very wrong it can get: Obama as Hitler signs. Once again, if you are someone who believes Obama is a National Socialist (not possible, really, since the ideology is very specific to Western European culture, despite permutations when it made its way stateside), you can't also be someone who believes he is a Communist, or a "liberal" or a Secret Muslim in addition to that. It's incompatible views.
...I think I sense a pattern with incompatibility on one side of this argument...
And yes, I know that was technically three things.
The people who argue that the opposition to the Abandoned Burlington Coat Factory Islamic Cultural Center, and who argue that they are not anti-Islam, but merely asking for them to be "sensitive" miss out on the point: the idea that building the Abandoned Burlington Coat Factory Islamic Cultural Center is somehow "insensitive" is in itself an expression of anti-Islamic sentiment because it implies that all of Islam is somehow culpable, or should hold itself culpable, for the acts of the murderous fools who attacked us on 9/11.
It is amusing to watch people who would protest loudly if Methodists were asked to act as if they were responsible for the acts of Catholics - say, in the child abuse scandals - argue that the Sufi Imam of the Abandoned Burlington Coat Factory Islamic Cultural Center should somehow act as if he was responsible for the acts of Sunni al Qaeda. Ignorance of Islam runs rampant in this country. You'd think we'd at least try to understand who our enemies actually are.
William Saletan’s piece raises some interesting points, but he’s also wilfully ignorant. Saletan claims there’s no rationale behind these anti-Park51 feelings, but he provides a clear example of one: that 9/11 was a terrorist act committed in the name of Islam (thus connected to Islam) and thus “ground zero” (the immediacy of the location is another issue) is an inappropriate place to build a “monument to Islam”. Saletan dismisses it as irrational and goes on to say the Park51 opponents are responding with blind emotionalism. That simply isn’t true; the rationale is there, but Saletan seems to invalidate it on the grounds that he personally finds it irrational. If the anti-Park51 reasoning is insufficient or flawed, than expose what’s so irrational about it (Saletan touches upon it, but barely). Instead, Saletan claims the anti-Park51 argument irrational and uses this as an excuse to avoid engaging or discussing it. Rather, he creates the Straw Man argument that Park51 opponents are speaking from feelings that cannot be morally justified, a Straw Man because he completely disregards the arguments and line of reasoning that have been espoused against Park51 and have – whether successfully or not – attempted to provide justification.
Saletan’s piece aside, I’m personally against Park51. It’s inappropriate, just as holding a NRA meeting in Denver in the wake of Columbine was inappropriate (although Michael Moore’s own obfuscations of my country, Canada, may make me double-check the facts on that last one – I reference with no knowledge beyond “Bowling for Columbine”). I find it pretty amusing how the two situations could parallel one another so well: both of the perpetrating parties have the right to do as they please, but that doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do. To promote causes or beliefs that, while maybe not responsible for, are certainly tied into the respective tragedies and the controversies surround them is disrespectful and a clear insult to the victims and their families. The recent Beck day is similar – Beck has every right to give a speech to an all-white audience on the same day and in the same place that MLK have his historic speech. And nobody is suggesting the white people in the crowd were – or are – responsible for the racism blacks endured. However, given the past history of racism in North America and the current controversy surrounding the Tea Party, it strikes me as a deliberately insensitive to blacks.
All the partisan babble on these issues amuses me. The left – in my above examples – have espoused the exact same position as the right is here. Furthermore, I find it amusing for the left to suddenly be so ambivalent about sensitivity, although that might be because I’m from Canada, where the left-wing Human Rights Commissions have censored people on the basis of insensitivity, which as far as I know is an entirely Canadian-phenomenon. Nonetheless, the rate at which the right and left jump between arguments based entirely on the topics involved is ridiculous.
Please re-read Saletan's entire piece, paying particular attention to the moral hazards of "group blame." Also, I added an excerpt from Nicholas Kristof's Op-Ed of September 4 to the original post that gives historical examples of irrational fears. Also, remember that Park51 was approved, reported and applauded -- even on Fox News -- since last December. Then, recently, some of the on-air commentators started making up rumors about it, none of which proved to be true. One may as well complain about a Christian church being build within a few blocks of the Oklahoma City bombing. The feelings are real, the reasons are not.
I re-read Saletan's piece and I still stand by my original assertion. There's a difference between examining an argument and simply dismissing it as "group blame". The Park51 opponents aren't claiming all Muslims are responsible for 9/11, they are claiming that there is a significant connection between Islam and 9/11, or terrorism as a whole. It would be another thing entirely if Saletan explained why this is flawed or illogical or why it constitutes "group blame", but he doesn't. He says that Park51 opponents are speaking from feelings that cannot be morally justified, but he never seriously discusses or examines their attempts at moral justification.
The Fox News stuff I have no knowledge of and I'll take your word for it. I don't get that channel. I'm only really commenting on Saletan's specific piece here, as well as my personal opinion, not defending Fox News or anything of the sort.
Here's the way I look at it: Anyone who blames all of Islam for what happened on September 11, 2001, should get rid of their dogs. After all, David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz believed that his dog Sam was telling him to kill people, right? So, all dogs must be guilty of inciting the murder of human beings. It makes just as much sense.
Jim, dogs are animals, but violent Islamism is an identifiable ideology that draws from some aspects of the religion of Islam, in particular, the injunction to carry out holy war. It was in the name of that ideology that the 9/11 attacks took place.
This makes this issue problematic, because of the well that the extremists drink from is the same well that moderates also drink from, whilst obviously differing in the interpretation of the water that they drink. But confronting that ideology does not mean you ascribe collective guilt to Muslims. In fact, it is the opposite, because you criticise a specific ideology, not a congregation or collective.
My point is that it's the individual's interpretation and actions that matter -- whether the source is his talking dog or a passage from holy scripture. There are just such hateful passages in the books of the bible. We don't hold all Christians and Jews responsible for the acts of people who claim the bible told them to commit atrocities in the name of god. It's irrational group-blame whenever you fail to hold extremists responsible for their actions and beliefs by failing to distinguish them from non-extremists. (Read that Kristof piece on American anti-Catholic hysteria in the 19th Century, for example.) And in this case the connection between the Park51 project and Ground Zero, in a neighborhood where there are any number of mosques, churches and synagogues, doesn't seem particularly relevant.
BTW, I heard a fascinating interview on NPR yesterday about how those who commit suicidal attacks are, probably, suicidal from living in societies (like Saudi Arabia) that are so repressive -- especially when it comes to contact between the sexes. Their extreme, distorted view of Islam gives them -- mostly young men -- a way out. Suicide is forbidden, of course, but martyrdom offers them a key to paradise. (Let's remember that Christianity rewards martyrdom, too.)
I can't believe that I'm seeing more irrational thinking from people who are trying to justify it thoughtfully, but I suppose that it was inevitable.
So what if the 9/11 attacks were done "in the name of Islam"? The problem isn't with Islam. It's with the actual perpetrators and their victims. To deny some non-violent Muslims the right to build a community center just because some Islamic terrorists caused a negative association to be made about Islam is a perfect example of group blame and unwarranted guilt-by-association. It's the embodiment of bigotry.
There's nothing that's inherently "good" about Christianity; in other words, professing some sort of sincere belief in it doesn't automatically make one a "good" or "better" person. In the United States, there are plenty of active Christian terrorists, believers who commit hate crimes and hate speech against abortionists and homosexuals, all in the name of defending Christian values. (White supremacists often also work Christianity into their antisemitic rhetoric.) Many Christians (including Sarah Palin, according to her own words) are reluctant to call these people "terrorists," and unfortunately "terrorism" has been most closely associated with Muslims, of all groups, in the last decade. But these Christians are still terrorists in every sense.
So should Christian places of congregation and worship be forbidden anywhere out of "sensitivity" to the victims of Christian terrorists? Of course not, nobody would support that. In America, Christianity is simply considered to be "good," while Islam is simply considered to be "not so good." Muslims aren't treated with the same respect as Christians, when religious belief is placed at the forefront of the conversation. It's all part of the discrimination that goes with being a member of a minority.
I'm an atheist (who would rather see all religions disappear), and this has even my blood boiling.
The difference between Islam and Christianity (plus the other assorted religions) is that Islam - at this point in time - has almost a monopoly on terrorism. Yes, there are extremists within every movement - last year George Tiller was murdered by a Christian extremist, in just about the single act of Christian terrorism in the past couple years. Two weeks ago we had an eco-terrorist at the Discovery Channel HQ. Both were freak occurrences. Yet in Islam, extremism is being shown to be far from fringe. Here in Canada, 15% of Muslims answered in a poll that they consider themselves extremists. Around 10% answered that they were sympathetic of the Toronto 18, who among other things wanted to set off explosives in public and behead the Prime Minister. These numbers don't constitute a majority, but they do constitute a significant enough minority, enough to no longer be considered a small fringe. It's disingenuous to compare Islam to any other religion in regards to extremism - there aren't many Christians plotting to blow up buildings, there aren't any Buddhists issuing death threats. Even practicing Muslims, like those from the Muslim Canadian Congress, are acknowledging that Islam has its own problem with extremism that needs to be dealt with.
There's always going to be radicals in any movement and you can't paint an entire movement by the actions of a few. However, what we're seeing in Islam is that there is an increasing radicalized movement. Obviously extremists are responsible for their actions, but the question is why is there such a large extremist faction within Islam? If the problem isn't with Islam, then why is this almost exclusive to Islam? And that's why I think building Park51 next to a site that does have this connection to Islam, whatever it may be, is disrespectful.
I realize that Christianity had its day too, with the crusades and witch-burnings. Hell, it still has the atrocious abuse-scandal, which is another beast entirely. The majority of Muslims are law-abiding and peaceful, but at the same time I feel it's wrong to deny there is a problem with modern-day Islam, whatever that may be. It's not anti-Muslim or bigotry - there are actually many Muslims who agree and who are trying to fight this extremism and reclaim their religion.
And by the way, I'm also an atheist who wouldn't mind seeing all religion disappear.
There has been a concern growing in me for some time, and as I read these comments I feel that this may be the correct moment to voice it:
In a handful of these posts we see the terms LEFT and RIGHT being used, as well as their various political "synonyms": conservative, liberal, republican, democrat and so forth. In most of these cases it appears that the political spectrum is being brought into play in order to point out that both sides are guilty of the crimes discussed.
We can see it in the comment by Mr. Russell: "is true this idea of using emotion to persuade people. It is definitely exclusive to the RIGHT. In fact, many of the LEFT's issues are founded on this idea."
as well as Tony B's: "Frankly, despite the significant christian and pro-life elements in the Republican party, I strongly believe that the left champions the sensitivity censorship game in contemporary political discourse."
in DylanG's comments: "The left – in my above examples – have espoused the exact same position as the right is here."
as well as many others throughout the thread (I mean no offense to those I have quoted, but I cannot make an argument without citing evidence).
My concern is this: These distinctions have no relevance to this discussion. DylanG's comment, as quoted above, is as good an example as any of why. He states it himself: with regards to the discussion of the mosque, both sides have elements arguing both points.
So why do we keep using these terms? Why do we insist on drawing the same battle lines over and over, even when they produce nonsensical divisions of opinion, and side supposed "enemies" with each other, and ostensible "friends" against?
Perhaps, as issues like this Mosque show us, it is time to abandon a political spectrum that dates to the middle - and even early - 20th century. Is it not possible that we are trying to cram square arguments into round categories? Is it not time to abandon an antiquated system of political distinctions?
I know this seems tangential to the discussion at hand, but it does have significant baring on many of the arguments posted. I think it's time we all stepped back and realized something: there is no left or right anymore. There are people who agree with you, and those who do not. And nobody but YOU will be in the same category every time.
Don't concern yourself with what the left or right thinks:
What do YOU think?
Why do YOU think that?
What do OTHERS think?
Why do THEY think that?
These are the only relevant questions left to us.
Jim,
I've probably already recommended you check out the lesswrong community blog before: lesswrong.com . Check out the rationality sequences here: wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences . It appears the less wrong wiki server is overloaded, so maybe try again later. The sequences are pretty important.
The overcoming bias and less wrong blogs stem from Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute. This is some potent stuff. I really think you'll appreciate the articles/sequences.
Thomas
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