Indeed. And in fact, the general public wouldn’t stand for it, either. But if it’s not about preventing a thousand traffic deaths, but about preventing a hundred deaths from terrorism, measures like that keep being proposed.
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Substitute “subjective view of reality” for some of the cases when they say “reality”.
It’s very hard to distinguish the two in some subject areas, so in the past 100 years it has become increasingly fashionable in some circles to stop trying.
So while this kind of postmodern anti-rationalism truly irks me, in this case we can just correct the word usage while reading:
- “reality” in isolation means “reality”
- “their reality” or “reality for sb.” means “the way they experience things”.
But then, they recognize it as a sufficiently powerful instrument of power so that they don’t like other people controlling it, either.
“Freedom of the press” and “press responsibility” are two diametrically opposed concepts. If you go all-out on one of the two, you inevitably lose the other. There are many different trade-offs possible along that axis, though.
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Actually, it has been a victory. His goal was draining out, economically, and socially, like he believes happened with the Soviets in Afghanistan. We did precisely what he said he wanted us to do. He wanted us to react with violence because he knew it would prove an excellent recruitment tool. And it has. He was for the violence.
Now his other end goal was getting bases out of the holy land (ie Saudi Arabia, which currently has control over Mecca and Medina). I’m fairly certain he felt that if the US got out, then the house of Saud would fall and a (in his eyes) more appropriate set of people would take over care of the cities.
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No, but there are certainly groups of people who will do so - just like here, just like in the mid east, just like everywhere. Europe might not be a “hick town” (and I never said it was), but it is full of human beings not any more or less evolved than the rest of us. Human beings are not perfect and can be persuaded to do nasty things in the imaginary pursuit of things like safety and a better advantage over an “enemy”. I’m saying that this is going to give the right wing a major leg up. Just like 9/11 did here in the US.
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I know you’re being snarky, but you’re right, some of them wouldn’t be.
We don’t know, because it’s a counterfactual.
Yes they can be. Just because a person does something horrible, doesn’t mean they can’t be motivated by complicated factors, from straight up bigotry to political realities. No one is saying their actions are legitimate, rather that there are factors why they did this that are not just “religion” but are also geo-political. The two are not mutually exclusive.
No, but it’s an ideology.
I’m not excusing anyone. I’m saying it’s not just religion. Why do you think anything I’m saying is excusing what they did?
It doesn’t have to be. The vast majority of Muslims who don’t interpret their faith that way it isn’t. The actions of a few doesn’t invalidate the lives of everyone else.
Because there are other factors to consider other than religion.
No, nationalism was a mode of inculcating people into the war machines, much like IS uses religion as a recruitment tool, as much as they do the various wars in the middle east going on. And people are desperate to buy in. But the fact that nationalism doesn’t ALWAYS lead to attempted genocide. But of course, you could argue that nationalism has been far more dangerous in the modern era than religion. Religion is seeing a resurgence in social power, in part because of real and perceive failures of modern ideologies like nationalism.
[ETA]
And of course, the rise of capitalism has been associated with various kinds of slave labor, which continues today. Our cheap goods and underwritten by violence to other bodies around the world, in places we can’t see them, can’t think about them… But you know, “they hate us for our freedoms” or “Because they are brainwashed”.
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This is true but, as in the US so here, there are hick towns where lynch mobs might form.
In the UK the county of Essex consistently polls as being more intolerant than the rest of the country, and it is the home of the Poujadiste party UKIP. There are similar pockets in all European countries, even Sweden (which has far-right biker gangs).
Growing up in North London as I did, I knew that parts of Essex and South London were not safe if you were black, brown, looked Jewish or had a “posh” accent. There are still pockets of white working class bigots with a penchant for violence and they may see this as an opportunity.
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Remember too, not that long ago everyone wanted to be French. It was the height of culture and coolness. Like they had Germans all speaking French.
General Lafayette was the French hero of the American Revolution. France supported the colonies revolt against Britain. This was beginning of an alliance that has lasted since then. Benjamin Franklin was the ambassador for nearly a decade.
France gave us a little present over a hundred years ago. You might of heard of it. Probably the most famous statue next to Michelangelo’s David. The Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope and freedom ever since.
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From My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult’s “Nervous Xians” (lyrics later re-purposed for the song on The Crow sound track “After the Flesh”), which includes sound bite from I think Amityville 3-D:
“Reality is the only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.”
(quote first few secs of the song)
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One of those two countries put money and life on the line to help the U.S. during the Revolutionary War. One of those two countries used our founding documents as a basis for their own revolution. One of those two countries is the source of the legal code for one of our states (Louisiana).
Personally, I have more friends/family in and near Lebanon (it’s a much smaller country) than in France. More heritage, too. But France is actually a special case for the U.S., even more in some ways than the U.K. That doesn’t mean people in other parts of the world aren’t equal and deserving of respect. It’s more like France is our first cousin and Lebanon is a 3rd cousin a couple of times removed.
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We Brits don’t like to see our best frenemy get attacked for no reason either.
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That may be true, but the “Western imperialism” they are angry about started with the battle of Tours in 732 and the ensuing expulsion of Islamic rule from France and Iberia.
Are you prepared to apologize for that, and open up that result for revision?
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No, they are mad about current/modern western imperialism.
Interactions between the “West” and the Islamic world was relatively on parity until historically recently.
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Bogart: “We’ll always have Paris”
Or, perhaps, I think Afghantistan had something to do with 9/11, which most people agree on. You were arguing that Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11. As the host body in which Al-Qaeda was actually resident (unlike Iraq), it did.
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Apparently, I fail at reaching your level of snarkiness. I sincerely meant that absent the things that others have labeled as “root causes” (that might also be “triggers” rather than “causes”, but that’s another debate), the people involved here wouldn’t have become mass murderers. But their religious ideology would not be a positive contribution to the world in that case, either.
That’s why I put a big “maybe” at the beginning of the sentence that you quoted, which you for some reason left out in your quote. No fair. Note: This is the only intentional bit of snark in this post.
(Literally answering the “why do you think” question):
First, I don’t remember you being so understanding of GamerGaters. I used your attitudes towards the “enemy” on that issue for comparison.
Second, you dismissed as a stereotype to be discouraged something that I consider a fact, namely the characterization of jihadists as “out to slaughter people because they don’t conform to his view of the world”. That is not wrong. Of course, I’m all for figuring out exactly why they did go crazy, and how it can be cured.
Third, I might have transferred some of my negative reaction to @anon15383236’s “legitimate grievances” post (which I might have overreacted to as well, because here in Austria a very similar phrase is currently code for “the xenophobes are right to be afraid of the Syrian refugees”).
So that’s why I came close to accusing you of “excusing” what they did. I didn’t actually accuse you of excusing anything, and of course I’m gladly taking your word that you aren’t.
I can agree to that. Which is why I said above that “those people wouldn’t be mass murderers”.
I am, however saying that religion (not Islam in particular, the past shows that other religions have the same potential) is part of the problem.
In the above sentence, I’ve used the term “religion” rather than “religious extremism” or even just “extremism”, because moderate religion provides a substrate on which religious extremism can grow, and it often already contains many of the same thought patterns applied to harmless situations.
Nationalism was what made the war machine tick at the top level in the case of the Nazis. And of course it doesn’t always lead to genocide. Neither does racism always lead to slavery. But if you’re going to paint your face in your national colours and attend a soccer match, you should be aware that nationalism can go horribly wrong. And even if it doesn’t go horribly wrong, it can quickly enter the “not very nice” territory. So if you’re going to indulge in it for its good properties, be aware of the dangers and avoid them. And I think the same is true for religion.
Are you sure? The only way in which religion is resurging in Europe is that there is a steady stream of immigrants from more religious countries.
And if “they” had never conquered Constantinople, there might be less anti-Muslim prejudice in Europe now.
Actually, I was thinking more short-term. Just like Christianity has come a long way since Pope Urban II, even a literal reading of the Quran is only about as bad as American evangelism. Better in some ways, worse in others.
And while I think that taking a book as the literal word of God is pure madness and highly dangerous, it takes just the right circumstances to blow up to crusading/jihadist levels. Outside interventions in the region have provided that trigger by 1. propping up some kleptocratic regimes, 2. destabilizing others, and 3. providing an easy target for the anger. And even if we could argue a lot about 1. and 2., number 3 is impossible to deny.
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Well, as bad as Christian Evangelism is in America (and I fully acknowledge it causes huge issues in the US and internationally), small town crazy Christians aren’t stoning adulterer to death, etc. Small town crazy Muslims do still do things like that. I’d say, on a whole, the crazy wing of Islam is still a bit worse than the crazy wing of Christianity, if only because the former are not embedded in a very Western idea of a “law and order” context where such things just aren’t done anymore.
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I think you’re rather misquoting unless you think my personal dislike of later philosophy schools and philosophers is equivalent to thinking “ontology completed its mission” (whatever you think that means). I’m pretty sure that a lot of work in ontology was done in the 20th century. It is just that none of it came from a philosophy department. Mostly, it was over in physics.
Ironic that you use that turn of phrase, since it comes from the early-to-mid 20th century and not from philosophers.
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Focussing on the specific to try to make a general point.
I can play that game.
How many people died in Iraq as a result of the war started by born again Christian GWBIII?
[edit - it is clearly necessary, from the reply by @Mister44, to clarify that this is irony.]
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My bad if I misread your OP as snarky. The pitfalls of online debate, I guess! 
I think we can understand where the GG are coming from, but I’m also not assuming that it’s “all men” who send women rape and death threats. I’m not suggesting we don’t condemn IS for this, but I don’t want this to spiral into concentration camps for people fleeing a war zone - which is a likely outcome. More so than the mass blaming of all white men in America for the actions of a few.
We can say that about a particular group of people, namely IS and other such groups. It also glosses over that the term “Jihad” has a very different definition that gets ignored and applied only to IS, etc. It’s like when we say “hacker” to refer to people who break into banks and use computers to commit crimes. The term has come to mean “religiously oriented terrorist” when that’s not all it means.
I think stop invading their countries and propping up despotic regimes is likely a good start.
I didn’t find anything wrong with her post on that. People can have legitimate grievances and still do bad things. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I’d argue it’s interpretation of religion that’s the problem. I think that the overriding sentiment lately is that Islam has a “sonderweg” (as we said about Germany, wrongly, I’d argue). That they are somehow specially lacking in the means of avoid turning their faith into a weapon, when clearly that’s not the case. Although it’s not as prevelant, there are modern examples of “Christian warriors”. There has been attempts to Christianize the American military. People like Eric Rudolph worked from a Christian perspective. And part of the reason that we have less Christian (or probably Jewish) terrorist, is that the fundamentalists in those places have more comfortable lives, on the whole and have states which they view as doing their work for them. I’m sure if we looked hard enough, we can find plenty of evidence of Christians believing that arming Israel and going to war in the middle east are religiously oriented things. It’s not beneficial to the western media to highlight that, though.
So, yes, I can be persuaded that religion is part of the problem.
Agreed, but it’s also historically been a means of bringing people together to liberate themselves. I think, while it’s good to think and discuss the pitfalls and dangers of ANY ideology, we have to acknowledge that an ideology is ultimately a tool.
Is Eastern Europe not Europe?
Take it with a grain of salt, but attributing trends in places like France, the UK, and Germany with the rest of Europe might be missing a large part of the picture.
[ETA] and, again, grain of salt, but this:
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Or abortion doctors shot? Or children punished by religious preachers? Or what about the spike in laws aimed at curbing women’s right to bodily autonomy? Or violence against LBGQT people?
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