The Fallacy of Relevance
Or in simple English, so fucking what? A quote from PJ O'Rourke, whose most recent book 'Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism' I'm sending to a good friend at the moment. Hope he hasn't read it yet, if so he can send it to another friend or return it to the 'library'.
There's a lot of stuff, like the lines above I borrowed, in this comments thread over at Samizdata, the British Libertarian website. It's talking about what we have learned over this recent cartoon controversy, also known as the Jyllands-Posten incident. The idea of the 'Moderate Muslim' is under debate... a nice and full overview is available at the Prague Post. Some selected quotes at Chicago Boyz are also nice.
One comment highlighted the contradictory responses, stating "It is strange how people who rail against state collectivism, are themselves so willing to condemn people collectively, as if the people concerned don't have individual wills, when talking about Muslims."
The idea of individualism requires people to think and act like individuals, but when they are only capable of ignorant mob violence, they must be treated like an ignorant mob. In fact, it would be impolite to impose my oppressive hegemonistic Western values on them! I had a talk with a friend about this, but it was, as you might imagine, a subject we might agree to not discuss further in respect for our friendship.
However, the more I learn, the less I like- when theology splits the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb (the world of Islam and the world of war) it kind of makes ones ethical conduct suspect. Theologically, what infidelic Danes do should be no business of a Muslim imam- they all are decadent Satans, right? Nah, don't work like that.
Anyhow, the things I do to occupy my time. The issues I hope to be dealing in at some point in the future.
There's a lot of stuff, like the lines above I borrowed, in this comments thread over at Samizdata, the British Libertarian website. It's talking about what we have learned over this recent cartoon controversy, also known as the Jyllands-Posten incident. The idea of the 'Moderate Muslim' is under debate... a nice and full overview is available at the Prague Post. Some selected quotes at Chicago Boyz are also nice.
One comment highlighted the contradictory responses, stating "It is strange how people who rail against state collectivism, are themselves so willing to condemn people collectively, as if the people concerned don't have individual wills, when talking about Muslims."
The idea of individualism requires people to think and act like individuals, but when they are only capable of ignorant mob violence, they must be treated like an ignorant mob. In fact, it would be impolite to impose my oppressive hegemonistic Western values on them! I had a talk with a friend about this, but it was, as you might imagine, a subject we might agree to not discuss further in respect for our friendship.
However, the more I learn, the less I like- when theology splits the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb (the world of Islam and the world of war) it kind of makes ones ethical conduct suspect. Theologically, what infidelic Danes do should be no business of a Muslim imam- they all are decadent Satans, right? Nah, don't work like that.
Anyhow, the things I do to occupy my time. The issues I hope to be dealing in at some point in the future.
posted by sunguh5307 at
10:38 PM
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