The Political & Philosophy Thread

[Einherjar86]

As I've already said, religions don't have cores or fundamentals (obviously this is coming from an irreligious person; I'm speaking from a position of "historical objectivity," or some bullshit like that). They're subject to the same historical and cultural conditions as all institutions. Comparing the teachings and behaviors of Jesus to those of Muhammad means nothing if you don't account for the conditions in which they appear. Christ told his disciples to obey when possible because if they didn't Christianity would never get off the ground. It was a religious movement premised on victimhood, and they had nowhere to go because the Roman Empire was everywhere.

Muhammad fled persecution and gathered enough supporters to engage in statecraft. None of this means that Islam is fundamentally a war machine or regime of any sort, nor does it mean that the majority of modern Muslims sympathize or identify with militant Islam (although more might start to if we don't stop treating them all suspiciously).

And furthermore, speaking of early Islamic statecraft, it actually provided some decently progressive rights to Muslims (relatively speaking, of course, but more than contemporary Christians could claim).

 

[CiG]

Have you ever read the opinion polls of Islamic societies globally?

Something like 80% of British muslims think homosexuality should be illegal. It's around the same percentage for muslims that sympathise with the cartoonist slayings.

Not sure how you can argue that the terrorism is so far removed from the majority of muslims globally that's it's religiosity is irrelevant, if not basically non-existent.

 

[Einherjar86]

Have you ever read the opinion polls of Islamic societies globally?

Something like 80% of British muslims think homosexuality should be illegal. It's around the same percentage for muslims that sympathise with the cartoonist slayings.

Not sure how you can argue that the terrorism is so far removed from the majority of muslims globally that's it's religiosity is irrelevant, if not basically non-existent.

First of all, 80% of British Muslims do not think that homosexuality should be illegal. The percentage is lower than that.

Second, if you poll Christians you get about the same response.

Third, thinking homosexuality should be illegal doesn't mean that the Muslims who think that would also kill someone for being gay. Big difference there.

 

[CiG]

If you say so. The point of bringing up British muslim opinion is that it's bound to be more moderate in comparison to muslims in Islamic societies.

Edit: you're right, my mistake. It's just over 50%.

 

[Dak]

Muhammad fled persecution and gathered enough supporters to engage in statecraft. None of this means that Islam is fundamentally a war machine or regime of any sort,

I don't think it is fundamentally a war machine, but I do think it is fundamentally incompatible with western culture, and particularly fundamentally incompatible with progressivism. Ironically, I'd be (slightly)more accepting of Sharia Law than you would be, so it's absurd that I need to warn you about this incompatibility.

although more might start to if we don't stop treating them all suspiciously).

One thing we can agree on.

And further more, speaking of early Islamic statecraft, it actually provided some decently progressive rights to Muslims (relatively speaking, of course, but more than contemporary Christians could claim).

Yeah I've read/heard this, but I doubt it.

Edit: What I mean is that the true writ and application is questionable, as is what the nature of what they already were engaging in, as in how progressive what was written and engaged in compared with current and prior eras/areas/cultures.

 

[Einherjar86]

If you say so. The point of bringing up British muslim opinion is that it's bound to be more moderate in comparison to muslims in Islamic societies.

Well, Turkey has permitted legal same-sex activity since the nineteenth century, well before Britain legalized it. I don't think they can marry; but then, gay marriage wasn't recognized in America until last year (and might go away very soon).

I don't think it is fundamentally a war machine, but I do think it is fundamentally incompatible with western culture, and particularly fundamentally incompatible with progressivism. Ironically, I'd be (slightly)more accepting of Sharia Law than you would be, so it's absurd that I need to warn you about this incompatibility.

Many Muslim countries adopt hybrid law codes that combine elements of Sharia with modern legal codes. I wouldn't necessarily have any problem with this.

Yeah I've read/heard this, but I doubt it.

Okay then.

 

[Dak]

Many Muslim countries adopt hybrid law codes that combine elements of Sharia with modern legal codes. I wouldn't necessarily have any problem with this.

Well that's interesting. Of course, demographically, it's only a matter of time before we or posterity all bow to Mecca so you probably have a healthy orientation.

 

[CiG]

Well, Turkey has permitted legal same-sex activity since the nineteenth century, well before Britain legalized it. I don't think they can marry; but then, gay marriage wasn't recognized in America until last year (and might go away very soon).

Michigan has anti-sodomy laws on the books, do these laws count for anything? As I see it, what is legal is often unrelated to what happens culturally. Turkey (as well as Indonesia) are exceptions to this case, though I still wouldn't like to live there if I were gay.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well that's interesting. Of course, demographically, it's only a matter of time before we or posterity all bow to Mecca so you probably have a healthy orientation.

Haha, well, I "bow" to my current legal system, which is a hybrid of Judeo-Christian values (significantly watered down, of course) and secular legal codes. We're not escaping religion anytime soon, and I have no objection to living within a system that rationally combines theological and secular elements.

Some of the most significant scientific and philosophical developments of the past two thousand years happened in countries where, during particular historical periods, religious belief was much more expansive. Islam is responsible in many ways for giving the Christian West Aristotle and the scientific method. There's no reason why productive reasoning can't happen under a partially religious social system.

Michigan has anti-sodomy laws on the books, do these laws count for anything? As I see it, what is legal is often unrelated to what happens culturally. Turkey (as well as Indonesia) are exceptions to this case, though I still wouldn't like to live there if I were gay.

Sure. And you're right that legality doesn't perfectly determine individual cultural behavior. I'm simply commenting on a country that happens to be an Islamic country. I know that there are Islamic countries that treat gays horribly, but I think this has less to do with the religion itself and more to do with the socioeconomic and geopolitical conditions of these countries. But then again, I'm a sappy humanities scholar.

 

[CiG]

Sure. And you're right that legality doesn't dictate individual cultural behavior. I'm simply commenting on a country that happens to be an Islamic country. I know that there are Islamic countries that treat gays horribly, but I think this has less to do with the religion itself and more to do with the socioeconomic and geopolitical conditions of these countries. But then again, I'm a sappy humanities scholar.

In fact, Islamic countries that treat homosexuals horribly are in the majority, this is not an irrelevant observation.

I'm not one of those individuals that cite what's in the Qur'an or Hadith as a reason for why most Islamic societies or muslim majority countries are terrible places to live for practically everybody, because as we all know there is pretty terrible stuff in most holy books (though the Islamic holy books are especially horrid), what is more important I think is how the practitioners live out their faith. This is why pointing out the horrible content of the testaments is an exercise in futility.

The 615-page survey found that more than 100,000 British Muslims sympathize with suicide bombers and people who commit other terrorist acts. Moreover, only one in three British Muslims (34%) would contact the police if they believed that somebody close to them had become involved with jihadists.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7861/british-muslims-survey

This is the reason to me, why Islamic terrorism is an issue that needs to be addressed as a religious issue, because there is a lot of sympathy for what terrorists are doing among supposedly moderate muslims. If you never commit a terrorist act in your life, if you have no sympathy for terrorist acts, but you hide your son and his friend from the government because they were caught plotting an attack, you've just made the argument for heavy surveillance of muslim communities and putting a momentary halt on immigration of muslims or people from certain at risk areas of the globe.

 

[Dak]

I'm more or less indifferent to Islam or any other religion from a rational, arms-length view, as is my case with basically any major religion. I've said recently that A. I'm all about increasing/multiplying boundaries and B. I think like people are better off with like people. Certain religions/worldviews appeal to different people, and we are better off being with people with which we share a world view. I think "diversity", like many things, has it's area of benefit, as well as a point of diminishing returns and/or non-applicability.

I think a space for Muslims to be Muslim with Muslims in a specially Muslim place would be optimal for Muslims. You could also substitute Muslim for a variety of identifiers and have an equally accurate statement. I think that this sort of low-conflict local situation may be more amenable to a globally shared economic/basic legal system, rather than needing to quarrel at all levels of political relations.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm a fan of differentiation. That necessitates the interaction of social systems, so...

 

[arg]

i just wanna fuck women of attractive nationalities, that's all the diversity i need, other cultures can go fuck themselves

 

[CiG]

i just wanna fuck women of attractive nationalities, that's all the diversity i need, other cultures can go fuck themselves

 

[Einherjar86]

I assigned this recent article by John McWhorter to my class for today, published in the Boston Globe last weekend:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2...-use-racism/TzxwI9Fg03ySKGYrCBv9SL/story.html

Excerpt:

Societal racism is now used to refer not to an attitude but to a result, as in the kind that ensues when a society is riddled with unequal opportunity caused by (among other things) race. We say that it is, therefore, “racist” that inner-city schools educate students less effectively than suburban ones because it affects black kids more than white ones, “racist” that it’s harder for a poor black man to get a low-skill factory job than it is for a middle-class white one to get a job as a middle manager. “Not in-your-face racism, of course, but the societal kind,” we remind one another.

This abstractification seems like a moral advance, but it creates problematic habits of mind. The core sense of racism as a sentiment harbored by a morally culpable agent lingers. The head and the heart are ever in battle, and the heart seeks a story about person against person. The term societal racism sits ever at the ready to slake that basal orientation, in implying that unpleasant societywide results call for the same response we have to the “racist” who does and feels things.

This can only play a part in the vague but pervasive notion nowadays that part of activism on behalf of people who need concrete assistance is primly patrolling people’s personal racist sentiments. We, as it were, think we must teach “society” not to be “a racist.” Thus it is thought more interesting to teach whites to acknowledge their “privilege” than to espouse reading programs that have been proven effective in teaching (black) kids how to read. Thus the last celebrity caught on tape saying something tacky about black people, because they have a face to hate on, is more interesting than answering poor women’s calls for easy access to long-acting reversible contraception in order to be able to plan when to have children. The war on drugs has been ruining black lives for decades — but only attracts serious attention from black activists when Michelle Alexander phrases it as “The New Jim Crow,” putting a Bull Connor face on it.

But societies and institutions do not feel. That which distracts our sentiments from that reality misdirects efforts to help people. I would replace societal racism with “racial inequality.” Others may have better suggestions, but we must get past a term encouraging the tempting idea that the way to address societal inequity is to craft variations on scolding white people — as poor black people look on underserved.

In addition to this, I passed around two responses to the piece (both in vehement disagreement with McWhorter), as well as an excerpt from a 2005 article by David Foster Wallace in which Wallace negotiates the distinction between calling someone a "racist" and calling someone "insensitive," and how to potentially communicate such nuances without resorting to accusatory label "racist."

All in all, the class had a very measured and calculated response to McWhorter's article. Most of them said they agreed in part, but also found some aspects of the article troubling, such as McWhorter's apparent neglect for the historical dynamics in which certain racial stereotypes play a part (McWhorter is primarily a linguist, not a historian, so we can forgive his neglect here, I think). At any rate, I think it was a good way to spend a class session, especially in the aftermath of the election and the heated discussions involving how we might recuperate something like an intellectual discourse in the midst of serious ideological divisiveness.

 

[Dak]

Well I would agree that "racist" as a label, outside of obviously applicable instances (EG, someone that is a member of the KKK or New Black Panthers), does far more harm than good. In fact I think that anyone with even the most minute amount of critical thinking skills should be able to see/understand this. However, the sort of examples that qualify for "systemic [racism]" are often merely complaints about unequal outcomes, which from my experience lack nuance in data analysis, to say nothing about unrealistic expectations.

 

[Dak]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/u...al-votes-disproportionate-slice-of-power.html

tl;dr: The framers built in protections from the dumbing down experience of city living. Hopefully this doesn't change.

 

[rms]

what racial stereotypes are in play in that piece?

 

[Einherjar86]

Well I would agree that "racist" as a label, outside of obviously applicable instances (EG, someone that is a member of the KKK or New Black Panthers), does far more harm than good. In fact I think that anyone with even the most minute amount of critical thinking skills should be able to see/understand this. However, the sort of examples that qualify for "systemic [racism]" are often merely complaints about unequal outcomes, which from my experience lack nuance in data analysis, to say nothing about unrealistic expectations.

McWhorter's concern clearly lies with inequality, since that's the term he suggests to replace "societal racism." I don't think I agree with him; but I mainly assigned the essay because it conflicts with some of my approaches to race.

This essay is significantly conservative, however, in comparison to most articles on race that pursue the identity politics tack.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/u...al-votes-disproportionate-slice-of-power.html

tl;dr: The framers built in protections from the dumbing down experience of city living. Hopefully this doesn't change.

We're not an agrarian society anymore though. And I still disagree with you that people in cities don't produce anything, or what they produce is less important because it's less tangible; so this sounds like an outdated fail safe.

That's not to say that people in rural areas don't have legitimate concerns though, and it's partly the fault of the urban/academic left for not reaching out more effectively and addressing these issues.

what racial stereotypes are in play in that piece?

None, that was my point. He doesn't acknowledge any examples, which might complicate some of his arguments about language.

 

[Dak]

We're not an agrarian society anymore though. And I still disagree with you that people in cities don't produce anything, or what they produce is less important because it's less tangible; so this sounds like an outdated fail safe.

That's not to say that people in rural areas don't have legitimate concerns though, and it's partly the fault of the urban/academic left for not reaching out more effectively and addressing these issues.

Cities produce things that are valuable only after the things produced outside of cities are available. You can't eat a gadget. You can't make a gadget without raw materials. You can't design a gadget if you are starving. Etc.

If we use Maslow's for a framework, city living for the majority puts them up one level from the ground *mentally*.