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Ah, yes, proper engagement with the issue like:
yes, that is definitely the case. wearing ties is a sure sign of progression. also cut-off jeans, too. i'd like to add to this list:
- homelessness
- bad singing of national anthems
- the "jennifer aniston" haircut
- that thing that kids do where they tie your shoelaces together
- hockey fights
- believing in the tooth fairy
- teaching creationism as science
- using "nigger" in popular songs
- asbestos
- instant messaging
- meth labs
- bad british dentistry
- paris hilton
- linear forum threads
- family television hour violence
- potholes
those are all things that all and only very advanced societies contain. if a society does not contain those things, it can be considered backwards.
i do appreciate being let in on the secret that ethiopia isnt in the middle east. on the same note, where exactly are the easter islands? i always get confused there, and the holiday is coming up, so i need to be particularly clear where i'm going to find my eggs.
But I forget. You're a troll.
More generally, Shadowsax's failure, or at least one of Shadowsax's failures, is to assume that by "I'm not Islamophobic! I just don't like those backward civilisations in the Middle East!", one avoids being prejudiced. First, and self-evidently, we are still talking here about brown people not doing what we want them to do. This is made clear in his statement:
"we'll support you because we support democratic freedoms but not if you're going to act like a bunch of crazy people."
Interestingly, this also sets out exactly the principles under which support will be allotted - in the context of the Middle East being a token in a broader dislike of "imperialistic, military capitalism". That is, Shadowsax is angry that the people in the Middle East (although of course he, like quixote, happpily swaps "the Middle East" and "the Muslim world" in and out without any real care for geography or culture, despite his insistence that he is talking about culture rather than religion) are not more decorous victims of the US administration, so that he can feel justified in using them as tokens to feed his dislike of that US administration.
He goes on:
Can we stop at the point at which middle eastern cultures seem to demand islamic governments? That the resistance efforts on the part of the middle eastern people themselves are more expressly religious than the western's capitalistic push?
So, what's this? Essentially, his position is that some civilisations are less advanced than others. The reasons why this is an incomplete and unhelpful viewpoint have been outlined pretty well, and he has not read them, choosing instead to go off on a lengthy and pointless list that he may have intended as amusing. However, although this is certainly not about Islam, it is fortunate that we can identify Islam as a handy potential indicator of this backwardness:
Can we stop at the point at which middle eastern cultures seem to demand islamic governments?
So, seeming to demand Islamic government is identified as a sign of this backwardness, as is the basis of resistance to actions led by the avowedly Christian Bush administration on Islamic messages. Logically, therefore, although there is obviously no Islamophobic component in this model, the insistence of those people-who-just-happen-to-be-muslims in talking in Islamic terms, rather than the secular appproach favoured by the socially advanced (those on the other side of the "gap"), is identified as a reason for or sign of social retardation.
However, one cannot blame that _on_ Islam, lest one appear Islamophobic. Ergo, the blame is located clearly with _religion_. It's just that our advanced cultures have mastered the violent urges created by religion, whereas the backward cultures have not:
I guess it's possible that it's the authorities who prevented fundamentalist christians from going out en masse and torching movie theaters or the italian embassies when scorsese released "the last temptation of Christ". but i dont think so, i think other social factors played a part.
Don't be distracted by the Italian embassies; this is a minor betise intended to hide a far greater one. Although there is no hint of Islamophobia here, it is a simple truth that, thanks to our superior culture, our religious zealots are of a better stamp than theirs.
In essence - and I know already that Saxy will not be interested in reading the above or able to understand it - Shadowsax is falling into what we used to call "Llewellyn-Bowen's fallacy" - believing himself to be a clever lefty, when in fact he has largely uncritically digested and is now regurgitating a basically reactionary position. So, I would offer that the statement:
guess i'm trying to represent a progressive point of view of the world without falling into a category that tends to abhor islam.
Is, although no doubt sincere, also incorrect, as its view of the world is not progressive. Of course, any response that dares criticise him will be dismissed as "nitpicking", because no contrary opinion could possibly be advanced for any reason other than womanish perversity. |
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