Blogs On Fire

It appears the tempest over the cartoons of Mohamed, who I always thought pumped gas up on Route 46, has created a chain reaction of emotion spilling over and across many blogs.

Jeff Goldstien has a post up on identity politics, which addresses some of the core philosophical challenges we face in attempting to understand and combat, if you will, radical Islam. I think many of us instinctively understand that the Left, or liberalism hinders us in dealing with radical Islam, but I doubt we explore those dynamics as deeply as we might. Jeff does a good job of it in his post linked above - and here.

Somehow, it seems to escape those raised on westernized Orientalism that by calling the intolerance of intolerance “intolerant,” they have reduced the concept of tolerance itself to a cruel semantic joke—the idea being that groups formed around cultural similarities, once they have honed their group message and excommunicated the dissenters—own the narrative.  Outside criticism is therefore inauthentic—always tainted by the gaze of the Other, and so only to be considered secondarily (if at all) as a valid critique.

From there, Rusty at The Jawa Report made a statement in his post which is generating some conversation around the sphere.

Many of us would like to think that Islam is just another religion. That sentiment comes from a good place. Most Americans want to believe that about our fellow Americans. In fact, I would argue that America has always had a national ecumenical spirit. But such thinking is also ignorant of Islam as it is, and not as it should be.

Dean Esmay responds to Rusty here, suggesting that Islam and Christianity aren't, at their core, all that much different in certain important regards. He also suggests that individuals cackling on about these cartoons (full disclosure, I'm one) aren't necessarily doing events any real good.

Rusty, who I've always liked, is just being silly. Sorry Rusty, but you are. You seem to have bought into the Mark Steyn/Little Green Footballs version of Islam and nothing more.

What I find interesting in reading some of this debate is how quickly the rhetoric degenerates once we begin discussing issues only in terms of groups. I try very hard not to see the world that way, whether talking about Islam, Americans. Christianity or, okay, I was going to say France, but that may be the one exception.

My point, however, is that once we begin defining individuals through the identity of a particular group, we do them a tremendous disservice. I absolutely believe that Islam is capable of living peacefully side by side Christianity, and even within the West.

While our news casts show us often large crowds of Muslims marching or burning things in the street, it's short-sighted to think there isn't a much larger group that simply goes about its business or remains, perhaps even afraid of it all, at home.

WHy am I celebrating the cartoons and even lampooning Mohamed even more? Because I think we do have to poke a stick at elements of Islam who, frankly, will never exist peacefully within the modern world. Poking them exposes them, confronts them, it does a great many things which I happen to think need to occur. Just as I and many others have learned to see Christian bashing and not take to the street, or burn some building down, the elements of radical Islam who currently think such behavior is acceptable either have to be destroyed, or ultimately worn down.

But I do not embrace a school of thought which suggests that each and every individual who worships Allah is automatically incapable of rational, controlled (civilized) behavior, even in the face of what they may see as grossly insulting to something so important to them.

Comments

[moldy]

I'm not sure if I agree with the stick-poking bit. However, this post has a lot of things for all sides to consider. Good post Dan. I look forward to discussions ...

[MrsLevy]

http://loljesus.com/submissions/jesuslol_shotgun_anus.jpg

http://loljesus.com/submissions/jesuslol_spare_change.jpg

LMAO-MrsLevy

[Justwondering]

Mrs Levy are you the same Mrs. Levy that lost a daughter that Gary Condit had killed?