Same planet, different worlds
Wednesday June 28, 2006
Daniel Pipes points out some telling information in the recent Pew Forum survey of attitudes in the Muslim world. Did you know that solid majorities of Muslims in Western nations, and overwhelming majorities of Muslims in Muslim countries, do not...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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One could equally well ask how we can seek lasting understanding with people who believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 or working with Osama bin Laden?>
The concept of reaching an understanding with people who think differently has always been challenging for conservatives.
The secret is an amazing trick called "We Don't All Need To Think The Same."
Welcome to the new world..>
It is a challenge to liberals and moderates, too.
Sometimes understanding is necessary to make improvement, sometimes maybe it isn't. I'm hoping understanding won't be so important, because I'm not seeing how there will be much understanding.
Instead of understanding, why not try to be reasonable and consider the differences of view when presenting what seems reasonable?
So what if someone is misunderstood or can't be understood and does not understand us, if things get a little more reasonable in the way we relate practically?>
Of course it's good and necessary to work hard to understand the POV of one's opponents. I fully support that. But there's something psychopathic about believing that the Mossad or the CIA engineered 9/11, because you can't bring yourself to admit that Arab Muslims did it. You can't solve the problem until you admit there is a problem. Yesterday the Saudi delegation that came to my newspaper insisted that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, period, the end. Which is, of course, insane. If there were millions of Christians who used Christian scripture to justify commiting violent, murderous acts in the name of serving Christ, then we would have a Christian terrorism problem -- one that would be much harder to solve if Christians insisted, against all available evidence, that it was bigoted to speak of Christianity and terrorism in the same sentence.>
One of the most reasonable American Moslems I know, born in Africa, beleives that all Jews were warned to leave the towers on 9-11. This is a guy whose college educated wife works in a bank (with no head scarf) whose daughter goes to college (ditto) and who works on various interfaith programs with the catholic church. He "learned" this on the Internet.
He is a nice guy and I like him but conversation tends to hit a wall... how DO you discuss subjects with someone who has a near- religious faith in demonstrable untruths?>
Hi, Steve,
Offhand, if you like him, I would suggest saying "I don't believe that" and then changing the subject away from anything to do with 9/11 or religion. That is a polite way of indicating without actually saying it that you think he is an idiot.
Or you could say, "I can't abide anti-Jewish remarks." Or, "Conspiracy theories are fun, aren't they?">
Sam & Brent fail to understand the point. It is not a matter of different opinions. The Muslim world, as this survey shows, does not operate in the same reality as you and I.
We might not all have to think the same but we do all have to agree on some pretty basic FACTS before we can move on. But leave it to the Left to take such an obvious point and turn it into a blunt instrument to bash conservatives.>
I remember something a friend of mine told me shortly after the beginning of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. I was a senior in high school then, and my friend was a freshman in college. There was an Iranian student in his dorm, who enthusiastically supported the Khomeini regime. (Odd, I know, since most Iranian expats were supporters of the Shah, or at least opposed to Khomeini.) In any event, the Iranian student said that the Islamic revolution had brought real freedom to Iran, and that there was no freedom in America. The American students could never get the Iranian student to agree that, while he might disagree with some things about America, there was real freedom in America. In relating this to me, my friend commented, "How do you conduct a debate about freedom with someone whose idea of what freedom means is completely different from yours?"
This is probably why Plato spends so much time simply defining terms.>
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