Ive been vaguely paying attention to the controversy kicked off by Bill Mahers comments about Islam and violence. It wasnt until I listened to Mike Pescas spiel on the subject that I really formed an opinion. Pesca contends that what this controversy shows is that weve forgotten how to have disagreements. By this, he means that weve forgotten how to debate issues, how to put forward considerations in favor of/against a position and engage in rational dialogue without demonizing or otherwise not taking seriously the other side. In short, Pesca wishes public discourse were more like dispassionate philosophizing. https://soundcloud/thegist/my-friend-became-a-staunch-anti-vaxxer-now-what#t=27:23 So what would good, dispassionate discourse about this topic look like? Well, the first step would be fixing on the claim thats under consideration. Is it All Muslims are violent? From their comments, its clear that this is not what Maher and company are defending: they admit that (at least) many Muslims are not violent. And its also fairly clear that the target is not people (Muslims) but an ideology (Islam). So perhaps we put it this way: Islam is a violent ideology. I think thats getting closer to what Maher and co. have in mind, but I dont think they do much to make the claim more precise than that. We can try to do that for them. One thing thats still left unclear is what it means to call an ideology violent. Does it mean that those who subscribe to such an ideology are in fact violent? Or is it just that the ideology advocates violence? Regardless, we can recognize that such questions arent really getting to the heart of the matter. For Maher and co. are picking out Islam as a *particularly* violent religious ideology. Of course, some Christians are violent. And Christianity is a violent ideology in the sense that the Bible, at times, advocates violence. So I presume theyre really making the following claim: Islam, when compared to other religious ideologies, is particularly violent. So you can maintain that Christianity is violent and still maintain that Islam is *more* violent. But then theres still this question: If a Muslim is violent, can we explain why they are violent by appealing to their religious ideology? Or do other factors better explain why they are violent? Ultimately, the claim I think we *should* be assessing–the claim thats interesting and not obviously-false–is the following: Those who subscribe to Islamic ideology are more violent than they otherwise would be BECAUSE of their Islamic ideology. Now this is a nice, clear claim. And it has clear consequences. It predicts that, even if you keep fixed socio-economic and political facts, but swap out Islam for, say, Christianity, muslims would be less violent. It fixes on a very specific issue: If a religion has a *content*, does that content actually make a difference? The idea, popular among liberals, that all religions are basically similar, seems to be a major motivation for criticisms of Maher. These folks would contend that violence in the Muslim world is better understood as a reaction to socio-economic and political forces and that any role that religion has to play is a minor one. Heres where my philosophizing gives out. To go any further would require more knowledge of Islam than I have. (My hunch is that ideology does play some role, but its probably not that great of a role.)
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 02:59:56 +0000
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