Robert Wright explains the roots of American Islamophobia in the New York Times. See, we just don't have enough exposure to Muslims.
The good news is that bridging does seem to work across religious divides. Putnam and Campbell did surveys with the same pool of people over consecutive years and found, for example, that gaining evangelical friends leads to a warmer assessment of evangelicals (by seven degrees on a “feeling thermometer” per friend gained, if you must know).
And what about Muslims? Did Christians warm to Islam as they got to know Muslims — and did Muslims return the favor?
That’s the bad news. The population of Muslims is so small, and so concentrated in distinct regions, that there weren’t enough such encounters to yield statistically significant data. And, as Putnam and Campbell note, this is a recipe for prejudice.
So, in Europe, where there are many millions of Muslims, they must be much more popular than they are here in America. Right, Mr. Wright?
My general impression from comparing areas that are home to Muslims and nonMuslims is that Islam seems to contribute to a chip on the shoulder attitude on the Muslim side. Armenians are pretty friendly, but Chechens, well, I'm glad a lot of Chechens hasn't started moving into my neighborhood ... yet.
Western tourists prefer Bali, the Hindu island in Indonesia to the many Muslim Islands.
Are there other examples of this tendency?
'Islam seems to contribute to a chip on the shoulder attitude on the Muslim side.'
ReplyDeleteNo pork, No alcohol, none of the other thing unless it is with a pre-arranged cousin.
Must be hard seeing other people having fun. Plus the self-rightious franchise was going begging after the fall of communism and the rise of feminism.
Further on the Bali/rest of Indonesia disparity: the most picturesque beaches in Thailand are on the Isthmus of Kra (the long thin bit that extends all the way from Bangkok down to Malaysia).
ReplyDeleteHowever the parts that are in the Muslim-dominated areas around Songkhla and Pattani are nowhere near as commonly visited by tourists as the likes of Phuket, Krabi, Samui etc in the Buddhist areas, despite being every bit as attractive. And that disparity is getting more pronounced. Haat Yai used to be a big tourist destination, but is now a long way off the tourist map due to ongoing inter-religious violence.
This reminds me of the mindless and theologically contrived Christian Zionist movement, which raises tons of cash and political capital for Zionism, and then gets spat in the face and kicked in the butt for being a f. goyim sect.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that whenever the MSM demands Christians or whites should embrace their enemies, the suckers are always Christians and whites?
The idea that familiarity breeds understanding and tolerance is a familiar liberal canard. The old saying that familiarity breeds contempt is more often true.
ReplyDeleteAs too, for example, the evangelical example cited. You get some of your most hard core and militant atheists precisely where you get the most Christian fundamentalists. There's a reason why the popular Atheist Experience TV show/webcast (also on YouTube) is out of Austin, Texas, and not Boston or San Francisco. When different groups are close together, they cause friction; when they are far apart, they tend to ignore each other or to assume lack of hostility given the lack of interaction.
If anything Americans in general were more tolerant of Muslims ten years or twenty years ago, than they are now, and will be less tolerant in future as Muslim numbers increase. Increased numbers means greater chances of having negative encounters, and negative encounters tend to stick with us more than positive ones.
From what I saw in London, first generation Muslims don't integrate well, but their children do mix better in general society. There are occasional honor killings though.
ReplyDeleteSimon in London would probably know a lot more about Islam in Britain.
I have a feeling that those Burqas/Hijabs/Niqabs/whatever that muslim women wear make things infinitely worse. Nothing signifies alien outsider to native Europeans than a faceless woman completely covered in black speaking a strange language.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/mar/21/debate-on-french-burka-ban
But luckily, the British don't seem to mind Chinese immigrants too much. :-)
Since I've been constantly exposed to Latin Americans in Southern California over the past two decades I must really find them appealing. Or maybe there's something wrong with me, which would explain my considering moving away.
ReplyDeleteOf the major world religions, Islam seems to do the weakest job of developing human capital. Compare South Asian hindu and muslim achievement levels in the UK (or any place the two meet up as in Lebanon with its traditionally dynamic Christian and stagnant Muslim populations).
ReplyDeleteIslam also does the weakest job in mitigating and/or eliminating dysfunctional cultural practices that oulive any practical purpose they might have once had (like female genital mutilation, honor killing, purdah etc).
It also focuses on following the letter rather than the spirit of the spiritual law. No interest so they come up with a way of having de facto interest by another name, no prostitution, just one hour 'marriages'. A focus on memorizing the text of the Koran in Classical Arabic without necessarily understanding any of it.
I have a few examples
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, the less attached a Muslim is to his/her religion, the friendlier they are
(Mostly non-Muslim) Singapore used to be part of (mostly Muslim) Malaysia.
Lebanon used to be known as the "pearl of the Middle East" (when it was mostly Christian). Now that the Christians are being run out and the Muslims are taking over, it is becoming more and more of a hell hole - like the rest of the Middle East.
To be fair to Wright, Sailer did misread what he wrote about the numbers being too small. Wright said the numbers were too small and the population too concentrated for statistical significance. Sailer's response about Muslims in Europe misses the point, therefore.
ReplyDeleteStill, after saying the data don't tell us anything about Muslim Americans, Wright goes on as if the hypothesis had been proven for them. Kind of strange.
Similar "contact brings us closer" hypotheses have been tested over the decades. I remember that Walker Connor analyzed it in another context: increased communication in multinational states. Connor was interested in cultural assimilation, not friendly feelings. The conclusion was that communications bring different peoples together, but only if they don't perceive themselves as too different to start with. If they're too different, then increased communications drive them further apart. I wonder if the same rule would apply to the "bridging" with Muslim Americans. Wright apparently does not wonder about that.
I knew a lot of Muslims in school (for some reason, we got a lot of middle eastern grad students), and they mostly seemed no crazier than the baseline for engineering grad students. If they were itching for sharia law to be imposed, particularly wrt drinking and sex, they did a hell of a job hiding it.
ReplyDeleteI suspect Muslims are a diverse enough bunch that it matters a great deal which muslims you're dealing with. Turks and Somalis and Indonesians and Pakistanis and
Palestinians are all really different.
Wow, Hindus.... Don't get me started with the Hindus...
ReplyDeleteThe Muslims at least keep their cities in relatively good shape.
Check out the hindus.. Warning, it's extremely graphic.
http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/pictures/filthy-india-photos-chinese-netizen-reactions.html
So is Wright also subtlety implying that we need to import many more Muslims so that knuckle-dragging Americans can overcome their bigotry through exposure?
ReplyDeleteOr am I being paranoid?
On a related note. I've come to the conclusion, perhaps late here, that liberals think the presence of a white Christian majority nation is inherently racist by its mere existence.
There's a funny bloggingheads where Tyler Cowen takes Wright apart. IMHO, Wright is a bit of a hack.
ReplyDeleteThere ya go, again, Steve. Shooting down an elaborate theory with simple counter examples.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Alexa says your web traffic has been up 24% in the past month. Good show.
My exposure to Robert Wright is through his "blogging heads" debates with Mickey Kaus and others. Nothing I have heard him say has inclined me to read one of his books.
ReplyDeleteI like Mickey Kaus, Wright's regular sparring partner on that program. Kaus is a liberal but is opposed to illegal immigration and the card-check plan, and believes that teachers' unions have a pernicious effect on education. Even these modest departures from doctrinaire liberalism are enough to rouse Wright to shrill indignation.
Wright does not have an unfashionable thought in his head, making him a suitable author of NY Times op-ed pieces and award-winning books. (In anger, he comes off like the chihuahua in "Ren & Stimpy" cartoons.)
Wright really needs to spend a month in a Parisian banlieue around real Muslims, rather than the Westernized self-professed moderates he meets at the elite gatherings he gets invited to.
I have a couple Muslim drinking buddies and I have a much higher opinion of Muslims who drink than I did before.
ReplyDeleteIsrael and the Islamic nations surrounding it seem to be familiar with each other. How's that working out?
ReplyDeletePerhaps Mr. Wright isn't as familiar, personally, with Muslims as he should be?
The New York Times. Mindlessness and hypocrisy for such a low cost per issue.
Everywhere muslims have lived in significant numbers there's been civil war between them and the non-muslims. This has been a constant theme, repeated endlessly in Africa, Asia, Europe, and is not a big secret. When they reach a critical mass the result is violent conflict. How does the NYT acquire such weird people as writers? There's this idea that by commingling disparate peoples (through government "engineering") they will grow to love one another. The real case may be just the opposite; folks learn how crappy some groups really are and end up loathing them."Phobia" seems to be getting attached to a lot of words these days in an attempt to manipulate the terms of discussion. What's next, phobiaphobia?
ReplyDeleteI haven't read American Grace yet, only some reviews and other things posted on the web, so my comments are tentative subject to a closer read.
ReplyDeleteBut I find it odd that the way Wright presents the book's argument, it seems at odds with Puttnam's own findings a couple of years back on the relationship between social capital and diversity.
You'll recall how that occured: Puttnam was the force behind the creation of a mammoth social capital database, which he then mined quite consciously to discern a positive relationship between diversity and social capital. Alas, he came up with the opposite finding--that greater diversity reduces levels of social capital, and that is does so with respect not only to "bridging" social capital (reaching out to "them') but even bonding social capital (solidifying ties among "us"). Basically, people tend to hole up and hunker down.
But now, under this new account, exposure to the other seems to facilitiate this magical process of "bridging". Why is that?
Puttnam seemed chastened that diversity did not operate in practice in a way that comported with its ideological justification, and offered up some other possibilities--that, for instance, diversity might have a short run negative effect on social capital but a longer term positive one. My first instinct is to conclude that the new book represents his desire to settle accounts on his earlier research, and to find a way to get back to where he once belonged.
In my mind, this is all a matter of putting ideology before complicated circumstance. Of course it will be the case that people tend to be uncomfortable with difference and of course it is true that, as long as differences are present it is likely to be a good idea to attend to them via bridging behavior, all else being equal.
But situations are complicated and a one-size-fits-all approach (pro or anti diversity) only goes as far as the situation warrants. Bridging is a good idea, in other words, when its effects end up positive; a bad idea when negative.
Of course, this makes me a pragmatist, but so be it.
Whether it is a good idea for me to bridge to you, and whether I find that exchange of net benefit, depends greatly on your behavior as you respond to my bridging offers. The European version of multicult has not stressed bridging and the Muslims in Europe themselves have not distinguished themselves in any exchanges proffered. Both sides, then, are responsible for the abysmal state of integration on the other side of the pond. I have something of an open mind when it comes to the United States.
I've known people from the Middle East before, a Saudi engineer, an Iraqi math teacher, a Pakistani grad student..but sheesh, they weren't very devout back then. Since this fundie revival has swept the region, it's a different ball game.
ReplyDeleteWright is the classical example of your whtie, anglo-saxon milquetoast. Smart guy but such a wussy.
ReplyDeleteWell, there's some Mediterranean beachfront property throughout the Middle East that's perfectly nice, yet seems not to get as much tourist interest as European beaches.
ReplyDelete"feeling thermometer"
ReplyDeleteWould that be oral or rectal?
Did the Byzantines warm to Islam as the Arabs kept attacking them? Did they warm to the Turks after 1453?
ReplyDeleteTurkiye is a major tourist destination for Europeans. How does this mesh with your question?
ReplyDeleteAre there other examples of this tendency?
ReplyDeleteChristian v. Muslim Arabs
Indians v. Pakistanis
Wright writes of Islamophobia and Homophobia as being the same sort of thing. Are they "phobias" in any meaningful sense?
ReplyDeleteBack in the early eighties I told my boss that since I wasn't a homosexual, a hemophiliac, or a intravenous drug user I wasn't afraid of AIDS. He said that there were reports that the virus was being carried by mosquitoes. That scared me, but of course it was a false alarm. Except for that brief moment, I've never been afraid of gay people - rather the opposite.
When I lived in downtown Washington DC and traveled a lot, I bought my wife a gun. When I moved back to San Francisco near the Castro district I worried much less. Gay men on the street are a sign of public safety. Whatever street violence that homosexuals might indulge in is largely directed at other homosexuals. Heterosexuals in gay neighborhoods enjoy an umbrella of public safety - a kind of PAX HOMOSEXUALA.
Gays are an excellent urban minority. They fix up the housing stock whereas most other groups tear it down. They don't rape women.
Gay men don't try to intimidate others. They don't for example keep pit bulls. They are more likely to have poodles. They don't run in gangs and engage in "drive by" shootings. So why on earth would anyone be afraid of them?
Homophobia is a silly term.
On the other hand Islamophobia really does mean that you are afraid of Muslims. This is only just. Islam spends a lot of energy trying to frighten non-believers with jihad, terror bombings, assassinations, and fatwas. There has been an Islamic terrorist incident approximately every two days for the last decade - pretty good evidence that it isn't just a figment of your imagination.
Islamic violence seems to be accelerating and with it comes more true, rational Islamophobia. This can't be good for Muslims. At some point the non-believers will strike back and that will be that.
Islam is a religion only as long as the government says it is. An executive order, a court case, a congressional resolution, or a constitutional amendment are only some of the means by which Islam can be disallowed and stripped of its immunity. Right now Islam is just annoying - only 40,000 terrorist deaths - but if the bodies continue to mount, the state will react.
One response will surely be recapturing the oil fields. Arabia used to rely on pearls for its wealth. Those days could return.
Islam is ridiculously weak from a global strategic perspective. The Ottomans wielded large armies. The Janissarys and the Mamelukes were among the finest troops of the day. Today however Islamic forces are a joke. If the West chose to retake the oil fields that they built in Iran and and Arabia they would be all but unopposed.
Islam has no resources that we can't take back and it has no armed forces worthy of the name. Islam is poisonous to modernity which means its populations are backward and non-technological. Weakness again.
If Muslims want to endure they will need to become more polite.
Albertosaurus
chechens haven't
ReplyDeleteMuslims have the greatest difficulties living in peace with other peoples and cultures. Islam is an exclusivist culture by its very being. Consider its core tenet: there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet. If that statement is true, all other religions are a falsehood and everyone in the world should immediately convert. If it is false, then Islam is a fraud. Also remember that muslims believe the Quoran is literally the word of god. This is not a religion / way of life that is compatible with other beliefs. As soon as muslims reach a critical mass they make trouble for "infidels". Any study of history clearly shows this.
ReplyDelete"And what about Muslims? Did Christians warm to Islam as they got to know Muslims — and did Muslims return the favor?"
ReplyDeleteLet's ask Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. The two groups share the same language, are indistinguisgable from each other physically, and most likely have very similar mean IQs, so they come pretty close to satisfying the elusive "all else being equal" requirement, beloved by rigorous social scientists. The only thing that seems to separate them is religion.
"That’s the bad news. The population of Muslims is so small, and so concentrated in distinct regions, that there weren’t enough such encounters to yield statistically significant data. "
Oh, Mr. Wright doesn't want to survey Serbs' and Bosniaks' attitudes? Why not? What about Cypress? It's sunny, he could make his research into a vacation. Sudan? No? If he's an indoorsy type, he could go to a library and read up on medieval Spain. :-)
Lots of NYT commenters make the obvious point that people fear Islam because of the terrorism it inspires.
ReplyDeleteOf course, people like Wright would argue that the hostility to Muslims in Western-Europe is highest among those who have the least amount of contact with them. I live in the Netherlands, a country where anti-Muslim feelings run pretty high if judged by the succes of Geert Wilders. It is true that the support for him is highest in the regions where there has been relatively little immigration.
ReplyDeleteSo eventhough it may seem Europeans have more contact with Muslims than Americans, those who feel most strongly against them are less likely to have contact with them.
VanSpeyk said...
ReplyDelete"So eventhough it may seem Europeans have more contact with Muslims than Americans, those who feel most strongly against them are less likely to have contact with them."
It's because those areas which are pro muslim are already filled with muslims.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/northern-irish-serbs-hutus-granted-homeland-in-wes,305/
ReplyDeleteRe: Turks. There's a Turkish nightclub near me, and it's nice: sedate and respectable. You see three generation families arriving together for socializing.
ReplyDeleteI'm just trying to look for geographically close comparisons across religious lines. For example, some might argue that Christian Serbs have more of a chip on their shoulders than Bosnian Muslims, so that could be a counterexample.
Albertosaurus's essay above is a great read.
ReplyDelete"I'm just trying to look for geographically close comparisons across religious lines."
I bet there are examples in Michigan. Any readers of yours from there who can say?
Steve, Turkey is rapidly casting off its secular constraints imposed by Ataturk and morphing into just another Muslim country. I loved Turkey when I traveled there frequently a number of years ago, and I'm still welcomed exuberantly at local Turkish restaurants for my minimal knowledge of the language, culture, and cuisine, but I don't think I'd feel terribly comfortable in the Turkey of today.
ReplyDeleteMost of this comment thread could better be summed up by two aphorisms I've adopted from Alt Right websites: Diversity + proximity = War and Tribalism + democracy + stupidity = racist idiocracy.
Note that when it comes to Republicans, Wright doesn't favor a policy of engagement and mutual learning--he's all in for social ostracism, as he's made clear in a few of his bh.tv appearances.
ReplyDeleteJust another nerdy white liberal with a heart full of compassion for unfamiliar brown people (how novel!) and acid for other whites with whom he has marginal policy differences.
I have a great solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Have more Jews settle in West Bank and allow RIGHT OF RETURN to Palestinians. That way, with a lot of mutual exposure, they'll all be loving one another in no time.
ReplyDelete"That's dead wrong. Islam, like the Christian religion upon which it is based, is INCLUSIVE. Muslims want everyone to join the party, just like Christians."
ReplyDeleteProblem is it aint much of a party. What kind of party bans alcohol?
Let me add that the commercial for DJ Hero ("diversity" as a positive social good) exemplifies the sort of thing Wright talks about. Note that the commercial is aimed at very notably, women. Not men. Compare/contrast the Keystone Light commercials with the DJ Hero commercial to get the idea.
ReplyDeleteThe most important speech is not stuff like Wright's, but commercials repeated endlessly, with embedded social ideas about what makes a society "good" or "bad." Due to the emotional power and sheer repetition (if it's repeated, everyone must believe it, in other words).
The main problem with Islam is polygamy of course. Without Polygamy, it is likely that Islam would have changed significantly over the millennium and a half it has existed. Polygamy creates an excess group of males that MUST act aggressively as raiders to carry off women from other groups. Desert raiding culture set in amber. Of course, it also ensures poverty by making women ill-educated, isolated, and unproductive. Raising children is critically important to social wealth, and illiterate, impoverished, isolated women do a poor job of raising kids who can adapt to rapid change and embrace it.
If you want the secret sauce to the West's advantage in pushing technological change -- it is the nuclear family providing child security to embrace change, instead of home chaos causing a desire for social and technological rigidity.
A constitutional amendment banning Islam is sounding better every day.
ReplyDeleteSylvia:
ReplyDelete"Simon in London would probably know a lot more about Islam in Britain."
Yeah - my mostly working class area of SW London is about 25% Muslim, primarily Sunni, with a strong Salafist presence - we are a good source of Al Qaeda recruitment. My next door neighbour family are Muslim Bangladeshi, the father is a taxi driver on his second marriage, with a bunch of kids - three with his current wife. He used to be a landlord, the house used to be student accommodation he rented out, until he lost too much on his betting addiction and had to move his family there. He is a moderate Muslim - ie, not a very good Muslim. However, a group of cultish Muslim fanatics live a few doors down, and they are working to convert/radicalise his young son.
That's pretty much the story of Islam in Europe - the first generation was moderate and often fairly affable, but subsequent generations are radicalising, which means they are becoming very dangerous.
Radicalisation is greatly assisted by the idiocy of the indigeous elites, eg a gay Tory on my local council took the lead in getting planning permission for a Muslim state-funded "faith school" - a gigantic Salafist faith school funded by Saudi Arabia, which squats like a bloated fortress on a quiet residential street.
none of the above:
ReplyDelete"I knew a lot of Muslims in school (for some reason, we got a lot of middle eastern grad students), and they mostly seemed no crazier than the baseline for engineering grad students. If they were itching for sharia law to be imposed, particularly wrt drinking and sex, they did a hell of a job hiding it. "
I also know lots of Muslim elite students; they're not representative of the general Muslim population.
I also knew a former member of the Gulf Muslim ultra-elite (a princess), she would tell truly toe-curlingly horrific stories of what goes on down there. I'm not sure if it was the routine abuse of their servants (including child rape) or their casual cruelty to each other, that was worse.
We should bomb Muslims more and they'd behave better. Right?
ReplyDeleteEvangelicals have a bad rep because the most visible ones in mainstream society tend to be obnoxious blowhards and the mainstream media has an axe to grind about them. The to know them is to love them strategy only works when members of a particular group actually tend to be nicer than their reputation.
ReplyDeleteanon:
ReplyDelete"Gay men don't try to intimidate others."
Well, I remember being verbally sexually harrassed/threatened very nastily by a group of homosexual men on the London Underground, when I was a slender youth. It was distinctly frightening! But on average you're right of course that homosexuals commit less crime.
Wright has discovered the real reason Israel is promoting more Jewish settlements on the West Bank. They want Jews to get to know Muslims better to develop warmer feelings between the two groups.
ReplyDeleteI am not a fan of Fox but the hiring of Williams gives me hope that more people will openly question multicultural dogma.
steve,
ReplyDeletePlease comment on Sharon Angle's
ad The Wave. Joy Behar, from The View,
called Angle a bitch on TV, and Rachel
Maddow said it's a racist ad. Angle responded by
sending flowers to Behar with a note touting
that she raising $150,000 that day.
She's not apologizing. A key part of the Sailer Strategy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIkNAA2y4I4&feature=player_embedded
Counterexamples:
ReplyDelete*As Steve notes Bosnian muslims are generally more civilized than Bosnian Serbs. Probably a push, because I suspect most Westerners prefer Croats to either.
* I spent time in Indonesia years ago - muslims in Java and Sumatra were very friendly and polite. No chip on the shoulder that I noticed. As a tourist I preferred those places to Bali because Bali is a theme park.
* 20 years ago the Muslim regions of China (Xinjiang) were in many ways much nicer than "real" China. No chip at all, very cool people. That's probably no longer true thanks to continuing Chinese interference.
* A lot of people prefer Turkey to Greece - Greeks can be incredibly self-righteous pains in the ass, and often as anti-American as any Muslim.
It's also interesting that Russia/USSR never seemed to have very much Christian vs. Muslim tension until recently. Ethnic tension yes, but rarely religious.
It's not Islam that creates the chip on the shoulder mentality - it's history. In areas where Muslims are firmly in control and perceive themselves as the masters of the land - Indonesia or Turkey - they are typically fairly decent. In areas where they feel disenfranchised from their "natural" role as world leaders they can be dicks - any Arab nation or Pakistan. In places where they are vastly outnumbered or oppressed they are OK as well - China or Bosnia (or the US). I also generally find Iranians to be good people - you're mileage may vary, especially in LA.
Udolpho.com said...Note that when it comes to Republicans, Wright doesn't favor a policy of engagement and mutual learning--he's all in for social ostracism . . .
ReplyDeleteYes, when the deep thinker Wright debates Kaus, and Kaus strays slightly from the DNC reservation, Wright's immediate response is to sneer, "You sound like a Republican!"
That's what's important to big-name public intellectuals like Wright--party affiliation, not an honest search for the truth.
In India, riots start whenever muslims exceed 20% of a neighborhood. As such, BJP wins lots of seats with muslims between 20% to 45%, due to Hindu backlash.
ReplyDeleteIn police maps, locales with over 30% muslim are known as riot prone.
South Asian Hindus vs Muslims in USA
College rate / median family income
2008 US Census Data
Indian = 70% / $90K
Pakistani = 54% / $60K
Bangladeshi = 49% / $49K
Part of the reason for discrepancy is islam encourages women to be barefoot and pregnant
Dozens of Pakistani muslims have been arrested for terrorism in the west vs no Hindus
In "Beyond Belief," Naipaul depicts, through his subjects' voices, an Islam that makes "imperial demands" in these countries that have crossed over or converted to Islam from their original beliefs. He writes that in the process, the converted peoples have become beholden to a foreign culture - i.e. the Arab - in a way that has repercussions on the societal and individual psyche: "A convert's worldview alters. His holy places are in Arab lands; his sacred language is Arabic. His idea of history alters. He rejects his own; he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story. The convert has to turn away from everything that is his. The disturbance for societies is immense, and even after a thousand years can remain unresolved; the turning away has to be done again and again. People develop fantasies about who and what they are; and in the Islam of converted countries there is an element of neurosis and nihilism. These countries can easily be set on the boil."
ReplyDeleteSomeone already mentioned Hindus (I would add Sikhs) vs Pakis/Muslim Indians. I don't hear nearly as many complaints about non-Muslim south Asians from the British (as an American, neither group is really that big in my area).
ReplyDeleteParsees vs regular Muslim Iranians. I have no personal experience with them at all, but everything I've read about Parsees is neutral to positive - which is kind of rare. In general, proximity + diversity =, if not war, at least animosity, so it's unusual not to find a bunch of gripes about any ethnic group. Also, the only South Asian who really counts as a rock star, Freddy Mercury, is a Parsee.
Turks vs Greeks. Turks are really just Greeks who were conquered and converted to Islam. Look at people from Central Asia, where the original Turks came from, and look at Greeks, and see who looks more like modern-day Turks. From memory, the DNA evidence shows that Turks are really about 10% Turk and 90% Greek. Who would you rather have as immigrants?
"Islam is an exclusivist culture by its very being."
ReplyDeleteThat's dead wrong. Islam, like the Christian religion upon which it is based, is INCLUSIVE. Muslims want everyone to join the party, just like Christians. An example of an exclusive religion is Judaism.
Wrong. In terms of theology, Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all exclusive: each believes that it has the exclusive, one true faith, revealed to its believers alone and to the exclusion of all others.
They differ in that Christianity and Islam try to recruit everyone to their exclusive theology, so in that sense they are "inclusive" but that's not what the OP was referring to, and you know it - or you darn well should.
"Since I've been constantly exposed to Latin Americans in Southern California over the past two decades I must really find them appealing. Or maybe there's something wrong with me, which would explain my considering moving away."
ReplyDeleteYes liberals are always praising 'diversity' yet always finding some excuse to make sure they experience as little 'diversity' as possible.
"Wow, Hindus.... Don't get me started with the Hindus...
ReplyDeleteThe Muslims at least keep their cities in relatively good shape."
Depends on the Muslims. Mogadishu looked a good deal worse than anything in India even before the Somali state collapsed.
Hindus are a rather diverse and varied lot. I imagine the Hindus you find in Bali are very different from those in India.
Can't help noticing that most of the "nice Muslims" people know are engineers, professional people, highly secular, non-religious, etc.
ReplyDeleteAnon #1: Lebanon used to be known as the "pearl of the Middle East" (when it was mostly Christian).
ReplyDeleteAnon #2: Well, there's some Mediterranean beachfront property throughout the Middle East that's perfectly nice, yet seems not to get as much tourist interest as European beaches.
There's not just the obvious examples of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt [Alexandria] - just look at what Islam has done to Roman Africa [to include Mauretania and Numidia]:
Lepcis Magna, which produced Emperor Septimius Severus, is now known as Al Khums, Libya.
Carthage, once possibly the greatest city in the world, is now a suburb of Tunis, Tunisia.
Hippo Regius, which produced St Augustine, is now known as Annaba, Algeria.
Caesaria [not to be confused with Caesarea Maritima], which Octavian Augustus made the capital of Mauretania, is now known as Cherchell, Algeria.
Now fast forward a couple of millenia, and Lynn & Vanhanen guesstimate
1) an average IQ of 84 or 83 for Libya
2) an average IQ of 84 or 83 for Tunisia
3) an average IQ of 84 or 83 for Algeria.
Any one of those towns - Lepcis Magna, Carthage, Hippo Regius, Caesaria - ought to be at least a Miami, a Corpus Christi, a Newport Beach, or a Martha's Vineyard.
Instead, they're now wastelands.
Another example: the Philippines is 90% Christian, but its 5-10% Muslim population is concentrated on the island of Mindaneo -- an island generally avoided by tourists due to terrorism.
ReplyDeleteI'm just trying to look for geographically close comparisons across religious lines. For example, some might argue that Christian Serbs have more of a chip on their shoulders than Bosnian Muslims, so that could be a counterexample.
ReplyDeleteTurks and slavic muslims across the balkans don't have a chip on their shoulder. They're actually quite deferential to christians, partaking in christian feasts, wishing them merry christmas and happy easter for example. Believe it or not, relations between mainstream bosniaks (muslims) and serbs were very good before the war. Of course, there were always nationalist undercurrents and when these rose to the fore people were forced to takes sides and then all bets were off (which just highlights the inherent instability of "diversity").
The real exception are the albanians, but there it's more ethnic than it is religious. Albanians are some backward people even for a region that is backwards (wrt europe) itself. For example, many rural albanians adhere to the Code of Lek Dukagjini, which results in lifelong blood feuds like <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3216606.ece>this</a>.
However problematic turks in germany might be, turks in turkey (at least in the more modern parts, eg Istanbul, Izmir) are very, very nice people.
Most of this comment thread could better be summed up by two aphorisms I've adopted from Alt Right websites: Diversity + proximity = War and Tribalism + democracy + stupidity = racist idiocracy.
ReplyDeleteAdd one more: a doctrinaire antiracist and his territory are soon parted.
Steve, Turkey is rapidly casting off its secular constraints imposed by Ataturk and morphing into just another Muslim country. I loved Turkey when I traveled there frequently a number of years ago, and I'm still welcomed exuberantly at local Turkish restaurants for my minimal knowledge of the language, culture, and cuisine, but I don't think I'd feel terribly comfortable in the Turkey of today.
ReplyDeleteMore devoutly Muslim people from the interior of Anatolia (Alevis, Kurds, etc.) have considerably higher birth rates than the secular Turks in the western part of the country, who in many respects make me think of nominally-Muslim Italians.
The Maldives would be the most tourist-oriented majority Muslim country?
ReplyDelete"Turkiye is a major tourist destination for Europeans. How does this mesh with your question?"
ReplyDeleteBecause it's the most secular Muslim country on the planet?
"There's not just the obvious examples of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt [Alexandria] - just look at what Islam has done to Roman Africa [to include Mauretania and Numidia]:...
ReplyDeleteAny one of those towns - Lepcis Magna, Carthage, Hippo Regius, Caesaria - ought to be at least a Miami, a Corpus Christi, a Newport Beach, or a Martha's Vineyard."
I seriously doubt that. They weren't Europeans before they converted to Islam. If anything, Algeria and Tunisia got whiter due to the white slave trade.
"The real exception are the albanians, but there it's more ethnic than it is religious."
Definitely ethnic. The relation between Christian and Muslim Albanians are good and unlike the Lebanese, the Christian population isn't necessarily better behaved/smarter than the Muslim population. Christian Albanians also have blood feuds.
"However problematic turks in germany might be, turks in turkey (at least in the more modern parts, eg Istanbul, Izmir) are very, very nice people."
The Turks in Germany are hicks. Secular Turks make fun of them all the time. City Turks are indeed very nice and they tend to be very white due to their Greek and Slavic admixture. The only problem with them is that due to their fierce nationalism they tend to get very defensive about Islam even if they are atheists.
I'm sure a lot of people have seen this, and no, it's not "scientific and has a hysterical tone that will make some eyes roll, but from what I see in the news over the last 20 years, it's not an alltogether inaccurate reflection of Islam in the world
ReplyDeleteAs long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be, for the most part, regarded as a peaceful and loving minority and not much as a threat to others. This is the case in:
America 0.6%
Australia 1.5%
Canada 1.9%
China 1.8%
Italy 1.5%
Norway 1.8%
At 2-5%, they begin to convert other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups. Particularly from jails, prisons, and thuggish street gangs. This is occurring right now in:
Denmark 2%
Germany 3.over 9000%
UK 2.over 9000%
Spain 4%
Thailand 4.6%
From 5-8%, they exercise in excessive influence to proportion of their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of 'Halal', which is clean food by Islamic standards. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature Halal on their shelves, along with threats for failure to comply. This type of behavior is happening every day in:
France 8%
Philippines 5%
Sweden 5%
Switzerland 4.3%
Trinidad and Tobago 5.8%
At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves within their ghetto under Sharia, the Islamic law. The ultimate goal of the Islamist is to establish a law over the country, and essentially the entire world.
When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as the means for complaint about their current conditions and/or the way they are being portrayed in the media. In Paris, they're already seeing a vast increase of car burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Muslims, and results in uprising and threats-- such as in Amsterdam, with opposition to Muhammad, cartoons, and films exposing Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections in:
Guyana 10%
India 13.4%
Israel 16%
Kenya 10%
Russia 15%
After reaching 20%, nations can expect extreme rioting, Jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues. This happens, EVERY SINGLE DAY in:
Ethiopia 32.8 %
At 40%, the country experiences widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and a steady increase in ongoing militia warfare, such as:
Bosnia 40%
Chad 53.1%
Lebanon 59.over 9000%
From 60%, nations experience persecution of all non-believers (including non-conforming Muslims), scattered ethnic cleansing, usage of Sharia law as a weapon, and Jizya. This happens in:
Albania 70%
Malaysia 60.4%
Qatar 77.5%
Sudan 70%
After 80%, expect DAILY intimidation by violent Jihads, ethnic cleansing on a national scale, and even some genocide as these nations drive out the infidels and progress toward a 100% Muslim population. These wicked, violent nations include:
Iran 98%
Iraq 97%
Bangladesh 83%
Egypt 90%
Gaza 86.1%
Indonesia 86.1%
Jordan 92%
Morocco 98.over 9000%
Pakistan 97%
Palestine 99%
Syria 90%
Tajikistan 90%
Turkey 99.8%
United Arab Emirates 96%
Now, you would think that the country would FINALLY see peace at 100%, right? WRONG! The most dedicated, radical Muslims CONTINUE to intimidate, spew hatred, and satisfy their bloodlust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons. The countries that are under the full influence of "Allah" include:
Afghanistan 100%
Saudi Arabia 100%
Somalia 100%
Yemen 100%
And those were not even recent statistics. Those were made a year ago. See where every country stands with the most recent statistics here, which shows America up .8% from last year: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/re...centage-muslim
In "Beyond Belief," Naipaul... writes that... "in the Islam of converted countries there is an element of neurosis and nihilism..."
ReplyDeleteBingo.
That's why The Left [to include folks like Wieseltier or Prince Charles] welcomes the Muslims into Europe and America - because nihilism seeks out nihilism.
These folks recognize and understand one another on a very visceral level that many [hopefully most?] of us just can't comprehend - they are destroyers of humanity.
Can't help noticing that most of the "nice Muslims" people know are engineers, professional people, highly secular, non-religious, etc.
ReplyDeleteMost terrorist Muslims, at least in the West, are also professional, highly educated people.
I seriously doubt that [those n. african cities could ever have amounted to much]. They weren't Europeans before they converted to Islam. If anything, Algeria and Tunisia got whiter due to the white slave trade.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you have good reason to "seriously" doubt it. There's no straight line between whiteness and civilization. Ukraine's been damn white for over a thousand years but, come on, what can they really be said to be noted for? Hereditary factors (ie race, but not just race) are one thing but there's a lot more that goes into a civilization.
Whiskey/EvilNeocon/Testing99
ReplyDeleteThe main problem with Islam is polygamy... (it) creates an excess group of males that MUST act aggressively as raiders to carry off women from other groups... it also ensures poverty by making women ill-educated, isolated, and unproductive.
I thought your standard neocon deflection was to blame decadent Western women for all the West's pathologies and your own purportedly frustrated singledom?
The way you describe Islam, it seems to be the solution to the root problem you claim is tearing down the West and condemming you to lonely betadom: out of control Western Womyn.
At least as the Arab raider-type Muslim convert you envision, you have an outside chance of procreation in this world. If your raid fails, 72 comely virgins await you in the afterlife for trying. What's not to like from what you claim is your position.
"In the UK the "new atheism" is a coded response to Islam, not Christianity. Dawkins and co go to great lengths to present themselves as "equal opportunity" opponents of religion. But it's clearly Islam, not Christianity, that's their real nemesis."
ReplyDeleteI believe that once those atheist ninnies attempt to arrest a Muslim cleric.
"I don't think you have good reason to "seriously" doubt it. There's no straight line between whiteness and civilization. Ukraine's been damn white for over a thousand years but, come on, what can they really be said to be noted for? Hereditary factors (ie race, but not just race) are one thing but there's a lot more that goes into a civilization."
ReplyDeleteFair enough and I agree. But even if Islam never passed through North Africa, I think it would have been more likely that it would have remained a Mediterranean backwater instead of it magically turning into Martha's Vineyard because the population was Christian. Does Islam hinder civilizational development? Yes. But Christianity and whiteness don't necessarily promote it either.
"None of Algeria, Tunisia, or Libya could possibly produce an Augustine - their average IQs are simply too low."
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese have a high IQ, have they produced an Augustine yet?
"Carthage [with its native inhabitants] was once akin to Beijing, Moscow, Paris, London, or New York."
And Athens used to be the most intellectual city in the world and now it's a noisy dump.
"Islam is the destroyer of cultures, the destroyer of nations, the destroyer of peoples, the destoroyer of the intellect."
Islam doesn't destroy the intellect. It may not be as adventurous as the Western tradition but the elite do value education. Animist religions in places like Africa are far worse. You don't see many Muslims eating people or burning child "witches".
"Everywhere that Islam spreads, it destroys, and sets the people back by [literally] tens of thousands of years."
It tears down the old Christian/Hindu/Zoroastrian order, yes. But it's silly to imply that Islam contributed nothing to the sciences. Take the optical field for example, lots of Muslim contributions. Yes they don't compare to European and Chinese contributions but who does?
"If whites and Pacific-Rim Asians and Central Asians like the Brahmin and the Zoroastrians were suddenly to disappear from the face of the earth, it might take Islam 40,000 or 50,000 years to re-create the civilization we left behind [if Islam could even allow itself to develop in that direction in the first place]."
I don't know. The Turks, Bosnians, Azeris and Persians are pretty smart. They would do fairly well I think. Places like Pakistan and Somalia would be in trouble though. There are different types of Muslims, they aren't all like the Afghan goat herders. And it would depend on the politics. Would they be ruled over by someone like Ataturk or Khomeini?
To set the Robert Wrights straight, "contact theory" can result in one of four outcomes:
ReplyDelete(a) I was positively predisposed to Group X and having interacted with Group X my positive predisposition was confirmed.
(b) Pos predisposed/discomfirmed
(c) Negatively predisposed/confirmed
(d) Neg predisposed/discomfirmed
Of course there's nothing set in stone here, since attitudes among humans can and do change. And there's the question of what is meant by "having interacted with" -- with five people over two hours; daily with hundreds over yeras; etc.
But the point -- which everyone "knows" -- is there's really nothing inherent about exposure that will ensure one likes another group.
Elvisd,
As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be, for the most part, regarded as a peaceful and loving minority and not much as a threat to others. This is the case in:
America 0.6%
Australia 1.5%
Wrong. They're not spread out evenly. They're concentrated in parts of cities in which they form either dominant pluralities or outright majorities. Very few who have had ongoing interaction with them have very much positive to say about them. As usual, people flee, achieve some distance, and then (from that distance), diversity can start to look "kinda cool" again.
I believe that once those atheist ninnies attempt to arrest a Muslim cleric.
ReplyDeleteThe close-mindedness of doctrinaire atheists is supremely ironic when you consider the way they pride themselves on being "free thinkers."
Angle responded by sending flowers to Behar with a note touting
ReplyDeletethat she raised $150,000 that day.
Hahahaha, I love it.
For example, some might argue that Christian Serbs have more of a chip on their shoulders than Bosnian Muslims, so that could be a counterexample.
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt this. After having the West take every other ethnic group's side during the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and having NATO bomb and dismember Serbia proper, I can understand why.
>it's clearly Islam, not Christianity, that's their real nemesis<
ReplyDeleteThat's a Big Lie if I ever heard one. Hitchens was not moved to write against any mullah as extensively and bitterly as he has written against Mother Teresa, for example.
Muslims are the new gays, i.e. the new protected class whom liberals have pronounced innocent and oppressed as a group.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, this is not because they love Muslims (although they will begin to as time goes by) but because they loath the average American who fears Muslims. Google the term "oikophobia" It explains so many of liberals' attituds.
Well, I got to know several muslims on the west coast, and I have to say I like them for the same reason I liked Howard Stern - they have a healthy disdain for blacks. Best quote I ever heard about "the community" was from an Arab cab driver in Berkeley: "there's something wrong with those people."
ReplyDelete"Turkey: 90, 90
ReplyDeleteBosnia and Herzegovina: N/A, 90
Azerbaijan: 87, 87
Iran: 84, 84
Sorry, but those numbers just don't cut the mustard."
Sorry, but those numbers aren't accurate. For example, Iran is only 50% Persian and if you think their IQ is equivalent to American blacks, then you are an idiot. Turkey probably is in the low 90's because of all of the Kurds who are bringing down their avg IQ and of course, the hicks. The secular Turks however are much smarter and I imagine that they would easily match the European avg if you controlled for wealth.
"Without Whites, Pacific Rim Asians, and Brahmin/Zoroastrians to run the show [globally], those countries would very quickly succomb to the likes of cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis, and polio."
I don't know why you keep repeating this mantra. Brahmin and especially Zoroastrian achievement is insignificant. Brahmins win spelling bees. Big fucking deal. And can you name one recent Zoroastrian achievement that has benefited humanity? I can't think of one. Japan in the last 50 years has accomplished more than the Brahmins and Zoroastrians have in thousands of years. Brahmins and Zoroastrians are well off and they have a high IQ but money and IQ does not mean that their civilization is on the same level as the Western European or Sinic.
One thing missing from our ongoing discussion of terrorism, crime, etc., is the distinction between the middle and tails of a distribution.
ReplyDeleteHow people vote, how likely they are to be in poverty, how much common crime (theft, drug dealing, wife-beating, most murders) they commit, how people do in school--all that's best understood in terms of averages, the middle of the distribution.
Which people will become terrorists, rock stars, serial killers, great athletes, successful politicians, Nobel prize-winning scientists--all that's best understood in terms of the tails of the distribution. Those are extreme outliers.
The tricky part is, it's pretty hard to get much of a handle on the tails of a distribution in the real world. If you randomly sample 300 likely voters, you can learn a lot about how the whole population will vote. But you probably won't learn a damned thing about how likely it is that someone will try to blow up a polling station, even if people planning such a thing would answer your survey honestly--those people are too rare to find in small samples.
Terrorism (and genius) is all about outliers. Knowing the middle of the distribution surely says something about that, but probably not all that much.
"Serbs have more of a chip on their shoulder then Bosnian muslims do"...
ReplyDeleteHmm... how about we let Serbs drop bombs on America for 78 days just like America did to Serbia. How about we let the Serbs knock down all the bridges across the Potomac like America knocked out all the bridges across the Danube. How about we let Serbia detach Texas and California from America like America detached Kosovo from Serbia.
Then we'll see if Americans have a "chip" on their shoulders....
"Hitchens was not moved to write against any mullah as extensively and bitterly as he has written against Mother Teresa, for example."
ReplyDeleteHitchens has written against various mullahs in his articles. He has also denounced Gandhi which is a big no-no for leftists. Let's not forget that it was Hitchens who coined the silly term Islamofascism. He does treat Christianity harsher and he does have certain limits as to how hard he will criticize Islam, he has denounced Orianna Fallaci for her Islam books for example. However, it is clear that Hitchens is not easy on Islam. Sam Harris is another one of these professional atheists who is hard on Islam. The rest, including Dawkins, not so much.
Hitchens's obsession with Mother Theresa was entirely out of spite. He did not want her to become canonized and he was going to great lengths to smear her good reputation and the best way to get the word out was to publish a book.