Point made : there are a lot of morally backward. Sadly enough it is not uncommon among people of other faith.
The survey would be more significant if we could also have numbers and fgures about literacy, life expectancy, social status and attainment etc. and answers to the same questions from other people around the world.
Then we track causal links. For example try to draw a map of radical opinion distribution and inquire what other traits it overlaps.
Then we could assess the relative causal importance of (non exhaustively) a) religious beliefs (whatever a belief may be) b) non religious cultural traits (primarily family structures, literacy etc.) c) economics d) power relations, political situation ... As allways disentangling all the causal links between the main factors is very very hard.
May be the religious primacy hypothesis would be supported. But may be the data would support another explanation, suggesting other "grouping" of the facts at hand. (My guess would be that the most predictive traits come from family structure as studied by Emmanuel Todd)
More important, we could then have some clues as to how to mitigate those phenomena.
Do not get me wrong I neither advocate open borders, nor friendship with wahabite regimes, nor any kind of "everybody loves everybody" worldview. I just find the explanation of beliefs and behaviours by other belief somehow circular (at some point we should reach something "harder" that words)and unconvincing. [As you LK certainly know for you are fond of analytic philosophy defining what believing is and assessing what someone believes is a quite puzzling matter.] After all, when a thinktank advocates taxcuts for the rich as better for everyone, you do not take their word for it. You suspect the reasons they give are not the genuine causes of their policy preference. You would inquire into their social background, curriculum, ties to buisiness interest etc.
The methodology of explaining preference for beheading, stoning and whipping people should be no different.
Second thought : some 42% of french muslims apparently answered they might approve of targeting civilians, which I find horrifying. But how many of our fellow citizen do reject massive airstrikes that inevitably lead to killing hundreds of civilians too ? There is of course two differences here between : a) approving / simply not opposing b) targeting civilians on purpose / "simply" killing them in the process of targeting military facilities
But when it comes down to the maths, the repeated airstrikes took a lot more innocent lives than suicide bombing.
There is also some active support to those violence. I am not sure that Senator McCain lost many votes for having said it was time "to bomb bomb bomb Iran". Nor has Sarkozy's popularity sunk when he put France back into Nato's integrated command and sent soldiers to Afghanistan. Nor has Hollande's when he waged war in Mali (on the contrary it gave him a relief however short).
And did not many many people rejoiced when Kabbul was bombed as a "retaliation" for 9/11 ? or Raqqa for 11/13 ? Have you said Schadenfreude ?
(And you haven't heard some of my highschool pupils about how they would exert "justice" on rapists or even burglars and thiefs if they were given a chance to...)
Where are the usual suspects? Where's Kevin?
ReplyDeleteA nicely done video.
Point made : there are a lot of morally backward. Sadly enough it is not uncommon among people of other faith.
ReplyDeleteThe survey would be more significant if we could also have numbers and fgures about literacy, life expectancy, social status and attainment etc. and answers to the same questions from other people around the world.
Then we track causal links. For example try to draw a map of radical opinion distribution and inquire what other traits it overlaps.
Then we could assess the relative causal importance of (non exhaustively)
a) religious beliefs (whatever a belief may be)
b) non religious cultural traits (primarily family structures, literacy etc.)
c) economics
d) power relations, political situation
...
As allways disentangling all the causal links between the main factors is very very hard.
May be the religious primacy hypothesis would be supported.
But may be the data would support another explanation, suggesting other "grouping" of the facts at hand.
(My guess would be that the most predictive traits come from family structure as studied by Emmanuel Todd)
More important, we could then have some clues as to how to mitigate those phenomena.
Do not get me wrong I neither advocate open borders, nor friendship with wahabite regimes, nor any kind of "everybody loves everybody" worldview.
I just find the explanation of beliefs and behaviours by other belief somehow circular (at some point we should reach something "harder" that words)and unconvincing.
[As you LK certainly know for you are fond of analytic philosophy defining what believing is and assessing what someone believes is a quite puzzling matter.]
After all, when a thinktank advocates taxcuts for the rich as better for everyone, you do not take their word for it. You suspect the reasons they give are not the genuine causes of their policy preference. You would inquire into their social background, curriculum, ties to buisiness interest etc.
The methodology of explaining preference for beheading, stoning and whipping people should be no different.
Second thought : some 42% of french muslims apparently answered they might approve of targeting civilians, which I find horrifying.
ReplyDeleteBut how many of our fellow citizen do reject massive airstrikes that inevitably lead to killing hundreds of civilians too ?
There is of course two differences here between :
a) approving / simply not opposing
b) targeting civilians on purpose / "simply" killing them in the process of targeting military facilities
But when it comes down to the maths, the repeated airstrikes took a lot more innocent lives than suicide bombing.
There is also some active support to those violence. I am not sure that Senator McCain lost many votes for having said it was time "to bomb bomb bomb Iran". Nor has Sarkozy's popularity sunk when he put France back into Nato's integrated command and sent soldiers to Afghanistan. Nor has Hollande's when he waged war in Mali (on the contrary it gave him a relief however short).
And did not many many people rejoiced when Kabbul was bombed as a "retaliation" for 9/11 ? or Raqqa for 11/13 ?
Have you said Schadenfreude ?
(And you haven't heard some of my highschool pupils about how they would exert "justice" on rapists or even burglars and thiefs if they were given a chance to...)