Earlier this week I attended a public panel on US-Islamic relations. I have to say that my people (that is, liberals) have a long way to go.
1. If your central point it that “we must look US history square in the face,” you cannot catalog only US actions of colonialization/oppressision/etc., ignoring US actions on behalf of human rights, for example. By definition, this lopsided view is precisely not looking history square in the face.
2. The argument “because the US has done x, y, and z evil things means it cannot be trusted” will get you in trouble. What nation, judged by such criteria, could be trusted then? Perhaps we should not trust you either, assuming you wish to be judged by the same criteria.
3. Perhaps the unstated backdrop to #2 is the belief that it is appropriate to judge the US more sternly because of its own mythologies of “manifiest destiny” and “the city on the hill.” But for that to hold, wouldn’t you need to show that other ascendant nations have not used similar self-serving metaphors?
4. If you point is that the US is no different from other ascendent nations, you do not need to reference its mythologies of “manifest destiny” and “the city on the hill.”
5. With a nod to Godwin’s Law, I’d like to propose Chutney’s Law: Any liberal who cites Noam Chomsky in a public debate automatically loses. If it gets to this point, you are no longer trying to persuade but are instead merely preaching to the choir.
6. The fact that racisim/slavery is the US’s “original sin” does not itself delegimate its higher ideals. Unless your worst sins also deligitimate your own highest ideals.
7. Similarly, if “hypocrisy” means betraying your own ideals, then we are all hypocrites. The word would then be a synonym for “human,” which, ironically, we liberals used to consider something of a compliment.
8. If your organization did not organize or fund the public event in question, you may not dump your organization’s literature on the organizers’ info table, unasked, when no one is looking. This has nothing to with restricting free speech; it’s a matter of being polite and civil.
9. If you place your literature on an organizers’ info table, unasked, when no one is looking, because you are already sure that they will deny your request to place it there, then you are no longer trying to persuade and are on the road to becoming a propagandist.
is noam chomsky (really) a liberal? tiresome semantic arguments aside, really, dosn’t Paul Wolfowitz have a better stake on that particular term?
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Godwin’s Law only states that the probability of a mention of the Nazis or Hitler increases (tends towards 1) as the discussion becomes longer. That a discussion is over and a person has “lost” the discussion is a related but separate matter.
</minorNitPicking>
Questions:
1. Granted, a one sided view is not the complete historical record, but in the context of the discussion you describe it appears that the significant historical facts are, at best, not ones we can be proud of. Since I don’t know what events were given in this catalog of American sins, it may be that they were all irrelevant anyway, and I don’t have much patience for guilt addicts myself. But I would like to know more on this point.
2. What were x, y, and z? in this case? They may be decent reasons for not trusting the US, but if other nations engage in them—and I’m sure they do, since one of the things that surprised me about the ’03 invasion of Iraq was that we didn’t re-assemble the old Gulf War coalition—why then trust these nations? Or maybe in terms of int’l relations, trust qua warm, fuzzy feeling is besides the point?
Was the point of the panel any more specific than to discuss US-Islamic relations? (and that sounds rather odd in itself, because the US is a nation, and Islam a religion and a culture—I mean, there’s a mosque two subway stops away from where I live) Was there a break in chorus of mea culpas? (If I knew Latin, I’d put a funny twist on dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, but I don’t, so I can’t)
I should say right off that only two of the four panelists took this approach. However, the other two didn’t outright argue with them, so it “felt” like the whole panel was taking their approach.
No, no other point than US-Islamic relations (the subtitle, I think). Tends to reinforce Sam Huntington’s clash of civilizations thing, even as it tried to get beyond it (title was something like “hope not hate”).
1. The US sins in question were, in fact, sins: slavery and Native American conquest featured most prominently. But there was no line drawn between them and US-Islamic relations. It was exactly the sort of America bashing that conservatives love to mock.
2. If your point had been made, I wouldn’t have been so peeved. Instead, it was the sins from #1 with perhaps the addition of US colonialism following the Spanish-American War. (And again, only two of the panelists, but they were not rebuked.) “America is a bad egg” isn’t an argument. It’s a sentiment, and not one that many Americans share, so if you’re hoping to persuade with that you won’t get very far.
Oy. :shock: