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[FearfulJesuit]

No country has a 'cultural mandate for violence'. That might be the most offensive thing I've heard all week.

Then how do you explain why this keeps happening? This doesn't happen on even a semi-regular basis anywhere else, but if anyone in the West commits an act critical of Islam that gets well known, bam, violence. Every time.

I'm not saying this from nothing, you know. This is an evidence-based claim.

Because they're fucking hungry, MSH. That's most of the foundational cause. The situation is shit poor in the areas in question and the disenfranchised, hungry, poor, hopeless portions of the population (which are a considerably larger fraction compared to the comparatively well fed first world) get violent.

Do you see the same sort of violence coming with the same sort of frequency from followers of Islam in more stable areas?

I absolutely LOATH this (il)logic. Treat these people like fucking human beings. They have free will. They have brains. They have the capacity for critical thought. Saying their environment guarantees they will commit violence disregards their abilities completely. It makes them subhuman creature incapable of thought. These people know what the fuck they are doing and having a shitty life does not justify their actions.

Have you ever been starving?

When peoples' lives are on the line, if you spend years on end not knowing where your next meal is coming from- you'll take desperate actions. That's just human nature. The armchair philosophizing you're doing is the privilege of someone who's well-fed enough that they might have motives for violence beyond survival.

[scriver]

1. The American government are the American people. They represent you. You are all guilty for what they do. That comes with being a democracy.

Good to know. Tell me where you're from so I can make wild accusations of you doing horrific things you don't support and had no hand in.

2. If the American people did not consent to those actions, Bush and Obama would both be in Haag, awaiting punishment for their crimes. But they aren't, because when America does violence it's all right. Because in American's minds, they are the Good Guys, and the Good Guys can kill how many Bad Guys they want without ever being questioned. The Good Guys have mandate to commit whatever violence they want.

I suppose you can give me an example of heads of state being prosecuted for their actions leading a nation, then?

And furthermore, don't tell me how Americans feel about America. I live here. There are people who hate this country and there are people who love it, and every other way you could possibly feel towards a nation.

1. You were just accusing all Libyans and Egyptians of horrific things they did not support and had no hand in and certainly did not put in any kind of authority. But now you're saying it's not okay to blame all Americans for the actions of their representatives, even though they put them in power?


2. Slobodan Milošević and the rest. The Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Trials. Saddam Hussein. There's also the likes of Pinochet, the many people were supposed to be put on trial but kept away and died in exile.

[GlyphGryph]

This isn't "desperate aciton" - it's "taking violent action against a scapegoat to make yourself feel better about yourself."

[MetalSlimeHunt]

1. You were just accusing all Libyans and Egyptians of horrific things they did not support and had no hand in and certainly did not put in any kind of authority. But now you're saying it's not okay to blame all Americans for the actions of their representatives, even though they put them in power?

You're still not seeing how I'm talking about the actions of a populace instead of the actions of a government.

2. Slobodan Milošević and the rest. The Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Trials. Saddam Hussein. There's also the likes of Pinochet, the many people were supposed to be put on trial but kept away and died in exile.

All people on the losing side.

Have you ever been starving?

When peoples' lives are on the line, if you spend years on end not knowing where your next meal is coming from- you'll take desperate actions. That's just human nature. The armchair philosophizing you're doing is the privilege of someone who's well-fed enough that they might have motives for violence beyond survival.

This still doesn't have anything to do with religiously-motivated violence, which is what this was.

[FearfulJesuit]

This isn't "desperate aciton" - it's "taking violent action against a scapegoat to make yourself feel better about yourself."

You're essentially making the same mistake, though- you're in circumstances where you can sit and think about what Kant would say, you're baptized in the cultural water of the West, and you're being too rational.

Note, though, I am not a moral relativist, and I definitely condemn the killings. But a philosopher cannot ask a starving man to apply the categorical imperative. The starving man is too desperate.

And as in so many circumstances, I think this is religion being used as a cover for vague, amorphous violence and anger.

[GlyphGryph]

Although, I've got to say that America's long history of vigilante justice and mob lynching makes our lack of a "cultural mandate to violence" pretty hard to swallow. The biggest difference today seems to be we have a nice stable democracy and a fairly strong and reliable system of law that makes such violence less socially acceptable.

They don't have that, and getting it will take time.

Bigoted, stupid, hateful violence by no mean requires poverty. (though poverty makes recruiting a bit easier, I think) Do you have any evidence that poverty is even an element in this, though?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

And as in so many circumstances, I think this is religion being used as a cover for vague, amorphous violence and anger.

This only happened after the stupid troll-film got propagated through the Arabic-speaking section of the internet. It's been available since June or so.

[FearfulJesuit]

I dunno, guys. I'm gonna bow out of here before I say something really stupid, watch as things develop, and then maybe walk in again.

[scriver]

1. You were just accusing all Libyans and Egyptians of horrific things they did not support and had no hand in and certainly did not put in any kind of authority. But now you're saying it's not okay to blame all Americans for the actions of their representatives, even though they put them in power?

You're still not seeing how I'm talking about the actions of a populace instead of the actions of a government.

2. Slobodan Milošević and the rest. The Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Trials. Saddam Hussein. There's also the likes of Pinochet, the many people were supposed to be put on trial but kept away and died in exile.

All people on the losing side.

1. So when a small group of Populace X commits a crime, it's okay to blame all of Populace X; but when a majority of Populace Y votes someone into office to represent them and the representatives commits a crime, it's not okay to blame all of Populace Y? There's more reason to blame Americans or Swedes for the actions of their representatives than it is to blame all Libyans or Egyptians for the actions of the murderous rioters.

2. So, might makes right? Might makes mandate for violence?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

2. So, might makes right? Might makes mandate for violence?

No, might makes never going to be prosecuted.

[RedKing]

What does per capita have to do with poverty? Or at least how severe and widespread it is? I mean, there may be a correlation, but that's the most you can say...

Best easily-available metric I have. It's a valid criticism though...Libya's GDP could have been jacked up by Gaddafi's solid gold statues and shit, but on the whole it was (pre-war) a pretty flourishing state with a lot of trade links and a middle class. This isn't a region where the dominant career is "illiterate goatherder".

I think people tend to overlook the wide range of religious thought within Islam, just as they do in Christian extremism. You don't see too many radical Epsicopalians or Methodists. Your abortion-bombers are far more likely to hail from something like Pentecostal Holiness or Church of God, sects which have decidedly different (and far less compromising) worldviews than say, Unitarians Universalists (which would be analogous to something like the Druze in Islam...a group which considers itself sort of belonging to the larger whole, but which most mainstream groups view as too heterodox to be included).

The Kharijites (which are the main sect from which the Ibadis and Wahhabis derived) were followers of Ali who abandoned him when he agreed to peace talks with his rival for the Caliphate succession. Their reasoning was that Allah had chosen Ali for the office of Caliph, and that by agreeing to arbitration and mediation, he was placing the will of men above the will of God. Then they killed the guy they had been fighting for, who they thought was God's chosen. This says a lot of what you need to know about their internal logic and worldview. It's that fucked-up logic and inability to accept compromise that creates this kind of problem.

[kaijyuu]

I agree with dhokarena56 though I get to that position from a completely different perspective (I am a moral relativist and think that objective morality is disgusting and that the categorical imperative can go suck it).

I think that most the violence is fueled by anger toward the west concerning our imperialism (cultural and otherwise). They're pissed at our meddling and are looking for excuses to act on it. This was just the latest excuse. Sort of the spark that started a brush fire.

I make no claim as to what we should to (or should've done) since the situation is too complicated for me to make even an educated guess as what the proper action to take would be, but I think it unfair to blame the enablers (religion in this case) rather than the source.

[Zrk2]

This isn't "desperate aciton" - it's "taking violent action against a scapegoat to make yourself feel better about yourself."

You're essentially making the same mistake, though- you're in circumstances where you can sit and think about what Kant would say, you're baptized in the cultural water of the West, and you're being too rational.

Note, though, I am not a moral relativist, and I definitely condemn the killings. But a philosopher cannot ask a starving man to apply the categorical imperative. The starving man is too desperate.

Desperation does not justify immorality. Furthermore starvation cannot be solved by killing diplomats. They don't benefit from this.

[GlyphGryph]

Of course desperation justifies (some) immorality. But it certainly doesn't justify all immoral acts.

Stealing is immoral, but if your son will die if you don't, the immorality is justified. Killing and eating people is immoral, but if you're dying in the wilderness and you survive when the alternative was everyone in your party dies, that immorality could certainly be considered justified. When your facing a superior force that's going to destroy your people and kill them off, and the only way you can fight back is by killing those who supply them but are technically innocent, I'd say that could well be justified.

The problem is that this /type/ of desperation by no means justifies this /type/ of immorality.

[Moghjubar]

Speaking of those crazy religions and extremists and movies and whatnot,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_%28film%29#Attack_on_Saint_Michel_theater.2C_Paris