I'd like to discuss the various forms of tribalism (racism, religion-ism, nationalism, etc) and the effects of confirmation bias and modern media availability in forming the perceptions that affect them.
In particular, I'd like to discuss the growing issue of public opinion in the Western world of Muslims, and public opinion in predominantly Muslim nations of Western nations.
Coyote recently said the following in the thread,
Ground Zero Mosque - Tolerance, Racism or Comedy?
The point is that Muslims in many areas of the world are the least tolerant folks around, yet here they demand that we be tolerant.
Some folks get fed up with that.
Here's a recent example: Taliban cuts off both feet of actress who was to star in Afghanistan film (New York Times, registration required).
Additional examples are not hard to find.
I'm not intending to single Coyote out here - his comment is simply a recent version of similar sentiments echoed by many both here and in the larger real world, and in fact his comment is relatively very mild.
It does, however, clearly illustrate the phenomenon I'd like to discuss: the generalization of responsibility for an entire population.
Coyote expresses that he is getting "fed up" with Muslims, and uses the example of the Taliban's use of amputation as a way to terrorize a population into compliance (a story that has now actually been retracted by the NY Times, as shown
here).
My question is simply this: why do all Muslims, or even most, bear responsibility for this or other crimes of brutality and terror? Why should Coyote be fed up with Muslims
in general, as opposed to directing his anger only at those specific individuals within the Muslim community who support and commit such actions?
We are bombarded on a daily basis with news from around the world. Modern telecommunications technology has allowed for the formation of multiple 24-hour news networks and near-instant access to information. On an almost daily basis, this coverage tends to include stories of hideous barbarism in places like Afghanistan, or terror attacks (both successful and failed) around the world perpetrated largely by Muslims. We hear about Saudi Arabian courts who consider sentencing people to be paralyzed, or Iranian women who face such penalties as whipping followed by being stoned to death for crimes where their guilt appears dubious to Westerners and which seem monstrously severe and inhumane even were their guilt certain. Fatwas are issue for a man whose "crime" consisted of simply drawing a cartoon.
These are obviously atrocities. Very few people would even think about disagreeing with that simple analysis.
But should we be "fed up" with Muslims?
Confirmation bias rises when we seek confirmation of what we imagine to be true without looking for any evidence to the contrary. My belief is that modern media, being driven primarily by
ratings and the fact that stories of emotional impact tend to increase the public's interest in a story, reports primarily those cases where some form of extreme brutality is being committed...and that we, the viewers, fall into a cycle of believing Islam to be utterly barbaric, a belief which is then confirmed by more news stories of further atrocities, and so on.
We even see the effects of confirmation bias when people use the Koran as evidence that Islam
itself is a violent and abhorrent religion, and thus
all Muslims are "that way," as if other holy books like the Bible didn't contain violent and abhorrent instructions themselves. If Christians disavow slavery, stoning children, executing homosexuals and witches, cutting unborn babies from their mother's dying wombs to smash them on rocks, and all of the other evil barbaric garbage contained in the Bible and specifically instructed by God
just like in the Koran, then why can Muslims not possess a more modern form of ethics than their holy book's authors, just like their Christian cousins? Yet the cycle of confirmation bias continues - Muslims are instructed to kill infidels in the Koran, and this confirms again the suspicion over all Muslims and perpetuates the same cycle that derives from the media.
This cycle eventually even gives rise to
outright falsehoods, things that are simply made up with zero basis in truth - like the assertion that Barack Obama is actually a secret Muslim who got elected to sabotage America - a view held in great esteem by Buzsaw and many others beyond the bounds of this forum; the last statistic I saw showed a disturbingly large percentage of Americans suspect that our President may be a Muslim simply because of his name. More disturbingly, they think that if Islam were his religion of choice it would somehow by default make him some sort of political terrorist, seeking to destroy America from within. Pay no attention to the
actual Muslim legislators even now on Capitol Hill, who by all appearances are no more corrupt or evil than any other Congress-critter (which admittedly is a rather low bar to set).
What about the Muslims who do
not think that amputation is an appropriate form of punishment? What about the Iranians who continue to protest at great risk and with great difficulty against their oppressive government over what they believe to have been rigged elections? What about Muslims who flee to America or Europe to escape the violent and abhorrent factions who gain power in their home countries? When we see an American flag being burned by Muslim protesters in Iran, what actual percentage of Muslims actually agree with that sentiment, and perhaps just as importantly,
why? Is it wrong for a group of Iranian Muslims to be angry about well-known and verified American interference in their domestic affairs and politics? Is it wrong for a group of Iraqi Muslims to be upset that the American invasion cut off public services like power and water and resulted in a minor civil war that has still not ended, seven years later? Must Muslims either love America with their whole hearts, or be terrorists in our eyes?
What about
Muslims who do speak out against terrorism and Sharia law, even when speaking out carries the risk of making themselves the next victim?
Who should be the targets of our anger? I believe we should be angry at the officials in power who perpetrate these "judgments." We should be angry at al-Qaeda. We should be angry at those individuals who perpetrate "honor killings." We should
not be angry at
Muslims as a whole. Our view of the Muslim world is horribly one-sided, where atrocities are emphasized and reported almost daily, while stories of decent Muslims are rare. We have literally no statistical base from which to draw such conclusions as "most Muslims want to kill non-Muslims," or "most Muslims support al-Qaeda." Just as I don;t bear responsibility for the actions of my neighbor, and neither am I required to publicly disavow each and every negative action he might take, so too are Muslims not responsible for the actions of their neighbors.
Muslims, of course, are just the modern version of our cultural boogeyman. Historically in America, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, homosexuals, communists, Germans, Native Americans, Atheists, Jews, and others have occupied the same role; the difference is only that modern media access seems to simultaneously strengthen the effect and provide an outlet to speak out against it.
Shouldn't we stop the cycle of irrational confirmation bias, and actively seek those Muslims who might be our
friends rather than suspecting all Muslims of secretly harboring a deep religious desire to kill us all? Should we be "fed up" with Muslims? Or should we be angry only with those who have specifically committed the atrocities that have earned out collective ire?
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