Aylee
Posts: 24103
Joined: 10/14/2007 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: truckinslave quote:
The poor little Muslims cannot be responsible for their actions? Are you KIDDING me? What, do you think they are mental defectives? Not really human? Here's an interesting analysis of that line of thought, from one Claire Berlinske: I’m sure you remember the story of Roy Horn, the Las Vegas illusionist mauled on stage by Montecore, an exquisitely beautiful seven-year-old white tiger with whom he thought he had a trusting and affectionate relationship. It was an awful story. Of course many made an obvious observation: Animals do what animals do. Tigers have instincts and a fixed nature. It would have been ridiculous to call the tiger a “savage” or a “barbarian.” To those in the media who are suggesting, apparently in all seriousness, that Terry Jones caused the deaths of seven UN employees in Afghanistan by burning a copy of the Koran, I’ll just note that the only way that argument works is by means of a suppressed premise. The premise is that the killers had no moral agency–in other words, that they were, literally, animals. Me, I’ll stick with “savages” and “barbarians.” Even savages are responsible for their actions..... Whereas Western democracy champions believe that all people are born with the same Western liberal democratic values, post-colonialists believe that non-Westerners are nothing more than victims of the West. They are not responsible for any of their own pathologies because they are not actors. Only Westerners (and Israelis) are actors. Non-Westerners are objects. And like all objects, they cannot be held responsible for anything they do because they are wholly controlled by forces beyond their control. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=206121 Is more what I was going for. Objectification or failure to allow individual moral agency is right up there with adjusting test scores for fireman promotions. It is extremely racist. It is saying, "Unless we give you some free points, you are just not going to measure up." Free points on a test or freedom of action. . . either is repugnant.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam I don’t always wgah’nagl fhtagn. But when I do, I ph’nglui mglw’nafh R’lyeh.
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