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Awareness -> RE: Penn Jillette on Islam (5/10/2017 7:30:45 PM)
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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
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It seems to me far more reasonable and likely that a confluence of social economic and political factors pre-dispose their victims towards extremist ideologies - extreme situations create a fertile breeding ground for extremist solutions. The ideology provides a post-facto rationalisation of both the extreme situation and the extreme solution (terrorism).
Really, Tweak ... I'm inclined almost to say 'forget it'. I've noticed that on these boards people do not generally *do* 'social, economic and political factors' that predispose people towards extremist ideologies. What you'll get is psychological hypothesising (generally of the cod sort) - and that will generally be that. In this example, Peon fails to understand that adherence to extremist ideology is an artefact of individual human psychology, not a consequence of being poor. Or being part of a totalitarian theocracy. Or due to political leanings.
The kind of double-think in which apologists for Islamic aggression - such as Peon and Twink - engage in is also an aspect of human psychology. They're so inculcated with socialist nonsense, that they think everyone who's not part of a Western democracy is a victim. But the psychological reason why this attracts them is their failure to make peace with their own inherent mediocrity. They hate the idea that life is a competition and secretly yearn for some superior force to adjudicate everyone's lives and "make it fair". But of course, this force can't be any kind of Christian God, because they hate Christianity as well.
Consequently, they believe the fundamental purpose of government is to make everyone's lives the same - with nobody doing better or worse than anyone else. Essentially they believe a socialist Utopia is possible and their entire ideological paradigm is founded upon that idiotic delusion.
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Or, at least, that's the case when examining the motives of the average home-grown right wing terrorist, like Dylann Roof. Ah, Peon makes a classic mistake. Dylann Roof is not a terrorist. His motives weren't political. He's a white supremacist who shot the kind of people he'd grown to hate. Even the Washington Post - a pretty liberal organ - agrees.
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When it comes to Islamic terrorism though, why, you don't even need cod-psychology. You just need a copy of the Koran - for that alone describes *everything* that any given Muslim's mind *is*. The mind of a starving Muslim whose wife and children have just been blasted by a bomb from a Syrian jet will be *exactly the same* as the mind of the chubby little Muslim guy who runs the local corner shop in a Suffolk village. It's fascinating to watch Peon's racist condescension in action. He doesn't even realise he's doing it. He can't even conceive of his local Islamic newsagent as a terrorist, because - deep down - Peon doesn't acknowledge him as a full human being who possesses that kind of agency. In Peon's mind, his newsagent is a stereotype whose range of action is defined by the limits of Peon's imagination. If Peon can't imagine him doing it, then his newsagent is incapable of action. As far as Peon's concerned, these short brown people are just cute cuddly archetypes with no will of their own.
Honestly, it's both ironic and repulsive.
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You know the most pisspoor, dismal thing of all, for me? It's when some pompous windbag who has a hang up about his/her lack of education, tries to trash the knowledge that various people have picked up in the social sciences as 'unscientific'. Then, they proceed to replace it with the most wildly anti-scientific hogwash there could be. I mean, I've clocked that you're a fan of Herr Feyerabend and no doubt have a certain sympathy for his epistemological anarchy - as do I. But that doesn't mean that the undereducated flatulence of every hyper-egotistical plonker who rolls into the room with his megaphone is absolutely to be treated as of equal value to the knowledge people have actually been trained in.
One of the realities of communication is that this kind of diatribe tends to better illuminate the person saying it than it does the object of their vitriol. There's a bit to unpack here.
There are, of course, multiple social sciences such as political science, economics, anthropology, linguistics and so on. To be considered a science, however, the use of the scientific method - specifically observation and experiment, must be employed.
It's notable therefore that "gender studies" is not a science and neither is the pseudo-science from which it draws much of its theoretical idiocy: psychiatry. While psychology is a science, psychiatry is not. Therefore, it's important to distinguish between sciences which actually employ scientific method and pseudo-sciences which do not.
What's immediately apparent is Peon's ego-satisfying belief that his time spent in the priesthood of academe should impart his words with more authority than those of others. This is, of course, utter nonsense and tends to imply he's not working class and has been spoon-fed from an early age. Never having had to go out and actually work for anything, he errantly believes that his rather undisciplined cruising through an academic experience of little achievement somehow qualifies him as an authority.
There's even a fallacy for those people who try and argue from this point of view. It's called "appeal to authority".
What he fails to mention is that for all his posturing his actual ability to make a cogent point and defend a line of argument is incredibly poor. His appeal to knowledge is a defensive move based upon the uncomfortable realisation that he can't argue his way out of a paper bag. It also tends to reveal the stratification of his social origins. England's class-based society still lingers in some quarters and no doubt Peon fundamentally believes that he qualifies as one of those "betters" who the common people should tip their hats too. My mockery of his incompetence no doubt strikes deep at his delusion of self-entitlement, which is why he's so bitter at being bested.
The irony of course, is that this view of himself is at odds with his view of socialism as the cure to society's ills. These two beliefs are so far apart, that I'm surprised the cognitive dissonance doesn't inspire him to beat himself up. I sincerely hope he doesn't engage in self-harm or suffer from bulimia. That's a frightening pair of symptoms.
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