Heather MacDonald: "The Left's Unilateral Suicide Pact"
I just read this quickly, and, honestly, have little idea what to believe about these issues.
As I've said, it often seems to me that the left thinks that (a) the right has a theory about such things, and that theory is racist, whereas (b) the left just sees things as they are, their thinking is unclouded by (bad) theory. And it also seems to me that much of the time it's actually that (a') it's the right that interprets things in the more straightforward, non-theoretical way, and (b') the left that has a theory--and the theory says, basically, that no unpleasant sort of inequality can possibly be real. So, for example, the theory says that Muslims cannot be more prone to terrorism. They just can't be. If the evidence seems to point in the other direction, then the evidence must be misleading. (And if the evidence just can't be denied, then it's a result of something we did. Colonialism. Imperialism. Capitalism. Christianity. The Crusades. Whatever.)
It's not that I don't feel the pull of something like that liberal theory...it's rather that I refuse to substitute faith for facts in such cases.
I think we have to discuss these issues openly and seriously, and that we can't do what liberals want us to do--which is substitute faith for facts. I think that liberals simply will not even consider the kinds of arguments that MacDonald is making. Whereas I think we must consider them. I don't have any foregone conclusion about them. I think that we have to have extremely strong reasons to discriminate (in the non-normative sense) on the basis of something like religion. But I also think that it's crazy to deny that Islam has a notable terrorism problem--in addition to several other problems...
What to do about it is less clear to me.
I do definitely agree with MacDonald that much of the left has a de facto open borders position. I've been saying this for years, despite quite a bit of pushback. I think it's done nothing but become clearer. I honestly think that, by now, it's fairly difficult to deny.
But, anyway. When I get a chance to go back and read the piece more carefully, I might be appalled that I took it seriously. But I doubt it. I might disagree--but I think these types of arguments need to be taken seriously.
As I've said, it often seems to me that the left thinks that (a) the right has a theory about such things, and that theory is racist, whereas (b) the left just sees things as they are, their thinking is unclouded by (bad) theory. And it also seems to me that much of the time it's actually that (a') it's the right that interprets things in the more straightforward, non-theoretical way, and (b') the left that has a theory--and the theory says, basically, that no unpleasant sort of inequality can possibly be real. So, for example, the theory says that Muslims cannot be more prone to terrorism. They just can't be. If the evidence seems to point in the other direction, then the evidence must be misleading. (And if the evidence just can't be denied, then it's a result of something we did. Colonialism. Imperialism. Capitalism. Christianity. The Crusades. Whatever.)
It's not that I don't feel the pull of something like that liberal theory...it's rather that I refuse to substitute faith for facts in such cases.
I think we have to discuss these issues openly and seriously, and that we can't do what liberals want us to do--which is substitute faith for facts. I think that liberals simply will not even consider the kinds of arguments that MacDonald is making. Whereas I think we must consider them. I don't have any foregone conclusion about them. I think that we have to have extremely strong reasons to discriminate (in the non-normative sense) on the basis of something like religion. But I also think that it's crazy to deny that Islam has a notable terrorism problem--in addition to several other problems...
What to do about it is less clear to me.
I do definitely agree with MacDonald that much of the left has a de facto open borders position. I've been saying this for years, despite quite a bit of pushback. I think it's done nothing but become clearer. I honestly think that, by now, it's fairly difficult to deny.
But, anyway. When I get a chance to go back and read the piece more carefully, I might be appalled that I took it seriously. But I doubt it. I might disagree--but I think these types of arguments need to be taken seriously.
posted by Winston Smith at
7:32 PM
1 Comments:
"So, for example, the theory says that Muslims cannot be more prone to terrorism. They just can't be. If the evidence seems to point in the other direction, then the evidence must be misleading."
If you want a real doozy on this, take a look at the UN's list of known terrorist organizations. Then see how strong the Left's grasp of conditional probability must be in light of that evidence.
In fairness, the few non Muslim entries are mostly Communist, so maybe they are just trying to get some respect.
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