Vienna Shooting

[Damocles]

If that's the case, why not just remove the offending post?

We get hateful posts like that all the time wishing death on people in numerous other threads and the posts get removed: it just smacks of using those posts as a pretext to stop analysis and criticism of the terrorists' motives.

I can speak to this. Forum moderation is shit. You can pull one post but somebody has seen it and emotions have been inflamed. Usually the thread requires management for the next few hours as the arguments will go back and forth and become increasingly more emotional and more hostile. If you're knackered and want to go to bed then sometimes it's easier just to pull the thread and deal with it later.

No, it's not the most ideal thing to do because obviously some quality is often lost but if you haven't got the time or energy to moderate then it's the least worst option.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

The call to "bomb Libya" didn't help either.

I thought we already had?

 

[Damocles]

That one did puzzle me, how someone can come to that conclusion baffles me.

I have a theory that a good 70% of political opinions, when you really explore the logic right down to its core, basically is a call to bomb something or someone. People always seem to think that bombing is a solution to a problem. We should probably pay more attention to that.

 

[Fame Monster]

I can speak to this. Forum moderation is shit. You can pull one post but somebody has seen it and emotions have been inflamed. Usually the thread requires management for the next few hours as the arguments will go back and forth and become increasingly more emotional and more hostile. If you're knackered and want to go to bed then sometimes it's easier just to pull the thread and deal with it later.

No, it's not the most ideal thing to do because obviously some quality is often lost but if you haven't got the time or energy to moderate then it's the least worst option.

If I was to set up a general thread discussing the causes and solutions of Islamic extremism, how would @Ric feel about it?

My guess is that he'd be against it but surely that would solve some of the problems of people becoming too emotional in the wake of an attack if there's one big thread in the same way we have one on Trump or Labour etc.

I feel sorry for posters like @ZenHalfTimeCrock who must spend about half and hour on each post, probably arguing stuff that Ric would sympathise with - how everyone's got it wrong about Islam - to see his posts removed when he could actually be changing peoples' minds about whether Islam is inherently violent or not.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

If I was to set up a general thread discussing the causes and solutions of Islamic extremism, how would @Ric feel about it?

My guess is that he'd be against it but surely that would solve some of the problems of people becoming too emotional in the wake of an attack if there's one big thread in the same way we have one on Trump or Labour etc.

I feel sorry for posters like @ZenHalfTimeCrock who must spend about half and hour on each post, probably arguing stuff that Ric would sympathise with - how everyone's got it wrong about Islam - to see his posts removed when he could actually be changing peoples' minds about whether Islam is inherently violent or not.

I think it's inevitable that such a thread would end up with people branded either islamaphobes/racists, or apologists/sympathisers and it would get out of hand. Not a comment on posters btw, more a comment on what seems to happen with any 'debate' nowadays. Polarisation into two opposite and angry mobs seems to be the way with everything political now. I blame twitter/online debate as it's faceless so makes it easy to demonise the folk you disagree with instead of agreeing to disagree and talking abouts tits or football instead which is probably how these discussions would end if they were face to face over a pint.

 

[mancityvstoke]

Fuck religion

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

“The woke elites and radical Islamists share something important in common — both think it is a sin to criticise Islam. The woke elites call it Islamophobia and the radical Islamists call it blasphemy, but the aim is the same: to censor Islam’s critics.”

Ali R.Rizvi's The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason considers the use of the term 'Islamaphobia' in a similar manner.

In the relevant section of the book, the author - commenting on a TV debate between Ben Affleck and Sam Harris hosted by Bill Maher - notes that Harris was attempting to point out that there is a difference between criticism of Islam (an idea) and bigotry against Muslims (a people).

Rizvi clearly approves of Harris's stance and continues:

'Anti-Muslim hate is a real thing, and is no longer limited to just white supremacists, nationalists, or far-right bigots. On November 19, 2015, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl in New York City was placed in a headlock by three boys in her class who punched her repeatedly and called her 'ISIS' while trying to yank off her hijab. Just imagining something like this happening to my own beloved niece is heartbreaking to me. As a man with a similar name, heritage, and look as the Muslims I grew up with, I am as much a potential target for these thugs as my Muslim family and friends. So let me again be clear: anti-Muslim bigotry is real, it exists and it is wrong.

This is all the more reason why umbrella terms like 'Islamaphobia' - which conflate criticism of Islam with anti-Muslim bigotry - are so sinister. Semantics matter. When legitimately criticizing illiberal elements of Islam - as we might do with any other religion or political ideology - elicits accusations of bigotry and racism, it abruptly ends an important conversation that needs to be had.'

From the wider reading that I have done, I would tend to agree with Rizvi. The term ‘Islamaphobia’ can potentially be deployed as a smokescreen to prevent a closer examination of forms of Islam that are not violent but that are still politically inflected and therefore deserving of close scrutiny and criticism (e.g. for their misogyny and homophobia) and the agendas of those who subscribe to them.

 

[Fame Monster]

I think it's inevitable that such a thread would end up with people branded either islamaphobes/racists, or apologists/sympathisers and it would get out of hand. Not a comment on posters btw, more a comment on what seems to happen with any 'debate' nowadays. Polarisation into two opposite and angry mobs seems to be the way with everything political now. I blame twitter/online debate as it's faceless so makes it easy to demonise the folk you disagree with instead of agreeing to disagree and talking abouts tits or football instead which is probably how these discussions would end if they were face to face over a pint.

True but it would be a shame to cancel all debate because the standard of debate is becoming worse.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

True but it would be a shame to cancel all debate because the standard of debate is becoming worse.

Absolutely, but if it's allowed to proceed how do you rate your chances of getting actual debate rather than just increasingly bitter name-calling and abuse?

 

[Fame Monster]

Ali R.Rizvi's The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason considers the use of the term 'Islamaphobia' in a similar manner.

In the relevant section of the book, the author - commenting on a TV debate between Ben Affleck and Sam Harris hosted by Bill Maher - notes that Harris was attempting to point out that there is a difference between criticism of Islam (an idea) and bigotry against Muslims (a people).

Rizvi clearly approves of Harris's stance and continues:

'Anti-Muslim hate is a real thing, and is no longer limited to just white supremacists, nationalists, or far-right bigots. On November 19, 2015, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl in New York City was placed in a headlock by three boys in her class who punched her repeatedly and called her 'ISIS' while trying to yank off her hijab. Just imagining something like this happening to my own beloved niece is heartbreaking to me. As a man with a similar name, heritage, and look as the Muslims I grew up with, I am as much a potential target for these thugs as my Muslim family and friends. So let me again be clear: anti-Muslim bigotry is real, it exists and it is wrong.

This is all the more reason why umbrella terms like 'Islamaphobia' - which conflate criticism of Islam with anti-Muslim bigotry - are so sinister. Semantics matter. When legitimately criticizing illiberal elements of Islam - as we might do with any other religion or political ideology - elicits accusations of bigotry and racism, it abruptly ends an important conversation that needs to be had.'

From the wider reading that I have done, I would tend to agree with Rizvi. The term ‘Islamaphobia’ can potentially be deployed as a smokescreen to prevent a closer examination of forms of Islam that are not violent but that are still deserving of close scrutiny and criticism (e.g. for their misogyny and homophobia) and the agendas of those who subscribe to them.

Completely agree.

I think the word Islamophobia downplays anti-Muslim hate crime too because many hear the word and assume that someone's upset because their religion's been criticised when actually a person may have been victimised on account of somebody else's prejudice.