I
was having a discussion with a young man about religion, Islam, Sam
Harris, and accusations directed at Harris of racism and
"Islamophobia". The conversation started off on a sour note
due to some misunderstandings of what I had written. I was happy to
take the blame for that misunderstanding - occasionally my writing is
convoluted, goes off on tangents, and crawls up its own arse. I get
gabby, I lose focus and go off into areas that in my own mind are
relevant to what I started out with, but are utterly confusing to
someone trying to make sense of what I'm trying to say.
I
ended up deleting the post and subsequent thread that initiated this
conversation, since the young man with whom I was talking has either
blocked me or deactivated, since his posts vanished and I can't
locate him in a search. Ah, well.
The
point I tried to get across to this person was that I'm a nominalist,
in that I subscribe to the idea that groups are not real entities,
that only individuals are real entities. A group is made up of two
or more individuals who have at least one attribute in common. The
group called Americans, for instance, is a big group, and the one
attribute all Americans have in common is that they are citizens of
the United States of America. Americans have many other attributes in
common with one another, but none of them are necessary attributes.
The only necessary attribute of an American is that he/she be a
citizen of the United States of America. That's it.
Americans
have innumerable attributes in common. Some of them are Christians,
some of them are Jews, and some of them are Muslims; some of them are
white, some of them are black, some of them are hispanic. Some of
them are women, some of them are men. Some of them are Christian and
white. Some of them are Jewish and white. Some of them are Muslim and
white. Some of them are white Christian men, some of them are white
Jewish men, some of them are white Muslim men. Some are black
Christian men. Some are black Muslim men. Some are black Christian
women. Some are black Muslim women. Some are hispanic Christian
women. Some Americans are atheists. Some Americans are white
atheists. Some are black atheists. Some are hispanic atheists. Some
American atheists are white women. Some American atheists are black
women. Some American atheists are black men. Some American atheists
are left-handed. Some Americans are gay men. Some Americans are gay
women. Some Americans are claustrophobic hockey players. Some
Americans are blind. Some blind Americans are blues guitar players.
Some blind guitar-playing Americans are black. Some Americans have
mustaches. Some Americans like cheese. Some Americans don't like
American cheese.
Sorry
for all that, but I think it's kind of necessary. When someone like
Sam Harris, or any rational person, stands up and says that radical
Islam is a danger to real people in the real world, he is not saying
that everyone who is an adherent to the Islamic religion is therefore
dangerous. As a matter of fact, Harris has gone out of his way, time
and time again, to explain that he is, in fact, defending innocent
people in Muslim countries, who are themselves at least nominally
Muslim - meaning in name only - against the people who are oppressing
them and keeping them in a constant state of fear and danger. By the
very act of denouncing the atrocities committed by radical Muslims
against their own people, Sam Harris is defending the majority of
Muslims, the far greater majority of individuals who are just as sane
and rational as anyone else, who just want to live their lives in
peace and be left alone.
And
yet, by some amazing miscomprehension, or purposeful slander, he is
accused of being an Islamophobe, of being racist, of being the very
thing that he is in complete opposition to.
At
the heart of most of the confusion is a simple conceptual error: the
failure to distinguish the real from the unreal. A group is not a
real entity. It's just a label, an abstraction. The word "Muslims"
does not identify any individual, rather it's a term that refers to a
massive group of individuals who share at least one attribute in
common: that they are, at least nominally, members of the religion of
Islam. They may be hardcore fundies, or frightened atheists who are
unable to confess to disbelief because to do so could get them
killed, or any number of moderate, liberal, or orthodox believers.
When
Americans fought Americans in the Civil War, Sam Harris, while he is
an American, was not a member of those groups that fought. I'm an
American, but I am not in the group of Americans that fought against
the Japanese and the Germans in World War Two. Those people were
Americans, and I'm an American, but I was not a member of that group
of Americans.
Spaniards
killed a lot of Native Americans. There are many Spaniards who never
killed any Native Americans.
Some
Spaniards are men. Some Spaniards are vegetarians. Some Spaniards
like American cheese. Some Swiss people don't like Swiss cheese.
9.27.15
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