[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by Itse

I don't agree. I can't think of a single example from history where that has been the case, and I seriously doubt such an example exists.

The closest thing to a single-issue war I can think of right now is the American Civil War, which was in very large part about the slavery issue. Yet would anyone seriously suggest in an adult conversation that that war was simply an ideological/cultural fight over slavery?

I think we are talking past each other here.

I'm not arguing that there aren't a myrad of different things that contribute to wars, instability, etc, including the islamic terrorism and middle eastern conflicts that are today's particular issue.

Rather, I'm arguing that the presence of those contributions with different cultural norms or religious tenants could have resulted in very different actions. Would the civil war have happened and been as bloody without disagreements around slavery? It's hard to say. It's not even close to the only thing the war was about, but the issues may have been resolved in other ways, for better or worse, without the disagreement around slavery. Same thing goes for the religious wars in Europe during and after the reformation. These wars were less about religion than a host of other things, but without the religious disagreements, perhaps, though it's only a bare possibility, a less bloody solution could have been found to political issues. So when I say that it's possible that much of the conflict in the middle east is caused by religious and cultural conditions, I'm not saying that imperialism, foreign interference, etc didn't result in massive discontent, dictatorships, etc, but rather that the terrorists this spawned might have chosen some other occupation had the cultural and religious conditions been different.

I agree with all of this, mostly.

The only thing I would like to comment on is that not every accusation of racism is wrong, even if the person being accused does not recognize it.
People can be incredibly blind to their own biases, and while I seriously dislike the whole privilege discussion, there are absolutely a lot of times when people really should check their privileges before speaking. And maybe choose to let others do the talking.

Which brings me to the point that not all identity politics is BS. There is absolutely merit to the notion that white middle-class culturally-Christians in the west (especially middle-aged straight men like me) should where possible let others speak with their own voices instead of talking over their heads or for them. Many liberals are active in circles where this really is an issue, and they are essentially daily reminded of this in various ways. It's a very human mistake for those people to say that we should not be telling fundamentalist muslims what's wrong with their culture.

They're pretty clearly wrong in this case, but they're not IMO wrong in the general case. Criticizing cultures from the outside should be avoided if possible. It's just not always possible. There are not enough people like Maajid Nawaz right now to represent the critical voices in this matter. Us middle-aged western whites need to chip in.

But I would much prefer if we do it from the sidelines and try to keep the Muslim critics in the focus where possible. I also think it's vastly more effective.

I agree. I think that we should let people talk about their own experiences, rather than trying to assign experiences to them. However, once these experiences are known, I think anyone that properly informs themselves properly can have a valid opinion about them. Often the solutions to problems that large portions of a particular minority faces can be resolved by considering the point of view of both the insiders and the outsiders. Most of the time the point of view of either group alone is incomplete and insufficient.

When I think identity politics though, I think beyond making sure everyone has a voice and to it's use in public policy. I have no problem allocating funding to certain programs in a identity specific way if a certain group has unique needs. For example, it makes sense to fund more early childhood education in poor black communities in the US vs other poor ethnicities as this has been shown to have a unique but major effect in long term academic achievement and general iq for these communities. When it becomes a matter of deciding who to listen to in things beyond personal experience, or when it's used as an excuse to deny privileges to one group because they have an advantage in an unrelated part of life, I think it's worthless at best and often harmful.

By the way I have a feeling that one of the fallacies around this topic is that there even are clearly definable sides. It seems to me the discussion is quite multisided when you start digging into it.

But of course double standards really are super common.

Agreed.