Quote:
Originally Posted by nik-
Sorry but why should criticizing cultures from the outside be avoided?
A person doesn't have to grow up in something to point out bad things about it. This is just another form of dismissal. The vast majority of us didn't grow up in the gun culture of the US, but we have no hesitation justly criticizing it.
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I don't see it as a dismissal to say that "it should be avoided if possible". It's more like a really huge caveat. But I'd like to rephrase that to what is now a popular expression in liberal circles: You should avoid punching down.
In other words, people who represent a group with the power (such as Christians in the western countries) should avoid "throwing punches" (metaphorically speaking obviously) at those who are in a more vulnerable position (such as minority religions), because there's a huge risk of doing more harm than good in that situation. Big fist, small target, be careful.
For example, there is a very real chance that loud public criticism of Islamism by white Christians does indeed strengthen extreme right narratives and increase discrimination and outright violence towards Muslims. The risk for that happening is much, much smaller if these discussions happen mostly within the culture itself.
Another very real risk is that loud criticism from outside in a situation like this can drown out the critical voices on the inside, to the point that the people being criticized simply feel discriminated by outsiders and become more segregated and end up being less responsive to all criticism.
Yet another problem (that is more an inside/outside thing than a punching up/down thing) is that people from the outside mostly can't help being clueless. This is not such a huge problem if you have a small group criticizing a large group, but if you have a large group criticizing a small group, it can become quite intolerable for that minority. Plus the clueless criticism from the outside is likely to be so much more common than not-clueless criticism, that the latter will again likely be drowned out.
I think you get the point.
Again as I said, these are all simply caveats. It doesn't mean you should never do it. You should just think carefully before you go there, and choose your words even more carefully. (Keep it limited, avoid generalizations and so on.) If you're not certain you're not being clueless, it's often best let someone else do the talking and just go "what that guy said". Generally the best critics come from the inside anyway.
Of course some basic stuff just obviously needs to be said. Such as "you can't tell me what I can draw or not". Or "you can't do that to your daughters genitals". Just real no-brainers. If that stuff creates problems in the Muslim society, then it's up to them to deal with it.
On the other hand, the odds of a non-academic Christian getting their criticism on the relationship of Quran and present-day Islamic practices right is so close to zero that I would not go there.
(I could talk more about social power structures too, but I think that would just bring unnecessary complexity to what is already another quite a long post.)