Argue against? I can’t find a single thing here that I disagree with. Except the bits where you argue in favour of mercantilism, but I never argued against that. I would (mostly along the lines of “freemarkets need specific cultural memes specific social and political infrastructures to function well: it’s a great engine but you can’t put it in just any car or in the hands of just any driver, otherwise people will die, and even in the right conditions it’s still massively dangerous, but it’s just so much more awesome than other crappier engines...”), but I reserve judgement until after I’ve read the classics and grown more familiar with the meme-space’s historical evolution.
“Reasonable Muslim” does seem to be a good approach, what with learning not to be a smug idiot and such. One would want to practice it, if only because one would know how painful and confusing a paradygm shift can be in that domain, and wouldn’t wish to inflict it on people who don’t explicitly seek it out. Though, the law being the way it is, even people who are struggling with religion should be left alone to have their own epiphanies.
The “No True Scotsman” fallacy (or, more specifically, the “This Scotsman Who Went And Was Educated In England And Has All The Mannerisms And Accents And Beliefs Of Our English Overlords Is No True Scotsman”) is an authentic problem. I have seen a west-educated boy from country X who, hearing another X-educated X boy who complained that meeting parties in the international organization they worked in were too focused on “disgusting” alcohol and pig. The “western” boy told the “genuine X” boy that he could drink alcohol-free beer or even a soft drink if he so wished, and that there was a sufficient selection of non-pigful food, including vegetarian food if he worried about Halal. The “genuine X” boy flat-out told the “westen” boy that he was “NOT X”. He did not look like he was from X, he did not speak X-ian as well as X, he did not dress like an X, move like an X, and he was waaaay too comfortable with pig and alcohol for his taste. He did so more with the tone of someone who is making an observation that frightens them than with a tone of censorship or condemnation. The “western” boy exused himself politely then spent the afternoon being very, very pissed off and profoundly offended, though that confused him: he thought he had outgrown something as irrational as “nationalism”, “group identity”, and “the desire to belong”, but, he said to me later, he was deepy hurt by that.
There really is a point after which cultural difference becomes so gaping that, while one may have a passport from X, one will be treated exactly as a foreigner by the “authentics”, especially in extremely uniform, totalitarian societies, with a rather sharply defined collective identity. How to reach them, then? Should one even try?
It must be incredibly frustrating to be told you are not X.
How to reach them, then? Should one even try?
If the US went to crap and I was able to move to Australia or New Zealand or France or UK, I think I would. I actually think the flow of people from worser places to better places is a feature, not a bug. That it provides a great deal of useful feedback in the world, and reallocates human resources to places where they will be way more useful and possibly happier as well. But it is a personally painful thing for the individual to face.
Argue against? I can’t find a single thing here that I disagree with. Except the bits where you argue in favour of mercantilism, but I never argued against that. I would (mostly along the lines of “freemarkets need specific cultural memes specific social and political infrastructures to function well: it’s a great engine but you can’t put it in just any car or in the hands of just any driver, otherwise people will die, and even in the right conditions it’s still massively dangerous, but it’s just so much more awesome than other crappier engines...”), but I reserve judgement until after I’ve read the classics and grown more familiar with the meme-space’s historical evolution.
“Reasonable Muslim” does seem to be a good approach, what with learning not to be a smug idiot and such. One would want to practice it, if only because one would know how painful and confusing a paradygm shift can be in that domain, and wouldn’t wish to inflict it on people who don’t explicitly seek it out. Though, the law being the way it is, even people who are struggling with religion should be left alone to have their own epiphanies.
The “No True Scotsman” fallacy (or, more specifically, the “This Scotsman Who Went And Was Educated In England And Has All The Mannerisms And Accents And Beliefs Of Our English Overlords Is No True Scotsman”) is an authentic problem. I have seen a west-educated boy from country X who, hearing another X-educated X boy who complained that meeting parties in the international organization they worked in were too focused on “disgusting” alcohol and pig. The “western” boy told the “genuine X” boy that he could drink alcohol-free beer or even a soft drink if he so wished, and that there was a sufficient selection of non-pigful food, including vegetarian food if he worried about Halal. The “genuine X” boy flat-out told the “westen” boy that he was “NOT X”. He did not look like he was from X, he did not speak X-ian as well as X, he did not dress like an X, move like an X, and he was waaaay too comfortable with pig and alcohol for his taste. He did so more with the tone of someone who is making an observation that frightens them than with a tone of censorship or condemnation. The “western” boy exused himself politely then spent the afternoon being very, very pissed off and profoundly offended, though that confused him: he thought he had outgrown something as irrational as “nationalism”, “group identity”, and “the desire to belong”, but, he said to me later, he was deepy hurt by that.
There really is a point after which cultural difference becomes so gaping that, while one may have a passport from X, one will be treated exactly as a foreigner by the “authentics”, especially in extremely uniform, totalitarian societies, with a rather sharply defined collective identity. How to reach them, then? Should one even try?
It must be incredibly frustrating to be told you are not X.
If the US went to crap and I was able to move to Australia or New Zealand or France or UK, I think I would. I actually think the flow of people from worser places to better places is a feature, not a bug. That it provides a great deal of useful feedback in the world, and reallocates human resources to places where they will be way more useful and possibly happier as well. But it is a personally painful thing for the individual to face.