Why We Should Listen

Old fashioned genocidists were impatient men of action, but a post-modern effete gay jew proponent of genocide, like me, advocates careful and respectful listening to other people. And who isn't looking for the sensitive side of our genocidal friends? Not only does listening to others show our desire for love and peace when they are an option, but also helps us avoid pointless arguments. In rhetoric and hermeneutics, careful and respectful listening is formalized by the Principle of Charity. Following this simple formulation of Principle of Charity will improve your life and make sure your arguments are interesting and relevant.

I bring up the Principle of Charity for three reasons. First, too often political arguments caused by people being determined to see the worst in others rather than the best. For instance, on Friday, August 25, 2006, Jeff Goldstein in his Protein Wisdom blog attacks Greg Mitchell’s editorial attacking right-wing bloggers for exposing fake war photographs by muslim reporters in Lebanon. Jeff and his readers attempt to turn an unimportant story about a nineteen year old Greg Mitchell slacking off on the job into some cosmic statement about how the MSM is biased. A careful and respectful reading of Mitchell’s 2003 account is that Mitchell is struggling with how to combat media bias even on unimportant issues. If Jeff had only used the Principle of Charity in reading Greg Mitchell, he could have used the time devoted to his post on Mitchell to something more convincing. Why is it bad if people make bad arguments? The more bad and pointless arguments people have to read through, the less time they will have to ponder the good arguments.

The second reason I bring up the Principle of Charity is that it is a formula for paranoia free political discussion. Let me suggest to the Political Left and the Political Right places where they exhibit paranoia. The Left pervasively views George W’s foreign policy through the lens that it must be evil. For instance, we are told the wars in the Middle East are wars for oil—which is as patently absurd as it is popular. If we just wanted oil from Iraq, it would have been much cheaper to just end the Oil for Food program. Of course, the Right was equally insane about President Clinton when he was president. I don’t how many people remember the lunacy about the President (or Hilary) actually murdering Vince Foster. I kept thinking then that if the Republican would just channel their anti-Clinton hate into explaining why minimum wage laws are bad ideas—just taught basic economic common sense—we could have gotten rid of those evil laws ten years ago. Instead, Clinton was impeached, which advanced no rational right-wing interest. If the Left and the Right were to apply the Priniple of Charity we wouldn't have to listen to these paranoid attacks on these two presidents. This would free up our time for more rational political discussion.

The third reason I bring up the Principle of Charity is because if you apply the Principle of Charity and what you are intrepretting still seems to be up to evil, then you are probably onto something. Let's remember here that active, open listening does not guarantee that agreement will be reached. The parties to disagreement may have interest that too far to reach agreement. Consider Hamas and Hezbollah versus Israel. Haman and Hezbollah want the utter destruction of Israel, while Israel, for some reason, opposes that.
In this regard, I do wish to assure the reader that I try to follow the Principle of Charity in everything I do including the study of Islam. As far as I am able to determine, my understanding of Islam is the same as 95% or more of muslim religious leaders. It is quite likely that my understanding of Islam is similar to the understanding of the leaders of your local mosque. I suggest looking at random muslim websites to get an understanding of what Islam is all about. There are a few websites by organizations created by Saudi oil money that pretend Islam is a warm and fuzzy little puppy, but these websites are pretty obviously intended not for muslim consumption but for non-muslim consumption. Look for website by muslims for muslims. I won't suggest any because you could say I'm giving a biased sample. If you look for Islamic websites yourself, you can't blame my biases for the viciousness you find. Let muslims make the case for their genocide by speaking in their own fascist, barbaric words, and doing their typical evil acts like stoning, slavery, and honor killing. It ultimately lies not with me, but with them, to make the case for why we must slaughter them. And, as always, keep in mind their words and actions exist in a world in which weapons of mass destruction are become more easily available.

I will suggest a few good websites that explain Islam for what it is:
Islamic Evil

Jihad Watch

Hot Air (not always about Islam)

LittleGreenFootBalls(not always about Islam & some of the contributers have rather unreflective understandings of the world)

Infidel Bloggers Alliance(my favorite, but some contributers have greater intellectual subtlety than others)