Even if I don't think Islamic terrorism can be seen as anti-Imperialist resistance, the West is crucial to the Islamist narrative. In that narrative, Islam has been humiliated (militarily) and overtaken (in terms of success, wealth and power) by a morally degraded culture.

Yes, I've been readng Burke's excellent New Threat from Islamic Militancy, and I don't have any serious issues with what he says.

the incentives that initially drove the proliferation of terrorist organizations and attacks on Western cities — Saphsin

Do you mean the incentives of the people who did it? Again, if you look at the history of al Qaeda and ISIS you'll see that the incentive was not centrally to resist Western military interference.

If you read that research more carefully you'll see that what it shows is that recent Western intervention has opened up space for the spread of terrorist activities that have a special character owing to the historical development of Islamic culture and ideology. Throwing gay people off the top of buildings, destroying pre-Islamic cultural heritage, trying to wipe out non-conformist sects, or executing boys for listening to pop music, are not ordinary, general, knee-jerk reactions to destructive foreign inerference. Indeed they are not primarily attacks on the West at all, except insofar as it is seen to represent modernity and pluralism.

And your story about peasants rising up against the West by joining terrorists is too simplistic to be a useful general characterization of what has been happening.

Since you argued that the alternative narratives to the mainstream media were equally shallow — Saphsin

I did not argue that. Although I would argue that many of the competing narratives are equally shallow, I specifically described the particular narrative I was criticizing.

like at all — Saphsin

Speak English boy.

Otherwise, those links don't contradict what I said, and I've been very impressed with Scott Atran's analysis in particular.

While I'm talking about crazy narratives, a lot of what I hear about the Middle East follows a pretty shallow narrative. "Moslems in X country are blowing up women and children in markets, parks, etc." It's all religious bigotry. They're all crazy." (They don't say they are all crazy -- one infers that.) Take Assad in Syria. They never tell us why people are against Assad. Why is Assad doing what he is doing? These people are not (possibly) all crazy. Presumably there is more at stake than just petty religious bigotry.

It is difficult for people to make sense of what they hear when news stories about real events are structured in such a way that the active agents involved don't seem to have apparent and rational reasons for behaving the way they do. — Bitter Crank

One of the very common alternative narratives has the same effect, structures real events in the same way, and is equally shallow. The idea is that the acts of ISIS, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Palestinian terrorists are the rage of the oppressed, that the West (and its allies) has made them crazy. It ignores the logic of Islamism and how it fits historically in the specific circumstances of the Middle East.

Agreed. Do you think illegal immigrants should be allowed to freely come in whenever they want? — Agustino

As a general principle, I think people should be able to go where they want.

Unless you subscribe to some totalitarian pseudo-morality, @Agustino, laws are not necessarily good or right, and the most interesting political debates are about how the law should be changed.

I think if you read over that again you might see the humour in what you've written particularly the part about me smearing accusations of antisemitism. — Baden

I started out by saying I thought there was an anti-Israel bias outside America, then went on to say I thought antsemitism was very relevant to a discussion of anti-Israel sentiment, and then defended the notion that antisemitism underlies some anti-Israel movements as a legitimate, serious position that cannot be dismissed. I don't see the humour, unfortunately.

No, I am saying that the accusation of antisemitism is not always a "cudgel used to stifle debate", as you are implying it always is. And I am saying it is relevant. I am responding to your rhetorical attempts to smear all accusations of antisemitism. It's the very thing at issue, and would need to be debated. I recognize that I would have to actually argue that much of the anti-Israel sentiment of recent years is inspired partly by antisemitism. Likewise, you have to argue that it is not--rather than throwing spitballs.

Just read my posts.

"Semitic" as an ethnic group is more expansive than "Jewish", isn't it? The Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians are all Semites. The Arabs are semitic. Then there is language. Arabian is spoken in parts of northern Africa whose people are not ethnic Arabian. French and English are spoken by people who are not remotely European. Multiple cultural influences have cross hatched the Middle East, flowing from Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Greece, Rome, and farther afield.

Antisemites, as a group, really shouldn't like Saudis any more than they like Jews, if they are going to be consistent. — Bitter Crank

Anti-semitism is prejudice against Jews. That's what it means, and it's what it has meant since it was coined. You might argue that it was mis-named, of course.

But as it happens there used to be (I'm not aware if it's still around, except for in Iran) an anti-Arab prejudice that was similar to antisemitism, Arabs being portrayed as avaricious and untrustworthy (I found an example of this just recently in a hideous sci-fi book by Larry Niven).

Christianity's deepest roots are Semitic--one of those inconvenient truths.

Why is this inconvenient for Christianity? Christianity transcends ethnicity doesn't it? Christian anti-semitism is (or was) about the religion. It was only in the late nineteenth century that anti-semitism became racialized.

But my point about poisoning the well stands. It may be that anti-Semitism comes into the conversation somewhere but it shouldn't be used as a cudgel to stifle debate. — Baden

Well, nothing should be used as a cudgel to stifle debate. Portraying the accusation of anti-semitism as a debate-stifling cudgel is partly what these authors are taking issue with. It's the crux of the biscuit.

But in so far as it does, it bleeds in from the right. It's almost exclusively right-wing morons... — Baden

I think you'd need to argue for this, not only because left-wing anti-semitism is a very well-known phenomenon going back to the nineteenth century, but especially because it contradicts numerous recent commentators who have brought our attention to the modern variant, e.g., Owen Jones, Nick Cohen, Simon Schama and Howard Jacobson--few if any of whom are uncritical of Israel (Jacobson being the least critical, I think). And these are respected independent writers making their cases in a calm and reasonable way--they're not idiots, trolls, propagandists, or loonies.

And there's also the testimony of people formerly involved with pro-Palestinian campaigns, like Alex Chalmers.

Whether you agree with their assessment or not, the fact that it's not just an oddball claim demands that you do more than flatly deny it (if you're up for continuing the discussion, that is).

Incidentally, which debate you regard as the real one is probably a matter of taste: some of us might prefer to talk about left-wing anti-semitism than about whether Israel's actions are justified. In any case, I think the two can be hard to separate.

I was just pointing out that it was relevant, and I was aware you didn't say it wasn't. As for your last statement, there are serious thinkers who suggest there's an underlying resurgence in anti-Semitism that accounts for much of the recent anti-Israel stuff. Is such a position necessarily pernicious? I can't tell if you would say this counted as "branding every critic of Israel an anti-semite", but if not, and you meant it literally, then of course I agree.

In my view, anti-Semitism is crucial to a discussion about the current political campaigns against Israel and the general attitudes towards it (though I have no special interest in accusing you personally of anti-Semitism).

Thankfully not everyone on the Left falls for it.

Well, there's certainly a rabid bias against Israel infecting the rest of the world right now so I suppose you're kind of right.

Long fuel lines at gas stations, weak foreign policy resulting in Iran hostages, double digit inflation, double digit interest rates, Russian wheat debacle, and I'm sure there's more, but just can't remember. America was weak, which made room for Reagan, much like Obama has made room for Trump (a joke, only sort of). — Hanover

Doesn't sound all that bad to be honest, but what do I know?

His more recent positions on Israel have been atrocious, although I'm sure you disagree with my assessment. — Hanover

Now wait just a minute. I don't recall saying anything about Israel on this forum or the last one.

I mean if our position is reactionary, you're going to have to come up with some new vocabulary for those who would force a woman who had been raped and is suicidal to carry a pregnancy through its full term, which is another form of cruelty which I would oppose as much as you would. — Baden

If this woman only managed to get to the abortion clinic in the third trimester, would you still oppose a law that forced her to go through with the birth? For the sake of argument let's say she's not suicidal or at risk otherwise.

And just because you're not extreme (or should I say consistent?) doesn't make you non-reactionary.

As for pain, just as I think it'd be wrong to kill a newborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved, I think that it'd be wrong to kill an unborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved. I say "on a whim" because both you and Moliere have made comments about no legal restrictions, so whims would be legitimate. You can't simply dismiss these counterexamples as conservative rhetoric. — Sapientia

I think I can dismiss them as conservative rhetoric, because the evidence I've already linked to shows that women do not do it on a whim. But in the end it is up to them, whether it is on a whim or not, and that's what is of prime importance to me: the woman's autonomy and human dignity. Also important to me is that women get the medical attention they need as early as possible, and restrictions on late abortions only hinder that.

Fair enough. I can appreciate that. In fact I don't know if I'd say that late abortions are, necessarily, always morally unproblematic, for the reason that they are never morally unproblematic for the mother, for whom it is always a difficult decision. When the fetus has all the characteristics you describe, it can become effectively a proto-person in the mind of the mother (and others), which does make it a moral problem to have an abortion so late. But not all ethical decisions can be determined by law. There is, I'm glad to say, room for ethical manoeuvre outwith the law, and this is one area where I think the law should get out of the way.

One is not a person by having a functioning brain. They are (under that argument) a person because this individual, who has a functioning brain, ought to be protected. Personhood is the expression someone ought to belong the world, that their interests and presence matters. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I understand this, and I agree with it as far as it goes.

It is this ethical value which someone time falls by the wayside when abortion is discussed. In effect, people keep what's really driving their position hidden. The squabble over semantics of "personhood" rather than actually stating their (ethical) position on personhood. We get a second order claims about what must make a person, rather than proper statements about who has personhood.

But I don't understand this.

It's at times like these that I really miss TMT.

EDIT: I was curious so I searched PF and found this:

To make my implicit argument for the morally unproblematic nature of every kind of abortion explicit, embryos and fetuses are not persons, and they are a part of another person's body. As nonpersons, they can have no rights, and the human person that carries them has a right to dispose of her body as she sees fit, particularly since her actions do not impact other persons. — To Mega Therion

(Y)

But it is arbitrary, because the grounds for choosing the moment of birth as the moment when the baby deserves to be granted rights aren't based on reason, but rather on symbolism and tradition. — Sapientia

But that doesn't make it arbitrary. If you're right, it makes it habitual or conventional at best, irrational at worst. But you're wrong anyway. I am not assigning personhood to a baby on the basis of tradition; I am accurately describing what it means to be a person and how persons come to be, and the significance of childbirth. Moral, social and cultural significance is the primary issue in matters of morality. Note that moral, social and cultural significance is about much more than "symbolism and tradition". It is also about, for example, what it is to feel pain: feeling pain is a subjective experience belonging to an individual, and not mere nociception.

It existed before birth, and where else but the human world? It is human after all, and it necessarily exists in the world. It is not a fully independent member of society either before birth or after birth, but it deserves certain rights nonetheless.

I don't agree. The extent to which a fetus is in the human world--by which I mean the world that a person (the pregnant woman) is socially embedded in but which is external to their body--is the extent to which it has taken on a significance to the mother (and perhaps the father) as a proto-person.

I don't think you see quite what I mean by the social or cultural. Either that or you grossly underestimate it. I'm not talking about any old tradition or custom. I'm talking about what it means to be human and moral. But I admit that I'm only half-heartedly explaining things; to fill in the gaps would take several monster posts. This might give you some idea:

Persons are agentive beings who develop through profound embeddedness in socio-cultural contexts and within inalienable relations to and interactions with others.
—Anna Stetsenko, in The Psychology of Personhood

But it goes back to my reply above to BC. Biological reductionism often seems to be the default position, which I think is why the abortion issue is seeing the reactionary, regressive pressures that you and Baden represent. (Yes, more name-calling, I know)

Well, maybe. I was suggesting something like the opposite: that the concept of personhood underlies, or at least profoundly influences, our ethical positions.

I would locate personhood in a complete and functioning brain as part of a functioning body. — Bitter Crank

I certainly would not. To me, personhood has nothing to do with brains except incidentally. I suspect this is the root of the disagreements here. Biological reductionism is culturally mainstream now, and I think this has a lot to do with ethical debates. If a person is defined as a certain configuration of organs and physiological processes, then the concept of a rational moral agent or moral subject, with his or her own reasons for acting in certain ways--and therby the concept of a citizen or rights-bearing member of a community--is rendered irrelevant. I think this is what it comes down to. I'm tempted to say that your own trajectory, from pro-woman to pro-fetus, mirrors an ideological trajectory in Western culture, away from a view of human beings as rational moral agents.

Thanks.

No, I'm sure you know that's not what I mean by fanaticism. This is really the most important bit from my last post:

EDIT: What it comes down to is that your attitude is pissing me off. You keep wanting to draw a line under things, to say things are settled. You are plainly annoyed that people with views you don't like persist in holding them. That's why I'm attacking you, not because you're passionate.

This is getting tedious.

Moliere didn't know it as far as I can see. — Baden

What you described is really basic stuff. It would help you understand our case--if you actually want to--if you assume we know stuff like that and try to interpret our positions in a better light. If you don't know how to apply the principle of charity you shouldn't be here.

You weren't mentioned.

You mentioned the position that the fetus is part of the woman's body, which I claimed and which you responded to. I'm part of that debate.

The idea that my position represents that of a rabid fanatic because I'm presenting the science is ludicrous.

But that's not what I said. This is simple intellectual dishonesty. I could quote the examples of fanaticism from your posts, but you know exactly what they are so I won't bother. You're not in this for the debate, but because you are raging.

And telling me to go away is pathetic. You are not immune to being passionate in your arguments either as is evident from this post.

But I said you should go away if you don't treat your interlocutors with some respect, not if you get passionate.

EDIT: What it comes down to is that your attitude is pissing me off. You keep wanting to draw a line under things, to say things are settled. You are plainly annoyed that people with views you don't like persist in holding them. That's why I'm attacking you, not because you're passionate.

[DNA, immunology, etc.]

So can we now drop this utter nonsense that the fetus is just part of the woman's body. — Baden

More silliness. Do you seriously believe @Moliere and I don't know all that already? There's little point in our debating a rabid fanatic. Calm down and treat your interlocutors with some respect or else go away. We're not taking the piss; we really do believe what we're saying.

It is at that stage. It's more odd to treat the vagina or umbilical cord as if they have the power to grant humanness. I'm not sure which one you think it is, since you've inconsistently switched between birth (which happens by passing through the vagina) and separation (which happens by cutting the umbilical cord). — Sapientia

This looks like a perverse reduction of childbirth to a mechanistic process, ignoring its human significance. Clearly, birth and separation are part of the same event (or process if you prefer). It's an event in which a new person is initiated into the human world, into society. This is what matters to morality, not any mechanical stipulations or biological facts.

And I think it's quite silly to say that in regarding birth as the basic cut-off point we are being arbitrary. You may not agree that birth is where it's at, but it's hardly arbitrary. Birth is the centrally important, ultimate event of a pregnancy, the moment when a person comes to be, or begins to be, and the moment the mother's months of bodily change, discomfort, and anticipation have all been leading up to. For many it is the most significant, most life-changing moment of their lives.

There is a new person in the world: this is what birth means, what makes it significant in all human cultures. Biological facts and medical procedures are subsumed by or subservient to the social and cultural, particularly when we're talking morality.

I made a passing observation, that's all, and I have no interest in faithfulness to dogma or an agreement with conventional positions for its own sake. But as it happens I could make an argument as to why my position is fundamental to a Leftist, especially Marxist, view on abortion. But that would be boring.

(Y)

As a joke in my office we often try to prove how we're more conservative than the other by picking out comments the other one makes that might be interpreted as liberal.

I see such banter occurs in all circles. — Hanover

It's a conservative-only office?

Fair enough. The reason I was so vociferous about it was that such notions are alive and well today. Brendan O'Neill and Tim Stanley were to debate abortion at Oxford in 2014 until it was called off following a student campaign. The students' complaint was that the debaters were men. It didn't matter what their arguments were; all that mattered to the students was the sex of the debaters. It's because I think this kind of thing is stupid and divisive that I made a point of criticizing your digressive comments.

It isn't any old judgmentalism one can see in your comments. It's the judgmentalism of the conservative who worries about the permissive society and the irresponsible behaviour of loose women. Your talk of "setting a worrying precedent" and your "I don't want to put on weight" example are straight out of the conservative script on this issue. But it was just a passing observation and I'm not expecting to win any points by calling you names or recording my superficial impressions.

It was more the judgmental attitude in the post, which is very reminiscent of old-fashioned establishment conservatives. You don't seem to have much of an interest in or clue about the situation of women who get late abortions. If you're interested, try the PDF I linked to: http://www.prochoiceforum.org.uk/pdf/PCF_late_abortion08.pdf

All terrible reasons to have an abortion. They don't have to keep the baby after giving birth. There's this thing that you might have heard of called adoption. — Sapientia

As the thread's about political affiliation, I thought I'd note that these are very weird words coming from an avowed leftist (or liberal). But I'm all for diversity of thought, so carry on.

@Hanover and @Moliere, your discussion is rather curious. I originally interpreted @Moliere as saying that only the person who is pregnant should get to decide what to do about it, which in one sense means that only women should be empowered to decide in favour of late abortions. But this is different from saying that only women should be able to debate it or decide on policy. I think both men and women should be able to decide on policy, with the most welcome outcome being that my own position carries the day and they decide to make it the sole business of an individual woman what to do about a pregnancy, with no limitation.

I find the notion that only women can debate abortion or vote on abortion policy to be absurd, patronizing, divisive, counter-productive, and anti-democratic.