why is there such a blindspot about Islamic extremism on the left? I feel like I understand a lot of their other blind spots but this one is a mystery to me. Why do they implicitly, often unconsciously, cover for an ideology that ought to be totally anathema to them?
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Replying to @danlistensto
Lots of the left in the western world fetishizes the marginal in society and Muslims are pretty marginal. Plus, American Muslims are relatively secularized so the stereotyping comes across as unfair and cruel, but this also forces them to downplay actual examples when it fits.
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Replying to @NatrlContrarian @danlistensto
Also, a lot of the left in the West has a pretension to multiculturalism that is undermined by acknowledgement that in some places people believe really shitty things. So they have to downplay these differences or else come across as too imperialist.
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Replying to @NatrlContrarian @danlistensto
You also see this come out when, for example, a communist party supports ISIS against American imperialism or people start downplaying the violence of the Syrian state because it looks bad when the far left doesn’t immediately make the U.S. the big bad in some situation.
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Replying to @NatrlContrarian
but this is what I don't understand. you're saying its just pure factionalism then? "I support the enemy of my enemy" is really driving all this shit? Like, they seriously think that ISIS is acceptable because Republicans dislike ISIS?
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Replying to @danlistensto @NatrlContrarian
The "fetishization of the marginalized" thing seems non-explanatory also. Islamic extremism is incredibly damaging to those same marginalized muslim communities in western countries. Do they think they're helping those communities out by being blind to the serious problems?
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Replying to @danlistensto
I think that the counterculture of the 60s made a great deal of the importance of an outside to modern culture. The status quo was bad and the best way to destroy it was to unite those who were marginalized by it.
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Replying to @NatrlContrarian @danlistensto
So the marginal and transgressive were vaporized as being key to the overturning of the system. I think this played a role in how identity politics became the big thing on the left (that and the fact that it isn’t actually radical). Difference became a good in itself.
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