Essay talk:The Extremist's Defence

I disagree. Precision is a virtue, and tarring a group with a wide brush because some of them are extremists accomplishes nothing. Not all X are Y is a perfectly appropriate response to a stereotype - consider the following: "Stalin was an atheist, so there!" "But not all atheists are mass murderers!" Similarly, look at the approach of Ann Coulter, who wants to convert all Muslims to Christianity because she thinks they're all evil terrorists. To her, all X certainly are Y. (And if you thought "but most people don't think like that" upon reading the previous two sentences, you've proven my point.)

That said, I agree that Not all X are Y would indeed be a complete non sequitur when talking about extremists, but don't think it's usually said in defense of extremists in the first place. I see it more as a signal of political correctness or perhaps a reminder not to devolve into racial stereotyping. In general, I don't think it's a problem unless it turns into The Fallacy of Gray (which does happen occasionally, but that doesn't undermine its use in all cases). Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 14:35, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

That would be my point, I just didn't want to labour too much when it is valid but I'd be happy to rub it in more. Precision, yes, is good: I'd rather see someone talk more specifically about a group than trying to tar with a brush. And yes, gentle reminders to avoid the racial profiling are acceptable. BUT... I've seen it pop up even without the stereotyping being involved at all. In fact, I've seen it happen even when people very carefully make the distinction between "some of X are Y" (or even more labouriously "this Y just so happens to be X") and "all of X are Y". As you said, it's like a form of political correctness - and perhaps the motive is more about that and overcompensation for (perceived) bigotry than out of actual fallaciousness. People feel a little guilty because of all the people shouting "all Muslims are terrorists" that they have to leap to their collective defence even when it isn't warranted. I don't think the Fallacy of Gray happens too much with this, though. It's like you cannot criticise Islamic terrorism at all because not all Muslims are terrorists and any discussion quickly becomes very saturated with that point only. ADK^{...I'll feel your goat!} 14:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Essentially it's like saying "Christianity is beyond criticism because not all Christians are homophobic bigots" or "Islam is beyond criticism because not all Muslims are terrorists". It's a non sequitur to absolve a belief system of its faults because not all adherents subscribe to those faults. ADK^{...I'll push your bear!} 14:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Interesting

I liked what you had to say, though from a technical standpoint, it was quite unclear for most of the essay. But that might well have been your intent. I feel as if I've hit two knee jerk reactions in my own life talking about various "x"s. There are so many people in the US (and France when I live there) that push Muslims into a single picture, based generally not on terrorism but on their dislike of a "wierd other" (terrorism seems a covenant way to justify their dislike and anger, but the anger is at the religion, the otherness) - so many people talking with this hate (or light-hate) that as you say, before i even know their point, i'm saying "ok, but not all muslims are like that". You're totally right is can and does obfuscate the speaker's point. The second knee jerk reaction is to defend the indefensible (ok, maybe not that great, but defend the less defensible) because it is "their right" to "think that way". I'm thinking of how women are treated (not the honor killings, or the beating, but making them dress differently, keeping them silent. Things that do not physically harm women) to "respect" religion, i have to respect their right to have different views. to do that, i have to respect that the women are being treated as less than. but then i'm bound in a dissonance of "I hate what I'm saying about the religion, cause i hate what the religion does, but i have to say it cause it's teh right thing to say". Both those reactions make me very likely to over use the simple "not all X are Y", and never actually address real problems. Good essay.--Godot Warning, chocolate will make your clothes shrink 15:14, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Thinking about your second way, I'm wondering if it's a competition to see who can seem most tolerant. Certainly when I was shouted at over it, the individual in question completely side tracked onto how the burqa was cultural and not religious and how women are treated equally when it didn't have anything to do with what was said at all. It seemed less about educating me (not that I learned anything new from that specific rant) and more about showing off how intelligent and knowledgeable about other cultures they were. Sorry about the lack of clarity, I admit it's currently very half-baked and rushed. ADK^{...I'll discalceate your tennis racket!} 15:18, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you reached your point as strongly as you could, but yes, that's exactly what it made me think of. "i'm more tolerant than you" -- "I know more about cultural sensitivity". and yeah, it just distracts from anything of value you were talking about. Godot Warning, chocolate will make your clothes shrink 15:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Another wording...

As I'm prepared to admit this is far from my best work, it's something written hastily after one or two posts in quick succession that seemed to do it, I figured it might be worth trying a slightly different track.

Basically, imagine someone is talking about a broad group; Christians, Muslims or whatever. Well, that's the broad group, right? So someone says, in our model conversation; "Muslims; discuss". That is, discuss anything you like about this broad group that includes both moderates (although in Islam, you'd be surprised how far the self-defined "moderates" go, the scale is very different to Christians) and extremists. If one was to mention violence associated with Islamic protests, terrorism, civil rights abuses in Islamic countries and the downside of sharia law, that would be a valid observation given the remit - though only if you're precise with what groups you're talking about, "all Muslims are terrorists" doesn't cut it and is indeed something of a Reverse Scotsman. But then if the response to that is then "but not all Muslims are like that!!" then that doesn't particularly mean anything, after all, we are talking about all Muslims to start with, which very explicitly includes the assholes as a sub-group. Now, just substitute "Muslim" for any other group you like in case again I'm accused of "islamophobia" (which, if you define as hating the assholes who define themselves as Muslim, I'd be proud to be - much in the same way I'd be proud to be homophobic if that was defined as disliking complete assholes who just happened to be gay too).

The point is that if we're discussing a broad category, then any sub-group of that category is valid further observation providing that category is defined. And this is what happened on Facebook just prior to me writing this: Someone said "I hope no one says anything bad about Muslims on the anniversary of 9/11" to which I replied, "well, it can't possibly be as bad as what some of them have said about themselves" - cue shitstorm of "Islam is a religion of peace" and stuff I already know (I did get the impression that this was just any excuse to show of extensive cultural knowledge, hence the "more tolerant than thou" line above). If you want that category off limits, you should have to explicitly exclude it from discussion first, or come around later and say "actually, they aren't really what I mean, let me clarify", and not pull a No True Scotsman.

If you say "many Christians are upstanding individuals when they don't enforce beliefs on others" that's fine, really it is and gets no disagreement from me because it narrows down the category. It may seem like a nitpick, but if you then say "Christians are upstanding and fine individuals" (implication: all self-defining Christians) then that's clearly wrong because we do have people who self-define as Christian but aren't particularly upstanding. To say otherwise is the No True Scotsman fallacy committed in explicit terms. But No True Scotsman can also be implicit, as in, people exclude the undesirable sub-category from the more general category for no legit reason - and they do so automatically without need to state that they're doing so. As Tetronian points out above, precision is key when you're referring to groups of people, and if you want to refer to a broad category you need to be inclusive of all sub-cats - what I've called "the extremists defence" here doesn't do that. The result is that you ignore, or potentially even legitimise, undesirable extremist views by excluding them from your categorisation (textbook No True Scotsman).

So, if someone says "not all [Group] are like that!" then fine, but I'm not talking about those people and saying this does absolutely nothing to invalidate what I might be saying about the ones that are "like that". "Not all X are Y" won't stop me finding the Xs that are Y very annoying. It just seems to be some kind of knee-jerk reaction because the people saying this can't think of something better to say. ^pathetic 12:05, 5 January 2012 (UTC)