# Construct: Are you for real? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 11, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501 "2015-08-11T00:12:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/201 "2015-08-28T16:59:35Z")
I wouldn’t minimize online activism. I am trying (though it’s an uphill battle) to get progressives to think long and hard about whether we ought to be cozying up to countries like Saudi Arabia. And this is far from the only place or first time I’ve done it. But fine, let’s go back to the 1960s. It is widely reported by historians that the biggest factor in accomplishing civil rights legislation was that middle class, middle-of-the-road Northern whites saw the water cannons and attack dogs on their TV screens and could no longer just look the other way. Most of them didn’t join sit-ins or even call their congressmen, but just by telling Gallup pollsters they supported civil rights legislation, they provided the support wavering members of Congress needed. Was \*that \*“recreational outrage”? Does nothing from that era qualify? If not, what makes now so different? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/202 "2015-08-28T17:24:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I am trying (though it’s an uphill battle) to get progressives to think long and hard about whether we ought to be cozying up to countries like Saudi Arabia. Well no shit. Guess what? Progressives agree with you. Saudi Arabia is in many ways a terrible place, run by terrible people. That the US “cozies up” to them is irrelevant to their religion, or the religion of the people they oppress. . ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/203 "2015-08-28T17:25:56Z")
Clearly, not a sufficient enough number of progressives to make it unacceptable for a Democratic president to cozy up to them. In fact, I didn’t even see much protest about it on Twitter or Daily Kos or anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/204 "2015-08-28T17:43:41Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > For many people, that may be true. But I have stood up for equal rights for women and gays my whole adult life. … I’m no bigot. the evidence is against you … but I am sure you have black and muslim friends too. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > I am totally with Hirsi Ali, : of course, you like things that play to your gross bigotry, even from the… I think the word is the grifters who have been making up stories of their lives to gain money and prestige among certain circles of bigots. > [@A\_isha](#): > > How completely and utterly unsurprising. yes it is so very not surprising. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You’d presumably be surprised to know that Hirsi Ali repudiated her former views this year, and is now calling for support for moderate reform movements in Islam. she found new funding it can be thought. > [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > It’s evidence of your ignorance on several levels. > > First, it’s a common slur against Islam that has nothing to do with present-day Islamic society. Even if it were true, it’s good evidence of someone who is just looking for shit to throw. exacte, it is the perfect sign of the bigot and the hater. > [@](#): > > Second, as **A’isha** notes, your reliance on Wikipedia for this one is sorely misplaced. There is both historical and contemporary debate about A’isha’s age at consummation. I’m no expert, though it seems I’ve read more than you. I believe that hadith about biographical details like that were less thoroughly vetted than hadith about the teachings of Islam. There is not any very clear dating and the reliable hadith that in passing by reference can set the date of the age of aicha show a much older age for marriage. and this is the normal way we look at it. the youngest ages on a direct claim are from the least reliable of transmission. > [@](#): > > But my main point was the first one. Your seizing on this as somehow relevant to present-day Islamic society just shows how shallow your thinking about the subject is. Indeed, the idea of this is something I only have encountered from the bigots and some of the bizarre minded salafistes. > [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > You think anonymously posting on a message board that Muhammad was a pedophile is the equivalent of a sit-in? > > That’s bizarre. It is typical of the haters here. They get their happiness from the pretension of caring and making the wild statements from ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/205 "2015-08-28T17:46:54Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But fine, let’s go back to the 1960s. It is widely reported by historians that the biggest factor in accomplishing civil rights legislation was that middle class, middle-of-the-road Northern whites saw the water cannons and attack dogs on their TV screens and could no longer just look the other way. Most of them didn’t join sit-ins or even call their congressmen, but just by telling Gallup pollsters they supported civil rights legislation, they provided the support wavering members of Congress needed. Was \*that \*“recreational outrage”? Does nothing from that era qualify? If not, what makes now so different? Because, if you’ll note, “saying African-American culture and beliefs are terrible and should be abandoned and hurling vile slurs at Martin Luther King” does not appear in your list of things that helped make the Civil Rights movement successful. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/206 "2015-08-28T18:33:02Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Why are you comparing a cult spinoff of a subset of a subset of a subset of Christianity to the entire religion of Islam? My guess is because it’s much more fun (of the “recreational outrage” type of fun) to compare the worst of something he hates with the best of what he doesn’t hate as much. > [@](#): > > There certainly are Mormon feminists working within Mormonism, incidentally. True. And it should also be noted that the FLDS are not Mormons. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > I think she’s brave and heroic. Is she wasting her time? Hard to say. If someone I cared about wanted to take on that enormous a mission against suicidal odds, I’d likely try to dissuade them (or spirit them to a safer place). She seems to be safe where she is. She’s going to school in public, walking around in public, even traveling across national borders to make her acceptance speech. She’s quite the public persona. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > He Who Must Not Be Drawn There are drawings of Muhammad on some mosques and in Islamic literature, and those drawings were made by faithful Muslims. > [@](#): > > Qu’uran Ah, I see the problem now. You read the wrong holy book. > [@](#): > > I’m no bigot. Really? Let’s roll the film, shall we? > [@](#): > > The problem is with my fellow progressives failing to see how reactionary, repressive, and patriarchal the Islamic culture is. Yep. The film tells a different story. Islam is a world-wide religion. There is no one “Islamic culture” just as there is no one “Christian culture”. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/207 "2015-08-28T18:33:17Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Because, if you’ll note, “saying African-American culture and beliefs are terrible and should be abandoned and hurling vile slurs at Martin Luther King” does not appear in your list of things that helped make the Civil Rights movement successful. No. African Americans were not the oppressors, not the ones trying to maintain the racist status quo. Swap “African-Americans” for “Southern whites” and MLK for George Wallace and then you are getting somewhere. Let’s remember too that it took Northern troops to enforce desegregation. I would be happy to see Western troops do the same in Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh, but I am not holding my breath. ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/208 "2015-08-28T19:59:22Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > No. African Americans were not the oppressors, not the ones trying to maintain the racist status quo. Swap “African-Americans” for “Southern whites” and MLK for George Wallace and then you are getting somewhere. That’s why your Civil Rights analogy doesn’t work, because in it “African-Americans” and “Southern whites” _are the exact same people._ > [@](#): > > I would be happy to see Western troops do the same in Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh, but I am not holding my breath. Because Western military invasions of Muslim countries that mess with their social and political order have done so _much_ for the people of those countries in the past. Again, Muslims don’t need your patronizing “We must save you from yourselves!” brand of “help”, thank you very much. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/209 "2015-08-28T20:01:28Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > Because Western military invasions of Muslim countries that mess with their social and political order have done so _much_ for the people of those countries in the past Indeed, **SlackerInc** , you would do well to learn about the relationship between western policy in Muslim-majority countries and the rise of extremist Islamic ideologies. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/210 "2015-08-28T21:18:05Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Clearly, not a sufficient enough number of progressives to make it unacceptable for a Democratic president to cozy up to them. In fact, I didn’t even see much protest about it on Twitter or Daily Kos or anywhere. Again, no shit. I see you sidestepped the fact that US relations with Saudi Arabia have nothing to do with religion. Feel like walking that one back, or should we just accept it as read? ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/211 "2015-08-28T21:58:44Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Well, his username _is_ “Construct”. I’m guessing he’s a caprophobic bridge-dweller, who’s in it for the evulz. Thus, not worth engaging. Construct is a social racist. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/212 "2015-08-28T22:18:08Z")
> [@andros](#): > > I see you sidestepped the fact that US relations with Saudi Arabia have nothing to do with religion. Feel like walking that one back, or should we just accept it as read? Eh, wot? Sure looks like you are imputing to me a view I have not expressed. I do not believe the American government is tight with Saudi Arabia for religious reasons. I do think that Saudi Arabia practices (and exports) an extreme Wahabi form of Islam, and that this is what is behind their oppressive, patriarchal social order. I am just saying that we should not turn a blind eye to their malevolence, just as we should not have, and finally did not, with the apartheid regime in South Africa. Evil flourishes when good people do nothing. > [@A\_isha](#): > > Again, Muslims don’t need your patronizing “We must save you from yourselves!” brand of “help”, thank you very much. It’s revealing that you do not hesitate to speak for all Muslims, which kind of illustrates the exact problem I have with the majority of Muslims. But I don’t doubt that you do speak for the majority of Muslims, which also neatly illustrates the exact problem. Over the past decade, I have read many articles that quoted a minority group of Muslims, mostly Afghani feminists, who were very much _not_ eager for US forces to withdraw. In fact, they saw those forces as being the very thing that protected them from the Tallban and which allowed them to keep their schools for girls open, to be able to walk around freely (in Kabul at least) without covering up, and things of that nature. If you did a poll of all Alabamans in the 1960s to see how many of them liked having federal troops enforcing desegregation there, even if you made sure to get a representative sample including so-called Negroes, the majority would have said “Yankee go home”. But among the minority who said the opposite, there would have been a large number of black people afraid that the North would at some point lose interest and let things slide back into darkness, just as happened at the end of Reconstruction nearly a century earlier. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/213 "2015-08-28T22:26:42Z")
Yeah, **andros** , that was a strange attempt at a straw man. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/214 "2015-08-28T22:33:07Z")
Thank you! I had thought I was completely on my own here. (And no: I’m not assuming that you necessarily agree with me on every point, or even _any_ other point, just because you defended me on that one. But I appreciate it, all the same.) ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/215 "2015-08-28T23:15:42Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Construct is a social racist. Society is a racial construct and the [blank slate](http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/0142003344/) is a fallacy. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/216 "2015-08-28T23:22:53Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > Society is a racial construct and the [blank slate](http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/0142003344/) is a fallacy. On the other hand, fish gasket double banana is ultimate liquidity. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/217 "2015-08-29T00:25:11Z")
That is a great book though. It was nominated for a Pulitzer and got glowing reviews. ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/218 "2015-08-29T00:43:41Z")
Yeah, it definitely helped stem the very fashionable blank slate side of the nature versus nurture debate. And I’m not even sure what is a “social racist”. Is it a like a social drinker, where someone only expresses racist views occasionally and in moderation? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/219 "2015-08-29T02:03:54Z")
My mom and wife are sociologists; my dad was an anthropologist. I assure you you are snarking up the wrong tree in dismissing the power of the blank slate paradigm, which is deeply embedded in the social sciences. ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501/220 "2015-08-29T02:13:32Z")
Oh sure, it’s certainly not going anywhere, but it’s reassuring to know that we’re correct. Though as von Bismarck said, “It is not through speeches and majority decisions that the great questions of the day will be decided, but by iron and blood.” In the end, the truth doesn’t really matter, because might makes right. Things like genetics and cultural are long lasting, but they are not eternal. Given enough time, we can reshape the world to conform to our vision of reality. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/construct-are-you-for-real/727501.md?page=12)