It seems that in any society that has an extreme and violent arm (e.g. KKK in the South in the 1950s, Al-Qaeda in Islam, etc), some things usually hold
The society or group “somewhat agrees” with the principle of why the terrorists are fighting
Even though, in general, the society considers the violence the terrorists practice as bad, it is seen to some extent as “well, our side needs *something * to counter-balance the enemy, and better this than nothing.”
In many cases, there is open sympathy and/or admiration of the terrorists
The society or group provides cover, hiding places and financial support to the terrorists
To put it simply, the fact that most of these societies/groups don’t come out and truthfully condemn “their” terrorists, and don’t make them pariahs in their community that no one wants to associate with and everyone hates and avoids, seems to point out that they consider them important and would prefer that they are not destroyed.
If the above is true, how much responsibility does the society at large bear for the actions of the terrorists? If the terrorists did not find moral & logistical support within their community, would they still do what they are doing?
So, when people say, for example, that “not all muslims are extremists who want to kill Americans”, the fact is, through the admiration/support/lack of condemnation from the masses of muslims, the islamic terrorist organizations thrive. Can we say they bear no responsibility?
Same goes for whites in the South in the 1950s during the lynchings, Palestinians today, etc.
Some may see good reason why these people support “their” terrorists, but if that is the case don’t they bear some responsibility? You can’t blame it all on the extremists if the extremists couldn’t do their job without the help from the masses.
The problem is defining who is part of the society and who isn’t. I think it makes more sense to talk about the responsibility of individuals rather that collectives. If you, as an individual, sympathize with or support in any way the actions of terrorists, then you do bear some responsibilty. How much? Who the hell knows…
I don’t think this is that hard. e.g. ‘all whites in the American South during the lynchings’, or ‘all muslims alive today’
I don’t think that would be meaningful or insightful.
What I was trying to address were people who make it seem like 0.0001% of muslims are terrorists, while the rest are peace-loving people who have nothing to do with the terrorists either in a practical or ideological sense.
I think the truth is that 0.0001% of muslims are terrorists, while among the rest there is a broad-based low-level (or very-low-level) moral support and/or admiration, that makes it possible for the terrorists to thrive.
In some sense the same holds for the U.S… Some foreigners say, “we don’t hate the American people we hate their government and its actions”. But, since at some point 75% of Americans supported the war in Iraq, it’s not just the government that foreigners should find culpable for the Iraq war. Of course, 25% of Americans never supported the war, but that was not my point.
My point was that people want to absolve the masses, when in fact the tacit approval and support of the masses makes the extreme acts from the extreme groups possible (in most cases).
Darn tootin’! The acts of 19 (or somesuch) Muslims on Sept. 11 account directly for two governments toppled and tens of thousands of Muslims (who are guilty by association by not stopping the terrorism) dead.
Now, based on very scientific American terms, we have decided that, for your 0.0002623% role in the McVeigh bombings, we’ll need you to stand against this wall and put on this blindfold…
It’s not about being guilty by association. It’s about the 60s cliche: if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem
These kinds of societal cancers–KKK, al Qaeda, gaybashing–are produced from within the societies they infect; they’re not imposed from outside.
It’s up to each of these societies to cure these ills from within, which I would think would be a given. Turning a blind eye to them is, indeed, part of the problem. Another relevant cliche: All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Evil doesn’t have to be active; it can be passive. There are times when doing nothing is a more evil choice than acting; inaction is not always morally neutral.
To that extent, each of these societies bears the responsibility for curing its own ills. And to that extent, the answer to the OP is, ultimately, each society is entirely responsible for its respective social ills.
It’s never hard to paint with a brush a mile wide. The question is not whether it’s hard, but whether it’s correct. There were plenty of whites in the south who fought for Negro rights (using the vernacular of the times). Are you saying they had to move north to be absolved? That’s ridiculous on the face of it.
It won’t be if your real agenda is to find a reason to slander an entire population, which seems to be your point:
And just how did you come to that conculsion about “the rest” of the Muslims in the world?
But that makes no sense on a practical level. If I’m part of the society, and I’m working on solving “the problem” how do I bear any responsibility for it?
When you try to apply the logic of the individual to society as a whole, of course it makes no sense. Likewise vive versa.
Nonetheless it’s an inescapable fact that society is made up of individuals. And the only way for society to change is for the individuals to change. Not necessarily change their personalities or anything like that, but change their actions; only their actions, after all, can have any effect on the the society as a whole.
Again, the vote is the perfect metaphor. Utterly meaningless on an individual level, but synergistically world-changing collectively.
It took a societal change that’s been going on for a couple hundred years, and is STILL not complete, to make racism the marginalized social horror that it is today. It was society’s inaction–the collective inaction of individuals–that allowed racism to seem perfetly acceptable, and therefore unchangeable, for the decades leading up to the Civil Rights movement.
That societal action, which allowed racism, seems to me to be a perfect parallel to the societal (collective individual) inaction of preWWI Germany, and anti-gay mainstream America today.
The society accepts such abominations, or it rejects them. It’s that simple.
Um, yes, but WHY? Why ‘the south’ not ‘america’ or ‘texas’ or ‘whites’ or ‘KKK’? Presumably you say ‘the south’ is where the majority sentiment agrees in the way you describe with KKK.
OK, that’s fair. I can believe most/a lot of people (with obviously plenty of exceptions) thought “Oh, the KKK? Well, a bit embarassing, but they’ve got the right idea” and that this really helped persecution because no-one cared, helped, prosecuted, etc.
However, I don’t know you can blithly assume all muslims ‘sort of support Al-Qieda’. I think you’re right that there might be a lot of people, probably all mulsim, who do, and that this is a great problem, and needs to be addressed, and that many people are too hung up on “yeah, but most mulsims are good” PCness.
But what region? People from Bin Laden’s home town? From Saddam’s? All muslims? Muslims in afganistan? Muslims in the middle east? All those darkies with towels on their head? Jumping straight to ‘muslims’ smacks of racism to me, I’m afraid.