paperbackfemme

I would use it to benefit the New York City public school system, which is over-crowded and under-financed. I'd provide schools with up-to-date computer technology (knowledge of computer tech is essential for any kind of success these days - unfortunately, many schools are teaching kids how to use outdated machines that simply aren't relevant to the current marketplace), finance endangered art and music departments, and help the schools to build bigger, better libraries (for independent research and study - as a kid, most of the books I chose to read were from my school's library). I'd also fund renovations for the schools that are all but falling apart, and possibly construct more school buildings, to ensure a smaller average class size. After that, if I had a sizable amount of money left over, I'd field grants from artists, writers, and musicians, and fund the projects that I found worthwhile. 24, writer and musician.

No, I don't pre-suppose that he is a racist, but he did drop a stereotype into the discussion, which led me to suspect him of sloppy thinking. The idea that Muslims are more misogynist than, say, Promisekeepers, doesn't hold much weight. It rests primarily on the conflation of militant, fundamentalist Islam (which is undeniably, and horrifically, anti-woman) with other, more mainstream and "assimilationist" varieties of Islam. There are anti-woman passages in the Koran, just as there are in the Christian Bible, the Torah, and the primary and secondary texts of many other religions. But in our current political climate, many people are more likely to identify Muslims with anti-woman attitudes than they are to identify Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. with the same views. The horrific suppression of women by the Taliban became front-page news after 9/11, when the country was being maneuvered into a war against fundamentalist Muslims; the practices in question (capital punishment for adultery, mandatory burkas, denial of education, the list goes on) had been in place for many years, but had received minimal press coverage. As our country maneuvers its way into more conflicts with Muslim nations, many people are more than willing to speak to the plight of Those Poor Beaten Muslim Wives, not because they particularly care for the women in question, or for the issue of domestic violence in general, but because it is a way to claim an "altruistic, noble" position while simultaneously giving voice to popular anti-Muslim sentiments. It's worth noting that I do think DavidOdden has a good point - cultural relativism does encourage us to suspend judgment of domestic violence in Muslim families (along with similar crimes, such as dowry murders in India, and female genital mutilation in some African cultures). If Inspector had bothered to expand and support his "Muslim beating his wife" scenario, incorporating David's ideas, I probably wouldn't have bothered to question his use of the example. Many people do use cultural relativism as an excuse to overlook atrocities, and that's horrible. However, in Inspector's original statement, the use of casual stereotype ("wife-beating Muslim," which is on a level with "dumb red-stater," "criminal black," "heartless, greedy industrialist," etc.) seemed like evidence that he had not thoroughly examined his premises, and that he had simply regurgitated popular views into the discussion without examining them fully. I have no personal interest in Inspector, but it seems to me that a philosophical discussion can only benefit if the participants are willing to point out perceived flaws in each others' logic.

Of course, one wonders why, in your example, it must necessarily be a Muslim beating his wife. Wife-beating is fairly common, and it's practiced by many cultures, abhorrent as the fact may be. That leads rather neatly into my argument - that there is a distinct difference between judgment and pre-judgment, or prejudice. Judgment takes place after experience, and can be founded on rational or irrational thought. A rational judgment would be something like this: X has fudged his way out of several commitments in the past few weeks, and his reasons for doing so are not clear or reasonable. Therefore, I don't trust X. On the other hand, I don't like the way she looked at me - I hate that girl represents an irrational judgment. However, judging an individual because you believe them to be a member of a certain group, before you have any experience of that individual, is always irrational. He looks like a Muslim to me - I bet he beats his wife and stuffs mailboxes with anthrax when he's not burning American flags is a completely irrational judgment, with no basis in objective fact. It's an example of "tribe-think" that completely contradicts Rand's philosophy of individualism, which holds that a person can achieve great things through the exercise of his or her reason, regardless of background. A lot of people say "don't judge" when they mean "don't pre-judge." It's a reasonable statement of ethics, sloppily expressed. Of course, some people do try not to judge anyone at all, for any reason - which is impossible, not to mention very silly.