From The Mouths of Babes and Morons

A Rebuttal to The Cornell Moderator’s Critique of Turn Left

Andrew Garib, The Cornell Moderator | I take it as a personal compliment, as well as kudos to our entire staff at Turn Left, that The Cornell Moderator came up so short in finding ways to follow our mothers’ twisted dictum [see below]. The Moderator evidently had to dig deep into its rhetorical arsenal in order to refrain from “only saying something nice,” and, encouragingly, CM ended up saying nothing at all.

Instead, in its criticism of my “Racism: We Have a Problem” CM only underscored my article’s points. CM reflected a general ignorance in the areas of race and religion in its critique, and thus struck the heart of the issue. Sara Townsley did not criticize a “particular mutant strain of an idea;” she claimed that “Islam, as it is widely practiced, is a morally-deficient faith.” It is CM and Townsley who are guilty of massive conflation.

As I stated in my editorial, Townsley’s claims are racist because they condone a double standard: Islam is criticized under the rubric of whether it is a peaceful religion, while other religions, rightly, are not analyzed in the same way. It’s not Islam itself that perpetrates 9/11s, Bali bombings or Moscow hostage takings. The real culprit is a series of individuals and leaders, who, like crusading medieval knights, use religion as a false but powerful justification for their atrocities. But Townsley doesn’t criticize these villains; instead, she attacks an entire religion as “morally-deficient,” attributing seemingly arbitrarily-selected instances of violence perpetrated by Muslims around the world to their religion. And CM, too, refers to Islam’s “ethical struggles”—is it really Islam that struggles, or the people who interpret her as justification for hatred and violence?

Moreover, to compare entire religions to individual ethical theories or religious practices is bogus. John Rawls’ theories, Catholic canonical doctrine, and ancient cannibalistic practices are subject to ethical criticism because they reflect direct, unequivocal and malleable ethical theories dictating specific action, whereas religious beliefs should not be subject to scrutiny and abhorrence. We cannot criticize a world religion in its entirety, simply because it makes no sense to do so. It would be like criticizing Chinese civilization as a whole because of China’s authoritarian government.

So why make the atrocious and illogical claim that Islam is not a religion of peace? Townsley’s inept logic only partially masks her underlying bigotry.

CM also seems to think that racism has only to do with genetics. How futile this discussion has become! We should certainly consider it to be racism when a Sikh man is attacked because of his turban or a Jewish school is vandalized. Why do we assume racism has to do with genetics? This is a silly and incredible criticism on the part of a CM searching for grounds on which to condemn and finding only empty semantics on which to waste ink.

YOU TURN!: A Critique of Turn Left

Jim Shliferstein, The Cornell Moderator, December 2004 | Kudos to its staff and officers: progressive newspaper Turn Left has lately become—with the occasional exception—high-minded, intellectually honest, and thoughtful.

But, as our mothers told us, “If you’re only going to say something nice, you might as well not say anything at all.” And it’s not like Turn Left is hurting for Achilles heels for us to pick out and pick on: cheap eye-rollers about how only leftists are “levelheaded Americans” living in “reality” [Turn Left Volume VIssue IV-Page 14]; environmental rants which simply miss the point of market-based anti-pollutant measures [TL V-II-8]; even offhand praise for “famous revolutionary” Che Guevera and his “important destiny”—without mention of his signature murders and terrorism [TL V-IV-16].

So let’s cut to the fun part: the part where we carp and bitch a whole lot. Hooray for the free press!

[...]

In “Racism: We Have a Problem” [TL V-III-6], Andrew Garib (who is also an editor for The Cornell Moderator) accuses Cornell Daily Sun columnist Sara Townsley of blatant racism. One of Townsley’s columns had offered a plethora of anecdotal evidence in support of the conclusion that Islam, as it is widely practiced, is a morally deficient faith.

To be sure, this is quite a harsh judgment—indeed, far too harsh to be fairly supported by the mere anecdotage Townsley provides. But when Garib upbraids the Cornell community for failing to call Townsley a racist, he is guilty of a massive conflation. Townsley’s column offered moral criticism, not stereotyping or racialist profiling. Not once did she refer to Islam’s ethical struggles as genetic in their origins, nor to Muslims or Arabs as inferior people; indeed, she applauded several Muslims for their clear-headed indictments of radicalism in their own faith.

Townsley’s column did not attack a people: it attacked a particular mutant strain of an idea. The day when it is considered bigotry to debate an idea on its merits and its empirical results—be that idea John Rawls’ theory of justice, the Catholic clergy’s exclusion of women, or the Anasazi Indians’ ancient practice of cannibalism—is the day that liberal society is dead. Shame on the normally insightful Garib for discouraging discourse. End.

This was written in response to a critique of my article “Racism: We Have A Problem.” Moderator Critique included. The title of the piece is the name of the Moderator section it appeared in.

Published 04.12.01 00:00:00 -0500 GMT | Posted by Andrew Garib on 04.12.01 | |