After the Cartoons

The UK governing classes seems to have agreed it's standard line on the cartoons (they were "offensive", we need to show sensitivity etc etc).

I think this is motivated by a belief that if they can just avoid trouble in the short term, then in the longer term the problem will go away. This is a foolish belief, but there you go.

I want to link to a few articles that have impressed me.

First of all a December 2005 article by Kenan Malik.

I think this is a superb piece. He is rightly critical of the role that identity politics has played in getting us into this mess.

When society defines people by their membership of ethic or religious groups then it should be no surprise that the spokesmen who emerge are the most extreme exemplars of that definition. Thus were have a Muslim community whose recognised spokesmen are linked with the Muslim Brotherhood, whose influence has tended to exacerbate the isolation of Muslim from the mainstream rather than to help integration. We have effectively ignored any Muslims who might do more to integrate their communities. And bizarrely, Identity politics endorses this insane approach. In the future, we will look back in bemusement at how our present society expected minorities to integrate when the education system avoided stressing what people had in common with each other, in favour of focusing on how blacks were still being oppressed by whites.

He particular captures something that I found so infuriating about the "offence" angle

The very fact that we talk of ideas as 'offensive' is indicative of the problem. There are many ways of disagreeing with someone's views – we may see them as irrational, reactionary or just plain wrong.

But to deem an idea 'offensive' is to put it beyond the bounds of rational debate.

Christopher Hitchens is always entertaining

The third link is to Victor Davis Hanson.

He is optimistic that although the governing classes have publically caved over the cartoons, behind the scenes, the attitudes are hardening. I think this likely in Denmark and Holland, vaguely possible in France, but totally unrealistic in the UK.

Update

Nice comment on the "nuanced approach"