Recall that the three choices were:
a) I would be concerned that Muslim intolerance of non-Muslims threatens our way of life.
b) I would be concerned that backlash against Muslims will get worse, empowering radicals and provoking more conflict.
c) I would be concerned that the media will blow the incident out of proportion and that politicians will use it as an excuse to expand surveillance, restrict gun rights, or restrict immigration.
Yes, (a) is meant to reflect the Conservative civilization-barbarism axis, (b) is meant to reflect the Progressive oppressor-oppressed axis, and (c) is meant to reflect the Libertarian freedom-coercion axis. However, note that I use the three-axes model to characterize people’s preferred language. People’s thinking is more complex.
That said, I would allocate my own chips this way:
a) 30 b) 10 c) 59
Explanation:
1. Because there are reasonable people who would favor each of the three choices, I do not think it would be wise for me to put less than 10 chips on any one choice.
2. I find choice (c) most compelling. What do media do other than blow incidents out of proportion? What do politicians do other than take advantage of Fear Of Others’ Liberty (FOOL) to expand their coercive powers? Incentives dictate such behavior.
3. I think that many libertarians would rank (b) higher than (a). I imagine that the “liberaltarian” types would. Those libertarians who are descended from Rothbard might want to put a lot of chips on (b). You will find some who fault the U.S. for the Cold War and perhaps even for its role in WWII.
4. Choosing between (a) and (b) depends on what type of error we might be making about “the other.” Usually, you err on the side of thinking that “the other” is worse than what it really is. The accounting people think that the marketing people are out to screw the company, and the marketing people think the same of the accounting people, when both are just doing their jobs as best they can. So I think that looking at the most probable error, (b) wins over (a).
But what if radical Muslims really are like Nazis? Most Muslims are not radicals, but did it help that most Germans were not Nazis? Even if it is unlikely that we are under-estimating the Muslim threat, the consequences of making that mistake could be quite dire. So my own inclination is to weight (a) more than (b). In terms of the axes, I suppose I am more susceptible to civilization-barbarism language than to oppressor-oppressed language.
5. I can understand someone putting the majority of their chips on (b), but I would not trust a progressive who puts 90 or more of their chips on (b). To go that far toward denying the validity of (a) and (c) strikes me as dogmatic. Ironically, a progressive who did put 90+ chips on (b) probably would think of himself or herself as showing superior nuance and sophistication. And, yes, I worry that the President is one of those. And, yes, I also would worry about a President who puts 90+ chips on (a), or even on (c).
To what extent do the three axes apply outside the US? I’m thinking authoritarian regimes like Daesh or China. Of course, single party states don’t have much political dialogue.
Anyone dare to take a stab? What this preferred axis of Daesh insiders? Their opposition? Is it the same axis? Is there perhaps a 4th axis oriented around dogma and heresy?
1. I agree. Whilst it may sometimes be tempting to argue that X is the most important facet of any particular issue, thoughtful, intelligent and reasonable people will disagree with you. This is reason to be less confident in your position, i.e. not to put all of your chips on a single option and to assign at least some chips to the options that you consider less feasible or less of an issue.
Some of the ambiguities here are a) way of life is broad, threats can be slight to large, and they can come from them or from our response to them, b) backlashes can be informal or formal, radicals can occur on both sides, and formal policies can range from domestic to foreign military intervention, and c) concern can be slight to large, the response may be considered underwhelming, or some may want those policies anyway. I view a) way of life as broad, threats as small but troubling, and mostly from our response to them, b) formal as more significant even if less likely, so mostly their radicals, and domestic as minor but foreign military intervention as much more serious, c) concern as minor, response as both overdone in action and underwhelming in effectiveness, so mostly a waste.
Given the 20+ year history since Al Qaeda became a problem in the 1990s, isn’t it abundantly clear that A and B are not serious problems (or that A) is a problem only through the mechanism of self-harm done via C? Problems of type C, on the other hand, have been ongoing throughout this period — it seems that no new incident is required to worry about that one.
With regard to “a,” which Arnold identifies with the “civilization-barbarism” axis, why isn’t concern about “Muslim intolerance” a concern for people who view the world through the “freedom-coercion” axis? We have heard many noises from the leftist establishment about stopping “anti-Muslim rhetoric,” which seems to mean any criticism, whether informed or not, of Islam. Criticism of Islam is already being legally sanctioned in Europe and Canada. Academic scholars of Islam conceal their identities if they critically analyze the Koran the way the Bible has been critically analyzed for nearly 2 centuries. Why wouldn’t a self-described “libertarian” be worried about this?
As to “c,” since it is meant to reflect the libertarian outlook, I understand why restricting immigration is considered an evil in itself, regardless of consequences. But those of us who do not take communion in the Church of Libertarianism are left to wonder what, under current conditions in the US, the downside of a moratorium on all immigration would be for the majority of Americans (including immigrants who are already here).
What is the upside?
Given that there have been many murders of non-Muslims by Muslims, and no murders of Muslims by non-Muslims, to think (b) is a graver risk than (a) is to anticipate a complete reversal of past performance. Which was Einstein’s definition of insanity, http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html.
(c) may be a concern, but it is orthogonal to (a). They are different problems with different solutions. So I don’t see why you have to allocate a fixed number of chips between them.
You think a non-Muslim has never murdered a Muslim? What? That’s not true even if you are constraining it to recent murders in America motivated by anti-Muslim biase (in 2012 a crazy person pushed someone in front of a train because they wanted to kill a Muslim, for example).
Anyways, I ranked b higher than a because terrorism isn’t a very significant problem for America and most acts of terrorism on us soil aren’t by Muslims. A few dozen murders by Muslim extremists every year won’t even begin to affect our lives, except through b or c. Take away the hysterical reaction to Islamic terrorism and it’s a subset of a non-problem.
Discrimination against minorities, on the other hand, can negatively affect millions of Americans and, if it translates into bellicose foreign policy, kill hundreds of thousands of people. I also see B as reinforcing C much more than A reinforces C. Politicians aren’t going too far because of an actual threat to our way of life, they are going too far because of the backlash to a non-threat.
The summary statistics on the original chips are thus:
A B C
Count 121 121 121
Sum 2577 2671 6731
Avg. 21 22 56
Median 10 15 59
Mode 0 10 49
St. Dev 26 22 27
For readers of this blog, the biggest surprise for me was the fact that the average for bucket A and B were nearly the same. I also would have guessed that the average for C would have been higher than the median.
Plotting the responses by bucket (e.g. 0-10, 10-20) is also instructive. What you’ll see (email for chart) is that the cumulative % of responses for choices A and B sketch a similar trajectory–over 50% of respondents allocated less than 20 of their chips to A and less than 20 chips to B, while only 15% of respondents allocated more than 50 chips to A and B. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, knowing the philosophical persuasion of this blog.
Perhaps more interesting is the fact that the cumulative % of chips allocated by buckets for choice C moves up in nearly perfect linear fashion. That is, each bucket contains close to 10% of the total responses.
This seems like a totally reasonable allocation, especially given how much the media loves guns and hates immigrants.
“Most Muslims are not radicals, but did it help that most Germans were not Nazis?”
The fact that most Nazis were German non-Jews was what allowed Nazis to take power in Germany. Intolerant Muslims are a minority of a minority. Nazis were the intolerant minority of the majority. The counterpart to intolerant Muslims would be intolerant Jews (minority of a minority). That’s why (b) is the bigger threat than (a), even if both are small threats in our generally tolerant society.
To give an example, Donald Trump can state that he wants to ban all Muslims from entering the country and still remain a leading candidate for a major party presidential nomination. Could a Muslim state that he wants to ban all non-Muslims or that he wants to force all women to wear burkas and remain a leading candidate for a presidential nomination? Ben Carson has said that a Muslim should not be elected president. While he has dropped in the polls, would a Muslim candidate that stated that a non-Muslim should not be elected president have as much support as Ben Carson?
I have A and B switched. I answered 10-30-59.
The reason I put more on B and less on A is that it would not take much imagination to think that the actions of the US would cause many who are prone to violence to be pushed up a notch. For example, someone who was a 9 out of 10 on the “I would commit violence against the West” might be pushed to a 10 by actions of the US.
I don’t think this makes me anything like those who would blame the US for WW2,
etc. Nazis were not suicide bombers.
That said, one would have to consider how many Muslims who really don’t like “our” way of life to cause trouble for the rest of us. My guess it that it would take many, many more of these that those who are in the A category. But the cost of doing so is much, much less, so I don’t know.
“Most Muslims are not radicals, but did it help that most Germans were not Nazis?”
That is true; indeed, the VAST majority of Muslims are not radicals (at least as defined by the standard of violent Islamist jihadists). However based on my (admittedly limited and possibly not representative) experience, the core values of those “moderate” Muslims have much more in common with radical jihad than they do with Western Civilization (and, for that matter, than with the Hindu, Chinese or Orthodox civilizations with whom the Islamists are also at war).
Further, many Muslim immigrants seem to be self-organizing in enclaves inside their adopted nations and not assimilating. In some cases, sharia law obtains in these parallel societies. As Western nations look weak and ineffective against the jihadis, there is a chance that more and more of the “moderates” will find the path to radicalization easier and easier to take. Of course, a too-heavy-handed response could have the same impact, which is why I allocated 20% of my chips to option B, but at the moment I think A is the most salient by far. I am somewhat concerned about C, but not much . . . government surveillance is too widespread to be effective and federal law enforcement oscillates between ineffective and inept. And it is absolutely clear that there is no way they are taking guns; all such talk has the opposite intended effect.
So, I am 70-20-9 at the moment; as the situation changes, so might my interpretation & allocation.