One more and I'm done with this thread.
Ann wrote:
I still want to say that I find it very dangerous to blame a country's culture for a devastating attack on it when there is extremely little evidence to support such a view.
I never said that. However, I do understand that my statements might easily be misconstrued by honest and sincere people.
So let me clarify my statements. I do not back down from the inference that there are extremely negative things about my culture, including (but not limited to) immorality, dishonesty, abuse of authority, and a callous disregard for the lives and property of others. I also hold to the statement what these negative values are not limited to either gender.
But I do NOT believe that Osama Bin Laden sent the team to the US to hijack the airliners because he'd seen one too many episodes of "Peyton Place" or any of its ilk on Middle Eastern TV. Bin Laden's motivations are complex and varied, and the sooner he and his Al Queda buddies are brought to justice, the better.
But I DO believe that the in-your-face presentation of many of our cultural values does offend many moderate and conservative Muslims who have absolutely no desire to blow up American skyscrapers. I know from my reading of the Unicorn killer case
(see Ira Einhorn) that many Americans were angry at France's refusal to extradite him in the 1990's without a guarantee that he would not be subject to the death penalty, which Pennsylvania allowed at the time of the murder. France has no right to tell the US what to do with our convicted murderers.
Yet many Middle Easterners believe that we, the US, are trying to do the very same thing with our cultural exports. We have political commentators from all over the spectrum taking positions and not allowing questions, much less debate. We have people in our State Department (not all of them, of course, and apparently not the ones who live in the host countries) telling Muslims how they should live their lives. We show them TV shows and movies of people who change lovers as often as they change their underwear (sometimes more often). We show them people portrayed as heroes who are drunks and/or drug addicts. To many of these Hollywood heroes, betrayal in one form or another is the highest form of art. And we hold up men and women whose claim to fame and power and validity is that they can run faster or jump higher or hit a ball better than anyone else in the world.
If this is all we are - and to many, that's all they see - we're shallow and vapid compared to them. And in some ways and from some points of view, they'd be justified in conquering us.
