Here is a question that came up over the all nighter I pulled with "A-" on the first night of Shavout: What is the most treif meal one can eat? Naturally it would have meat and dairy (preferrably goat meat and the milk of its mother) some blood product, nevilah, something pig so you get the paradigm case of treif and something rodent. I however have no imagination for this.
Added 5/16/05: Don't forget eiver min hachai.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Gitmo debates
Watching the talk shows, reading the reports, one gets the impression that there is a lot of confusion about what is going on at Guantanamo Bay prison, and whether there is something wrong, or there are lessons to be learned, etc.
I think that the first step that needs to be taken is the questions must be sorted out properly. There are some fairly dumb people out there who think there is just one question and that one answer will suffice. There are even more people who confuse “sorting out the issues” with confusing them. After all, they reason, people who talk too much must be trying to cover things up. So what are the questions?
First, what is actually going on there? Is it a “gulag, as Amnesty International” reports? Are we abusing holy books? Are we torturing prisoners?
Second, who are the people there? Are they legitimately terrorists? What sorts of information do we have? How do we know?
Third, is what is going on there in violation of international treaties?
Fourth, is what is going on there a violation of US law?
Fifth, can someone make a case that whatever is going on there is wrong?
Sixth, is whatever we are doing there a good or bad idea? Does it help us get information? Does it make people who otherwise would have approved of the US, now oppose it? Are the people there, people we need to keep off the streets of their respective countries.
By failing to sort out these questions we risk talking past each other and getting nothing done.
I think that the first step that needs to be taken is the questions must be sorted out properly. There are some fairly dumb people out there who think there is just one question and that one answer will suffice. There are even more people who confuse “sorting out the issues” with confusing them. After all, they reason, people who talk too much must be trying to cover things up. So what are the questions?
First, what is actually going on there? Is it a “gulag, as Amnesty International” reports? Are we abusing holy books? Are we torturing prisoners?
Second, who are the people there? Are they legitimately terrorists? What sorts of information do we have? How do we know?
Third, is what is going on there in violation of international treaties?
Fourth, is what is going on there a violation of US law?
Fifth, can someone make a case that whatever is going on there is wrong?
Sixth, is whatever we are doing there a good or bad idea? Does it help us get information? Does it make people who otherwise would have approved of the US, now oppose it? Are the people there, people we need to keep off the streets of their respective countries.
By failing to sort out these questions we risk talking past each other and getting nothing done.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Plato and the Sorities Paradox
Looking over Plato's Phaedo, it appears to me that Socrates could not have taken the sorities paradox seriously.
Here is a quote from the Phaedo(100e-101b):
So if I am reading this right, Plato's theory of the Forms suggests that things that have a certain property, let us say being large, are large because they participate in the form of Largeness. They are not large because they have some extra size.
Plato here of course does not have to worry about the question of "larger than what?" because for him there is some absolute standard which is exemplified by participating in the form.
Though I still find it odd that there are Forms of adjectives or adverbs, even if there can be forms of nouns. I can imagine the perfect woman, or perfect apple - but the perfect running, or the perfect redness? I am not sure.
But regardless. If there are Forms, and objects are what they as because they participate in them then could Socrates have bought in to the Sorities paradox? Could he have bought in to the paradox of the heap?
The paradox states that a grain of sand is just that - a grain. A pile of sand is a pile. For any amount of grains of sand, if it is not a pile, then adding just one grain will not make it one. Yet, there is an easy procedure for getting from grains to piles, and that is by continuously adding grains - hence the paradox.
More colloquially, there is no straw that breaks camels' backs. If a certain amount of straws will not break a camel's back, then it should be able to hold one more too. Yet, if we keep adding straws, the camel's back will be broken.
More formally there is a base case, namely that one grain is not a heap. And there is an induction premise: for any n such that n grains is not a heap, n+1 grains will not be a heap either. But enough instantiations of this rule will create a heap.
There are various solutions to this problem, and it seems that Plato too had a solution. Plato's solution is to deny that the induction premise works at all. Plato claims that you cannot get something that was big by simply adding small things. For Plato, it was patently absurd to try to reach something that participated in the form of the Large, by repeated instantiations of something that participated in the Form of the Small. For Plato, some things participated in the Large, and others in the Small, and that determined what something was.
It is unclear how many forms there are. (That is an interesting question!) But is there a form of the in-between? And Plato would have to account for these aggregation effects. After all, things do get bigger without having to go through the forms. They get bigger by addition. But Plato would claim is that what makes them bigger is their participation in the forms, and not the aggregation effect.
In more modern terms we might have to say that Plato would have to have taken an epistemological stand toward the origin of the problem. He would have to say that there is are grains and there are heaps, and there is a sharp boundary, only we don't know where it is.
This is a version of Timothy Williamson's approach. His claim, if memory serves, is that we get a contradiction out of denying bivalence, so everything is clearly in a category but we may be ignorant of it. Plato too, I would assume had no problem assuming human ignorance of the forms. Overcoming this ignorance is of course the goal of philosophy.
This of course sounds obvious, but I do not recall seeing the Phaedo mentioned in connection with the paradox in such an obvious way.
(This sounds like an undergraduate paper. Damn!)
Here is a quote from the Phaedo(100e-101b):
And that by Greatness only great things become great and greater greater, and by Smallness the less becomes less.
True.
Then if a person remarks that A is taller by a head than B, and B less by a head than A, you would refuse to admit this, and would stoutly contend that what you mean is only that the greater is greater by, and by reason of, greatness, and the less is less only by, or by reason of, smallness; and thus you would avoid the danger of saying that the greater is greater and the less by the measure of the head, which is the same in both, and would also avoid the monstrous absurdity of supposing that the greater man is greater by reason of the head, which is small. Would you not be afraid of that?
So if I am reading this right, Plato's theory of the Forms suggests that things that have a certain property, let us say being large, are large because they participate in the form of Largeness. They are not large because they have some extra size.
Plato here of course does not have to worry about the question of "larger than what?" because for him there is some absolute standard which is exemplified by participating in the form.
Though I still find it odd that there are Forms of adjectives or adverbs, even if there can be forms of nouns. I can imagine the perfect woman, or perfect apple - but the perfect running, or the perfect redness? I am not sure.
But regardless. If there are Forms, and objects are what they as because they participate in them then could Socrates have bought in to the Sorities paradox? Could he have bought in to the paradox of the heap?
The paradox states that a grain of sand is just that - a grain. A pile of sand is a pile. For any amount of grains of sand, if it is not a pile, then adding just one grain will not make it one. Yet, there is an easy procedure for getting from grains to piles, and that is by continuously adding grains - hence the paradox.
More colloquially, there is no straw that breaks camels' backs. If a certain amount of straws will not break a camel's back, then it should be able to hold one more too. Yet, if we keep adding straws, the camel's back will be broken.
More formally there is a base case, namely that one grain is not a heap. And there is an induction premise: for any n such that n grains is not a heap, n+1 grains will not be a heap either. But enough instantiations of this rule will create a heap.
There are various solutions to this problem, and it seems that Plato too had a solution. Plato's solution is to deny that the induction premise works at all. Plato claims that you cannot get something that was big by simply adding small things. For Plato, it was patently absurd to try to reach something that participated in the form of the Large, by repeated instantiations of something that participated in the Form of the Small. For Plato, some things participated in the Large, and others in the Small, and that determined what something was.
It is unclear how many forms there are. (That is an interesting question!) But is there a form of the in-between? And Plato would have to account for these aggregation effects. After all, things do get bigger without having to go through the forms. They get bigger by addition. But Plato would claim is that what makes them bigger is their participation in the forms, and not the aggregation effect.
In more modern terms we might have to say that Plato would have to have taken an epistemological stand toward the origin of the problem. He would have to say that there is are grains and there are heaps, and there is a sharp boundary, only we don't know where it is.
This is a version of Timothy Williamson's approach. His claim, if memory serves, is that we get a contradiction out of denying bivalence, so everything is clearly in a category but we may be ignorant of it. Plato too, I would assume had no problem assuming human ignorance of the forms. Overcoming this ignorance is of course the goal of philosophy.
This of course sounds obvious, but I do not recall seeing the Phaedo mentioned in connection with the paradox in such an obvious way.
(This sounds like an undergraduate paper. Damn!)
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Grading time
Everyone who has taught in University is probably aware of the phenomena of students demanding higher grades as soon as the semester is over. This is one of the parts of the job I hate most. Here are a few of my stories from this semester:
Minutes after submitting my grades I get an irate email from a student who got an A-. His midterm grade was an A, his first paper was an A-, and he had no idea what he got on the final (which was an A-). But for him, that adds up to an A, and he was wondering why he didn't get one. (His spotty attendance didn't help.)
A second student got a B on an oral presentation. It was a generous grade. She sucked. But complained to me, and insisted that she deserved at least an A-. I had to go to the bathroom when she caught me, so I caved, and was determined to take it back from her on her final paper. I did.
I generously gave a student a D because most of his final paper had been plagiarized, though he was otherwise a pretty good student. His average counting the F on the final paper was barely passing. After the first angry and confused email, I sent him to my department chair, so I would just not have to bother.
An enthusiastic but not very good student got solid Bs on everything he handed in. When he received a B as a final grade, he emailed and asked what he got on his final paper. I emailed back that he got a B. The student was incredulous. He was sure that he would nonetheless end up with an A as his final grade. He did not explain why.
I had three students so far send me emails inquiring why they were awarded Incomplete grades. All of them should have known that they did not submit any final paper which I had been going on about for the last third of the semester.
Another student handed in two papers which he had cut from the internet and pasted on to a piece of paper and submitted to me. He did not understand his grade of Z, which is what my college awards for cases of academic dishonesty. I sent him to the provost and the dean of students for an explanation. I have not heard back since.
Added 5/16/05:I think this last student put something very nasty up about me on ratemyprofessor.com. Oh well.
Minutes after submitting my grades I get an irate email from a student who got an A-. His midterm grade was an A, his first paper was an A-, and he had no idea what he got on the final (which was an A-). But for him, that adds up to an A, and he was wondering why he didn't get one. (His spotty attendance didn't help.)
A second student got a B on an oral presentation. It was a generous grade. She sucked. But complained to me, and insisted that she deserved at least an A-. I had to go to the bathroom when she caught me, so I caved, and was determined to take it back from her on her final paper. I did.
I generously gave a student a D because most of his final paper had been plagiarized, though he was otherwise a pretty good student. His average counting the F on the final paper was barely passing. After the first angry and confused email, I sent him to my department chair, so I would just not have to bother.
An enthusiastic but not very good student got solid Bs on everything he handed in. When he received a B as a final grade, he emailed and asked what he got on his final paper. I emailed back that he got a B. The student was incredulous. He was sure that he would nonetheless end up with an A as his final grade. He did not explain why.
I had three students so far send me emails inquiring why they were awarded Incomplete grades. All of them should have known that they did not submit any final paper which I had been going on about for the last third of the semester.
Another student handed in two papers which he had cut from the internet and pasted on to a piece of paper and submitted to me. He did not understand his grade of Z, which is what my college awards for cases of academic dishonesty. I sent him to the provost and the dean of students for an explanation. I have not heard back since.
Added 5/16/05:I think this last student put something very nasty up about me on ratemyprofessor.com. Oh well.
Marijuana and the 10th Amendment
I am no legal scholar, far from it actually, but it really seems to me now that the Supreme Court has been using the Interstate Commerce Clause for 50 years to trample the 10th Amendment.
The Supreme Court's reasoning seems to be as follows: Given the way the US is, practically anything done anywhere in the US can potentially have repercussions for some other state. Given that we are allowed to regulate things that will involve more than one state, we can pretty much regulate anything.
And so they have. But the 10th Amendment's point is: that the only thing the federal government has jurisdiction over are those things specified in the constitution. This clause was very clearly intended from stopping the federal government from the type of reasoning of the last paragraph.
The 10th Amendment really says that any kind of reasoning that concludes that anything is fair game for the federal government is simply illegitimate reasoning from the perspective of the constitution.
Yet the Supreme Court has been getting away with this kind of stuff for at least 50 years.
Oh, PS - I take back some of the not nice things I have said about Clarence Thomas. His dissenting brief on the medical marijuana ruling was exactly right.
The Supreme Court's reasoning seems to be as follows: Given the way the US is, practically anything done anywhere in the US can potentially have repercussions for some other state. Given that we are allowed to regulate things that will involve more than one state, we can pretty much regulate anything.
And so they have. But the 10th Amendment's point is: that the only thing the federal government has jurisdiction over are those things specified in the constitution. This clause was very clearly intended from stopping the federal government from the type of reasoning of the last paragraph.
The 10th Amendment really says that any kind of reasoning that concludes that anything is fair game for the federal government is simply illegitimate reasoning from the perspective of the constitution.
Yet the Supreme Court has been getting away with this kind of stuff for at least 50 years.
Oh, PS - I take back some of the not nice things I have said about Clarence Thomas. His dissenting brief on the medical marijuana ruling was exactly right.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
David Sedaris
I just came from Seeing David Sedaris at Coliseum Books. He read two pieces, one fable, which I didn't really follow, and a second piece about a cab ride and animal porn. It was amusing. I feel so unliterary around events like these. I never seem to get what is going on. It was nice though. "Y" scored these tickets and Sedaris signed my copy of his book and wrote some odd phrase, like "To Karl, I'm so happy you're alive." I had a good time. I could think of much worse things to do with my time.
Deep Throat - I guess you had to be there
To be frank, I am much more interested in the Linda Lovelace Deep Throat, then the Mark Felt Deep Throat. Am I the only one? Watergate happened before I was born. To me, it looks like it was all part of the liberal hysteria of the 60's and 70's that we look back on and say, "Yeah, well, of course politics is corrupt. It always has been, always will."
Imagine finding out some new detail about Monica Lewinsky in 20 years. It is almost embarassing how overhyped this country was. Liberals hated Nixon before Watergate, and hated him after. It is not like anyone changed their minds after it was discovered that someone stole someone else's files. Now people have fallen to the old party lines in defending and castigating him.
Someone who stays anonomous and risks little is no hero. But he did something that resembled getting the truth out, however improper it was for someone in his position. So he was not really a bad person. He did bring down the Nixon White House, and there is no real honor there. Nixon was a pretty good president from where I stand. He signed Title IX giving women equal rights, he got us out of Vietnam, he prevented the Escalation of the Yom Kipur War, and a few other useful things. This is way more than can be said for the Democrat before him who got us in to Vietnam, had a lousy civil rights record, and almost got us in to nuclear wars.
My undergraduate college professors seemed to have a firm sense of hyperbole. I never got the hatred of Nixon till this past election - then it all made sense: it was completely hysterically irrational. They just need to hate Republicans. Sad sad people actually.
Imagine finding out some new detail about Monica Lewinsky in 20 years. It is almost embarassing how overhyped this country was. Liberals hated Nixon before Watergate, and hated him after. It is not like anyone changed their minds after it was discovered that someone stole someone else's files. Now people have fallen to the old party lines in defending and castigating him.
Someone who stays anonomous and risks little is no hero. But he did something that resembled getting the truth out, however improper it was for someone in his position. So he was not really a bad person. He did bring down the Nixon White House, and there is no real honor there. Nixon was a pretty good president from where I stand. He signed Title IX giving women equal rights, he got us out of Vietnam, he prevented the Escalation of the Yom Kipur War, and a few other useful things. This is way more than can be said for the Democrat before him who got us in to Vietnam, had a lousy civil rights record, and almost got us in to nuclear wars.
My undergraduate college professors seemed to have a firm sense of hyperbole. I never got the hatred of Nixon till this past election - then it all made sense: it was completely hysterically irrational. They just need to hate Republicans. Sad sad people actually.
Monday, May 30, 2005
French Philosophy
I just got the following email from some group of French "philosophers":
I then realized why France produces such crap that it calls "Philosophy". The reason is that they spend so much time sucking up to their heros that they have no time for real original thinking.
In contrast take analytic Anglo-American philosophy. The hero for us is Frege. Frege started philosophy of language, modern logic, philosophy of mathematics, then philosophy of mind. Frege was also a proto-Nazi. He was a virulent anti-Semite, and anti-Catholic. That is all clear. We know this because he left over a diary where he wrote some real bizarre things (only recently translated to English by someone I know). Is what he said defensible? I am sure with the right twists of logic (which would be real ironic) you can construe him as not evil. But for analytic philosophers, that is hardly the point. Maybe he was a bad guy, maybe he wasn't. Who cares? A philosopher is supposed to really be above that. In France they have not gotten past this hero worship. In France, and Germany too, it is way more important for a philosopher to believe in the goodness of the greats than to do philosophy. That is the equivalent of talking about the sex lives of politicians and calling yourself a political theorist. Political theory is about countries and their interactions, etc. Philosophy is about arguments, not their proponents. The sooner the continent stops confusing gossip with thought, the better off they will be.
Added 6/8/05: As if French philosophers don't hero worship enough, a book about the film of Derrida just came out with the complete screenplay.
Also, keep in mind that Faye's book was not even the only book this year to come out on this topic. A more apologetic reading was given by James Phillips. (Though this book actually contains philosophy, not just comments about Heidegger.) Moreover, Heidegger was also the subject of a well received "documentary" The Ister.
If you can read French, go directly to:
http://parolesdesjours.free.fr/scandale.htm
French philosophers fight back!
Determined to oppose the slanderous campaign which followed the publication of the outrageous essay by Emmanuel Faye (insinuating Martin Heidegger to have inspired Hitler and Heydrich), some of the most eminent french philosophers, translators and experts of Heidegger's works and thought, answer online in a special project put out on the website dedicated to litterature and philosophy entitled "Paroles des Jours".
A manifesto in 13 languages :
http://parolesdesjours.free.fr/philosophers.pdf
is being sent to departments of philosophy and philosophical sites all over the world.
Sorry if you already received it or if you don't feel involved.
I then realized why France produces such crap that it calls "Philosophy". The reason is that they spend so much time sucking up to their heros that they have no time for real original thinking.
In contrast take analytic Anglo-American philosophy. The hero for us is Frege. Frege started philosophy of language, modern logic, philosophy of mathematics, then philosophy of mind. Frege was also a proto-Nazi. He was a virulent anti-Semite, and anti-Catholic. That is all clear. We know this because he left over a diary where he wrote some real bizarre things (only recently translated to English by someone I know). Is what he said defensible? I am sure with the right twists of logic (which would be real ironic) you can construe him as not evil. But for analytic philosophers, that is hardly the point. Maybe he was a bad guy, maybe he wasn't. Who cares? A philosopher is supposed to really be above that. In France they have not gotten past this hero worship. In France, and Germany too, it is way more important for a philosopher to believe in the goodness of the greats than to do philosophy. That is the equivalent of talking about the sex lives of politicians and calling yourself a political theorist. Political theory is about countries and their interactions, etc. Philosophy is about arguments, not their proponents. The sooner the continent stops confusing gossip with thought, the better off they will be.
Added 6/8/05: As if French philosophers don't hero worship enough, a book about the film of Derrida just came out with the complete screenplay.
Also, keep in mind that Faye's book was not even the only book this year to come out on this topic. A more apologetic reading was given by James Phillips. (Though this book actually contains philosophy, not just comments about Heidegger.) Moreover, Heidegger was also the subject of a well received "documentary" The Ister.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Thursday, May 26, 2005
On Reading and Learning
As most of my friends know, I see little value in reading. Most books are really not worth it. I do not think that one's "soul" somehow gets "enlightened" by "literature". I do not think that one is somehow "bettered" by having mentally processed all the words in some "great novel". I am not impressed by people who read many books.
I am eternally grateful when a very popular novel is made in to a movie so that I can get the idea of what everyone is reading without having to actually read the damned book. Reading is often tedious, and generally time consuming. I only have a certain amount of reading time per week, and I have very strict priorities there.
Personally if find great pleasures in finding things out. I like understanding how the universe works. I like knowing what happened in the past. I really take great pleasure in grasping a new philosophical argument.
However, I have no idea why I should have to be forced to sit through endless prose to do it.
Mind you there are some things where the challenge is to figure out the text. Some math problems are there to be solved, and you couldn't care how the problem is stated, you just want to see if you can work out the solution. But sometimes, you just really care about the text. Like when one reads the Bible, sometimes figuring it out is the interesting part. One who sees the movie is missing the real interesting stuff there, namely the nuance. The Talmud, is the same way, one cannot simply see the film version (not that there could be one) the joy is in actually making your way through the tangled prose, and deciphering the complex logic. Many people want to just know what the books say, but that is a lesser adventure.
But in the general case actually reading the book does not seem all that important. That is why I am finding the Times' article about reading versus audio books so odd. Some people are displaying an odd prejudice against them. People who for whatever reason want to get to know the contents of a book should take it in, in the way they feel most comfortable.
When I was in first grade I wrote a science fiction short story (which has since been lost) in which students learned by injection. This is as reasonable a way as any to take in a book. If it works, why not. I wish I could just upload a few hundred books in to my brain and save myself the trouble of actually reading them.
Currently, the written word, the "printed page" in all its manifestations are our best medium for transmitting knowledge, but by far not our only one. People should make sue of whatever makes them happy, and authors should be grateful that people care about their books at all. There is a lot of competition for people's reading time given the billions of books out there, and if someone is listening to your book, you ought to be happy. Few books (and in my opinion, almost no fiction whatsoever) is that great that it is worth reading if the experience would be too tedious.
As an aside, I do love books. I own many, and I am very proud of my collection. But I do not see why I ought to read many of them. I own them for my own pleasure. It is an aesthetic thing, not a literacy thing.
I am eternally grateful when a very popular novel is made in to a movie so that I can get the idea of what everyone is reading without having to actually read the damned book. Reading is often tedious, and generally time consuming. I only have a certain amount of reading time per week, and I have very strict priorities there.
Personally if find great pleasures in finding things out. I like understanding how the universe works. I like knowing what happened in the past. I really take great pleasure in grasping a new philosophical argument.
However, I have no idea why I should have to be forced to sit through endless prose to do it.
Mind you there are some things where the challenge is to figure out the text. Some math problems are there to be solved, and you couldn't care how the problem is stated, you just want to see if you can work out the solution. But sometimes, you just really care about the text. Like when one reads the Bible, sometimes figuring it out is the interesting part. One who sees the movie is missing the real interesting stuff there, namely the nuance. The Talmud, is the same way, one cannot simply see the film version (not that there could be one) the joy is in actually making your way through the tangled prose, and deciphering the complex logic. Many people want to just know what the books say, but that is a lesser adventure.
But in the general case actually reading the book does not seem all that important. That is why I am finding the Times' article about reading versus audio books so odd. Some people are displaying an odd prejudice against them. People who for whatever reason want to get to know the contents of a book should take it in, in the way they feel most comfortable.
When I was in first grade I wrote a science fiction short story (which has since been lost) in which students learned by injection. This is as reasonable a way as any to take in a book. If it works, why not. I wish I could just upload a few hundred books in to my brain and save myself the trouble of actually reading them.
Currently, the written word, the "printed page" in all its manifestations are our best medium for transmitting knowledge, but by far not our only one. People should make sue of whatever makes them happy, and authors should be grateful that people care about their books at all. There is a lot of competition for people's reading time given the billions of books out there, and if someone is listening to your book, you ought to be happy. Few books (and in my opinion, almost no fiction whatsoever) is that great that it is worth reading if the experience would be too tedious.
As an aside, I do love books. I own many, and I am very proud of my collection. But I do not see why I ought to read many of them. I own them for my own pleasure. It is an aesthetic thing, not a literacy thing.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Star Wars
Last night I went out to see Star Wars Episode III. The film has so far invited many political comparisons. If you are a left winger then it seems that the Empire are the Republicans: Liberty dies with the consent of the governed (to a thunderous applause), and you are either with us or against us. It seems that if you are a right winger then the Empire is the UN and Palpatine is Kofi Annan, attempting to increase UN strength with an inneffectual fighting force and do-gooding pretenses, all in the name of consolidating power for yourself and family without much regard for the democracies that exist, all with an attempt to grab power for those small dictatorships which pepper the galaxy and oppress their own countries.
Either way this assumes that you are viewing the Empire as evil and the Republic as good. In our multicultural world where we are taught to view things from the prospective of the other side, this is a rather dangerous way of looking at things. Jonathan Last made the case after Episode II that the empire is not the bad guy. After this new episode, he is obviously even more correct. We have no reason to assume that Palpatine is really "bad", or that the Jedi are really good.
A Bunch of anti-Chancellor elitists deciding on what really counts as democracy and mocking the system that produced it, are about as anti-democratic as they comes.
There is nothing sicker than a state that gets children and raises them to become warriors from birth. Who raises children from youth to become state slaves with no ego, no desire for family, friends, real relationships, property, etc? Beside Stalin, I can’t think of any.
We are confronted with two differing views of how to achieve peace in the galaxy. One offered by the Empire, a repressed group that eventually made a comeback, perhaps like a small struggling democracy or religion, and the Republic, which seems to have lost its moral compass when it refused to allow the machinery of democracy to work the way it was supposed to, and gave too much power to the shadowy warriors who thought they alone had the best interest of the galaxy in mind.
We can just imagine if Ralf Nader, Michael Moore, George Soros, and Yoda were secretly in charge of the US, and commanded a secret army that answered to no one and had limitless resources at their disposal. I'd turn to the "dark side too", and so would most of this country, if they valued democracy.
The Republic seems to be inhabited by a world of princes and inherited royalty. I saw no democracy on any planets. I just saw a few corrupt planets, and a council of privilege (Jimmy Smits was Royal Highness) and princesses all over.
People do value family, and democracy, but there is no reason to assume that when all the smoke clears, the Sith are not better positioned to give it to the galaxy. We saw a council (yes, the one Anakin killed for some unknown reason. Was there a revolt afoot? Were they in league with the empire? Were they the Jedi of the Empire? Who knows). There is no sense that the Empire was all about enslaving the people or anything like that. Calling the 20 years under the empire a "tyranny" is fine, but some of my best friends spoke that way of the 8 year rule of Bill Clinton, and some of my better friends still talk about the sick facist state that Guiliani ran in New York for 8 years. So I'm not all that impressed with tyranny talk. I had a great time under Guiliani’s New York.
Seeing a story from one side is called propaganda. Star Wars, all six of them, is essentially Jedi propaganda. All the lacuna about the position of the Empire on the issues are lacking, and we are clearly not getting a balanced picture here.
We see the one second clip of Samuel L Jackson watching Anakin killing the children in the "temple". We do not really know what happened in the temple. Perhaps Anakin told them to come with him to the dark side and they blindly refused, and all attacked him? Given the film's reluctance to show us too much of the events, when showing them would have been great propaganda, we must assume that what they omitted was damaging to the credibility of the Republic. As the audience found out, which moments of a battle you see determines your perspective on the whole thing. What we saw of Anakin in the Temple is just like what Anakin saw in the Chancellor’s office.
Child soldiers!?!, using a "temple" as a religious training base!?!, both things currently violate our Geneva conventions. What barbarian thought this system up? The Empire would never do that.
Keep in mind that the clone army was commissioned in the name of the Republic (and fought for them until they were commanded to do otherwise) and was built, in all its barbarism by a planet in the Republic sphere of influence, most likely a member of the council. (Clearly a Sith-aligned planet would not build what they thought to be a Republic army.)
Palpatine’s humanity though was touching. When he takes Darth Vader, after he is limbless, burnt to a crisp, and left for dead by the enemy, and rebuilds him. Most clichéd bad guys would have put Anakin out of his misery then and there, and left in disgust as the best student was defeated by the enemy. Palpatine could have found a new protégé. But instead he took pity on Anakin and rebuilds him. That is more than we saw anyone in the Republic do. They didn’t even look like they tried too hard to save the princess who died in childbirth. They gave some lame excuse about loosing the will to live and let her just die, while taking care to preserve the children to become future warriors for the cause.
There is also no reason to assume that Anakin’s plea for a trial for Palpatine wasn't genuine. If there truly was a danger to the empire, it would have come out. Palpatine was in no position to argue, and Anakin could have helped restrain him. (If you think Anakin’s motives were selfish, he could have gotten the teachings from Palpatine while he was on trial, and no doubt a place as obviously enlightened as the Republic did not have the death penalty. So there would have been plenty of time to visit him in Jail while sorting this whole mess out.)
No doubt viewers of this Jedi piece of propaganda are supposed to learn some lesson about finishing off your evil enemy lest he come up and rise against you. Perhaps a bit less ruthlessness on the part of the Jedi and more diplomacy would have averted the tragic events of Star Wars, ESB, Return of the Jedi, where countless lives were lost. Oh wait, I forgot, Sith lives don’t count. They are not really as human as us.
Taking every scene in your "film" which portrays the other side using low lighting, and only showing the small internal power struggles, and making those out to be the essence of the way the Empire behaves is akin to taking all the misspeaks of George Bush and assuming that our whole foreign policy rises or falls on the pronunciation of the word "nuclear".
Added: It is becoming clearer that Palpatine has an alternative vision of peace apart from the Republic. His goal is apparenlty to unite the Republic and the Sith/Seperatist-allied states under one banner in peace (ie, the first Glactic Empire). Anakin's assasination of the seperatist leaders is an effective way to end seperatism without a costlier war. How do you convince people who want to dominate that they have to unite? (Think about the Sunni in Iraq now.) He needed to get rid of the Jedi for the same reason. The Jedi was an army that was stuck in the old way of thinking. (Think of today's CIA.) Palpatine knew that it would be impossible to take a group and make them obsolete with peace. They will keep on insisting that war is necessary and do whatever they can to perpetuate the conflict with the Sith. If they have no enemies, they have no power. Thus their anihiliation was also necessary.
(Just an aside, but with all their technology, why didn't Padme know she was having twins? And thaty hadn't invented birth controll? I can't believe that their decision to have children was deliberate. That is certainly not the impression we get.)
(Another aside: Was it me, or do we have good reason to suspect that Obi Wan might have had something going on on the side with Padme? He spent too much time talking to her given the fact that he didn't know about her involvement with Anakin. He was also a bit too concerned about her kids, one of which (ie, the boy) he kept an eye on.)
Either way this assumes that you are viewing the Empire as evil and the Republic as good. In our multicultural world where we are taught to view things from the prospective of the other side, this is a rather dangerous way of looking at things. Jonathan Last made the case after Episode II that the empire is not the bad guy. After this new episode, he is obviously even more correct. We have no reason to assume that Palpatine is really "bad", or that the Jedi are really good.
A Bunch of anti-Chancellor elitists deciding on what really counts as democracy and mocking the system that produced it, are about as anti-democratic as they comes.
There is nothing sicker than a state that gets children and raises them to become warriors from birth. Who raises children from youth to become state slaves with no ego, no desire for family, friends, real relationships, property, etc? Beside Stalin, I can’t think of any.
We are confronted with two differing views of how to achieve peace in the galaxy. One offered by the Empire, a repressed group that eventually made a comeback, perhaps like a small struggling democracy or religion, and the Republic, which seems to have lost its moral compass when it refused to allow the machinery of democracy to work the way it was supposed to, and gave too much power to the shadowy warriors who thought they alone had the best interest of the galaxy in mind.
We can just imagine if Ralf Nader, Michael Moore, George Soros, and Yoda were secretly in charge of the US, and commanded a secret army that answered to no one and had limitless resources at their disposal. I'd turn to the "dark side too", and so would most of this country, if they valued democracy.
The Republic seems to be inhabited by a world of princes and inherited royalty. I saw no democracy on any planets. I just saw a few corrupt planets, and a council of privilege (Jimmy Smits was Royal Highness) and princesses all over.
People do value family, and democracy, but there is no reason to assume that when all the smoke clears, the Sith are not better positioned to give it to the galaxy. We saw a council (yes, the one Anakin killed for some unknown reason. Was there a revolt afoot? Were they in league with the empire? Were they the Jedi of the Empire? Who knows). There is no sense that the Empire was all about enslaving the people or anything like that. Calling the 20 years under the empire a "tyranny" is fine, but some of my best friends spoke that way of the 8 year rule of Bill Clinton, and some of my better friends still talk about the sick facist state that Guiliani ran in New York for 8 years. So I'm not all that impressed with tyranny talk. I had a great time under Guiliani’s New York.
Seeing a story from one side is called propaganda. Star Wars, all six of them, is essentially Jedi propaganda. All the lacuna about the position of the Empire on the issues are lacking, and we are clearly not getting a balanced picture here.
We see the one second clip of Samuel L Jackson watching Anakin killing the children in the "temple". We do not really know what happened in the temple. Perhaps Anakin told them to come with him to the dark side and they blindly refused, and all attacked him? Given the film's reluctance to show us too much of the events, when showing them would have been great propaganda, we must assume that what they omitted was damaging to the credibility of the Republic. As the audience found out, which moments of a battle you see determines your perspective on the whole thing. What we saw of Anakin in the Temple is just like what Anakin saw in the Chancellor’s office.
Child soldiers!?!, using a "temple" as a religious training base!?!, both things currently violate our Geneva conventions. What barbarian thought this system up? The Empire would never do that.
Keep in mind that the clone army was commissioned in the name of the Republic (and fought for them until they were commanded to do otherwise) and was built, in all its barbarism by a planet in the Republic sphere of influence, most likely a member of the council. (Clearly a Sith-aligned planet would not build what they thought to be a Republic army.)
Palpatine’s humanity though was touching. When he takes Darth Vader, after he is limbless, burnt to a crisp, and left for dead by the enemy, and rebuilds him. Most clichéd bad guys would have put Anakin out of his misery then and there, and left in disgust as the best student was defeated by the enemy. Palpatine could have found a new protégé. But instead he took pity on Anakin and rebuilds him. That is more than we saw anyone in the Republic do. They didn’t even look like they tried too hard to save the princess who died in childbirth. They gave some lame excuse about loosing the will to live and let her just die, while taking care to preserve the children to become future warriors for the cause.
There is also no reason to assume that Anakin’s plea for a trial for Palpatine wasn't genuine. If there truly was a danger to the empire, it would have come out. Palpatine was in no position to argue, and Anakin could have helped restrain him. (If you think Anakin’s motives were selfish, he could have gotten the teachings from Palpatine while he was on trial, and no doubt a place as obviously enlightened as the Republic did not have the death penalty. So there would have been plenty of time to visit him in Jail while sorting this whole mess out.)
No doubt viewers of this Jedi piece of propaganda are supposed to learn some lesson about finishing off your evil enemy lest he come up and rise against you. Perhaps a bit less ruthlessness on the part of the Jedi and more diplomacy would have averted the tragic events of Star Wars, ESB, Return of the Jedi, where countless lives were lost. Oh wait, I forgot, Sith lives don’t count. They are not really as human as us.
Taking every scene in your "film" which portrays the other side using low lighting, and only showing the small internal power struggles, and making those out to be the essence of the way the Empire behaves is akin to taking all the misspeaks of George Bush and assuming that our whole foreign policy rises or falls on the pronunciation of the word "nuclear".
Added: It is becoming clearer that Palpatine has an alternative vision of peace apart from the Republic. His goal is apparenlty to unite the Republic and the Sith/Seperatist-allied states under one banner in peace (ie, the first Glactic Empire). Anakin's assasination of the seperatist leaders is an effective way to end seperatism without a costlier war. How do you convince people who want to dominate that they have to unite? (Think about the Sunni in Iraq now.) He needed to get rid of the Jedi for the same reason. The Jedi was an army that was stuck in the old way of thinking. (Think of today's CIA.) Palpatine knew that it would be impossible to take a group and make them obsolete with peace. They will keep on insisting that war is necessary and do whatever they can to perpetuate the conflict with the Sith. If they have no enemies, they have no power. Thus their anihiliation was also necessary.
(Just an aside, but with all their technology, why didn't Padme know she was having twins? And thaty hadn't invented birth controll? I can't believe that their decision to have children was deliberate. That is certainly not the impression we get.)
(Another aside: Was it me, or do we have good reason to suspect that Obi Wan might have had something going on on the side with Padme? He spent too much time talking to her given the fact that he didn't know about her involvement with Anakin. He was also a bit too concerned about her kids, one of which (ie, the boy) he kept an eye on.)
Sunday, May 22, 2005
CNN
I just heard Suzanne Malveaux on CNN refer to the Western Wall as "A very important cite for Israeli Jews".
Jesus is probably a very important person for Italian Christians, and the Eiffel Tower is a very important structure for Parisian Frenchmen.
And while we're at it, does CNN know the difference between editorials and news? Barbara Ferguson is just waxing lyrical about how the US used to be the darling of the Arab world until we invaded Iraq.
Hello CNN: 1. This is false, and 2. It is not news, it is editorializing.
Jesus is probably a very important person for Italian Christians, and the Eiffel Tower is a very important structure for Parisian Frenchmen.
And while we're at it, does CNN know the difference between editorials and news? Barbara Ferguson is just waxing lyrical about how the US used to be the darling of the Arab world until we invaded Iraq.
Hello CNN: 1. This is false, and 2. It is not news, it is editorializing.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Patriotism and bad faith
Conservative Philosopher links to a quote of Simon Keller on Patriotism as bad faith. I beg to differ and offer a different take on patriotism. I admit I have no fully worked out theory, but I thought it was worth a shot.
One way to look at patriotism is to consider patriotic loyalty as a social compact. Patriotism can be viewed as a manifestation of an understanding of reciprocity between a large number of individuals. These individuals are bound to some agreement of reciprocal altruism as enforced by a commonly understood and agreed upon system of rules and governance.
So, I can love my country because it enforces a set of understandings about how we can cooperate with each other – in a way that perhaps is beneficial to all. Conversely, one may be xenophobic because she has no reason to believe that a foreigner believes that he is bound by the same set of rules as my fellow countrymen. The foreigner may defect in a way that your own countryman would have a much greater difficulty doing.
It seems pretty easy to believe that others around you are bound by certain rules and standards, while people who are from different places are not. Deciding to support, even blindly support, people with whom you have an enforced pre-existing trust-relationship seems a lot wiser than supporting people who might have a strong incentive to defect against you, and a weaker disincentive not to.
There seems to be little question about bad faith unless there is a prior presumption and agreed upon understanding of good faith. In the case of a foreigner, (whom the patriot may seemingly arbitrarily like less) there is no understanding of what it would be to act in good faith. Good faith is relative to a common system of practices. It is easy to act with good faith toward a fellow citizen, as there is an accepted standard, and as a last resort, an agreed-upon enforcement procedure. It is much harder to act in good faith in the absence of both.
This is of course for patriotism on a scale of preferring your countrymen versus those individuals of other countries, eg, in cases of who to give preference to in admission to your universities, who to give charity to, or who to invite to your parties. But does it cover the cases of preferring the policies of my country versus the policies of other countries?
Yes, it applies here too. The assumption is that the policies of your country are designed to look after your best interest and the policies of other countries are designed to look after the best interests of their citizens.
It is the same problem. I have a reason to prefer (even blindly prefer) the policies that are designed to look after my best interest over those of another’s best interest in the absence of any external agreed-upon and enforced standard of good faith. One would have to be foolish to promote the best interest of another when it is at her own expense.
Even promoting “the good” is not an option in the absence of outside constraints enforcing the good that has been promoted, regardless of who benefits.
So patriotism does not seem to be, either on the level of the individual or on the level of the country, a bad faith concept. Bad faith only makes sense where there is a mechanism for good faith. Given the diversity of views that exists in an international setting, it is hard to argue that there is a common enough concept of good faith to make patriotism a bad-faith concept.
One way to look at patriotism is to consider patriotic loyalty as a social compact. Patriotism can be viewed as a manifestation of an understanding of reciprocity between a large number of individuals. These individuals are bound to some agreement of reciprocal altruism as enforced by a commonly understood and agreed upon system of rules and governance.
So, I can love my country because it enforces a set of understandings about how we can cooperate with each other – in a way that perhaps is beneficial to all. Conversely, one may be xenophobic because she has no reason to believe that a foreigner believes that he is bound by the same set of rules as my fellow countrymen. The foreigner may defect in a way that your own countryman would have a much greater difficulty doing.
It seems pretty easy to believe that others around you are bound by certain rules and standards, while people who are from different places are not. Deciding to support, even blindly support, people with whom you have an enforced pre-existing trust-relationship seems a lot wiser than supporting people who might have a strong incentive to defect against you, and a weaker disincentive not to.
There seems to be little question about bad faith unless there is a prior presumption and agreed upon understanding of good faith. In the case of a foreigner, (whom the patriot may seemingly arbitrarily like less) there is no understanding of what it would be to act in good faith. Good faith is relative to a common system of practices. It is easy to act with good faith toward a fellow citizen, as there is an accepted standard, and as a last resort, an agreed-upon enforcement procedure. It is much harder to act in good faith in the absence of both.
This is of course for patriotism on a scale of preferring your countrymen versus those individuals of other countries, eg, in cases of who to give preference to in admission to your universities, who to give charity to, or who to invite to your parties. But does it cover the cases of preferring the policies of my country versus the policies of other countries?
Yes, it applies here too. The assumption is that the policies of your country are designed to look after your best interest and the policies of other countries are designed to look after the best interests of their citizens.
It is the same problem. I have a reason to prefer (even blindly prefer) the policies that are designed to look after my best interest over those of another’s best interest in the absence of any external agreed-upon and enforced standard of good faith. One would have to be foolish to promote the best interest of another when it is at her own expense.
Even promoting “the good” is not an option in the absence of outside constraints enforcing the good that has been promoted, regardless of who benefits.
So patriotism does not seem to be, either on the level of the individual or on the level of the country, a bad faith concept. Bad faith only makes sense where there is a mechanism for good faith. Given the diversity of views that exists in an international setting, it is hard to argue that there is a common enough concept of good faith to make patriotism a bad-faith concept.
Koran-verse toilet paper?
Here is a key difference between the way Westerners seem to think and the way that the Arab/Muslim world seems to think: Westerners believe in principles. The Arab/Muslim world does not.
Westerners believe that if something is right or wrong, then it is right or wrong for everyone. Things are either universally right or universally wrong. Arabs/Muslims believe no such thing. They believe that there are things that are wrong to do to them, and there is never any reason to generalize that belief.
Many Westerners for example are Christians. They believe that everyone ought to respect Christianity. They then realize that to get Muslims to respect Christianity, they have to have Christians showing respect to Muslims. This then gets generalized to “people ought to respect the religion of others”.
Muslims on the other hand believe that everyone ought to respect Islam. They realize that if they want to see this happen they have to make everyone respect Islam by force. Ultimately this gets generalized to “everyone must respect Islam, regardless of what Islam says about you”. This is very different from the Western model.
One can see many examples of this. Take the recent Koran in the toilet incident. Muslims believe that everyone must respect the Koran. Westerners believe the same thing. However, Westerners believe this as the product of a principle that derives from our need to respect the important symbols of others, perhaps because we respect them and perhaps, more cynically, because we want them to respect ours. Muslims believe that people ought to respect the Koran because it is a sacred symbol of Islam, regardless of how Islam treats their sacred symbols. There are few Muslims who have any compunction about, say, burning the American or Israeli flag – both symbols that are pretty sacred to their respective peoples. Muslims do not have a principle that claims that one ought to respect others, only that one ought to respect Muslims.
A second example: The Arab world expects Israel to do the right thing and recognize the Palestinians and their state. This comes from the universal belief that everyone ought to recognize the rights of the Palestinians, regardless of what the Palestinians do. When an American looks at this she is thinking that we need to recognize the right of Palestinians because any people ought to be recognized, and are entitled to a free state. Arabs have no interest in granting statehood to peoples. Israel was created over 50 years ago and has never been recognized as a state by the Arab world (outside the context of the two specific peace treaties). So Arabs have an interest in promoting their state, not any general concept of peoples who have rights to states.
A few weeks ago I posted a response to an op-ed by Rami Khouri. That piece essentially said that there were a lot of things that are important to the Arab/Muslim world and the US was ignoring them – to the detriment of the US. For example, Khouri claimed that Arabs need to perceive that what countries are doing has international legitimacy. The US had no international or moral legitimacy, and thus they are unwelcome in Iraq. I responded by pointing out that international legitimacy is not important to the Arab world, as we can see from a whole slew of examples. There was no international UN sanctioned coalition with the Arabs when they invaded Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, or 1973. Khouri was playing on our beliefs in principles. The principle that Arabs really believe in is that there ought to be international consensus when invading one of their countries.
Khouri was deliberately lying to us. Khouri knows that Westerners will look favorable on any idea that seems to invoke principles that apply to all equally. That seems to be the meaning of fair. (Under a Rawlsian veil of ignorance we would only want an invasion of Arab territory if there was an international consensus.) So he took some Arab complaints and claimed that they were really instantiations of general Arab principles. He then got all Arabs who read it to say “yeah! That’s what we believe!”. When in reality what they believe is the rule as it applies to this specific case.
It is very clever, but rather insidious and ultimately a bunch of deliberate lies. Westerners look at Arab/Muslim claims and reproach themselves for failing to live up to general principles that all take sacred, and Muslims get to feel self-righteous for having these humane principles that the West tramples.
It is smarmy because what Westerners really believe is that they ought to always reciprocate: if you respect me, I’ll respect you. Westerners then turn this in to a general principle of all respecting all. The Arab/Muslim world skips the reciprocity step, and just demands the general respect that falls out of western principles. Westerners do not realize that anyone could skip reciprocity, and wonder what we are doing wrong and how we could fail to respect the rights of non-Westerners.
Westerners need to wake up and realize that we are not dealing with a culture like our own. If the Arab/Muslim world wants our respect and wants us to care about things like torturing their prisoners, or using the Koran as toilet paper, they need to start showing us the same respect. We need to realize that until we demand this, we ought not to care about those things. We cannot afford not to provide a disincentive to that part of the world not to respect us.
Muslims and Arabs need to realize that respect is a two way street. Someone is going to start manufacturing toilet paper with verses from the Koran in English and Arabic and sell it on the internet. It will be funny to Westerners who think that Christians and Jews are not welcome in their countries, so they really don’t care what the inhabitants think. It will be even funnier when the great toilet-paper fatwas start flying.
Westerners believe that if something is right or wrong, then it is right or wrong for everyone. Things are either universally right or universally wrong. Arabs/Muslims believe no such thing. They believe that there are things that are wrong to do to them, and there is never any reason to generalize that belief.
Many Westerners for example are Christians. They believe that everyone ought to respect Christianity. They then realize that to get Muslims to respect Christianity, they have to have Christians showing respect to Muslims. This then gets generalized to “people ought to respect the religion of others”.
Muslims on the other hand believe that everyone ought to respect Islam. They realize that if they want to see this happen they have to make everyone respect Islam by force. Ultimately this gets generalized to “everyone must respect Islam, regardless of what Islam says about you”. This is very different from the Western model.
One can see many examples of this. Take the recent Koran in the toilet incident. Muslims believe that everyone must respect the Koran. Westerners believe the same thing. However, Westerners believe this as the product of a principle that derives from our need to respect the important symbols of others, perhaps because we respect them and perhaps, more cynically, because we want them to respect ours. Muslims believe that people ought to respect the Koran because it is a sacred symbol of Islam, regardless of how Islam treats their sacred symbols. There are few Muslims who have any compunction about, say, burning the American or Israeli flag – both symbols that are pretty sacred to their respective peoples. Muslims do not have a principle that claims that one ought to respect others, only that one ought to respect Muslims.
A second example: The Arab world expects Israel to do the right thing and recognize the Palestinians and their state. This comes from the universal belief that everyone ought to recognize the rights of the Palestinians, regardless of what the Palestinians do. When an American looks at this she is thinking that we need to recognize the right of Palestinians because any people ought to be recognized, and are entitled to a free state. Arabs have no interest in granting statehood to peoples. Israel was created over 50 years ago and has never been recognized as a state by the Arab world (outside the context of the two specific peace treaties). So Arabs have an interest in promoting their state, not any general concept of peoples who have rights to states.
A few weeks ago I posted a response to an op-ed by Rami Khouri. That piece essentially said that there were a lot of things that are important to the Arab/Muslim world and the US was ignoring them – to the detriment of the US. For example, Khouri claimed that Arabs need to perceive that what countries are doing has international legitimacy. The US had no international or moral legitimacy, and thus they are unwelcome in Iraq. I responded by pointing out that international legitimacy is not important to the Arab world, as we can see from a whole slew of examples. There was no international UN sanctioned coalition with the Arabs when they invaded Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, or 1973. Khouri was playing on our beliefs in principles. The principle that Arabs really believe in is that there ought to be international consensus when invading one of their countries.
Khouri was deliberately lying to us. Khouri knows that Westerners will look favorable on any idea that seems to invoke principles that apply to all equally. That seems to be the meaning of fair. (Under a Rawlsian veil of ignorance we would only want an invasion of Arab territory if there was an international consensus.) So he took some Arab complaints and claimed that they were really instantiations of general Arab principles. He then got all Arabs who read it to say “yeah! That’s what we believe!”. When in reality what they believe is the rule as it applies to this specific case.
It is very clever, but rather insidious and ultimately a bunch of deliberate lies. Westerners look at Arab/Muslim claims and reproach themselves for failing to live up to general principles that all take sacred, and Muslims get to feel self-righteous for having these humane principles that the West tramples.
It is smarmy because what Westerners really believe is that they ought to always reciprocate: if you respect me, I’ll respect you. Westerners then turn this in to a general principle of all respecting all. The Arab/Muslim world skips the reciprocity step, and just demands the general respect that falls out of western principles. Westerners do not realize that anyone could skip reciprocity, and wonder what we are doing wrong and how we could fail to respect the rights of non-Westerners.
Westerners need to wake up and realize that we are not dealing with a culture like our own. If the Arab/Muslim world wants our respect and wants us to care about things like torturing their prisoners, or using the Koran as toilet paper, they need to start showing us the same respect. We need to realize that until we demand this, we ought not to care about those things. We cannot afford not to provide a disincentive to that part of the world not to respect us.
Muslims and Arabs need to realize that respect is a two way street. Someone is going to start manufacturing toilet paper with verses from the Koran in English and Arabic and sell it on the internet. It will be funny to Westerners who think that Christians and Jews are not welcome in their countries, so they really don’t care what the inhabitants think. It will be even funnier when the great toilet-paper fatwas start flying.
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