About Me
- Russell Blackford
- Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
My second most popular blog post of 2010 - and perhaps all time
This one - which dealt with issue of political correctness when discussing Islam/Muslims. The discussion over there eventually became a dialogue and I declared it closed after a while when it got stale. But it was a long thread that attracted a lot of thoughts about the sensitivities involved. This is obviously a hot-button topic, and one that will doubtless come up again in 2011.
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Hmmm... I didn't see that one when it appeared. But I have to agree with this comment. In particular:
If she had said that "many atheists have all the virtues of civilized persons" we'd see some entirely justified outrage from PZ. It's the "many". It's the Oh, I realise there are moderate Muslims but I'm going to go ahead and group them all together with the extremists anyway."
She might not have gotten disinvited if she made the analogous remark about atheists, but I'd certainly sympathize with atheists who decided to stay away from her in that case.
I say this as someone who is not at all a fan of Islam - but that doesn't mean I won't avoid associating with Islam's dumber critics.
And I don't buy the "it's just a blog post!" defense. Would Orson Scott Card's loony statements about gay marriage be any more tolerable if he had only expressed them in a blog post or two?
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