Views from the Abyss #53: The Lie that Wasn't

Q. With regards to the recent terrorist attack in Manchester, a journalist knowingly took a story about a Sikh taxi driver giving free rides and presented him as a Muslim. Is this a smoking gun of journalistic dishonesty?

A. That is certainly one interpretation.

However, I would propose an alternative scenario, that is equally consistent with the known facts, and expands on our recent discussion of fantasy bubbles. In addition, it offers the possibility of actually engaging in discussion, rather than firing condemnation snipe shots across the Twazzer.

In this proposed scenario, the journalist did not lie. To call it a liar over such a minor detail would be hand waved as derailment.

What the journalist is, however, is a racist. But you won’t get very far with that approach either.

So let us transport ourselves into the fantasy bubble of our hypothetical modern ‘progressive’, and see what we find lurking in the cobwebs.

The race problem

The West has a major problem with racism. It is a definitive property of the Western mindset, always has been, and is no better now than it ever has been in the past. And when we say 'Western mindset', we’re obviously talking about white people.

Racism is a problem caused and perpetuated uniquely by white people, and only white people are capable of fighting it. In any other circumstance, this very mindset would be called ‘racism’, as it not only condones the condemnation of one race, but combines it with low expectation bigotry towards all the others. However, the intent is benevolent towards the ‘right’ races, which makes this the ‘right’ kind of racism. Which isn’t really racism at all at the end of the day. My conscience is clear. 

So how do we know that there is a problem with racism? Because we have perceived evidence that supports this conclusion, and ignored all evidence that doesn’t. 

In recent times, brown skinned people, especially those from Middle Eastern countries, have been under repeated and constant attack by hateful bigots. We know this also, because we have perceived evidence that supports this conclusion, and ignored all evidence that doesn’t. 

What makes this particularly hard to stomach is the constant need to rationalise their bigotry on cultural and ideological grounds. A reprehensible individual who happens to be of the Islamic faith causes an atrocity, and so they claim the whole religion is bad. A tiny minority of migrants/refugees fail to observe social niceties in a host country they’ve only recently entered (sometimes more seriously than others, admittedly), and so they claim that all immigration is bad. 

A handful of incidents couldn’t possibly represent the peaceful majority. It’s all just a weak excuse to justify their personal hatred of an entire population of people based solely on their skin colour. 

‘Islamaphobia’, as they call it, is just targeted racism under an intellectual sounding name. 

This week, a Middle Eastern man caused an atrocity in Manchester, and the bigots were quick to condemn his entire race over it. We’re trying to show these bigots that the majority of Middle Eastern men are as helpful and generous as you would expect any well adjusted British person to be. 

In some of the examples, sure—they weren’t technically Muslims, but sometimes you have to speak the bigots’ language in order to get through to them. So what do they focus on? Of course, they focus on that one word, as if it invalidates the entire rest of the message, the message being that these people they hate so much are demonstrably doing a lot more good in the community than they are.

Meanwhile...
Well that was unpleasant—the progressive fantasy bubble reeks of stale patchouli and avocado toast.

One might observe at this juncture a number of issues with the logic. For example, taking an absolute minority as representative of the norm, while condemning others for doing the same; cherry picking evidence that supports a conclusion while ignoring that which doesn’t. You may have even spotted the assertion of concealed motives into entire populations of people you’ve never met, and we all know how harmful that can be.

Do not make the mistake though of thinking that these people are merely deluded—these are things that we all do, and the ‘progressive’ view is remarkably consistent with known facts when compared to other common world views.

What is important to understand though, is that while the apparent lie about somebody’s religion appears to be some sort of Gotcha, you will never convince anybody on the other side of this, because you’ll just end up having two completely unrelated conversations with neither of you any the wiser by the end.