Thursday, July 05, 2007

Bedouin ethics?

Dave over at The Glittering Eye always has such thoughtful things to post and say. I hope I can be like him when I grow up.

That aside, though, he has brought to my attention something that Western Polite Society has been skirting and avoiding for some time now concerning the Muslim mindset. Go, read it, and tell me what you think:

Raid and Revenge

After having spent so much intensive time studying the Holocaust, I want to be very, very careful to avoid generalizations about a people group... but at the same time, I think it's valid to question a culture and its norms. Having been brought up in Southern Baptist, fairly fundamentalist churches, I was taught that it was widely accepted that Arabs (being descendents of Ishmael, obviously) were predisposed to be like wild donkeys, untameable and prone to cause trouble with anyone, anywhere... now that seems rather racist. Kind-of like assuming that all Asians like rice, or all Brits have bad teeth.

Yet is there a grain of truth to it? At least, to the extent that people cling to a particular lifestyle or mindset? And are we automatically wrong for exploring the notion?

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