Tavis Smiley argues to former Muslim Hirsan Ali that there are more Christians blowing themselves up than Muslims. He offers Colombine as an example and eventually limits it to "this country. Here's the link to the PBS site.
Here's a Psychology Today post describing how even the execrable Bill Maher couldn't believe Tavis Smiley's arguments designed to relativize and trivialize the Muslim world's treatment of women.
Last night, I watched Tavis Smiley on Real Time with Bill Maher. At one point during the discussion, Bill Maher intimated that for a meaningful and long-lasting revolution to take place in the Middle East, the treatment of women must improve. Smiley went on to lecture Maher about the ill treatment that women face in the United States (he referred to the patriarchy), and accordingly (to paraphrase him), "we should clean our house before we criticize other cultures."
This triggered several angry responses from Maher, as he could not understand how Smiley could argue for the moral equivalence of the realities faced by women in the United States versus in the Muslim world. Maher was equally incredulous that Smiley could not recognize that sex-based oppression occurs in various degrees across disparate cultures. Smiley refused to recognize that "degrees matter." Maher readily conceded that sexism exists in the United States, but surely he argued the plight of American women was nowhere near that faced by women in many parts of the Middle East. Here is a thought experiment: If we were to elicit the opinions of 10,000 women from the Middle East and 10,000 American counterparts, which group would proclaim possessing greater freedoms, gender equality, and life opportunities?
On Smiley's own talk show last year, while interviewing Aayan Hirsi Ali, he interrupted her and proclaimed that it was simply untrue that terrorists were more likely to be Muslim. His exact words were: "But, but, but Christians do that [blow themselves up] every single day in this country. Yes. Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, I mean- people walk into post offices, they walk into schools- that's what Columbine is - I mean I could do this all day long. There are so many more examples of Christians - and I happen to be a Christian." Smiley is arguing that since American postal workers who go on a killing rampage are likely to be Christians, and since the Columbine killers were Christian (I am assuming that this is the case), these acts of violence can be attributed to Christianity in the exact same way that terrorist acts committed by Muslims can be attributed to Islam. This oft-used "progressive" argument does leave one speechless.
Smiley's positions epitomize what happens when one mixes the tenets of moral and cultural relativism, cultural self-hate, postmodernism, and political correctness. I have often argued that tolerance toward any form of intolerance is self-inflicted barbarism. Bill Maher captured my position quite well on his most recent show when he stated, "When you tolerate intolerance, you're not really being a liberal." Tavis Smiley has repeatedly demonstrated an uncanny willingness to criticize American values but seems utterly incapable of levying one criticism against the abhorrent realities found in other cultures. Apparently, this would be culturally insensitive. Self-criticism is progressive and enlightened. To judge other cultures is gauche, racist and ultimately a form of oppressive cultural imperialism.People like Smiley have an amazing ability to tolerate behavior in Kabul that they would never tolerate in Florida.
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