>Tony, I can't speak for others, but I know my
>outrage isn't a naive assumption that Americans
>- or any human beings, under the right
>conditions -- aren't capable of such behavior.
>But I'm still disgusted with them.
Morgan,
Just so you and others don't think I'm generalizing, I only directed my comments to Americans that fit the profile I observed ("but the Americans saying..." [italics mine]). I think finding it disgusting it a fairly universal reaction. I was just addressing people who were disturbed more because they thought "we were better than the others we've heard doing this sort of thing."
I think the Milgram experiment and its replications on three continents showed that humans of all walks of life are capable of this behavior if they have normative experiences that encourage it. Check out the Stanford Prison Experiment as well, to see what Americans are willing to do to others if they're given custody of them.
I think the shock and outrage expressed by people the world over is justified, but the Americans saying that they are disgusted and shocked because they "never thought Americans could do such a thing" are either arrogant or naive. I guess I have to blame Uncle Sam's propaganda machine for that. It's created Americans that think that--as a country--our morals, ethics, and methods are superior to those belonging to other nations the world over. And why wouldn't we think that? It wasn't the government that broke this story, or the Hué massacre story, or any other act of American barbarism. That might disillusion the American public, and a disillusioned American public votes its leaders out of office.
Maybe my point was too subtle, but in fact I hardly need to be lectured about illusory correlations and the evils of prejudice against Certain Ethnic Groups. I'm guessing Patrick doesn't, either.
That's the risk you take with subtlety.
I followed the first two links, which were not tongue in cheek per se. Thirteen links in a 296 word article are too much for me, not to mention the aggregated 8800 words to which they link.
So yes, it was too subtle for me, and by the looks of the comments, not just me. I don't know Rivka or Patrick, so that didn't provide me the clue that more familliar people followed.
Then there are the personal biases I bring with me: I have a degree in ethnic studies, and am used to debating these things with people. When I saw the message, it didn't look unusual.
I do think that in light of what I know now, that the piece is funny. A fine op ed.
Americans of all ethnic groups are protected equally by the U.S. Constitution, and for good reason.
Applying this logic elsewhere, we should have had crackdowns on the civil rights of members of lots of groups. Italian Americans in the 1920's through 1970's for organized crime, for example. And it's a good thing the gov't broke its own laws with executive order 9066, interning Japanese Americans on the West Coast (only) to camps and confiscating their homes: we only had to settle two lawsuits (Korematsu vs. United States actually found for the gov't and was overturned when it came to light that the gov't supressed evidence) and pay out a billion dollars in claims. Back to the crackdowns, we might think about cracking down on white males: over 90% of serial killers have been white males.
The socio-psycholocial phenomenon we're dealing with here has a name: illusory correlation. Illusory correlation refers to thinking that one has observed an association between events that either (a) does not exist, (b) exists but is not as strong as is believed, or (c) is in the opposite direction from what is believed. Illusory correlations occur because of preconceptions: based on a prior belief, a person expects to see a particular association. This expectation causes the person to see what he or she expects to see.
If you added up all the members of your "certain ethnic group" who have been arrested (or are wanted for) for acts of terrorism, then compared that number to the total population of members of the group living in the country or the world, and then ran a very basic test of statistical significance called a t-test, the test shows that a relationship between terrorists and your "certain ethnic group" has NO statistical significance. This means that "these repeated terrorist plots don’t reflect on the 'vast majority of Certain Ethnic Group members, who are peace-loving, law-abiding, loyal citizens,'" and that "evidence that these so-called law-abiding Ethnic Group members covertly support the terrorists among them,"--when based on assuptions of illusory correlation--is hogwash.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 5 |
Total: 5 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Tony Hellmann:
Show all comments by Tony Hellmann.