Evil Cultures

Why would a body grow conservative after the 9/11 bombings? The reason is that this evil directs one's attention to wholely evil societies and cultures. It makes one find out that it is not the case that evil is a small set of isolated incidents, anomalies diverging from any cultural norm, and that it is rather the case that evil can be a cultural norm. It shows that "because that culture is evil" is an adequate explanation of the origin of some evil trends. It alerts one to the fragility of good culture, its vulnerable and precarious position in history from which it can decline and fall. It demonstrates that it can indeed be normal for human beings to murder many thousands of innocents.

This accounts for the shift in view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many Americans no longer stare blankly at the reports of dozens being massacred in Israel, supposing that it can be accounted for only be decent people being driven to lengths by tormentors. Now, these Americans see that a more likely explanation is that Palestinian society is largely evil. It is, after all, an Arab culture: a culture which cherishes the killing of innocents as one of its highest religious duties (though you aren't aloud to say that in American universities). The pattern is there throughout Arab societies, and so one comes to make large-scale judgments of culture. Atrocities can lead one to make harsh evaluations of entire cultures. This is a conservative thing to do, because any leftist believe that people, being mostly good, cannot produce an evil culture, or, at least, brown people cannot (leftist racism). Hence, atrocities can lead one to conservatism by making one, as John Kekes would put it, face evil.

By the way, more on Kekes, this year on Philosoblog.

UPDATE: Can we please start calling a spade a spade (link via Silflay Hraka)? This is a culture which delights in the suffering of innocent people. This is a religion which requires that little girls be pinned down and have their clitorises hacked off. Hundreds of millions of Muslim woman to go through life without a clitoris, getting fucked by their sadistic husbands or johns. There is not even a remotely plausible basis for the suicide bombing in Israel, yet it is celebrated throughout the Arab world. Arab/Muslim society is evil.