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If Arabs are, as the great scholars suggest, effectively incorrigible, then decidedly illiberal measures (starting with unprovoked invasions and bombing at will) against them are more than warranted. Right?

But what if it is not really true? What if, as recent events seem to suggest, Arabs merely want most of the same things we want—freedom, prosperity, and dignity—but in configurations consistent with their own unique collective histories?

What if, owing to our media’s deep attachment to the erudite but not necessarily insightful ideas of people like Patai and Lewis—and its simultaneous blockage of institutions and materials that allow a modicum of Arab first-person expression—we have lost the ability to hear, never mind register and respond to, the voices and aspirations of millions of basically peaceful and freedom-seeking people?

Now that would be a tragedy of truly biblical proportions.

2 March 2011

Controversialization:

A Key to the Right’s Continuing Domination of Public Debates