To begin with, innocent people-the ambassador-was killed not because of his action or belief, but because of his identity, namely being an american. It is obvious that if the ambassador was killed because of the film, then we should find what factor that connects the ambassador with the film. The only factor that I can find is that the film and the ambassador are both from the US.
Next we should find out that the killer was directly angry with the film, and since we have the factor, nationality or national identity, that connects the ambassador with the film, therefore killer are indirectly angry with the ambassador. In this analysis of direct and indirect cause, we can see that the killer is making a logic fallacy, namely that he universalized the filmaker as the whole nation. His argument to justify his killing should be like this:
1. the filmmaker is an american
2. the filmmaker is offensive to muslim
3. therefore american is offensive to muslim (from 1,2)
4. the ambassador is also an american
5. the ambassador is offensive to muslim (from 3,4)
The problem is obviously in 3, premise 3 doesn't follow from premise 1 and premise 2. Some may argue that this follows because we can consider like this:
1*. A is B
2*. A is C
3*. Therefore B is C.
This is problematic because "the filmmaker is an american" means "the filmmaker belongs to the set called americans", therefore the right logic is like this:
1**. Existing an x that belongs to A
2**. x is C
This does not follow that all x that belongs to A is C.
It's not enough to simply say that the killer is irrational and wrong; we should find out what causes his making this logic slope so easily. Therefore the question is: why the killer thinks that all americans is offensive to muslim.
So we should consider what factor could possibly push all "americans" to think in the same way, namely, being offensive to muslim? It is the censorship. Censorship blocks some ideas, permitting only some other ideas remain accessible to citizens. So the consequence of censorship is one: everyone in the nation think about an event in exactly the same way. Therefore certain censorship towards the idea about muslim would result in killer's conclusion: all americans are offensive to muslim. To that sense, certain censorship is actually pushing people to make logic fallacy of universalization.
What if the killer assumed that there is no censorship towards ideas about muslim in the US? He will be less likely to conclude that all americans are offensive to muslim, "Because Americans have access to all kinds of ideas towards our culture, some of them may think in the same way as we do! My third premise is false and I shouldn't just kill 'americans'".
Some may argue that if we censor the negative part of the ideas, there will be no killings at all, so we need censorship.
This is implausible, because if there is one culture C in the world, there will always be an anti-C as well. If the government just censor the anti-C part, then there might be an anti-anti-C film. In that case, who can promise that those anti-C people would not get angry and kill our citizens?
By the way, another interesting fact that we can draw is that the killer himself might be a victim of censorship!
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| http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/us-envoy-to-libya-is-reported-killed.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 |
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ReplyDeleteXiaoqi, while I agree with the ultimate conclusion that you make in your post, I disagree with the evidence that you used to support it. I fully support your conclusion that there should be no censorship, as freedom to express opinions is ultimately beneficial to society. However, the deaths of the four Americans in Libya were due to a terrorist attack by Al Qaeda, not a reaction to a youtube video. Intelligence officials on the ground knew within 24 hours that this was a terrorist attack, yet the White House chose to cover this up with the youtube video, likely an attempt to protect Obama's foreign policy record in the Middle East. Two days after the attack Jay Carney said that this is a "reaction to a video" and that there is "no information to suggest that it was a pre-planned attack." The state department had a memo on their website saying there is "no credible evidence that a terror attack was planned overseas to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary." This memo was taken down and is no longer accessible to you or I on the web. The Obama administration tried to coverup the deaths of four Americans due to terrorism with a video. It took them a whole week to acknowledge that it was terrorism, when we now know that they knew within 24 hours. Warning signs for more security leading up to 9/11 were ignored by the White House. Ambassador Stevens wrote in his journal that he felt he was on an "Al Qaeda hit list." The fact that the Obama administration tried to divert our attention with a youtube video is horrific. This was a pre-planned terror attack by over 100 Al Qaeda affiliated operatives, not a "reaction to a video" as was suggested by the administration. The video was a coverup by the Obama administration.
ReplyDeleteThat the Benghazi attacks were apparently unrelated to the video doesn’t really affect the reasoning in this post too much. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_Innocence_of_Muslims (I know it’s Wikipedia, but it cites other sources), there have been 75 deaths and at least 687 people injured in response to the responses to this video. Note that Benghazi is not included in this count. Maybe the Benghazi disaster was unrelated, but if we switch that example out for any number of the other incidents that ARE accepted as being related to it, the argument this post remains valid. I liked the logical element to this post and I definitely found the assertion that censorship actually causes violence in those being censored interesting. Censorship can be touted as a way of keeping people away from radical ideas, but in this way it actually radicalizes people with respect to what is considered normal, and that’s not necessarily intuitive. With that in mind, it definitely seems plausible that censorship itself can lead to violence, if not directly. I’m not 100% convinced that those who might act as if they are responding to all Americans hating Islam do so because they (probably subconsciously) project the censorship they live under onto us and assume we must all think one way. I think a lot of them probably aren’t thinking very much at all. When a mob gets going it’s hard to stop it and easy to get swept up by it, but I can see how censorship could play a role by causing those under it to make blanket assumptions about the opinions of outsiders.
ReplyDeleteI think it is implausible to say that the killers are incapable to think logically. I am assuming what they were keeping in mind when killing is "your anti-islam film causes this", so I think they would think about the causation in their action, namely "why am I killing this guy". If they didn't even think about why they were doing this, I would count their action as "randomly killing", and if their killing is random (or completely irrational), there would still be no point to advocate censorship-it is not the anti-islam film that CAUSES the killing, so it is unnecessary to censor anything.
DeleteThen to reply to "they don't think much", I think maybe they didn't think EXPLICITLY or CONSCIOUSLY as I did in the post, but in order for the "american hate muslim" to work, there should be some connection between the film and the victim that the killer could recognize as how "kill the american, though he doesn't make the film" makes sense. So i think this connection is the "will of the state", which is more possible to be caused by censorship. Maybe the killers just intuitively think in this "wrong" way, but for the same reason, this intuition is more likely to be caused by censorship.
I don't really think that it's fair to say that censorship should be enforced because there are always going to be people, someone, somewhere, that are going to be offended by something someone else says or does. Also, things would be very hard to censor. I think America is a beautiful place because of the freedom we do have to speak our minds and are free to say what we believe, etc. There are going to be people who take advantage of that, in this case, the American man who made this video, and right...there is no way to punish them. However, I completely agree with what you said about A being C and A being B that doesnt mean B is C. What we have now is a good system, and there is no doubt in my mind that censorship could lead to some type of violence or outrage. On another note, there should be some type of control in Libya, and other places I'm sure, where they can't just take an action of terror on someone like the U.S. ambassador for no reason. This society is just twisted in so many ways. So there are pros and cons to free speech and pros and cons to censorship. Free speech, we can say whatever we want, but sometimes people get offended and there can be terrible consequences. Censorship, maybe less people are offended and hurt by things, but thats because we wouldn't be free to express things in any way we wish.
ReplyDelete