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 |
