Wright is right

John C. Wright weighs in on the subject of reasoned debate in our modern age.  This is a big picture look that includes one part of the problem I kicked around here.  The conversation between Andre and me veered off the main topic by getting into the subject about race in America and the plight of African Americans.  My point was that we’re asked to accept the most twisted logic and excuse making to avoid putting blame anywhere but on one particular demographic.  Time and again.  Every time. Not that anyone is saying the Dallas shooter is innocent, or the Orlando shooter was right.  We do say they were wrong, but then go from tepidly admitting their guilt to deflecting focus back to that one particular demographic.  All the time.  In every case.  Heck, the only thing I heard about Islam and the Islamic community after Orlando was some stories focusing on –  wait for it – Islamaphobic backlash.  Tell me, how many Muslims were attacked or killed after Orlando?  Dozens?  Hundreds?  Any? I haven’t heard of any.

And yet that was the closest we came to looking at the Islamic world after a Muslim pledged allegiance to ISIS and opened fire on innocent people because of our policies in the Middle East.  If our decision to look past Dallas to the greater issue of race in America was unique compared to our usual responses, then I’d say yeah, there’s much to look at.  On all sides.  But when time after time I can’t help but notice the focus of blame and culpability always ends up on one demographic, then it’s time to realize an inconvenient truth.

We’re just passing through this era.  History will continue to be written.  A thousand years from now, people will look back at us as curiously as we look back on those Medievals from centuries ago.  In the meantime, we’ll have genocides, revolutions, the rise and fall of slavery, imperialism, conquests, pandemics, bigotry, racism, persecution, and wars and rumors of wars.  The idea that all sins are somehow the result of a specific branch of humanity, and once we place the sins of the world on its head and send it into the desert then all will be well, is as naive as you get.  And that’s the best we can say.  That it will never help solve the problems that plague humanity today is much more likely.   Beyond that, it’s impossible to know what tomorrow will bring if we continue.  If history has anything to teach us, it won’t be pleasant.