Science Of Small Talk

It's perfectly natural to want some answers, and some action, when something terrible like this happens, but it's vitally important that we don't react by taking out our feelings on fellow-members of any minority group a perpetrator may belong to.

That doesn't punish the guilty - it just creates another injustice, and robs us of any claim to hold the moral high ground.

This outrage may have been for racial or religious reasons, but as far is known at the moment it could equally easily have been provoked by stress, workplace problems or any one or more of a variety of situations.

No matter what the cause, turning on innocent Muslims who had not the slightest involvement with this crime is as unjust and unhelpful as it's pointless and silly - if the person accused had a different profile, would it even occur to us to project the guilt on to white people, Christians, people with brown eyes, or those who aren't happy in the workplace? I don't think so.

I think this article does an excellent job of explaining how and why this ugly scapegoating behavior takes place. It's now up to all of us to make sure it doesn't happen.

Why should we put our military men and women at any further risk than they already endure? It's ridiculous to allow these muslims into military service. I don't care if only 1 out of 500 turns out to be a suicidal killer, hell-bent on taking every American life; that's still too many. Yes we need soldiers, but not to the point that we're will to risk the ones we have. We have to wake up to the fact that we, as a culture, are under attack by the muslims. We can no longer sit back and "hope" that these people do nothing against us. First, we need to bar all muslims from enlistment and from entering the officer corps. Next, we need to remove those with muslim ties from our political offices. Lastly, we need to defend our boarders by stopping them from entering the United States. Each muslim currently living on American soil should be under continual investigation; they should report to a homeland security office once per quarter. I'm not suggesting that we hurt, kill, or incarcurate anyone - unless of course they are found guilty of plotting terrorist activities. If found guilty of crimes against the United States these "psuedo-Americans" should be taken up in a C-130 at 10,000 ft and dropped 150 miles out over the Atlantic Ocean.

What’s in a name? If Army Major Malik Nadal Hasan’s name were “Smith,” we’d be talking about him as a soldier who snapped under pressure, a lone gunman whose fear of deployment to Iraq sent him over the deep end -- as fear tends to do.

Predictably, however, within minutes after we learned that the gunman in Thursday’s Fort Hood, Texas massacre was named “Hasan,” Islamophobes were spewing their hysterical venom across the Internet. Suddenly, Maj. Hasan’s name transformed a “mass shooting” into a “Muslim Terror Attack.”

Bloggers are going wild. “Just another Islamic terrorist waiting to kill for their cult,” one wrote. Others spoke of “sleeper cells” and said al-Qaeda had ordered extremists in the U.S. to infiltrate the U.S. military. Allegations that he shouted “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) as he opened fire now make him not another mass murderer, but a “jihadi.” Someone called for Muslims to be banned from serving in the U.S. military. Another predicted that “the liberals” would caution against racism, as if that were a bad thing.

Humanity never fails to amaze me. Have we learned nothing from the lessons of the past? During World War II, we in the U.S. turned on our Japanese neighbors, locking innocent people in prison camps for no other reason than our own fear. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s “Red Scare” of the 1950s ruined lives and careers, free speech be damned, because of hysteria over a -- feared -- Communist takeover of the United States.

When I was in school, my teachers talked proudly of the U.S. as a “melting pot,” in which American-ness comprises people of all nationalities, religious faiths (and lack thereof), and races. But has it ever been true? For too many of us, American means white, of European descent, and Christian. Like chickens, we’ll peck to death anyone who differs from the norm.

As terrorist suspects are increasingly arrested on U.S. soil, I worry less for our safety than for our culture. Too many of us are willing, eager, even, to give up our most precious of freedoms -- freedom of speech -- in order to placate those whom we are certain will react violently if we offend them. Too many others leap to judge Islam and its adherents as “terrorists,” insisting that all Muslims want to take over the world. Both attitudes, born of fear, are dangerous, racist, and in violation of American ideals of equality and justice for all.

“These times are too heavy for skittishness.” Sinclair Lewis’s utterance has been on my mind lately. Courage is what we need now, not childish finger-pointing, or hysteria. We need to take a collective deep breath, summon our reason, and reject the call to hatred that blares ever more shrilly from the fearmongers. If we are, as they claim, engaged in a battle of good vs. evil, that fight is not taking place on an Army base in Texas or in the desert in Iraq or in the hills of Afghanistan. It is happening within each of us, right now, wherever we happen to be.

What’s in a name? If Army Major Malik Nadal Hasan’s name were “Smith,” we’d be talking about him as a soldier who snapped under pressure, a lone gunman whose fear of deployment to Iraq sent him over the deep end -- as fear tends to do.

Predictably, however, within minutes after we learned that the gunman in Thursday’s Fort Hood, Texas massacre was named “Hasan,” Islamophobes were spewing their hysterical venom across the Internet. Suddenly, Maj. Hasan’s name transformed a “mass shooting” into a “Muslim Terror Attack.”

Bloggers are going wild. “Just another Islamic terrorist waiting to kill for their cult,” one wrote. Others spoke of “sleeper cells” and said al-Qaeda had ordered extremists in the U.S. to infiltrate the U.S. military. Allegations that he shouted “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) as he opened fire now make him not another mass murderer, but a “jihadi.” Someone called for Muslims to be banned from serving in the U.S. military. Another predicted that “the liberals” would caution against racism, as if that were a bad thing.

Humanity never fails to amaze me. Have we learned nothing from the lessons of the past? During World War II, we in the U.S. turned on our Japanese neighbors, locking innocent people in prison camps for no other reason than our own fear. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s “Red Scare” of the 1950s ruined lives and careers, free speech be damned, because of hysteria over a -- feared -- Communist takeover of the United States.

When I was in school, my teachers talked proudly of the U.S. as a “melting pot,” in which American-ness comprises people of all nationalities, religious faiths (and lack thereof), and races. But has it ever been true? For too many of us, American means white, of European descent, and Christian. Like chickens, we’ll peck to death anyone who differs from the norm.

As terrorist suspects are increasingly arrested on U.S. soil, I worry less for our safety than for our culture. Too many of us are willing, eager, even, to give up our most precious of freedoms -- freedom of speech -- in order to placate those whom we are certain will react violently if we offend them. Too many others leap to judge Islam and its adherents as “terrorists,” insisting that all Muslims want to take over the world. Both attitudes, born of fear, are dangerous, racist, and in violation of American ideals of equality and justice for all.

“These times are too heavy for skittishness.” Sinclair Lewis’s utterance has been on my mind lately. Courage is what we need now, not childish finger-pointing, or hysteria. We need to take a collective deep breath, summon our reason, and reject the call to hatred that blares ever more shrilly from the fearmongers. If we are, as they claim, engaged in a battle of good vs. evil, that fight is not taking place on an Army base in Texas or in the desert in Iraq or in the hills of Afghanistan. It is happening within each of us, right now, wherever we happen to be.

While I disagree that every Muslim is suspect, I have read enough to realize that there is a virulent, evil strain of Islamism that worships death. And "virulent" is apt -- while it has only infected a small percentage of the population it seems to spread, and its adherents can come from any class or color (read Ed Husain's "The Islamist" for an eye-opening personal testimonial from the U.K.). In addition to the tragedy itself, that's what's so nauseating about this episode -- if one has studied this virus one can't help but wonder if this is a sign of further spread of evil?

It is hard to explain away over 14,743 Islamic terrorist acts SINCE 9/11 as 'illusory correllation'

The foundational doctrines of Islam -- Qur'an, the hadith and the Sunna of Mohammed all call for the subjugation of all people under the Muslims until Islam dominates the earth. The fact that most Muslims don't apply the teachings doesn't change these frightful facts. Islam must reform and expunge these genocidal teachings from its scriptures -- or continue to be the enemy of five sixths of the world's population. I urge all citizens of all democracies to READ these foundational teachings. "Know thy enemy" said Sun Szu.

what psychologists need to first diagnose is their own smugness- every event has apparently already generated a cottage industry of research. why not occasionally admit to being human, ignorant, surprised, fallible, not having ready-to-hand terms?. maybe its this god complex thats stressing out so many practitioners-

Really? So knowing something about why something happened is smug? Really?

I haven't come across one psych blog where the author pretended to have all the answers. (Well, I havent scanned the Fruedian blogs, so they are excluded from that). On the whole though, the psychologists I am around have far from a God complex.

what is the citation for the study you mention about minorities' deviant behavior seeming more prevalent? (Is that a study or were you just talking?)

thanks

-JA