Persecuting headgear

[ddstory]

What's a burqa, and does it have a place in our place? That's the question that a number of European societies have been pondering about for some time. In Germany for example, some province ministers of the interior have decided to ban the controversial headgear as part of the measures to counter Islamic radicalization. Other countries already have

Comments

[wight1984]

The same age as we all did.

Learning and internalising the norms and values of your culture (and disproportionately, you family unit) is something every human experiences. That's how cultures form and why we're not all unique snowflakes.

But let's cut to the false dichotomy at the heart of your question:

Given that our norms, values, beliefs and desires are influenced and conditioned by society, can we ever be said to make free choices about our lives?

It's a question that I'm more used to answering from the context of crime; if criminality is a learnt behaviour and if crime rates are dependant on socio-economic and cultural factors, does that mean that individual criminals are not morally responsible for their crimes? After all, society made them that way.

Culture and society do shape us all. My early experiences with my family, at school, with my friends, with the media that I watched and read, and with wider society all shaped me into the person I am today. If you took the baby version of me and had that baby raised on a different continent with a different family, then you would get a different person.

Did I choose to be an atheist? Did I choose to be a liberal? Or am I just a product of my genes and upbringing?

It's a question of philosophy rather than politics... and I tend to go with a vaguely Humean compatabalist approach.

[luvdovz]

Which is what age, again?

False dichotomy? These are real issues existing in the real world on a large scale, modern societies clashing with them head-on, in ever more extreme ways. Hand-waving them by means of claiming fallacy on the person who brings them up, or dismissing them on the basis of them being "hard to address", is not going to make them go away.

[wight1984]

"Which is what age, again?"

At what age do we stop being socialised? There's no magic age at which someone becomes immune to the culture surrounding them, although early socialisation is likely to have a greater impact than in latter life.

"False dichotomy? These are real issues existing in the real world on a large scale, modern societies clashing with them head-on, in ever more extreme ways. Hand-waving them by means of claiming fallacy on the person who brings them up, or dismissing them on the basis of them being "hard to address", is not going to make them go away."

Just as well I didn't do those things then.

We seem to agree that this is a serious and important topic, so how about we treat it as such?

I get why the arguments are soldiers approach is psychologically tempting, but a refusal to really engage with what we are saying to each other is not going to make the world a better or worse place for Muslim women (or change the world in any way).

The fact is that I do believe that Muslim women are capable of free will and are able to make decisions about their own life and how they want to dress. I also believe that people are products of their life experiences and culture. You're not going to make me abandon the former claim by arguing for the latter (hence the false dichotomy remark).

Nor do I think that acknowledging the difficulties and nuances of a topic is somehow 'letting the world down' by refusing to take the topic seriously enough. These are important issues, but they're not going to go away because of a sufficiently confrontational livejournal discussion. I'm British, not French, so I have pretty closer to zero power over French bans on women's clothing... so there is no danger in me acknowledging that some issues are not on-sided, such as one I say 'there is a need to police abusive behaviour within people's family life, but doing so comes with some very significant costs to personal liberty and privacy'.

[luvdovz]

Good. You're British. You may've had some observations on those Sharia courts that some Muslim communities in your country have insisted to have, in direct conflict with the actual laws of the land. I wonder how you feel about that.

YOU are lecturing me about refusing to engage with what we're saying to each other? You're the one who's been trying to get away from giving a specific answer to a specific question all along, using all sorts of weasel non-arguments.

Stop answering with questions to my question. It's a simple one really. At what age do Muslim women begin to get exposed to the social norms of their community?

Tip: from age 0.

The fact is that I do believe that Muslim women are capable of free will and are able to make decisions about their own life and how they want to dress

Except when they're indoctrinated from age 0 and being rendered incapable of discerning subtle and at times even overt social coercion, from what they imagine to be free will.

And do not presume to make psychological dissection of my arguments. You're not my shrink.

[wight1984]

"You may've had some observations on those Sharia courts that some Muslim communities in your country have insisted to have, in direct conflict with the actual laws of the land. I wonder how you feel about that."

You need to check your news sources...

Full Fact - Sharia Law Courts

There are basically two types of issue involved in Sharia Law courts

(1) Mediation services that operate according to Sharia Law principles. This is where an Islamic organisation offers services like 'couples counselling' where guidance and advice is offered based on Sharia Law principles. The kind of guidance given is sometimes in conflict with the kinds of guidance received from secular mediation services, but it does not contradict UK law in either way (no more than a Catholic couple asking their priest to mediate a marital problem).

(2) Arbitration Courts - under UK law two parties can agree to settle a civil dispute via an agreed third party. This is a general privilege available to everyone... and some Muslims agree to settle their civil disputes by nominating an agreed third party that settles the dispute according to Sharia Law principles.

There's a lot of fear mongering because the words 'Sharia Law' contains the words 'Law' and some interpret this to mean that they're exercising a parallel legal system that exists separate and equal to state law. This is not the case.

[johnny9fingers]

This has been mentioned before to some folk on here, but which ones, I cannot recall.

[wight1984]

" You're the one who's been trying to get away from giving a specific answer to a specific question all along,"

I appreciate that you don't like my answer to your question, but that's not the same thing as me not answering it.

I acknowledged that early socialisation is a key part of internalising your family, peer group and wider cultures norms and values... but noted that this is true for everyone.

For every child, whether born to Muslim, Christian or atheist parents, socialisation starts in the womb and continues throughout life.

Given that this is true of everyone it thus doesn't constitute an argument that Muslim women lack free will.

The case that you need to make (and I mean you, I'm not going to make it for you) is for the leap from 'children are exposed to and internalise norms from their families' to 'Muslim women are indoctrinated and don't have free will'

[wight1984]

"And do not presume to make psychological dissection of my arguments."

Stop being so textbook then.

You said that this is important (yes) and seem to imply that our comments are important (meh), which suggests that you're hoping that someone leaves this discussion with a changed opinion.

A steel man argument is often more productive at that aim than a straw man argument, but I'd just settle for you taking my argument as written.