Inspired by recent discussions I have had and observations I have made, I decided to share my experiences and give you a list of the typical deflections strategies regressives use when it comes to Islam. As you all know, criticism of Islam is for regressives what sunlight is for vampires. They will avoid engaging with such criticism at all costs. But how do they do that? How do they time and time again manage to divert their attention away from the issue? Well, I came up with seven typical strategies, which I have named the Seven Regressive Sins of Islam Apologetics. Feel free to leave a comment. Perhaps you can share funny encounters you have had with some of the various deflection tactics. Or perhaps you can add a further point to the list which I forgot to mention.
The Seven Regressive Sins of Islam Apologetics
1. Deny the problem / blame the messenger
Despite its intellectual laziness, this sin is actually very common, and it is often used as the first cop-out in a discussion, especially by people who know very little about Islam, yet feel the regressive urge to "defend Muslims". When an Islam-related problem is mentioned, when, for example, the catastrophic situation of women throughout the Islamic world is brought up, the problem is simply denied. Either it doesn't exist at all, or it is much smaller and therefore essentially not worth discussing, or it has nothing to do with Islam.
And not only is the problem downplayed and ignored. Regressives don't stop there. Instead, they start smearing the person who brought up the problem. They blame the messenger. I find it truly fascinating how often I, as someone on the left, has been called a "right-wing bigot", a "neonazi", a "fascist", a "neocon", and whatever ridiculous labels have been thrown out there. And I am in good company. Geert Wilders, Sam Harris, Bill Maher, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to just name a few, are all left-leaning, liberal-minded people who have been smeared by use of all of the above terms. Rather then listen to the arguments these people have to make, it is so much easier to slander and thereby discredit them, and in consequence not to have to worry about anything they say, since the problems they mention are simply denied.
The "blame the messenger" attitude is not limited to individuals. When data, i.e. by surveys or statistics are brought up, many regressives will start questioning the studies. They would instantly use them for their own arguments if they supported their opinion (which, unfortunately for them, they never do when it comes to Islam), but since they don't like the conclusions of the study, the whole study is simply dismissed.
Gad Saad has coined the term "ostrich brigade". Like ostriches, regressives feel uncomfortable having to face certain real-world problems, so they stick their heads in the sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist. The difficulty, of course, is that denying a problem is essentially just as bad as the problem itself. If your leg is on fire, that is a problem. But denying that your leg is on fire, and possibly insulting the bystanders who inform you about the problem, is in effect just as consequential, since it removes the need to do anything about it.
2. Zoom out
If, due to the incoming overwhelming evidence, denying the problem is no longer possible without looking like an utter loon, regressives often resort to the zooming-out strategy. Instead of talking about certain subgroups of Muslims who display horrible behaviour, they will broaden out the issue and direct attention away from the actual group. For example, when talking about Islam and its connection to violence, we hear things like Religions in general can lead to violence. In the aftermath of the sexual assault scandal in Europe on New Year's Eve, many voices were heard blaming men for this behaviour. That's just what men do when they get drunk. Well actually it isn't, at least it wasn't in Germany before the influx a million young Muslim men.
By broadening out the topic the real issue is essentially avoided. Yeah, men are just like that, what can we do... Yeah, religions are bad, oh well... This strategy is not employed in order to talk about or solve problems. It is used to shift the attention away from the real issue, namely Muslims.
3. Zoom in
Unlike zooming out, zooming in narrows down the problem to make it seem more overseeable. When talking about the global phenomenon of Islamism and jihadism, for example, regressives will bring up the Islamic State. Even for most regressives IS is not defensible, so they try to use it to their advantage and to direct criticism away from Islam. They then can say things like that only a tiny fraction of the Muslim world support IS, so we shouldn't be so concerned. Ironically, it has been shown that this is not even true, and that support for IS actually numbers in the hundreds of millions. But even if this were not the case, what regressives like to ignore is that our concern isn't limited to IS. We are concerned about Islamism on a global scale. There are dozens of other significant Islamist and jihadist groups causing mayhem and destruction at this very moment, like Boko Haram, Al-Shaabab, Al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Taliban, to just name a few of the more violent ones. And of course we are concerned about far more in regard to Islam than just Islamism.
4. Create false conflation
Another popular deflection strategy is the attempt to lessen the problems of Islam by creating false conflations. A very common instance among Americans is the conflation of Islam with Christianity. For example, when the divisive and violent verses of the Koran are mentioned and criticised as an explanation for Muslim behaviour, regressives will point to the Bible and how it contains hideous passages too. This is of course entirely irrelevant and pathetic, but they will state it with a feeling of pride, as if they were being extremely nuanced (nuance, by the way, is one of the favourite words of regressives).
But it gets even more silly. Since no other group of people is currently committing atrocious acts even remotely on the same scale as Muslims, regressives compare the acts of Muslims today to what other groups did in the past. Often they will go back centuries! I'm sure you all have had the experience of wanting to discuss the perils of jihadism we are witnessing right now, only to be reminded of how terrible the crusades were 800 years ago.
Another fun false conflation which comes up frequently is the abortion clinic bombings. See, regressives say in response to the terror charts which show that Muslims are responsible for 98% of terror-related deaths around the globe, Christians commit acts of terror too! I believe that nine abortion doctors have been killed by Christians. Not last week, not last year. No, in the history of the United States. On a good morning that many are killed by Muslims before breakfast.
5. The "all-argument"
Personally this is my favourite piece of regressive Islam apologetics. It is the pinnacle of silliness, yet it comes up at a frequency which is breath-taking. When criticising anything to do with Islam, the response is wait, are you saying that all Muslims are __________ . Although nobody has ever said that all Muslims are to blame for anything, the response is heard time and time again. It is the ultimate strawman.
Some examples:
There are many verses in the Koran that incite violence. - Are you saying that all Muslims are violent?
Islamic terror occurs on a day to day basis. - But not all Muslims are terrorists. Most Muslims are peaceful people.
Muslims have problematic views when it comes to women. - All Muslims?
It is shocking that it must even be said, but no, we don't mean all Muslims. We are not talking about about your friendly, secular, law-abiding Muslim neighbour. We are not talking about Maajid Nawaz. Or the 2-year-old son of a Muslim father. Or the 84-year-old grandma. We are refering to a demographic. The whole reason we bring up surveys and statistics is to determine the pervasiveness of certain beliefs in a given sample of Muslims.
In a different context such an evasion manoeuvre would be unthinkable. Imagine that you live in Australia. You turn on the news and hear about several attacks on surfers by sharks who have eaten them up or bitten off their legs. The news reporter's voice shakes in light of this dreadful news, as he turns to his studio guest, a shark expert, and asks him what we should do against this problem. The guest replies, What has happened is truly horrible. Our sympathy lies with the victims and we all condemn these shark attacks. But we must be careful not to blame all sharks for these attacks. Most sharks are peaceful creatures that don't attacks humans. We shouldn't paint sharks with a broad brush. These specific sharks might have attacked surfers, but we can't draw any conclusions about the rest of the shark population from their behaviour. I assume you would find this bizarrely irritating. And yet it is the same argument that is brought up to excuse Muslim attitudes and behaviour constantly.
6. Blame America, Israel, or the West
This too is a very common deflection attempt among regressives. It fits into the regressive narrative perfectly, that says that white heterosexual Western men are to blame for everything bad that happens in the world. According to this narrative, all the problems we see throughout the Islamic world are of our own making. IS? America's fault for invading Iraq. Islamic terrorism? A response to Western foreign policy. Palestinians stabbing Israeli civilians? Israel's occupation is to blame. Fundamentalist Islam and Islamism are generally on the rise? Of course, since the West has prevented the rise of stable societies. Muslims living in Europe are poorly integrated, have formed parallel societies, and have joined IS by the thousands? Blame the racist European cultures and their failure to do more for Muslims.
Now, obviously Western countries have made mistakes in the past. That is not the point. The point is that the argument deprives Muslims of any agency for their actions and they are viewed as helpless peons whose behaviour is solely determined by the West. Regressives don't tend to travel very much, let alone into Muslim-majority countries. They only experience their own culture, and only absorb their own news and politics. They see the world through the prism of their country and their culture. This causes them to think that everything is about the West, about them. It is actually a very narcissistic notion. Even when Islamists go on ad nauseum how they are doing what they do in the name of Islam, regressives will still often point to the West. It's almost like they can't stand the thought of the world not revolving around them.
7. Change the topic
Finally and this is perhaps the most stunning renunciation of intellectual honesty , when regressives feel uncomfortable about talking about Islam, they may simply change the topic. All the previous sins incorporate this strategy to some degree, since they are used to deflect from the real issue and muddy the waters. But the seventh sin is about changing the topic entirely, to a completely different issue. Instead of addressing concerning poll results, for example, they will start talking about anti-Muslim sentiment, and how it is growing in the West. Well, sure, that's a problem. Perhaps we can talk about it some day, ask for the reasons and discuss what we can do about it. But that is a separate conversation and has nothing to do with what we were talking about. Other popular topics which regressives switch to are racism or the political right. They don't want to talk about uncomfortable topics. They want to talk about their topics. The ones where they feel cozy and content.
A regressive on his own usually can't get away with such conversational sabotage. But when they come in hordes, and one of them changes the topic, the others will seize the chance and jump in, which may totally derail the discussion. Countless conversations have been destroyed through means of this tactic. So keep on the look-out!
The Seven Regressive Sins of Islam Apologetics
1. Deny the problem / blame the messenger
Despite its intellectual laziness, this sin is actually very common, and it is often used as the first cop-out in a discussion, especially by people who know very little about Islam, yet feel the regressive urge to "defend Muslims". When an Islam-related problem is mentioned, when, for example, the catastrophic situation of women throughout the Islamic world is brought up, the problem is simply denied. Either it doesn't exist at all, or it is much smaller and therefore essentially not worth discussing, or it has nothing to do with Islam.
And not only is the problem downplayed and ignored. Regressives don't stop there. Instead, they start smearing the person who brought up the problem. They blame the messenger. I find it truly fascinating how often I, as someone on the left, has been called a "right-wing bigot", a "neonazi", a "fascist", a "neocon", and whatever ridiculous labels have been thrown out there. And I am in good company. Geert Wilders, Sam Harris, Bill Maher, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to just name a few, are all left-leaning, liberal-minded people who have been smeared by use of all of the above terms. Rather then listen to the arguments these people have to make, it is so much easier to slander and thereby discredit them, and in consequence not to have to worry about anything they say, since the problems they mention are simply denied.
The "blame the messenger" attitude is not limited to individuals. When data, i.e. by surveys or statistics are brought up, many regressives will start questioning the studies. They would instantly use them for their own arguments if they supported their opinion (which, unfortunately for them, they never do when it comes to Islam), but since they don't like the conclusions of the study, the whole study is simply dismissed.
Gad Saad has coined the term "ostrich brigade". Like ostriches, regressives feel uncomfortable having to face certain real-world problems, so they stick their heads in the sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist. The difficulty, of course, is that denying a problem is essentially just as bad as the problem itself. If your leg is on fire, that is a problem. But denying that your leg is on fire, and possibly insulting the bystanders who inform you about the problem, is in effect just as consequential, since it removes the need to do anything about it.
2. Zoom out
If, due to the incoming overwhelming evidence, denying the problem is no longer possible without looking like an utter loon, regressives often resort to the zooming-out strategy. Instead of talking about certain subgroups of Muslims who display horrible behaviour, they will broaden out the issue and direct attention away from the actual group. For example, when talking about Islam and its connection to violence, we hear things like Religions in general can lead to violence. In the aftermath of the sexual assault scandal in Europe on New Year's Eve, many voices were heard blaming men for this behaviour. That's just what men do when they get drunk. Well actually it isn't, at least it wasn't in Germany before the influx a million young Muslim men.
By broadening out the topic the real issue is essentially avoided. Yeah, men are just like that, what can we do... Yeah, religions are bad, oh well... This strategy is not employed in order to talk about or solve problems. It is used to shift the attention away from the real issue, namely Muslims.
3. Zoom in
Unlike zooming out, zooming in narrows down the problem to make it seem more overseeable. When talking about the global phenomenon of Islamism and jihadism, for example, regressives will bring up the Islamic State. Even for most regressives IS is not defensible, so they try to use it to their advantage and to direct criticism away from Islam. They then can say things like that only a tiny fraction of the Muslim world support IS, so we shouldn't be so concerned. Ironically, it has been shown that this is not even true, and that support for IS actually numbers in the hundreds of millions. But even if this were not the case, what regressives like to ignore is that our concern isn't limited to IS. We are concerned about Islamism on a global scale. There are dozens of other significant Islamist and jihadist groups causing mayhem and destruction at this very moment, like Boko Haram, Al-Shaabab, Al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Taliban, to just name a few of the more violent ones. And of course we are concerned about far more in regard to Islam than just Islamism.
4. Create false conflation
Another popular deflection strategy is the attempt to lessen the problems of Islam by creating false conflations. A very common instance among Americans is the conflation of Islam with Christianity. For example, when the divisive and violent verses of the Koran are mentioned and criticised as an explanation for Muslim behaviour, regressives will point to the Bible and how it contains hideous passages too. This is of course entirely irrelevant and pathetic, but they will state it with a feeling of pride, as if they were being extremely nuanced (nuance, by the way, is one of the favourite words of regressives).
But it gets even more silly. Since no other group of people is currently committing atrocious acts even remotely on the same scale as Muslims, regressives compare the acts of Muslims today to what other groups did in the past. Often they will go back centuries! I'm sure you all have had the experience of wanting to discuss the perils of jihadism we are witnessing right now, only to be reminded of how terrible the crusades were 800 years ago.
Another fun false conflation which comes up frequently is the abortion clinic bombings. See, regressives say in response to the terror charts which show that Muslims are responsible for 98% of terror-related deaths around the globe, Christians commit acts of terror too! I believe that nine abortion doctors have been killed by Christians. Not last week, not last year. No, in the history of the United States. On a good morning that many are killed by Muslims before breakfast.
5. The "all-argument"
Personally this is my favourite piece of regressive Islam apologetics. It is the pinnacle of silliness, yet it comes up at a frequency which is breath-taking. When criticising anything to do with Islam, the response is wait, are you saying that all Muslims are __________ . Although nobody has ever said that all Muslims are to blame for anything, the response is heard time and time again. It is the ultimate strawman.
Some examples:
There are many verses in the Koran that incite violence. - Are you saying that all Muslims are violent?
Islamic terror occurs on a day to day basis. - But not all Muslims are terrorists. Most Muslims are peaceful people.
Muslims have problematic views when it comes to women. - All Muslims?
It is shocking that it must even be said, but no, we don't mean all Muslims. We are not talking about about your friendly, secular, law-abiding Muslim neighbour. We are not talking about Maajid Nawaz. Or the 2-year-old son of a Muslim father. Or the 84-year-old grandma. We are refering to a demographic. The whole reason we bring up surveys and statistics is to determine the pervasiveness of certain beliefs in a given sample of Muslims.
In a different context such an evasion manoeuvre would be unthinkable. Imagine that you live in Australia. You turn on the news and hear about several attacks on surfers by sharks who have eaten them up or bitten off their legs. The news reporter's voice shakes in light of this dreadful news, as he turns to his studio guest, a shark expert, and asks him what we should do against this problem. The guest replies, What has happened is truly horrible. Our sympathy lies with the victims and we all condemn these shark attacks. But we must be careful not to blame all sharks for these attacks. Most sharks are peaceful creatures that don't attacks humans. We shouldn't paint sharks with a broad brush. These specific sharks might have attacked surfers, but we can't draw any conclusions about the rest of the shark population from their behaviour. I assume you would find this bizarrely irritating. And yet it is the same argument that is brought up to excuse Muslim attitudes and behaviour constantly.
6. Blame America, Israel, or the West
This too is a very common deflection attempt among regressives. It fits into the regressive narrative perfectly, that says that white heterosexual Western men are to blame for everything bad that happens in the world. According to this narrative, all the problems we see throughout the Islamic world are of our own making. IS? America's fault for invading Iraq. Islamic terrorism? A response to Western foreign policy. Palestinians stabbing Israeli civilians? Israel's occupation is to blame. Fundamentalist Islam and Islamism are generally on the rise? Of course, since the West has prevented the rise of stable societies. Muslims living in Europe are poorly integrated, have formed parallel societies, and have joined IS by the thousands? Blame the racist European cultures and their failure to do more for Muslims.
Now, obviously Western countries have made mistakes in the past. That is not the point. The point is that the argument deprives Muslims of any agency for their actions and they are viewed as helpless peons whose behaviour is solely determined by the West. Regressives don't tend to travel very much, let alone into Muslim-majority countries. They only experience their own culture, and only absorb their own news and politics. They see the world through the prism of their country and their culture. This causes them to think that everything is about the West, about them. It is actually a very narcissistic notion. Even when Islamists go on ad nauseum how they are doing what they do in the name of Islam, regressives will still often point to the West. It's almost like they can't stand the thought of the world not revolving around them.
7. Change the topic
Finally and this is perhaps the most stunning renunciation of intellectual honesty , when regressives feel uncomfortable about talking about Islam, they may simply change the topic. All the previous sins incorporate this strategy to some degree, since they are used to deflect from the real issue and muddy the waters. But the seventh sin is about changing the topic entirely, to a completely different issue. Instead of addressing concerning poll results, for example, they will start talking about anti-Muslim sentiment, and how it is growing in the West. Well, sure, that's a problem. Perhaps we can talk about it some day, ask for the reasons and discuss what we can do about it. But that is a separate conversation and has nothing to do with what we were talking about. Other popular topics which regressives switch to are racism or the political right. They don't want to talk about uncomfortable topics. They want to talk about their topics. The ones where they feel cozy and content.
A regressive on his own usually can't get away with such conversational sabotage. But when they come in hordes, and one of them changes the topic, the others will seize the chance and jump in, which may totally derail the discussion. Countless conversations have been destroyed through means of this tactic. So keep on the look-out!
