Micro/Macro

A somewhat regular Jihad Watch reader recently, with a typically asymptotic anxiety lurking between the lines (an anxiety further tempered by their modern Christian evangelism), posed the following rhetorical question:

So if there are no moderate Muslims, why do some Muslims apostasize when they finally read the Koran?

Then went on to add:

Yes, some moderate Muslims become more radical over time. But other moderate Muslims eventually apostasize…

Two problems here, closely related to each other, which indicate that this typical asymptotic is not keeping two important distinctions in mind. The two distinctions are:

1) There’s a difference between saying “all Muslims are dangerous” meaning it literally, and meaning it practically, insofar as we reasonably conclude that other factors (including our safety needs, and our knowledge of taqiyya) prevent us from being able to discern the difference between the harmless Muslim and the dangerous Muslim.

Which leads me to the second distinction:

2) The micro scale and the macro scale.

When I say these other factors prevent us from being able to tell the difference, I mean on the macro scale. 

The macro scale is the broad, complex, diverse, and often confusing scale of large numbers of people in society -- further multiplied into different societies, different cultures, different nations -- all in our modern times inter-penetrating in a thousand different ways. Western nations, Western societies are not small villages -- they are massive countries, with massive cities, and given their relative freedoms, a constant influx of people traveling, criss-crossing, emigrating, immigrating, etc. With the disastrous invitation of millions of Muslims over the past few decades (only escalating after 911, because of our insane multi-culturalism), coupled with the problem of terrorism emanating out of the Islam of these Muslims, this problem of the complexity of modern society becomes so big and complicated that in the coming decades the danger of terrorism -- again, factoring in the other factors -- will render it recklessly irresponsible for us to continue to treat Muslims with the benefit of the doubt and not rather treat them all under equal suspicion.

The micro scale is when one individual, or a tight-knit small group of individuals who know each other, have one-on-one interactions with one Muslim. one at a time. On this micro scale, the well-intentioned non-Muslim Westerner can think and feel that here, they are actually making a connection and this Muslim really seems to be a decent person, capable of change. This may or may not be true. I certainly don’t rule out that various individuals (including myself) may be able to discern such a potentially moderate Muslim, or a Muslim susceptible to reform (Christian or secular) in such circumstances. However, I’m certainly not going to let the word of someone else vouch for, and vet, any Muslim in the context where a terror attack could happen -- or in the broader context of fostering an attitude in our society where we continue to embrace the influx of mass numbers of Muslims into our society by expanding the good feelings we may feel about the smattering few individual Muslims we may have had nice interactions with. Even if I myself were to experience those good feelings with a smattering few individual Muslims, I wouldn’t be so reckless as to ignore my civic duty and concern for my fellow citizens, friends and family and presume to foster such an attitude that tends to reinforce the disastrous trust of Muslim on the macro scale.

And if a person doesn’t think the problems and factors of the macro scale are that bad, such that we must reasonably conclude that they trump the micro scale, then they just haven’t been reading Jihad Watch carefully enough over the years.