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The “tribal” meme is not merely a primitive one, but is the underground river even in western civilizations.

Let’s try it from the opposite direction, then, if you are so fond of the oversimplification: Are you maintaining then that there is no connection between terrorist violence in Indonesia, Pakistan, London, and Lebanon? Why not write a book defending that claim, then?

Perhaps people making overgeneralizations has baited you into the reflexive response of claiming that all generalizations are extreme, without attending too much to the actual statements. Your central argument has been “no, no, you fools! There is too much variety among people of the regions east of Albania to allow any negative generalizations! These people are individuals!” That point has been taken and understood, but you have offered nothing but its repetition in greater detail, along with, increasingly, insult. It has not moved me from my premise that the rhetoric and violence directed against the West from Muslim cultures has more than a few connecting threads across the cultures, including the premise that as nations, they do not display much ability to put themselves in the shoes of others. This is hardly unusual, as few nations outside of the West do either.

O agree this grows tedious. For my part, you may have the last word if you wish.

Why is y, always talking about himself?

Oogity boogity! I am the Left! I hide under your bed and wait for you to fall asleep at night! Oogity boogity! Did you remember to turn on your Ronald Reagan nightlight so the Left couldn’t get you? Oogity boogity!

You’re a clown.

“here is a cultural continuity as regards warfare, family and clan relationships, government, dress, food, music, hatred for Israel, resentment of US power, economy, and considerable similarity in language and religion across the region…”

Only someone who knows nothing about the subject at hand – someone who doesn’t know an Arab, Muslim, or Persian, someone who has never visited any of those countries, someone who utterly lacks any real knowledge could make statements like this. Similarity of dress in Morocco, Bosnia, and Indonesia? Similar clan relations in Tehran and Dhaka? This is, and I don’t like using this term and don’t throw it around, but this is orientalism at its best. Only someone who simply does not know what he’s talking about could imagine homogeneity and monolithisism in any part of the world that encompasses over a billion people.

I was in Cairo just a few weeks ago, for the first time. There I saw incredibly wealthy Egyptians and incredibly poor Egyptians. I saw fat Egyptians and skinny Egyptians. I saw women in burqas and women who would not look out of place in LA. I saw men dressed in robes and men dressed in designer jeans. I met Muslims and Copts. I saw black people, white people, and everybody in between. The diversity of even one city block in Cairo gives lie to your absurd assertion you’re making.

I’m not arguing that no generalizations can be made; I’m arguing that, as frameworks for understanding groups of people, terms like “Islam” or “Arabs” are, essentially, worthless. Like “Christianity” or “white people,” these terms are so broad as to lack any analytical value. What’s an Arab? Someone who speaks one of the many dialects of Arabic. What on earth could this tell us about the ability to emphathize of such a person?

Again, I recommend you start with John Mueller’s “The Banality of Ethnic War,” which does a nice job of dissecting the worthless concept of “ethnic war” or “tribal conflict.” Clausewitz said that war is an extension of politics; conflict is always and ever a political act. To believe that some people fight because of their “tribal cultures” is, in essence, to believe that they are irrational apes incapable of fighting over anything more than primordial insticts to do violence against those different from oneself.

So: according to you, Arabs don’t empathize and they fight not over the things we civilized people fight over, but rather over their uncontroled urges and passions. A century ago it was black people; now it’s Arabs. Maybe in fifty years it will be the Chinese? Parochial fools like you never change, do they?

It’s the favorite dodge of the Left. It all depends on what your definition of “is”, is.

Of course Arabs/Muslims/Middle-easterners are overlapping concepts. I choose at some points “Arab,” at others “Muslim,” at others “Islamic states” not to exclude at each point, but to show the overlap. If you really wish for me to use the formulation “various predominantly Muslim cultures founded on the tribal rivalries of Arab, Persian, and Central Asian peoples” at every turn I could certainly do so, but it would be rather unwieldy. The conflicts are primarily tribal, and have been since before the Common Era. Islamic supremacism has given this tribalism some religious cover, and with some, has supplanted the tribal aims with religious or pan-Arabic ones.

As there is a cultural continuity as regards warfare, family and clan relationships, government, dress, food, music, hatred for Israel, resentment of US power, economy, and considerable similarity in language and religion across the region, your repetition of the rather obvious fact that there are also some difference does not persuade me that generalizations should be forbidden.

As to knowledge of psychiatry and Eastern European culture I have both, though from different sources. Combining these with linguistics, world history, and recent reading about the ME does not make me an expert, but does allow me to hazard a guess or two about what is going on there. Thus the idea you object to, that Arab cultures do not exhibit empathy, while it was not my statement originally, still carries weight. Your reflexive belief that no generalization about such a diverse group of people is supportable does not persuade me.

Maybe people with autism spectrum disorders as well. Like I said, not an expert.

“Pot, meet kettle.”

Again, I thought we had discussed this earlier. What I tried to do was create an example of a vast, unsupportable generalization that is highly critical of a group of people to which you belong that is based on no evidence at all. The point was to highlight the absurdity of trying to make an accurate, factual statement like “Arabs do not exhibit empathy.”

I’m sorry I did not spell that out earlier, causing confusion.

You’re certain of this, are you?

“You’re failure to see this is yet another example of conservatives who make vast, unsupportable generalizations that demonize people who disagree with them.”

Pot, meet kettle.