Thoughtful Lefty vs. the Fringe

In an essay on terrorism in Friday's Guardian, Jenni Russell argued that "A blind faith in the moral superiority of our own way of life will only hinder efforts to tackle violent extremism [making it] imperative that we understand that other value systems have, whether we like it or not, their own deep appeal." Norman Geras deconstructs such dangerous passivity:

What Russell herself fails to understand is that it is possible to recognize the sociological truth that not everyone embraces the same values, not everyone grows up with, is taught, the same values, and still think that one has to make a distinction between better values, like, say, helping others in emergency or dire need, and worse ones, like randomly maiming and murdering innocent people. She fails to understand that no 'refusal to recognise others' search for meaning in their lives' is involved in thinking that some meanings are more harmful than other meanings and therefore open to criticism, fails to understand that rejection by some of what she describes as Western values can be understood and at the same time condemned.

In fact, to see antipathy to the murder of the innocent as a specifically Western value nicely concentrates the limitation visible in Russell's own moral and cultural understanding, in what is an egregious little essay in apologia, such as has been too frequent in the pages of that great Guardian of British liberalism.

Agreed--I've written of:

the central distinction of our era--that our enemies deliberately target unarmed civilians while America spends billions and sacrifices soldiers to avoid such collateral casualties.

Behind Door #1: Targeting the defenseless

Behind Door #2: Sheltering un-armed innocents.

Those who won't condemn the first, mock the motives of the second and further fail to distinguish the two lack the mental and moral component that is our principal advance over animals.