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Comment by bengrunfeld | Hacker News Reader

I can understand your outrage at such a comment - it is a very western response.

But have you lived in an Arab country, specifically a Muslim one? Or even an Arab neighborhood? Have you been a part of an Arab community for a prolonged period? I have.

These ideals of pluralism and equality work wonderfully in novellas about utopian human co-existance, but they simply aren't reality. The Arabs think differently to American liberal arts students - they have a different ethical code.

That is one of the main reasons that the US was completely unsuccessful in their political endeavors in the Middle East, and which everything from Lebanon to Iran looks like a well-cooked pot of shit-stew right now.

If westerners better understood the Arab mindset, as it applies in countries in the middle east, we would live in a more peaceful world.

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> The Arabs think differently to American liberal arts students - they have a different ethical code.

The Arabs I've known ARE American students. It only takes a single example to disprove a universal statement about "The Arabs." (or The Blacks, or The Jews, etc.) They've usually been great people that I like a lot.

So you've met one or two American Arab students, studying in nice universities, and that dictates the social norms that spread across the middle east?? Wow man, I want some of what you're smoking.

Please, go and visit Yemen, visit Afghanistan, even visit Jordan for heaven's sake, and you'll find that the reality of the Middle East can't be understood from within a college cafe in upstate California.

There are powerful cultural rules at play in Arab society that the west has no conception of, and I think that if you get a good look at them up close, it will completely change your perspective.

You know, dealing with people like they're out of a Leon Uris novel is a great way to make sure the status quo never changes.

Not to flame or anything, but that really doesn't make any sense.

Anecdotal stories of Arab primitivism and lack of state/societal secularism doesn't mean progressive currents will never win out. I'm sure Europe in 1648 was depressing as fuck too.

You think the current antics of Islamic State are anecdotal? You just need to watch the news for all of 17 seconds to see that this is a very accepted cultural norm.

What is your point exactly?

Some nonsense about all Arabs being XYZ (i.e. something as silly as equating Moroccans with Saudi Arabians with Arab Americans, same Arabs right?) and then using that to explain unsuccessful foreign policy in places like Iran, which is not at all an Arab state? (Only 2% of Iran are Arabs, in fact there are MORE arabs in the US than there are in Iran. Give me a break)

Let me know if you have more great insights. I always enjoy a good laugh.

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