Glenn Greenwald vs Sam Harris on Islamophobia

[Donald Ian Rankin]

2. Is "Islamophobia" always a bad thing? Well, it depends what it is.

Different people define Islamophobia more widely or more narrowly. No one definition has enough consensus behind it to be called "right" and make the others "wrong".



There are certainly legitimate definitions of "Islamophobia" broad enough to include Harris and Dawkins. But by those definitions, not all Islamophobia is a bad thing - and, indeed, arguably failing to be "Islamophobic" in some of those senses is a bad thing.

There are also certainly legitimate definitions of "Islamophobia" that are invariably bad - in particular, any suggestion that we should deprive Muslims of basic civil rights. If Harris really did say "We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it", and mean it, and the context doesn't change the meaning, then I think that's crossed the line into bigotry (although I should highlight the "ifs" in that last sentence).

But Islam really is worse on average - much, much worse on average - than any other religion, and we should acknowledge that, and if you choose to classify that as Islamophobia then you're using Islamophobia to mean good things as well as bad, and hence can't use it as a term of condemnation.



*I am always driven wild with rage by people who attempt to refute this claim by pointing out that there are plenty of people who interpret Islam in liberal fashions, and plenty of people who interpret other religions as commanding all sorts of bad things. That's totally true, and it in no way contradicts a difference in averages, and presenting it as doing so is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate.