Information from Orlando is slower coming than the stampede of misinformation from propagandizing, opportunistic politicizing and extremist position-peddling. Every special interest is viewing the mass shooting through its own misfocused zoom lens, and the Internet now allows all squeaky wheels to get greased faster than ever.
Among all the misguided shouting matches over peripheral perspectives, the U.S. more and more appears to be a nation that has lost its way in matters of principle and truth. Leadership across all ranks--political, governmental, advocacy groups, even media--seems all too content these days to trot out half-truths, or even smaller fractionals, if it's perceived helpful in winning their argument.
At root level, the reaction to Orlando is demonstrative of the ridiculous degree to which "politically correct" thinking has pervaded our national consciousness, and perverted our sense of fairness and justice.
The resulting dichotomies are myriad and corrosive. Average citizens today have trouble understanding that liberty is freedom from government action, not entitlement to government benefits. They confuse restrictions of freedom with expansion of "rights." Only in a Beltway neverland is a reduced rate of increase in government spending considered a "cut," but modern brainwashed voters buy in.
In defining moments, we need to focus and fall back on whole truths and core principles. But holistic thinking is hard, and sound bites are easy. In a non-PC-factored world, red herrings wouldn't be swamping the search for answers, some of which seem pretty straightforward.
A man whose parents and grandparents hail from a homeland where homosexuality carries a death penalty, and who may be battling his own mental instabilities, decides to carry out some executions on his suicide/martyr mission to paradise and its virgins.
By any analytical, statistical measure he's an anomaly--an infinitesimal fraction, an extremist example, the rarest of exceptions to the rule. The overwhelming majority of Muslims aren't terrorists, and the overwhelming majority of guns (especially assault-type weapons) are never used in crimes.
The most natural, and beneficial, discussion that ought to arise from Orlando involves Islam itself. Everybody knows ISIS jihadists are a threat to be eradicated. But far too many Americans know next to nothing about the Islamic religion and civilization; or, even worse, what they might think they know is wrong.
Islam is the world's second largest religion, exceeded only by Christianity in following. As an Abrahamic religion, many of the major characters from the Bible also appear in the Koran. Christians in general would be surprised at the historical similarities, and the prominence of Jesus, though Muslims reject the triune God doctrine.
But just as Christian sects and denominations and members vary tremendously, so do Muslims.
Islamic theology itself probably isn't what's most foreign to a predominantly Christian American population--it's the Middle Eastern culture that predated Islam. Two millennia ago, democratic ideals clashed with ancient Asiatic character. Great and powerful as the Greeks were, they could not conquer the East.
Historian Will Durant summarized it thus: "Beyond the Mediterranean coasts the Greek veneer grew thin ... there were Greeks and Greek civilization on the top, and a medley of Asiatic peoples and cultures underneath. The qualities of the Greek intellect made no entry into the Oriental mind ... Astrology and alchemy corrupted Greek astronomy and physics; Oriental monarchy proved more powerful than Greek democracy."
Islamic history and heritage is steeped in polygamy and concubinage and slavery and chauvinism because all those were already deeply entrenched in the region into which the religion was introduced.
It's hard for us, as self-governing citizens who have never experienced a true theocracy, to comprehend a society in which law and religion were always one. But that is all most Muslims for centuries ever knew: every crime was a sin, every sin a crime.
For some 500 years during the medieval period, Islamic caliphs would help make western Asia the most civilized area in the world. But they ruled with absolute power and disgraceful ruthlessness, and by the 13th century, perished under matching (and worse) Mongol cruelty that carelessly slaughtered every man, woman and child in conquered cities.
Americans can't conceive butchering hundreds of thousands or even a million people at a time with swords and spears; Semitic peoples can't forget it.
American civilization and Islamic civilization have always been worlds apart. We might perceive atrocities differently if our founders, like one Islamic caliph did after a medieval battle, had 400 captured soldiers beheaded for sport during the Revolutionary War.
We undoubtedly would be living differently if our forefathers had landed on a continent with the climate and topography of the Mideast.
Culture shock is a mild term for what some immigrants, whose ancestry and customs and worldview are so radically different from our prevailing European heritage, deal with here in America. Their assimilation into our nation doesn't just require education on their part. We all need greater contextual understanding of Islamic societies, and collective recognition that radical differences must be reconciled when immigrants become citizens.
History is cyclical and insightful, and so richly valuable in its lessons. But only if it's learned--and learned from.
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Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.
Editorial on 06/17/2016