[rustynails77]

>with insufficient PC-ness

As far as I can see, PC just replaces one form of prejudice with another - I would never encourage PC from anyone. However, tolerance of the tolerant and equal respect regardless of differences (which is NOT PC) is something I promote. Simply call him racist - pure and simple. Segregating one ethnicity/religion/gender is nothing short of prejudice (eg. the woman that runs she++ falls in the same boat ... she believes genders should be treated differently, that's PC and sexist. Read her comments on Forbes - she constantly draws lines between genders with stereotypes).

>it was the barbarians who ultimately sacked Rome and not a civil war that did them in.

I would view the collapse of Rome through corruption/apathy and barbarian attacks. If Rome had the finances to support an army, the hordes would have been far less of an issue. You can read more about it here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empi...

[omonra]

I don't think PC replaces one form of prejudice with another. It rather wants to frame the debate in terms of 'you can not say that' instead of 'what you are saying is wrong'.

Ie in this example the FB professor is unhappy that Fergusson considers the native European populations vs the muslim immigrants and concludes that "the majority hold views not easily reconciled with the principles of our liberal democracies, including our novel notions about sexual equality and tolerance not merely of religious diversity but of nearly all sexual proclivities".

He doesn't say - 'Wait, buddy, you're wrong. Muslim immigrants do hold views compatible with X,Y,Z". Instead he says "How dare you draw comparison between the two groups, that's not cool!"

[gozo]

The author explains why he thinks the arguments aren't relevant. You might not agree with his explanation, but you can't just dismiss them as PC because you don't agree.

> (From the article) But this is a straw man argument, producing a caricature of “us” that fails to account for the wide variety of opinions on matters of inclusion and tolerance to be found across Europe. In equal fashion, his construction of a Muslim “other” is a caricature devoid of nuance.

Just take the fact that many, if not most, terrorists before becoming radicalized are secular second generation immigrants. That is what makes them easy to recruit, because of their search of a sense of belonging and not already having conflicting views on religion. If you want to talk about e.g. honor killings those attitudes might be relevant, but they aren't relevant enough when talking about these recent events to be the single focus.

[omonra]

It seems that the actions of the terrorists allow for a fairly easy us vs them categorization. Ie there are millions of people in Europe who are first / 2nd / 3rd generation immigrants - yet the terrorists all come from specific subset. So there is some commonality between them that makes a dude go 'I'm gonna go kill a bunch of people'.

The PC factor is exactly this - Ferguson doesn't shy away from putting light on it while the FB professor is horrified by the construct of the 'other' that's devoid of nuance.

[gozo]

You're just stating opinions. Why would that be interesting in this discussion? This is the Internet, there's no lack of opinions. You haven't responded with proper arguments to anyone is this thread, which seems to be consistent with your comment history. Maybe all those people you're not responding to are also PC?

> It seems that the actions of the terrorists allow for a fairly easy us vs them categorization.

Why? For you?

> yet the terrorists all come from specific subset

What subset is that? Plenty of terrorism isn't based on religion.

> So there is some commonality between them [...]

And that is? Of course there's some commonality, but you actually have to specify which and why to have an argument.

> Ferguson doesn't shy away from putting light on it

What part of his writing does that? The part I've read very much paints with broad strokes and doesn't at all focus on "the commonality of a specific subset of terrorists". As you would expect from a history professor.

[omonra]

You seem to take things fairly personally and I don't think proceeding in this key would be productive.

[RogtamBar]

>... she believes genders should be treated differently, that's PC and sexist.

Sexes are different. In some areas, like strength, they almost form non-overlapping sets.

In others, like personality, there is not much overlap either.

See for example: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

Why do you think you can motivate women and men by using the exact same thing? Biology has made both value different things. Discernible in voting patterns and gov't preferences. Here is a paper on how giving franchise to women impacted US government..

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/PDFfiles/LottKenn...

Do you think men enjoy the same things as women? Treating everyone the same is a very good way of not getting anything done.

And as to stereotyping. It's unavoidable. The human brain is wired so it tries to abstract and save effort. Dealing with everyone as a total unknown is not we're set up.

Furthermore, stereotypes are somewhat accurate. Moreso than social science. Obviously, if they are accurate they are useful.

See for example: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201408/st...