[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.