Veil of ignorance

Is it really unreasonable not to want to live next to overtly, and likely conservatively, religious people? I mean, I wouldn’t really prefer to live next door to devout, conservative Christians or Orthodox Jews either. Aren’t they more likely to be the kind of people who will complain if I play my music too loud or have gay friends holding hands on the front porch?

I don’t think that one has to be equally happy about living next door to all sorts of people in order not to be bigoted.

Not that I have any question that lots and lots of Americans are bigoted against Muslims.

“Is it really unreasonable not to want to live next to overtly, and likely conservatively, religious people? I mean, I wouldn’t really prefer to live next door to devout, conservative Christians or Orthodox Jews either.”

Well that’s where the careful statistics could be useful. If they got data on how subjects inferred religious conservatism and desire/aversion to live near a person then you could see if these two responses are correlated. Ideally, of course, you’d also want to collect info on the subject background, like their religion, political views etc. But a good study could separate those effects out.

On a slightly related note…

If anyone uses Firefox, there is a little ‘quick search’ box in the upper right hand corner. Its basically the search box for Google, but it is always there. When you type something in, Google offers suggestions based on how many other people have searched the same thing. For example, the number one result for “how to” is “how to tie a tie.” Innocuous enough, until you search “is “.

The top four searches on Google that start with the word ‘is’ are the following:

1) is obama muslim
2) is obama a muslim
3) is barack obama a muslim
4) is barack obama muslim

Ugh.

The top four searches on Google that start with the word ‘is’ are the following:

I get no such results and I figure the results are partially tied to your own net usage you awful awful person.

You have to do “is “, rb (i.e. you have to put the space in after is before it shows up).

I don’t want anyone to know I’m into lemur racing. Is my information private?

Yes, your information is private. Google Suggest does not base its suggestions on your personal searches, although it does use information about the relative popularity of common searches to rank its suggestions. Your Google Suggest searches, like all the information you send to Google, are covered under Google’s privacy policy.

I retract the suggestion that this reveals the awful nature of rickm.

“I’m a het American male; not everyone is, of course.”
I’m a “het” american male who goes Tango dancing. The photo on the right is hotter, The one on the left is sloppy.

Kudos to the well-known scientists at MediaCurves.com ™ who did this study. For some reason.

Playing around with it a bit I think there is a personal component to the suggestions you get (probably based on your search history as well as the gmails you get). When I type in “ec” or even “e” I get a lot of stuff on economics which I doubt is true generally. But I’ve never looked up whether Obama is a Muslim, though I’ve looked up other stuff on him. So I think it’s a mix of personal search/mail categories and an aggregate.

I got Rickm’s results. “Is “(with space) gets that.

I second Luke; it would be interesting to see the reactions to a variety of religious head coverings, rather than only this distinctively Muslim one. (And I think distinctively Sunni; I haven’t seen that pattern in pictures from Iran that I recall.)

My wife, my mother, and many of my friends cover their heads; I have never seen or experienced or heard about any hostility towards them.

there is something eerie about that photo on the right, isn’t there. I was thinking Aerial Board of Control

Google “Milan or Tehran” and click on Blogs wired.com sterling. The kid understands.
Shia babeland.
I’m on the crackberry I don’t have the link

The Google suggest includes two different groups of suggestions: those things that you previously searched, and those things that others had searched. It compartmentalizes both groups, so you will see things that you searched, and below them, a horizontal line will demarcate the group of suggestions based on others searches.

For what its worth, I performed this on my work computer, which brand new. My home computer confirms this.

Here is a slate article about google search.

I’ve taken to waring a balaclava as my hijab. I’ve had nothing but negative reactions to it (damned bigots). Most of the bigots, I’ve noticed, are in banks.

I only wear it because I’m so damned pretty that I might be a temptation to others of both sexes and my G-D told me to wear it.

Why oh, why do I have to wait so long to be free.

Most of my right-wing friends (and, to be honest, most of my left-wing friends who are not from South Asia or the Middle-East) have a profound distaste for women in hijabs–whether it’s pity or disgust I’m not sure (I have seem glimmers of both) and I have never really gotten an honest answer to that question from them.

I’m a first-gen. American w/ parents born in India, and I am personally indifferent.

That is one nice-looking young woman. Dirty fucking hippie that I am, I prefer the left, unbound, curlier version.

My general objection to the hijab is that it doesn’t shade the face. You know you need to wear a hat, a cap, a visor, if you don’t want your face to look like a raisin ten years hence, don’t you?

Bush holds hands with and kisses Saudi King Abullah. You won’t see him doing that with a muslim woman. What does that mean, if anything?

As to the muslim head – and even face – covering for women, that is about the same as having to were a yellow star in 30’s Germany. Male muslim believers are pigs, period. If any muslim men are offended, tough luck, take it up with allah.

bernarda:

“What does that mean, if anything?”

It means you just triggered Godwin’s Law, stupid. If you don’t like that, take it up with George Washington.

= = =

As for the experiment, I’d like to offer the following images to use as controls:

My hypothesis: The first image will probably be construed as a sign of the decadence of liberalism, or as a celebration of the natural beauty of the female body… or both concurrently (go figure). The second image is so obviously stupid that it makes people’s brains explode, so it’ll probably be construed as being of a 100% traitor.

If you’re using Firefox, install the Customize Google addon and you will be able turn off/on almost any google feature.

There’s a point here, but it’s not a particularly new or interesting one.

Since there is, in fact, a difference between the photos and there is not, deliberately, any additional context, people will consult their prejudices and construct a story about the visible difference. It is found that the story that’s constructed is something along the lines of ‘liberal Muslim = good/conservative Muslim = bad’. Now– what, exactly do you now know that you didn’t know before?

The Joe public reactions to the pics are tediously predictable. People tend to have irrational fears about anything that isn’t reassuringly familiar.

I confess that women in Islamic dress have been known to turn me on. Not correct obviously since one’s reaction ought to be more of a sex neutral acknowledgment of the wearer’s personhood etc, rather than speculations about relative degrees of hotness.

It is true though that things hidden tend to be more alluring. Probably why there is a huge body of Victorian era writings that fantasize about the thrill of peeling things off.

Not that I would ever dream of objectifying Muslim sisterhood in any Flyntian fashion.

As for living next door … I don’t understand people who need neighbors who are clones of themselves. I prefer people who are as different as possible. Makes life more interesting.

So yeah, I think there is something rather beautiful, and dare I say erotic, about Islamic dress (burqa excepted). Of the two pics, I think the one of her wearing hijab is the more attractive, and she can live next door to me anytime she feels like it.

Also, the design of the study seems particularly weird (although I’m not a professional so there may be some good way of doing this). Respondents were apparently actually forced to choose, for instance, whether they would like the woman to live next door, in their neighborhood, elsewhere in their town, elsewhere in the US, or outside of the US. This doesn’t leave room for my preferred answer, “Wherever she wants to, except not next door, because currently all my next-door neighbors are businesses and I like not having to worry about noise after 6 pm.”

I also get the same “is ” results, but if I try “was,” “was Jesus married” tops “was Obama a Muslim.”

*shrugs*

I associate the headscarf with sexism, and I’m not afraid to admit it. Maybe someday cultural change will redeem the headscarf, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Not that this means that I think women in head scarves should be forbidden to live in my neighborhood, of course. Disapproving of someone’s personal choices and thinking someone should be deported are very different.

Over time cultures that keep their women out of the street have a wider edge,…

Totally effing offensive, Roy. Look at what you have written. So the inhabitants of a “culture” are exclusively male, while women are things (“their” women) to be moved about and restricted this way and that?

Helen, I’m sorry you took offense but I think you misread that, with prejudice. The women “belong” to the culture, as do the men and the children, and a lot of other stuff into the bargain.
It’s kind of knee-jerk to assume it’s only about sexist patriarchal control, though understandably, since a lot of it is. But not all. A spooky aspect is the possibility of other contexts in which a lot of the seeming nonsense of religious proscriptions turns out to have direct survival value, for the culture, the genes, the memes, whatever. As things stand there’s no question the ferocity of fundamentalist strictures especially as applied to women is a bad deal for most women and a good deal for a minority of men dominant within that culture. But things stand shakily. Change is everywhere, coming on hard.
Paris Hilton is a successful woman by most of the terms of this culture at this time. Change a few parameters and it looks a lot different. The Amish are marginal in most ways, now. It’s not hard to imagine contextual shifts that give that kind of living a distinct survival advantage. It’s a betting program, not an ethical/moral prescription. The gamble’s the thing.

“Islam is modernizing and secularizing.”

Well, I sure hope so, but where’s your evidence, beyond the anecdotal? The Saudi monarchy, as I recall, has invested billions in ensuring the reverse course.

that’s kinda tough, danielle, unless you want to have a cabin in the woods or a ranch or something.

The photo on the left is a photo of a woman who embraces mainstream American culture. If I go out with her, I do not have to worry about whether I am going to have the same cultural background, language, same general values (within a range of variation of course), etc. The photo on the right is a photo of a woman who does not embrace mainstream American culture. As an American, I might feel that she does not embrace American culture because she feels superior to Americans. Like most Americans, I don’t like being near people who feel they’re better than I am, so would have more negative feelings towards her.

Now, of course, the same body is underneath those different styles of garb, but that is irrelevant to my perceptions. I might have similar perceptions towards a woman wearing expensive furs and jewelry. As a modest penguin, I would have negative perceptions towards this woman as someone who obviously feels superior to those around her and wishes to flaunt the fact that she’s wealthier than the average penguin-American.

Note that none of this has anything to do with religion, since all that the Islamic religion requires is that women dress “modestly”, where “modest” is a cultural value. “Modest” here in the United States means dressing like Hillary Clinton in suits and dresses that say “business”, not “sexy”. Rather, it has to do with my perceptions of whether someone feels superior to me or not. I might have the same perceptions regarding anybody who wears garb suggesting that due to some characteristic she is better than the rest of us. Arrogance is an American value, true enough, but it is not an American value that makes a lot of friends. Ask anybody in the high tech industry (outside of Microsoft) about Bill Gates, for example, and be prepared to have your ears scalded, because he is a very arrogant man who is hated and detested by most of his peers in his industry. I might very well not want to live next door to someone who proudly proclaims that they are better than me because they embrace a different religion from me — which is what religious garb (of any type) is basically shouting at me.

Anyhow, this is a different perspective that I haven’t seen in this thread — i.e., that it is not her faith, but a perception of arrogance, that is off-putting to those who view the picture on the right of the woman wearing garb that proudly proclaims that she belongs to a particularly religion.

– Badtux the somewhat-arrogant Penguin

The Saudi monarchy, as I recall,

Is a sclerotic entity that lives in fear of its own military, and whose Wahhabism has failed to remedy that circumstance despite the fact that the trend toward open and inchoate ethnic hostility from the modern West — up to and including frivolously-conceived invasions of the Middle East — should have bolstered it. Not a very impressive data point.

Seth is right.

I think a previous commenter covered this.

I’m a gay man – not an especially flamboyant one, but gay nonetheles. The Islamic headscarf suggests not only the woman is a Muslim but is likely to be more observant/devout than a typical Muslim American. I would probably not even consider the religious beliefs of the woman on the left, other than a vague sense that she blends in with other American women; even if I were told she was a Muslim, I wouldn’t assume very much about her specific beliefs. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to assume that the woman on the right is likely to harbor anti-gay sentiments, given the context. Based on that, I’d probably respond that I’d rather she not live next door to me; if you asked the sort of woman I imagine would wear such clothing if she wanted a homosexual as their neighbor, I am guessing that she would probably respond in the same way.

As for my neighborhood…she should probably live elsewhere in the city if she doesn’t want to get looked at funny. There are actually a lot of places in tbe Baltimore-Washington area where people would barely take notice of a woman in an Islamic headscarf, but I don’t think my neighborhood would be one of them. But that’s for her sake rather than for mine.

“Anyhow, this is a different perspective that I haven’t seen in this thread—i.e., that it is not her faith, but a perception of arrogance, that is off-putting to those who view the picture on the right of the woman wearing garb that proudly proclaims that she belongs to a particularly religion.”

I know a woman who’s taken off her hijab on occasion to go out and socialize, just as an experiment. It was difficult. She said she felt naked without it. A friend’s son who’s closest friend is Egyptian, sees his friend’s mother walk around the house without her scarf on. He’s a 10 year old boy and it’s her home. J asks his son what her hair is like. “Long and beautiful.”

There can be a sort of standoffish quality to certain forms of public display, but it’s not universal. I’m easily annoyed by the blunt arrogance of cops, but not all cops see their uniform as a license to indulge. Priests often piss me off, and nuns annoy me, but not all of them. I’ve met some Hasid’s who I like very much, and many who are schmucks, especially to unobservant jews like me. I went to schools with Mennonite girls with blond hair in buns and white bonnets: kick-ass field hockey players. I’m wary of men in $3000 suits, though I own one myself; and the public displays of geekdom, of obliviousness to the sexual and social reality of the non platonic world, make me want to reach for a gun.

I don’t expect much of people, but how you can expect so much of others without expecting at least much of yourself: that amazes me. That’s fucking pathetic.

bi, # 37, you don’t have a clue, so stuff it.

The thing is hijab is not just one thing. This cartoon (which is a bit weird in some respects) nevertheless fairly accurately reflects the variety of hijab on Damascene streets (and that’s just Damscus):

http://bp2.blogger.com/_5sbGWuqTOog/Rl_8rTMwVmI/AAAAAAAACe0/SLEqWGthN2Y/s1600-h/Syrian_Hijab.jpg

#53: Roy, I do not find your argument coherent, I have an inkling of what you are trying to say, but there is enough exclusion of women from public spaces in the Western world as it is (public places at night, some public transport, et cetera). To say that is something that should be embraced rather than fought against is all very well for you, as a male, but I reserve the right to find it offensive, as well as the construction “their / our women”, which is an archaism which doesn’t belong in the twenty-first century. Women are not things.

I’m an atheist and I’d much rather live next door to someone who wears a hijab than half of the people who have commented on this thread…

wearing hijab for political reasons? You’re scaring me slightly

While I doubt if many people are interested in your phobias, if you are going to bring them up perhaps you should be a little less cryptic.

Also in England, I don’t have to to find the links, many of the younger generation of veiled women are daughters of assimilated parents- teenagers rebelling against their parents and scaring whitey too.

Seth – I’m aware of so-called “Islamic feminism” – we have a very cool writer and media presence in Canada called Irshad Manji who has some very interesting thoughts on this.

However the larger problem is religion of restriction, religion of law. I’m not objectifying Islam as the solo “concern” here as some on the right like to do. I see Huckabee and such Xtian crusading types who want to amend the Constitution to meet “God’s standards” as equally, and in fact, more offensive.

Monotheism by virtue of its laws, Mosaic and otherwise, is all about restriction. The place of women in Islam according to tradition is very, very clear – no matter what spin some feminist Muslims try to put on it. Yes brave pathfinders such as Irshad have the courage to seek a new definitions, including those relating to sexual orientation (she is a lesbian), but she has been routinely threatened. In fact I get the sense that the threats on her life have backed her off the more militant stance.

Organized religion is the problem – not spirituality. I had to learn this painfully having been raised in a conservative, right wing environment. It’s one reason why I am coming to greatly value forums such as Crooked Timber because it creates an oasis of genuine discourse in a political environment that is becoming increasingly partisan, polarized and fractious.

Laleh ty – I’m with you completely. I guess my reference to “political reasons” has been conditioned by the top-down dress code requirements of theocracy – which I loathe. But if a woman feels that hijab is a part of her identity and its her choice, it’s a different matter entirely.