Cultural deterrence?

[ganulv]

Essentially the paper will attempt to explain why such disproportionate expressions of rage take place when and where they do, and hopefully offer predictive value on what can be expected in response to future events.

While the anger and violence may be a genuine response to what is perceived as insulting Islam, can the whole issue be seen as a sort of cultural deterrence, an attempt to signal to the secular West that the sacrilege we tolerate will not in like manner be tolerated when directed at Islam? Or are there political goals that these agitations play a roll in achieving where religion is the means but not the end?

The politics of outrage is hardly unique to the Ummah. Whether Islamic outrage has a particular flavor is a fair question. My sense is that aniconism, for example, is an issue for most Muslims in a way that most non-Muslims simply don’t get. But in these public outrage events there are clearly alt of things going on that are not exclusive to Islam (like identity and cultural politics).

I view the responses as being primarily incited by Muslim leaders due to the fact that some time passes between the offense and the reaction, as though waiting for the right time to exploit the Muslim community's sensitivities. This begs the question ... Exploiting them to what end?

Take yer pick! But seriously, you should always look at the local context of the responses. I suspect you will I encounter no little variation, though that variation might well be amenable to categorization.

Deaing with religion you will inevitably run into epistemology issues. May I suggest Clifford Geertz’s article “The pinch of destiny: religion as experience, meaning, identity, power” (available in the:http://press.princeton.edu/TOCs/c6780.htm