The problem politicians often face when answering a question is not how to give the right answer — any reasonably intelligent person can do that — but how to give the acceptable answer. Success in Washington consists, not of knowing where the solutions are, but of understanding where all the sacred cows are hidden…

…What the “two thousand faculty members of Harvard University” know that the average Joe doesn’t is what not to say. And that is a far more valuable skill.

wretchard:

The shibboleths exist not only on the Left but also on the Right. Leftists do not have a monopoly on attempting to impose political correctness.

For example, just try to mention how the Bible gives better scriptural justification for suicide bombing than the Quran, and certain “conservative” commenters will start asserting that your sympathies are with the other side.

If Islamists were not receptive to outside ideas, they would never have come up with the idea of suicide bombing; our enemies are not particularly original thinkers. Please note that explosives were well known one century ago and the Ottoman Empire never deployed the suicide bomber. The phenomenon only existed after the American ideology of “revolutionary suicide” became publicized thirty years ago in Jonestown and after the Tamil Tigers (a secular organization dominated by Hindus) deployed suicide bombers first. And yet, conservative orthodoxy takes it for granted that Islamic culture is immutable. Wahhabism may be immutable, but Islam has historically exhibited more fluidity than is often perceived in the West.

Many flaws in Islam come from its founding but not all of them do; many of Islam’s flaws are modern innovations. And some of Islam’s worst foundational flaws are shared scripturally with Judaism and Christianity. One can acknowledge Islam’s similarities to Judaism and Christianity while also acknowledging Islam’s scriptural justification for terrorism. For that matter, one can acknowledge tangential similarities between Mormonism and Islam while understanding implicitly how Islam’s rigid monotheism and ancient Arab ritual stand in stark contrast to Mormon polytheism and its endowment ceremonies. One can acknowledge western contributions to the ideas of al-Qaeda while also acknowledging how a straight reading of the Quran shows a certain bullying quality quite at odds with the ideals of the Enlightenment.

One of the key problems with being honest about the nature of our common enemy is that a certain fifth column in our midst twists honest commentary to suit a defeatist agenda. One can say with all honesty that public opinion in Pakistan gets inflamed every time an American bombing run kills Pakistani children. And yet, defeatists proclaim that America’s bombs are “the reason why they hate us” (which is patently false), as if American sins could be the only reason why anybody would declare a war of genocide against all Americans.

Perhaps a prerequisite for honesty in a civilized society is the security of knowing that we are all on the same side. Without that security of knowing we are on the same side, our social fabric is kept together through white lies and noble lies. And lies being lies, they can blind our leaders (and perhaps even our electorate) to the realities of the world.