Having established this blog a little less than a decade ago, I was initially excited about the possibility of responding to things I read about the Middle East and Islam in virtual “real time.” I still have several letters (the kind put on paper) to the editor that never were published where I sent them. Even if they had been eventually published, it would have been a bit late. Blogs seemed a new and accessible way to play the role of a pundit. But there are different paths for punditry. The best kind is pondering about events; the least useful is pandering to a particular point of view.
To ponder is to wonder, which requires taking risks with ideas and sentiments. Pondering goes beyond posturing, which is simply repeating a polemical mantra no matter where it falls on the left-right political spectrum. Pandering results from preaching to the choir, fixating on speaking a specific truth to power that others may not think is a valid “truth” at all. The contentious issues surrounding representation of Islam, Muslims, Arabs, Jews and the gamut of issues that smolder in the region known as the Middle East are not resolved by rhetorical crossfire. I think that sometimes there is so much speech clutter on the internet that voices of reason have little chance of being heard.
Everyone has pet issues and I am certainly no exception. The reader of my posts over the years will find that for the most part I preach tolerance of diverse views with one glaring exception: I am loathe to tolerate intolerance. A dialogue of disagreement, in my mind, is always better than a monologue of “I am right and you are wrong.” To ponder an issue, then, should be to probe it, test it, play with it, throw it around and see what falls out, make it transparent. Dogma ends all dialogue. (more…)
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