cry of the banshee wrote:
The colors were not used as anything other than a metaphor for how one thing can become something else if that thing is influenced and taken over by an outside factor, c'mon , man, did you really not see that? It's as simple as first grade addition.
Let me ask you this: If a certain segment of a non-Western country was adamant about keeping the West's handprint off of their landscape, would you agree with that desire to maintain their own countries unique identity and culture?
And if you happen to support that, why is it "intolerant" when the same sentiment is reciprocated in the West?
Or perhaps you feel that the West has every right to impose itself on the Muslim world?
Why should the West bend over while the rest of the world is allowed to maintain their unique identity?
Or is the Muslim world simply intolerant and regressive?
Which brings us back to the question: if they ARE intolerant and regressive (in your view), why would you want them in your homeland to begin with, influencing your culture and society?
So, which is it?
Well, it may surprise you to learn I don't follow a single one of those positions, because each one is a caricature of what you think I might say.
People living in a certain space have the right to interact with that space to any extent they wish, so long as it does not directly infringe on the other people there.
So a christian living in Saudi Arabia has every right to practice their customs there. A muslim living in Switzerland has every right to practice their customs there.
The Saudis prevent the christians from doing so. Therefore they are intolerant and regressive.
The Swiss have taken a step towards preventing muslims from doing so. Therefore they are intolerant and regressive. Obviously not to the same extent, but the two are now one step closer to eachother.
Ordinary muslims in Switzerland, in their vast majority, do not infringe directly on the rights of christians. Therefore there is a massive, massive qualitative difference between them and the Saudi leaders who are, indeed, intolerant and regressive.
That is as easy as first grade arithmetic. I do appreciate you clawing for relativism wherever you can find it as some kind of gotcha, but there is none here, I'm afraid.
As for the colours; the point of tolerance is that it is not simply "one thing" to be taken over. By definition, a "tolerant" society cannot be represented in an analogy by a perfectly pure colour. Now: if you were to say, it's like adding a lot of green, say, to a Jackson Pollock painting that already has a million different colours on it, you'd have a point. But unless you regard muslims as a homogenous mass- which they obviously aren't- then you can't say that you are adding only one colour to it. If seven muslims arrive in the UK, the chances are high that I have added seven different colours, rather than seven splashes of one colour.
Different ideas and expectations.