The Western view, if you want to call it that, is special. It is not the baseline for human social reality. "The West" is the one who is exotic, not the Iranians. The Iranians are normal. Secularism, liberalism, etc., even in the "West," are really really new. For the vast majority of history, they did not exist. They only go back to 1700 or so, and then they were fringe notions. They didn't build up steam until the late 1700s and were not the common lingo of the "West" until around 1945. Large percentages of "Western" society do not believe in them even today.
--- On Tue, 6/30/09, ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> From: ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] I say banana, you say bikini (was: those exotic Iranians)
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 2:32 PM
> [responses to Doug, Dennis]
>
> On Jun 30, 2009, at 1:15 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> > On Jun 30, 2009, at 1:08 PM, ravi wrote:
> >
> >> Any argument that relies on accusations of
> "exoticising" is not a serious o
> >
> > Yes it is. The point I'm trying to make is that a lot
> of people on this list and elsewhere on the
> Ahmadinejad-defending left treat Iranians as if they're
> somehow really special, and not at all concerned with the
> kinds of personal freedoms that Westerners take for granted.
> That's crap.
> >
>
>
> There are several problems with the above, and I will throw
> out a couple:
>
> a) Even if you are right, it still does not address
> entirely the content of what they say.
>
> b) But that is not what I hear them saying at all. They
> seem to be saying that unless you assume that Iranians care
> about all the freedoms you take for granted, you have to
> think about which ones they do or might, and more
> importantly, which ones could be insignificant (w.r.t
> universal norms).
>
> You are making the following jump: [I have certain
> freedoms], [Iranians do not have them], [X says Iranians may
> not care for some of those freedoms] === therefore ==> [X
> is exoticising Iranians].
>
> This inference works only if you can take the [I] out of
> the first item and treat all of those freedoms as
> universally justified/accepted, etc. In other words, the
> choice for Iranians is not just the two options: be
> concerned with all the personal freedoms of the West or be
> exotic. The flaw in your reasoning is that you assume that
> if someone is not concerned with some of your freedoms that
> makes them or implies that they are special or exotic.
>
>