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Originally Posted by mixedmedia
Coming strictly from my own layman's perspective, the Luttwak piece seemed to paint the middle east, arabs, muslims, etc. (groups that cannot easily be "grouped") with broad strokes of 1st world arrogance and indifference. Something we are all very used to hearing among average folks here on the ground, but something I find very disturbing and dangerous coming from someone who supposedly has a better vantage point to make observations from than most of us.
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Well........ I'm not signing on to Luttwak's thesis by any means, but it's way too glib to discount commonalities among the Middle Eastern peoples simply because there are differences. The issue is which ones are relevant for us, as outsiders, insofar as there are things we have to respond to and deal with. Certainly there are huge differences between, say, Algerians and Omanis. But there are also some serious commonalities (e.g., language, religion, some ethnic overlap). The trick is to tease apart which cultural markers are relevant to which collections of peoples, and which are unique to specific areas. For example, Morocco is a much more open and tolerant society than, say, Saudi Arabia, although both are Islamic, Arabic-speaking societies. But they also have a lot in common, including (for instance) a heavily blood-based social structure (families, clans and tribes) and strong notions of shame and honor.
This comes back to a concept I have discussed with people before quite often. Generalizations aren't invalid merely because they don't account for each individual case. They are what they are: general statements, and they are only as strong as the degree to which they hold true. Just as it's a mistake to apply general statements to individuals, it's equally a mistake to ignore general truths because of individual cases.