Beyond Empiricism: Ethical Considerations in Political Advocacy.

Beyond Empiricism:

Ethical Considerations in Political Advocacy.

“52% of British Muslims believe that Homosexuality should be Illegal!”

Statements like this and other similarly shocking information appear from the depths of the media, bringing up feelings of apprehension, mistrust and stirring radical nationalist sentiments, but are they factually accurate?

The fact of the matter is that the poll from which this statistic was derived was carried out on a total of 1081 British Muslims, from predominantly lower income areas which had Islamic populations around 20%. The study has been called into question by many parties and at best is a very partial representation of the views of the 2,706,066 Muslims living in the UK (2011 Data) and should be treated as such.

Although the data set might be a factual representation of the targeted group within the British Muslim population, it is no guarantee of what overall opinions may be in the larger Muslim community of the United Kingdom. This isn't to say that Britons should not be weary of such high rates of hatred toward gays among Muslim religious followers, but rather that this information should be treated with a certain degree of scepticism and that it is important to treat such studies as part of a growing body of information about the socio-political climate of England, rather than as an absolute indication of the tendencies of English people who happen to be of the Muslim faith.

Comparing this against American opinions from the Southern Central States, we find that in a 2015 Gallop poll, there is a 54% opposition to gay marriage, does this give us reason to become frightened or react in a nationalistic fashion against these obviously hateful people?

Having said that, it is important to recognize that the British and American data represent two totally different sets of information, but we can use it as a fair indicator that there are in fact many places in the western world with few Muslims where anti homosexual views are widely held.

All of this particular information will set the tone of the rest of my article here.

If we are truly dedicated to fairness, we must not use cherry picked statistics in order to favour our personal world views. Regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum, it is hugely important to the good of society to attempt to portray facts and statistics in as honest a way as possible.

I cannot begin to enumerate the amount of times that I have seen bloggers and media people who I deeply respect talk about extremely small samples of data as if they were representative of entire demographic groups.

The reason why I picked specifically on the issue of misrepresentation of issues pertaining to Islam, rather than some of the well known tropes of the Left such as the wage gap and Racial Fragility is because I think that sceptics need to look honestly at themselves and their opinions in order to attempt to genuinely make truth of information presented to us, rather than simply following the crowd and abandoning our logical faculties when we see a topic which seems to confirm our already existing world view.

If we can make genuine appraisal of facts rather than jumping to ideological conclusions, it may be possible that this budding movement might turn into something beyond the typical echo chambers of the left and the right.

This article is in no way meant to add or detract credibility from any of the ongoing political arguments pertaining to culture, race, religion, or gender, but rather simply to state the stance of honest enquiry over partisan appraisal of scant information.

Because we know that it is possible to use data sets in such a way that they obscure larger social trends, and serve to potentially bias people toward a polarized view of the political world, we must develop a strong sense of ethical responsibility when interrogating and presenting facts in social media.

When a body of evidence is presented as part of a much larger and ongoing cultural dynamic, a degree of context may be obtained that can stop participants in the media from taking excessively biased or violent views toward people whose intentions they genuinely do not understand.

Again, I feel that this attitude should be applied equally to causes of the left and the right, and that it is every bit as unfair to characterize straight white men as members of a racist patriarchal system of cultural oppression as it is to denigrate all Muslims as homicidal anti gay maniacs. If it were the case that either were true, the nature of our relatively peaceful society would be dramatically different and it would be as clear as night and day to all participants.

The moral of this post is: Stay sceptical, keep researching and thinking, and don't jump overboard unless you are sure the ship is sinking.


Sources:
 http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/11/europe/britain-muslims-survey/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States