Slate staff members discuss the current crisis.

I address myself here to David Plotz's argument about Silvio Berlusconi's statement that Western culture is superior to Islamic culture and that we (the West) ought to conquer the Muslim heathen. I wrote a Chatterbox item saying that Berlusconi's remark was "stupid" and "gasp-inducing." (Berlusconi, incidentally, has now apologized.) David responds that Berlusconi's remark was impolitic but true. Actually, I think Berlusconi's comment was disastrously impolitic, given the current need to persuade our Muslim allies that the United States isn't going to war against their religion. But since David and I basically agree on this point, I'll skip ahead to the normative question.

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Is Western culture superior to Islamic culture? Well, I certainly prefer Western culture, as David does. If your yardstick for superiority is democracy, economic prosperity, religious toleration, respect for human rights, and equality of the sexes, the West objectively has the Muslims pretty well whupped. That's a very good yardstick, and one that many people around the world would consider the most important. But it isn't the only yardstick. Many Muslims would consider a better yardstick to be piety, an ability to preserve ancient traditions, and strict obedience to Allah. Again, this is not my yardstick. Indeed, this is a yardstick on which I'd actively wish to lose to the Islamic world. Happily for David and me, we do lose. And happily for Muslims, they win.

Is this multicultural hogwash? No. Multicultural hogwash is the feigned affinity for Third World cultures affected by Westerners who disapprove of, or feel excessively guilty about, their own culture's dominance in the world. When we recognize that different societies maintain different priorities, as is their right, we call that tolerance and common sense.

David wants democracy, prosperity, and human rights to spread throughout the world. Me too. I'm even willing to consider making the establishment of these good things a precondition to participating fully in the international economic community. Rather than displace Islamic culture, though, these good things would probably work best if they were integrated into Islamic culture. And anyway, it isn't up to me, or to David, or to Silvio Berlusconi to force these good things down Arab throats. And certainly, democracy and human and religious and political rights are not, as David asserts, what we're fighting for in Operation Whatever It's Called Today (though George W. Bush likes to pretend that it is). What we're fighting for in this war, or effort, or whatever you want to call it, is the right to go about your business (primarily in the United States) without getting killed by some terrorist fanatic. That agenda is broad enough.

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