In response to my post on conservatives in Academia Aalu -- who has recently moved from the US to India -- made the following comment:
You have been discussing these subjects directly and even taking sides. This is something totally missing in our society (India) where scientist and intellectuals do not want to takes side or be involved in any debate with political aspects.
He goes on to speculate on the reasons why. I responded a little further down -- and took a wild guess that it was the culture. I used the specific example of religion. That is something that is contentious in both the US and in India. Only in India I remember there being much more violent riots than here recently.
Also, in India my impression is that in many places religion plays a stronger role than here in America (when we have a religious protest march here, no one dies except from heat exhaustion). I'm sure that means that people may be less willing to speak out about religion.
So, reading the paper today, what do I find?
A crowd that gathered to protest a white supremacists' march turned violent on Saturday, throwing baseball-size rocks at the police, vandalizing vehicles and stores, and setting fire to a neighborhood bar, the authorities said.
And that picture at the top of this blog entry is America.
I still stand by my basic thesis, however. If you want to speak out about religion in America you can. It isn't likely you'll get death threats or similar. There are other topics that provoke a huge reaction. Hot-button issues. Some for good reason and others perhaps not-so. I'm willing to guess that every country is the same, though the hot-button issues vary.
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