July 9th, 2005

An Absurd Generalization

Or a look inside my mind you might not want… So I was strolling through some news sites this morning, just getting a flavor of what they think is important, and I come across this CNN headline (about the London attacks, one would assume, although it was totally without context landing below a “Blair: Address terrorism causes” headline and above “Presidents on Mount Rushmore get baths” one). Here’s the headline: Arab View: “Enough, enough.”

Maybe it’s just me, it often is, but this struck me as a little silly. Suppose you could define Arab a few different ways, linguistically, politically, geographically, a combination, but my thought was more along the lines of “wow, what a gross generalization.” I mean there’s no such thing as the Arab view. Is there?

Of course, it’d be my hope all Arabs are appalled at the bombings but that’s just a sliver of my greater hope that all people would be appalled at the bombings, but that’s not where my thought went. Basically I thought it’d be a cold day in hell before CNN ran a headline like (just for a rough analogy) “White View: “Enough, enough.”

I simply find it odd to give an entire group of people, numbering in the vast millions, a single sentiment. And even odder when that sentiment is quoted from one persons website and the article delves into the “dominant view,” not the view.

Probably just a case of me over thinking but the headline struck me as absurd the moment my eye caught it. And if I keep thinking about it I might come to the conclusion that it was indeed me that was absurd. So I’m letting it go now.