The Question Really Is What

Democracy Is Premised, In Some Measure, On Majority Rule, And Democracy Is Difficult In A Situation Of Concentrated Inequalities In Which A Large, Impoverished Majority Confronts A Small, Wealthy Oligarchy.

When You Have Increased Migration Of Peoples And Ethnic And Religious Minorities, You Develop A Set Of Rules And Language The Larger Society Can Accept And The Minority Community Can Accept.

Obviously There Are Divisions Within The West And Divisions Within Islam - There Are Different Sects, Different Communities, Different Countries. So Neither One Is Homogenous At All. But They Do Have Things In Common.

Certainly Here In The U.s., We've Had Fundamentalist Movements That Have Taken Very Critical And Hostile Attitudes Toward Immigration And The Assimilation Of Immigrants Into Our Society And Culture. So These Tendencies Are Fairly Universal. The Problem Is What If They Get Out Of Hand And Become The Dominant Factor In A Society, Which Can Only Lead To The Oppression Of Minorities Or Even To War With Neighboring Societies With Differing Cultures. That's Why It Seems To Me It's Important To Try To Keep These Tendencies Toward Extremism Under Control.

We Really Only Came Around To Accepting And Integrating The Propositional Dimension Of Identity Into A Concept Of Ourselves At The Time Of The American Revolution.