When a logical fallacy’s stupidity is only rivaled by its ubiquity (Refuting the ‘But my Muslim friend’ argument)

In another post, I mentioned that Somalis as a group make America worse, but I never said that there weren’t individual Somalis who are wonderful, decent and helpful people. Particularly those who leave Islam and/or convert to Christianity. What I strongly object to is the ‘but my Muslim friend’ fallacy used to obscure very real problems within immigrant groups and within Islam itself. I hear constantly, “Well, the Muslims that I know are lovely and wonderful people, so there shouldn’t be a problem with importing Muslim populations.” By the same logic, you may know one guy who was falsely imprisoned, and conclude all criminals should be let out. (Blue cities might actually be following this argument, and we can see the result.)

Let me provide an example of how these arguments usually go. Let’s say that I express concern about the conflicting objectives between gay rights and Muslim immigration. First, I accurately observe that Muslim societies are universally terrible to homosexuals. Secondly, I recall that there have been documented reports of honor killings of homosexual people in Muslim families in the West—even among Muslims who have been in Western countries for generations. Since I can put one and one together and make two, I conclude that maybe we should be very choosy about letting in people from Muslim countries, not least in order to secure the rights and welfare of gay Americans who are Muslim or come from Muslim families.

The response that so often happens is, “Well, my friend Mohammed is gay, and his family is cool with it.” Apparently that individual instance negates the observable pattern of Islamic violence against homosexuals and other sexual minorities. It’s hard to describe how powerful this fallacy is. It’s like an Uno reverse card to all forms of pattern recognition.

Even intelligent people have their basic reasoning consumed as if by a fox demon enchantress. And like a fox demon, the illusions weaved are made to slowly destroy their victims.

In the best stories of trickster spirits, the spirit offers a beautiful vision tailored to the desires of the enchantee. There are little tell-tale signs of the illusion. The shadows don’t move the right way or food doesn’t smell as it should. But there are parts of the vision that are so overwhelming in their beauty that these are ignored, and the noble but foolish hero goes deeper into the web of lies. The left broadly has a beautiful vision that all groups of people are basically the same and that they are good. From these assumptions, it would make sense to believe that every immigrant group could adopt a tolerant cosmopolitan culture where each group cooperates with others. Like in stories of fox demons, this illusion is so beautiful that it can overwhelm glitches in the matrix of deception.

Currently, the preeminent worst example of this fallacy is using the hero of the Bondi Beach massacre. As Gad Saad has noticed, to many on the internet, the easily observable pattern of Muslim terrorism is somehow negated by the Muslim individual who fought the Muslim terrorists. In fact, this particular individual proves that Islam is a great religion and that we shouldn’t worry about immigration from Muslim countries. The father and son team that shouted “Allahu Akbar” somehow don’t represent Islam.

This isn’t just idiocy for a supposedly benign white lie. In the stories of tricksters and fox women, the ensorcelled is often devoured in his sleep after having given in to the illusion. The fallacious argument, “But my Muslim friend is a gay nonbinary person who is dating a Jew and works at a charity for disabled puppies,” doesn’t negate the dangers of group migration.

In stories where the good characters can escape the deceptions before being devoured, the protagonist notices enough gaps in the illusory manifestations in time to run away before being made into dinner. In C.S. Lewis’s Silver Chair, one of the main characters puts his foot in the fire to break the enchantment of the Queen of the Underland. The rush of pain managed to focus his senses and stoke his will against the soft and silky sorcery of the Tyrant of the Underworld. Hopefully, the terrorist attacks will have a similar effect in time for the West can wake up before sustaining even more damage.