Thought of the Day 02.26.10

In arguing for the hijab and the burqa, Muslims generally sound very much like American conservatives who criticize our sexually liberal image obsessed culture. They just take it farther than we do. Yet most of us are revolted by their extrapolation of our ideas. Why is this?

Well, we say that the problem is the oppression of women and the hypersexualizing of them which is implicit in treating them as if they are so toxic and needing of protection. (Or we notice that the burden of this solution falls entirely on women rather than men.) But I think the strength of our revulsion belies a different truth: such clothing just looks absurd to us.

Even though we oppose immodest attire in principle, we are so accustomed to it that actually seeing modest dress (let alone a hijab) seems completely abnormal. And that’s the funny thing about ethics. What we are regularly exposed to is far more formative on the viscerality of our sense of what’s normal than any principled arguments ever could be. Knowing what’s right and feeling right when you actually see it are two very different things.