Rich Leonardi on Authentic Dialogue

Rich Leonardi's take on Islam's war against the Pope runs in today's Cincinnati Enquirer:

There is further irony in that the Pope's speech identifies the largest obstacles to dialogue as coming from the West. Purveyors of multiculturalism and post-Enlightenment moral relativism are encouraged to check their premises, as are Christians who would separate faith from reason.

But rather than spend 10 minutes reading what the man actually said, Muslim extremists rush to the streets to spend hours staging ferocious protests.

How can we explain this behavior? Conventional wisdom in the West suggests that Islam needs to embrace modernity and emerge from its "medieval" mindset. What's more likely is that Muslim extremists have internalized the modern grievance culture, in which imagined slights should be used as opportunities by "victims" to extract concessions from offenders. Unfortunately, it often works.

Rich blogs about it here.