In many Muslim countries, witchcraft is not only on the books as a crime, but is commonly prosecuted. In 2009, for example, Saudi Arabia convicted a man for carrying a phone booklet with characters in an alphabet from his native Eritrea, which the police interpreted as occult symbols. He was lashed three hundred times and imprisoned for more than three years.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the stark reality of how witchcraft is treated as a criminal offense in some Muslim countries and the extreme consequences individuals can face for even perceived associations with it.
In this quote, Steven Pinker draws attention to the severe penalties associated with witchcraft in certain Muslim countries, illustrating the intersection of law, culture, and fear. He recounts a striking case where an innocent individual faced harsh punishment merely for possessing a booklet with an unfamiliar alphabet, emphasizing how cultural misunderstandings can lead to drastic consequences rooted in superstition and strict legal interpretations. Pinkerβs statement serves as a critique of how societies may enforce outdated and draconian measures against seemingly harmless practices that deviate from their norms.
In practice
During a lecture on the impacts of cultural beliefs on justice, this quote can be used to illustrate extreme cases of misinterpretation.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
War should always be the absolute last resort.
Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits.
Disease increases in proportion to the increase in the number of doctors in a place.
The really wonderful thing that happened to me when I was in space was this feeling of belonging to the entire universe.
Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them.
Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realised joy could be.
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