I am in graduate business school and taking my first ever class on ethics. I have really enjoyed learning the formal structure behind ethical thinking (which I didnt know existed) but another interesting side effect class has been learning about the beliefs of my fellow students, which are not always what I expected.

In our last class we talked about the recent Netflix "throttling" issue. I am a Netflix member and I checked their website myself. Their "how it works" page clearly states that one gets "unlimited" movies for $17.99/mo with no limitations or extra fees.

And yet, our discussion immediately focused on the customer, or more precisely, blaming the customer. "What does he want all these movies for? It is probably to pirate them." "It's not healthy to watch that many movies [so he shouldnt get them]." Why did people blame the consumer? Very peculiar, especially in such an otherwise "touchy feely" area.

We had a very similar discussion about the recent Mohammed-is-a-suicide-bomber-haha! cartoon riots. Again quick reaction was to blame the Muslims. "Being offended is no excuse for breaking things." This despite the WTO riots in Seattle, no less, and numerous student riots due to sporting events. It would seem that when we break shit, it's no problem but when ragheads burn American flags or embassies, they must be raving lunatics.

Someone suggested that Americans just dont care about anything enough to understand the way Muslims feel. That is an interesting point but I think it is something else. One, we already see Muslims as freaks and would react very differently if these were Nazi or anti-Christian cartoons. Two, its not really about cartoons.

Although I am sympathetic to Muslims and the offensiveness of these cartoons, I actually agree that the cartoons themselves are not a reasonable explanation for all the violence. But instead of blaming muslims for being too emotional or touchy, my first reaction is to ask what does explain the violence?

Is this violence an expression of other emotions?

Is it the result of living in countries without free expression, something we take for granted but does not exist in China or many other countries?

Is Denmark and France fomenting Muslim-hatred they way Europe fomented Jewish hatred in the 1930's?

Could it be that the Muslims community has long felt under attack by the US, Israel and the West and after Iraq, the cartoons are the proverbial "last straw"?

There are probably a whole list of other possible motivations. My question is why more people dont look for them instead of being so quick to assign blame. "Oh, its not our fault; Arabs are just violent."

I dont have the answer here but it strikes me that despite the spread of American culture around the world, we seem quite clueless when it comes to actually understanding other peoples.