Desensitizing Muslim extremists

One way people with abnormal fears or sensitivities can overcome their problem is by gradually being exposed to more and more of whatever it is that causes the adverse reaction.  For example, someone with a fear of water/drowning could put their feet in a children’s wading pool and become comfortable with that before moving on to deeper and deeper water.  It appears some European newspapers are doing some desensitizing therapy of their own on the Muslim extremists that have difficulty with images of Muhammad:

Newspapers in France and Germany were accused of throwing oil on the fire on Wednesday after they reprinted controversial Danish caricatures of the prophet Muhammad that have sparked unrest in the Muslim world.

The Dutch are helping too:

Geert Wilders, the rightwing Dutch politician whose campaign against radical Islam led to death threats that forced him into hiding, on Wednesday published the controversial cartoons on his website, Dutch media reported.

The German editor had a particularly insightful question:

Roger Köppel, editor of Die Welt, defended his decision to publish the drawing alongside an editorial asking, “How much humour can Muhammad’s religion take?”

Of course all these contributions to the desensitization therapy could be interpreted as “turning on the asshole switch” (as Ry put it to me at lunch today) but the Muslim extremists shouldn’t think of it in that way. Never mind that for the therapy to work the person receiving the therapy has to want to change.  And that they need to stay mostly within their comfort zone as the stimulus is increased.  But as an enlightened people they should realize that all these people are just trying to help them overcome their problems and adapt to the differences from the usual protocol.

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