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Similarities: In both cases, people are offended that their religious sensibilities were hurt, and many of them want to lash out angrily against those who offended them. Some of them say that no one should have the right to offend them this way. Some of them try to find a way to retaliate against those who offended them.

Differences: In one case, a dozen people are murdered; in the other case, not.




What I mean is you're taking the smaller thing, the partial similarity in motivation, and making that the main thing. The biggest thing is the immense difference in terms of modality.

In the same way we don't equate people being shouted down in a government house debate with people being mown down in political violence, even though there is a superficial similarity in underlying reason.


I agree with you, and I thought that making the similarities and differences explicit would show that the differences are starker and more significant overall.


right, considering people were murdered we could say that the second case was a worse example of retaliation for feeling offended.

They were similar in type but different in outcome.




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