As hegemonic as it now seems, the moral peculiarity of these rhetorical positions is revealed immediately, and quite shockingly, if one tries to apply them to Christians or Jews as such. An application of this kind is forbidden in polite, metropolitan society; indeed, the ban defines polite metropolitan society, a space in which a person's enemy or friend status does not follow immediately from his or her status as a Christian or a Jew.

DEFINE: The highlight clarifies what 'polite metropolitan society' is defined by: a space where religious identity does not directly determine friend/enemy relations.

Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ Th…, loc. 712