Writing in The National Review, Dinesh D’Souza argues that for all of our military superiority, the United States is nevertheless losing the intellectual war against Islamism. For D’Souza,
[t]his matters, because ultimately it is not enough to shut down the terrorist camps. We must also stop the ‘jihad factories,’ the mosques and educational institutions that are turning out tens of thousands of aspiring suicide bombers. We cannot kill all these people; we have to change their minds. So far, however, America is making few converts in the Muslim world.
The problem is that we have not effectively answered the strongest version of the Islamic critique of the United States. Usually Americans seek to defend their society by appealing to its shared principles. Thus, they say that America is a free society, or a prosperous society, or a diverse and pluralistic culture, or a nation that gives women the same rights as men. The most intelligent Islamic critics acknowledge all this, but they dismiss it as worthless triviality.
One of the leading theoreticians of Islamic fundamentalism is the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb. Qutb, who has been called “the brains behind bin Laden,” argues that the West is a society based on freedom while the Islamic world is based on virtue. In his books Qutb argues: Look at how badly freedom is often used in the West. Look at the pervasive materialism, triviality, vulgarity, and sexual promiscuity. Islamic societies may be poor, Qutb says, but we are trying to implement the will of God. Qutb argues that Islamic laws are based on divine law, and God’s law is necessarily higher than any human law. Virtue, Qutb insists, is ultimately a higher principle than freedom.
The Islamic critique as exemplified by Qutb is quite similar to the critique that the classical philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, made of freedom. The classical thinkers would have agreed with Qutb that virtue, not freedom, is the ultimate goal of a good society. And in saying this they would be quite right. How, then, can the Islamic argument against America be answered on its own terms?
Let us concede at the outset that, in a free society, freedom will frequently be used badly. The Islamic critics have a point when they deplore our high crime rates and illegitimacy rates, and the triviality and vulgarity of our popular culture. Freedom, by definition, includes freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. Thus we should not be surprised that there is a considerable amount of vice, licentiousness, and vulgarity in a free society. Given the warped timber of humanity, freedom becomes a forum for the expression of human flaws and weaknesses.
But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives deserve our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option.
[…] By contrast, the authoritarian society that Islamic fundamentalists advocate undermines the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in free societies, it is almost nonexistent in Islamic societies because coerced virtues are not virtues at all. Consider the woman who is required to wear a veil. There is no modesty in this, because the woman is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue, it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue.
(…You listening, PC-warriors?)
[…] This is the argument that Americans should make to people in the Islamic world. It is a mistake to presume that Muslims would be unreceptive to it. Islamic, which has common roots with Judaism and Christianity, respects the autonomy of the individual soul. Salvation, for Muslims no less than for Jews and Christians, is based on the soul choosing freely to follow God. Thus we can make the case to Muslims that freedom is not simply a secular invention; rather, freedom is a gift from God. And because freedom is the necessary precondition for virtue, we can feel confident in asserting that our free society is not simply richer, more varied, and more tolerant: It is also morally superior to the fundamentalists’ version of Islamic society.
Interesting. Now quick, somebody dig up ol’ Eisenhower. Looks like we’re gonna need that phrase for the Pledge, after all.
Either that, or about 10 billion copies of Paradise Lost…
In a word, bullshit. Virtue by means of coercion is not virtue but mere survival instinct. It doesn’t matter which book of religion they’re thumping, they’re still trying to claim special powers for supernatural entities to whih my reply will always be FOAD.
D’Souza thinks we’re too free and has made that clear for years. Theocracy doesn’t bother him so long as it’s the right theocracy.
And as a matter of fact, yes, we can kill them. It’s called war.
We will certainly fail if we try to fight the Islamists on their own ground in that manner. It is impossible for us to fight them “virtue to virtue” because we and they do not, in general, have the same idea of what is virtuous. Persons like Mr. D’Souza don’t seem to realize that even their own idea of “virtue” is not stringent enough to get the notice of a fanatic who has already dismissed such basic notions as freedom and equality. As far as the Islamist fanatic is concerned, Mr. D’Souza is as decadent and depraved as any other Westerner.
Author Dinesh D’Souza is quite right in calling for intellectual responses to Qutb’s far-reaching and highly influential critique: “To counter this idea will require a full-bodied defense of freedom as understood in the West, as a gift from God and a necessary pre-condition for true virtue.”
There is a problem with that, however. To argue that freedom is a gift from God will require reference to God’s words, in some form or another. What form of God’s words should be used? The Jewish Torah? The Christian Testaments? The Vedas, perhaps? The only reference acceptable to Qutb’s disciples will be, of course, the Koran. Since they will probably reject any Koran-based critique of Qutb offered by a non-Muslim, it once again falls to the Muslims themselves to reform their own religion.
There is no rationally coherent defense of God, which is why a society based entirely on a chosen Book of God will always be incoherent. Freedom, or free will, is indeed a necessary pre-condition for virtue. Convincing the radical adherents of Islam–the very name of which demands submission to the will of Allah–that free will is a necessity strikes me as an impossible task.
The debate, therefore, ought not to be about “gifts from God,” but about the very viability of the god-idea as the foundation of a modern society. Can a state based on the premise that one’s individual spiritual life is most properly directed by external authorities be a just state? Is it ethical to demand that non-adherents observe religious law? Is the required public observance of religious law more important than private faith and conviction? All of these questions do not presume the existence of God or God’s authority. Instead, they are concerned with what constitutes a just and ethical society, and whether or not a theocracy can insure the just and ethical treatment of its citizens. The followers of Qutb and those who sympathize with them are not and will never be interested in what we in the West have to say about his ideas. We must engage those Muslims who are interested in the broader questions about the role of God in secular society. Those who deny the very viability of secular society will not listen to us.
By requiring that the intellectual defense of Western values be grounded in theistic belief, D’Souza dooms the effort from the start.