The answer
my friend
is blowin’ in
the wind
The answer
is blowin’
in the
wind…
UPDATE: Reuters has adjusted the photo URLs. But now matter: begin at the innocuous first link and scroll through the slide show. There’re plenty of overtly violent and threatening photos to pore over—your favorites of which I invite you to plug into the above Dylan riff.
****
(h/t Allah; and of course, props to the State Department for kowtowing to this newest faux cultural outrage. Just the latest defeat in legitimate ways—pointed political speech by way of satire—to fight an ideology that cleverly insulates itself by declaring any outside critiques inauthentic and offensive, and so unworthy of consideration and deserving of banning altogether from the public sphere under penalty of physical threat, harm, and death. Of course, we should expect nothing less from professionally trained bureaucrats schooled on the very multiculturalist garbage that ensures we will continue to be blackmailed and “shamed” by those who know best how cynically to exploit western guilt, particularly its kneejerk concerns over “tolerance” for Otherness cultivated through years of logically incoherent leftist dogma being preached as progressive liberal orthodoxy from the linguistic charlatans who guard the Humanities battlements of own ivory towers.)
h/t to Robert Wikstroem
****
More, from the counterterror blog (h/t Tom Pechinski); and Allah also points to this unpredictable response from the left. On the other hand… (h/t outlawdog)
The original cartoons can be found here, along with a bonus pic of Usama as Jesus.
Which, once word of this gets out, I fear we will see Americans in the streets, guns raised, burning dates and figs and cedar furniture…
****
update: LGF has more on the State Dept story—condemnation of the cartoons now being attributed to three different SD sources.
So the concept of the death penalty for parking violations is no joke?
Personally, I don’t think they’re going to be taken seriously until we see giant puppets.
…and the State Dept caves to the mobs. A spokesman for the State dept. said that
“These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims,” State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. “We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.”
“We call for tolerance and respect for all communities for their religious beliefs and practices,” he added.”
Wonderful. Lets keep rewarding those freaks that get violent over a drawing.
This&That
link
Not-at-all predictable lefty reaction here.
Also, recall that Abu Hamza is on trial in Britain right now for instigating terrorism. Why aren’t these turds holding the “exterminate Europe” signs being arrested and charged with the same?
Reuters english is some bad!
Now, who really believes that the US State Department ever works on behalf of America?
I was totally incensed, ashamed, and embarrassed by having to look up all the “big words” you used in this post that I didn’t know. I have contacted the State Department and requested that they ask you to have more respect for ignorant rednecks that read your posts.
Now you’re scaring me …
The photos left me speechless. These people are insane right?
Now where do I go to get my PIE?
Note in the pics that the signs are all apparently written by the same hand. This is scarier than if this were a true spontaneous outburst. Someone evil is planning this uprising, and whatever follows is not going to be pretty.
Jeff: I guess I’m a little slow getting to the party, but isn’t it apparent that the “arab street” has adopted the post-modern, new left ideology of identity politics and victimology.
As you stated: “[A]n ideology that cleverly insulates itself by declaring any outside critiques inauthentic and offensive, and so unworthy of consideration, and deserving of banning altogether from the public sphere.”
I’d elaborate, but you’ve said it better, often. What’s disturbing is all the handwringing by the West in response to this very tired outcry by Muslims. Whoda thunk that the jihadists and the Islamofascists don’t take criticism well?!?!
As The New Criterion’s Stefan Beck put it, “all I can say about it is, for being bent on exterminating the Jews and establishing a global Muslim caliphate, these guys sure are sensitive.”
That folks on the left, like the Blogcritics post, side with the Islamofascists, and criticize the exercise of free speech by cartoonists and newspapers, is proof again that the left is on the wrong side of history.
So is the US Department of State. TW-Actually, as in the Department of State actaully likes jihadis.
I’ll ask the same question I asked at Sondra’s and Gail’s: Are all of those people “Islamic Fundamentalists,” or “Radical Islamists,” or a “Small Minority of People Who Have Hijacked a Great Religion?” Just askin’.
I’m gonna go with “oversensitive whackjobs,” Craig.
Let me get this straight.
Some offensive (to muslims) but innocuous cartoons provoke demonstrations with threats of violence by muslim fanatics and the State Department in essence sides with those who would kill in the name of religious intolerance. Additionally, an editor who decides to publish the cartoons is fired, in deference to the offense and outrage to muslims.
Yet when a crucifix, which is sacred to Christians is immersed in urine and displayed in a major art museum, it is called art. While the ‘religious fanatics’ who protest it by advocating a boycott of the museum, but never make the same threats of violence as the muslims are characterized by the media as dangerous fanatics. The media circle the wagons around the defence free speech and freedom of expression in a brave display of defiance to so called religious intolerance.
Gee, no double standard or cowardice there.
I think if anything the recent events surrounding the reactions to the cartoons combined with the treatise J Goldstein offers on Identity Politics, only serves to strengthen the argument I have made for incorporating calls for Islamic Reformation as an adjunct to pan-liberalism.
highlighting the major advantages:
1) derangement: Introducing Islamic Reformation into the current global debate serves to counter the current monopoly that the Islamo-fascist enjoy in the global media. Rumsfeld acknowledged the enemies efficiencies with this tactic in his recent speech to the National Press Club:
Paraphrasing:
[ Every morning the enemy holds a meeting where they discuss ways to control and utilize the world media to their advantage…think about that.]
It is my assertion that if the Administration was to initiate a debate about the obvious necessities for an Islamic Reformation an imbalance would result, disrupting the propaganda machine of the enemy. Simply stated: This would be the military equivalent of dropping a daisy cutter on the home offices of Aljazeera.
(illustration) Every 30 minute segment on Aljazeera et al. devoted to discussing the merits of Islamic Reformation is 30 minutes they are less likely to effectively promote the war-mongering, Imperialistic ,Hegemonic anti-American agenda.
Imams in the muslim community , foreign and domestic, would also take the time away from their scripted propaganda and make clear (in writing no less) where they stand on issues of intolerance and free-speech ect. Bringing me to my next 2 points.
2) western-unification: While it is true that many democratized western countries have strong disagreement with America’s prosecution of the War on Terror (Iraq) , Various connections to tolerance, free speech and human rights are often over looked and under utilized. The call for Islamic Reformation can present new life to many European Countries in relation to supporting the over arching goals of pan-liberalism. More support and less obstruction from Europe would be a welcome site.
3)domestic clarity: The utilization of the typical leftist buzz words, ie. free speech,tolerance,human rights,freedom of expression ect. , makes it increasingly difficult for the domestic political left to not support some aspects of the Administrations current foreign policy.The more the domestic political left is compromised into supporting these policies they are simultaneously undermining their positions on the efficacy of a “patch work” or “quilted” American Society, as Goldstein has masterfully expounded upon in Identity Politics.
Bringing me to this final point.
4) distillation : Goldstein has articulated , successfully IMO, the fundamental flaws of the liberal position providing a base or backbone , philosophic in nature, to help navigate the current and future political discourse. Recognition of the existence of Identity Politics is an important step, but it is not practical to assume that it will advance on its own merits. A distillation is needed to promote inertia. I assert that calling for a discussion on the merits of such issues like Islamic Reformation is an excellent example of how to achieve the inertia needed to create a “critical mass” moment within the domestic political debate.
In summation I would like to emphasize that introducing Islamic Reformation as an issue to be debated in adjunct with current foreign policy is the closest thing to a “magic bullet” in the war on terror, de-basing the liberal left,and furthering the conservative movement.
Caving in to political correctness just encourages the assholes. Fuck ‘em.
From the FT article on the boycott:
Legos, dang,
now where will they unload all those “pali-bomb safehouse kits”. Those sales were exploding!
cow (kou)
tr.v. cowed, cow·ing, cows
To frighten with threats or a show of force. See
==========================
kowtow (kou-tou, koutou)
intr.v. kow·towed, kow·tow·ing, kow·tows
1. To kneel and touch the forehead to the ground in expression of deep respect, worship, or submission, as formerly done in China.
2. To show servile deference.
[From Chinese (Mandarin) kòu tóu, a kowtow: kòu, to knock + tóu, head.]
Three different outlets reported the money quote was uttered by 3 different State Dept. folks.
href=”http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=19076_State_Department_Criticism_of_Cartoons_-_a_Hoax&only” target=”_blank”link>
I’ve got no problem with what the State Department said.
The best lesson we can spread about the free press in the free world is that the government does not have to approve of what the press publishes. The Government is not the press, and the press is not the government. Our government complains about what our press says about this country as well. Witness the soldier cartoon last week, or the faulty koran-flushing story. If our government complains about how the press treated muslims in this instance (disrespectfully, and I agree), that is fair.
The Press is free to stand up for itself, and I believe is correct in doing so.
The state department should be calling for tolerance and condemn provocation. The Press should be following Danish(etc) law and not muslim law and shouldn’t back down to pressure. The ability of the government and the press to disagree is a feature, not bug.
Robert Schwartz —
cowed
adj : frightened into submission or compliance [syn: browbeaten, bullied, hangdog, intimidated]
got mixed up with
kowtowed
as a part of speech; sorry, but I was in a rush. If you’d like, you can set up a protein wisdom offshoot blog that is dedicated to publicly pointing out my errors. At least that way, I wouldn’t be paying for it. And you wouldn’t be hurting my feelings.
Alternately, you could email me if you spot an error.
Over at Kos, the first 75 or so comments are dedicated to the first commenter’s comment being simply the word “Frist”….and what was or was not proper about that.
Found a few folks who were talking rationally about this issue up until the thread got peppered with comments like this…
I’m getting very nervous about all this…
But at the same time, it’s almost-but-not-quite amusing to watch some of those who trumpet Free Speech!! as THE nonnegotiable value and Crushing Of Dissent!! as THE typical Bush administration response to same, flat-out chicken out once they realize that a principled stand might be a target on their backs. Has anybody heard the immortal, if un-definitively sourced, “defend to the death your right to say it” quote yet? Because isn’t that what the Kos Kidz ought to be saying? Or is multi-culti THE nonnegotiable value, and free speech only an adjunct when convenient? Do they really fool themselves into believing they can inoculate themselves against the repercussions of being Western and liberal, in either the classical or the postmodern sense, by transparent dhimmitude?
As I read it somewhere a good year ago or so, “The fact that we’ll let you argue on our behalf might mean that we’ll kill you last.” Or words to that effect.
TW: And suddenly it was time to go to bed.
None of this surprises me in the least.
Condoleezza Rice is virtually the only person currently onstaff at the State Department who wasn’t hired by Bill Clitlick himself – and we all know what HE thinks of those cartoons, as he was kind enough to share.
I know Foggy Bottom has a habit of speaking for themselves, rather than the White House (you know, that Neocon cabal that’s hijacked Foreign Policy), but until someone from the Bush Administration come out and corrects them, I am going to have to believe that the pathetic public prostration was approved.
Here’s my beef: there was absolutely no reason to for the US State Department get involved in Mohammed cartoon dispute in the first place. It had absolutely nothing to do with the US, or US foreign policy! They should have just kept their damned obsequious “Diplomat” mouths shut!
Jake, I’m afraid I will have to kill you for blasphemy against cunnilingus: associating it with our last President was distinctly uncool. Now you must die.
Is that what I did?
Wait, let me read it again…
…
Too right, Spiny Norman – what were they, jealous of the spotlight or something?
Zarathustra, you introduced this Islamic Reformation idea elsewhere, and I meant to ask you more. I think the idea itself is, of course, unassailable – if there was ever a religion more in need of reform, it’s gotta be modern Islam. (OK, maybe the Shakers could’ve benefited.) But how do you suggest the West introduce it?
TW: Hope spring eternal, but I fear le deluge…
I agree with the SD’s position. Has it occurred to all you hotheads that this whole issue is contrived, and the fundamentalists are basically just running you suckers? this is what they want, the war of civilizations. they got a lot of mileage out the qu’ran flushing story story, they’ve added even more offfensive fake cartoons to the original fourteen, the cartoons were originally run in september.
i’m sick to death of you calling muslims ignorant and intolerant when they’re different.
why can’t we even be a little bit smart about this? where’s our counter-propaganda? you don’t change someones mind by calling them an idiot.
and zara, drop the great white bwana schtick, ‘kay? you know nothing about Islam.
your plan is laughable.
and i know that by saying this, i’ll be labelled as a multi-culti.
so be it.
from where i sit, the fundamentalists are playin’ all you tools like a ten pound lake trout on 20 pound test.
the media, different governments, the SD, those low, silly, ignorant fundamentalists that you are all so superior to are kicking your asses in the meme wars.
AND, if we don’t get a little smarter about this, something real bad is going to happen. Allow me to quote Zora (the snake-handler skin-job with the kick-ass boots) from one of my all time favorite movies, Blade Runner,
zara, here’s one example:
instead of comandeering al-Jazeerah to show your reformation monologues (don’t you see how easily that could be turned against us? ditto your ideas about the imams?) use Islam. have quranic recitations and quranic scholars discussing the good, tolerant things the Qu’ran says. even arguing!
Religion is the most powerful weapon possible in the meme wars. Look how powerful it is in this country, with that moronic ID psuedo-science and the frickin’ president himself declaring war on biotech!
Condemnation is nothing new when someone calls for reformation, ask Luther.(both of them). What has escaped you is the subtle success with which you have actually supported my position. If in fact what you say is true and the Imams (specifically), with the muslim community as a whole , reject these calls for Reformation a) they are going to take up a lot of time in doing so and b) It draws the lines very distinctly and quite nicely in determining who in fact is the enemy.
Either way they lose the argument, lose the political left ,and the war goes check mate.
I think also you have a basic misunderstanding of what I am advocating. We are not making the rules of a reformation but setting the parameters. Using examples like this recent violent reaction to the editorial cartoons that have groups calling for beheadings and burning embassies. We draw the line at murdering people because they reject your religion and condemn your prophet, Islam can come up with the language of explanation. Simply stated: we are not changing the religion, we are simply calling for change.
If your position is that we should make exceptions and accommodations (appeasement) , establish separate rules for different groups , I reject that supporting Goldstein’s position of Identity Politics and its all too real ramifications.
Frankly , the only thing I can see that you have argued successfully here is that you are a multi-culturalist.
I think it just comes down to basic cowardice. Condi Rice says we’re going to start posting more diplomats to places where these bad boys live. So career diplomats reflexively “make nice” because these boys have shown that they chop heads or kidnap or murder diplomats. Which is bad for a career.
What percentage of the Foreign Office is converting to the religion of peace now? Just asking.
‘zactly.
Islam must reform from within.
your approach is external, unsubtle and basically clueless.
what i actually am is a scientist.
the west cannot impose reform from without except by conquest and conversion at sword point. do we have the balls for that?
cite, Boyer-Religion Explained, Sperber-Evolution of Culture, Tomasello-the Cultural Origins of Human Cognition.
And i am not multi-culti.
Steve Sailor is one of my personal idols–i believe in his idea, that citizenry should always trump ethnicity. he says it should trump race also.
Look, zara, in the meme wars, religion is the nuke option. The fundamentalists are so ahead of the game where they can use religion.
i just want our propaganda to be subversive, and turn their own weapon against them, by opportunistically exploiting the Qu’ran, to serve the purpose of good, not evil.
Obviously I have failed to express myself clearly because this is exactly what I’m promoting.
Maybe you don’t realize that you are calling for an introspection of Islam , perhaps the use of the term “Reformation” is radioactive to you.
My understanding is that a reformation comes from within and it would fundamentally be driven and argued by and for muslims. Perhaps its semantics and the limitations of language that prevents a better understanding.
Although there is no misunderstanding that you have called me ignorant about Islam,which I find rather presumptuous.
Nishi, this is exactly why I’m getting nervous. I don’t know whether there’s a unifying authority behind the Muslim reaction to the Danish cartoons etc., but certainly there’s at least a cultural meme out there, as you say, of great power, and it affects not just their side but ours. It’s a giant game of chicken, and they have deeply-held religious faith going for them – one of the all-time great motivators for people to lay down their lives – while all we have is a secular construct that’s at the center of our societal “religion”: the right of a private press to publish what it wants, of a private citizen to speak his views freely. We can consider this construct worth dying for – many have – but it’s not as compelling as faith.
Your meme-war suggestion: how is it so different from Zarathustra’s? S/he says, “Call for reform”; you say, “Use the Qu’ran against them.” In both cases we have a serious credibility problem, don’t we? Or do we have such a firm ally in the Muslim world that they’d be willing to be our cat’s-paw?
So. Here we all are, posting Danish cartoons and buying Danish products, when to us it’s still a philosophical flipping of the bird rather than the full-on incitement to violence that the other side will (deliberately) take it as. I’m committed to these freedoms – but this is scary brinksmanship. I’m ashamed of my relief that nobody reads my blog.
Down with the theocrats, up with liberalism.
This type of hand ringing is exactly why America has NOT won a War since WWII.
It’s our obligation as a nation that believes all humans are endowed by their creator with life , liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that mandates we give them the opportunity to surrender.
I would consider Reformation as an act of surrender, just like I’m sure many radicals would consider it blasphemous and punishable by death. It’s their decision but our responsibility.
America can be an extremely brutal country when pushed to the brink, they mistake the media as accurately reflecting the whole of America. Immune to the fact that once given the real opportunity to surrender or reform and rejecting that opportunity and drawing the ultimate line in the sand that America will absolve itself to administering punishment exponentially greater than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I understand that many will find this alarming and even more are frightened at accepting responsibility, but rest assured the lines will be drawn clearly and the case will be very strong and when it’s all over we will still be a country of laws and not men . Those that are still driven by guilt will have the ability to take their claims to court and litigate for the execution of the various leaders that acted in a way that resulted in securing the very liberty that they are so guilty about.
While this may be new to you personally, it is nothing special with respect to history.
So yea, Reformation don’t sound so bad now, hun?
Wakarimasu, Nishizono-chan. My worry, however, is that Islam may present a special case, particularly as regards mimetic warfare. To the extent that the Qu’ran is believed by muslims to be the ultimate revelation of God’s word (to borrow Benedict XVI’s point), how is it possible to tinker with that? Much of what we would seek to eliminate or modify, however subtly, seems to be that which muslim hardliners and moderates alike would argue to be off-limits – even, perhaps, integral to how the faith is presented and understood. How do we redefine that which its adherents insist is established, unassailable truth?
“We” don’t, “they” do. Let the muslims find the language that makes them understand the fundamental truth. After all, they are the ones facing extinction.
Our obligation is to give them the opportunity to find that language.
I wish you guys cared more about the free speech implications therein, and were less on the fact that they’re an intolerant mob, which they are.
Why?
Because free speech is the issue.
It’s funny you link to Malkin; I think in a way she’s on the side of the Muslims on the free speech issue.
domo arigato, RS-san
islamic scholars argue continuously about interpretations of the Qu’ran. i think my approach differs fundamentaly from Zara’s in that he seems to be imposing a reform from outside, a la colonialism. Cognitive psychology and cultural anthropology say that won’t work.
Arabic as a languange is infinitely subtle and varied. there is a huge range of interpretation. for example, gender of objects is not just determined by context, but by inflection. it is an oral tradition language.
the Qu’ran itself is subtle and textured and contradicts itself. there is vast room for interpretation.
gee, i sure must have misunderstood that statement.
i apolo Zara, i thought that your autocratic and unworkable approach signalled basic lack of understanding of Islam. please correct me.
And Zarathustra – I don’t think anyone here would disagree that your ideas on this matter are original, provocative, and worthy of serious consideration, but one matter leaves me worried: assuming that Islam could be open to Reformation, what unintended consequences might accompany this? If we take the Reformation of Christianity in Early Modern Europe as a template here, one thing that becomes very clear right away is the tremendous amount of bloodshed involved – civil war within the Holy Roman Empire, followed by comparable strife in other nations, culminating in the horror of the Thirty Years’ War.
Certainly it could be argued that the bloodletting from 1517-1648 could be attributed to other causes – power politics and dynastic rivalries among the emerging members of the Westphalian system, class strife and the decline of the aristocracy (France under the Valois, for example) – but the butcher’s bill for the Reformation era remains remarkably high. Why should we assume that any attempt to orchestrate an Islamic Reformation would be any different, indeed, would not be considerably worse?
The primary way in which they’re different is that they’re ignorant and intolerant. If they—particularly the ones living in the West—stopped acting ignorant and intolerant, then, damn, I bet we’d stop saying they were.
And I’m still freaking amazed that when a Christian opposes his tax money going to pay for the exhibition of a Madonna smeared with elephant shit, he’s called ignorant and intolerant, but when a Muslim stands in the street with a sign reading “prepare for the real holocaust”, well, he’s called different.
You can be all multi-culti if you want. I’m not gonna. I’ll call a barbarian a barbarian; I’ll demand the same standards of behavior from a Muslim as I do from a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, or Atheist.
Yeah to all that Robert.
i keep telling you, robert, we are scientists, not multiculturalists.
perhaps you should read this.
for the God Emperor of Dune reference, at least.
jamie, my approach differs from Zara’s in that he wants to impose a reformation, using force if neccessary. i think that won’t work, from what i’ve read and studied about cultural evolution.
i want to grow one from within.
the organic model rules.
My inclination here, Nishi, is to hope that you’re right – that the nature of Islam as a belief structure could be turned against it. The alternative may be leading the West to embracing Machiavelli’s cold wisdom, that one does not avoid a war, only postpone it to the benefit of one’s enemy. And if that’s the case…. it’s almost too horrific to contemplate.
If the stance is the same, where is the difference? You can call yourself a “scientist”—after all, lots of people do—but that doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is science.
Maybe we need a federally-funded Bene Gesserit initiative?
I read the linked post Nishi and disagreed with it.
It was demolished by this commenter here…
#6 from celebrim on February 4, 2006 06:43 PM
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Err.. I’d be LOL right now if that wasn’t just completely sad.
“In the course of the current controversy over the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s publication of cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed, some observers have either insinuated or explicitly claimed that the Muslim reaction to the cartoons constitutes evidence that Islam is not ready to join the modern world.”
Well, I’m not sure about Islam as a whole, but it is frankly dumb to claim that the visible vocal face of Islam that provokes these conversations is any in sense compatible with the modern world.
“Ironically enough, there is a non-trivial intersection between the set of people who hold the aforementioned view of Islam and the set of people who have loudly called for Ted Rall’s cartoons to be dropped from all newspapers.”
Maybe, but there is a fallacy of composition being created here. There is nothing incompatible about the two views mostly because the two reactions are not comparable to any significant degree. You can both think that Ted Rall’s cartoons should be dropped from all papers, and believe without any cognitive dissonance that the current Islamic reaction to the Danish cartoons is incompatible with the modern world. Likewise, believing that the world would be a better place if Ted Rall wasn’t getting cartoons published in newspapers, is not in any way the same as believing that Ted Rall should be dead – and belief in the former in no fashion implies belief in the latter. If in fact all that had happened in responce to the Danish cartoons was some protesting, calls for boycott of the paper, and a few death threats of the cartoonist/editor, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. The modern world would be compatible with such a responce, which is as you note not that different from what happens when anyone says anything some large group finds offensive.
But that isn’t what happened, and that’s why we are having this discussion. Maybe even more importantly, what happened in responce to the Danish cartoons was and is sadly predictable behavior.
It’s also worth noting that there is probably a large intersection between people in the West (or at least in America) who denounce the Danish cartoons as ‘hate speach’, but who defended even the public funding of things like ‘Piss Christ’ as essential to free speach. And frankly, I think there are more of those in our society – and these control more commanding memetic heights – than there are people that who really want to kill Ted Rall.
“…there is no better way to disabuse oneself of the notion that Muslims are somehow special in their capacity for savagery than to simply study history…”
STOP RIGHT THERE. In no fashion does one need to believe that Muslims are “somehow special in their capacity for savagery” in order to believe that the current behavior of the Islamic world is incompatible with the modern world, or even that a disproportionate number of acts of savagery in the modern global culture are coming out of Islamic nations. Your argument in the essay from here pretty much directly proceeds into a defamation of the character of people who don’t hold your position. You basically imply that anyone that doesn’t agree with you is a racist, and as far as I can tell you offer this as the sole proof of the validness of your position – full stop.
If that is your viewpoint, if accepting such a charge is a precondition of a debate with you, then its fundamentally impossible to have a discussion with you.
“Having taken a rather roundabout path, the point is this: while the behavior exhibited by many Muslims today is unacceptable by our civilized standards, the psychological substrate that governs these behaviors is fairly uniform across cultures.”
Agreed, but so what? The behaviors are currently even by your own admission quantitatively (and in my opinion qualitatively) different. Sure, of course every ethnic group is capable of barbarism, and every cultural group has been at some time in the past or present barbaric. But so what? We aren’t talking abstractly about what is possible or what happened then as opposed to now. We are talking about the here and now and we have to find a solution for the here and now, and such a solution won’t involve once again wallowing in Western cultural self-flaggelation for whatever emotional satisfaction that gives us.
The fundamental wishy-washiness of this whole essay is revealed when you get down to bottom of it and say:
“But casting this as Islam versus modernity works fundamentally against that goal by polarizing the field, in addition to missing the point –- it’s modernity versus the tribe, the open society versus the closed, and it’s a struggle of the human psyche more than anything else.”
You complain about polarizing the field, but that’s not really what bothers you because you in the very same sentence polarize the field into two groups. What bothers you is the labelling. What bothers you is that we can label a cultural group as being more ‘tribal’ than ‘modern’ (to use your axis) or more ‘open’ than ‘closed’. What fundamentally bothers you is that by doing so, we identify a situation in which we (in the sense of our cultural) are not the enemy and that fundamentally it is some other group which must change and not ourselves. IT’s that really bothers you, and its that you are still giving lingering resistance too even when its increasingly clear that in order to addess this situation honestly we must do so with a less abstract label. This is not a struggle of our ‘human psyche’, as if you or I could by going and being introspective and meditating alter myself to the point that the problem would be fixed – which you recognize in the very next sentense.
“We’re in a race to bring the rest of the world up to our level before the bin Ladens of the world can bring us back down to theirs.”
This is fundamentally incompatible with the conclusion, “We have met the enemy at it is us.” Of course we are capable of barbarism. Of course it is only our current culture which makes them different than us. But while all that is true, that is a battle for a different day. Today the battle is against the Bin Ladens of the world.
We have met the enemy, and he is not us. And to the extent that the enemy is us, it is precisely those people which refuse to recognize that there is some enemy out there other than us. Your whole essay relies on facile comparisons. Sure, there are still ‘barbarians’ in our culture, but they are fringe groups quantitatively and even qualitatively there is a huge difference in how the ‘barbarians’ in our culture behave. Sure, at one level Professional Wrestling and Roman Gladiatorial Combat are manifestations of the same psychological need, but leaving the comparison at that ignores the very real differences in the two cultural institutions. Recognizing that the two are similar may be a wonderful excercise for people who are (or think that they are) “rightmost intellectual tail of the bell curve”, but it really has very little to do with addressing the problem at hand. In fact, such a discussion in my opinion only feeds the worst instincts of the enemy and distracts us with endless facile moral equivications.
…condemnation of the cartoons now being attributed to three different SD sources.
Fire all three. Hard.
SB:second
that emotion
Nishizono Shinji ,
As I stated before, this might be a case were semantics is interfering with understanding. I am willing to suspend the term “initiate” for something more politically correct or more comfortable for you. However, if you are making the case that because we are western and that our government or media or citizenry are not authorized to even approach the subject of Islamic reformation, then I have no choice but to reject that if for no other reason than the exercise of free expression.
Unfortunately you seemed too willing to focus on relatively minor differences between your position and mine, also I must tell you that you are misconstruing my position repeatedly now. I am clear that Islam has to reform itself, while simultaneously stating that we can discuss,debate ,and even encourage it as well.
Reasonable people can come to reasonable disagreements and this might be where we part.
There is a certain nobility in being concerned when idealism confronts reality, when you let it paralyze you, defeat will surely follow. We should assume our responsibility.
A reminder:
“They call their policy “accommodation.” And they say if we’ll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple:
…
Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.
Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then —
…
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ‘round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” “There is a point beyond which they must not advance.”
…
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
delivered 27 October 1964, Los Angeles, CA
Ronald Reagan
Point taken, Zarathustra – but I’m not really arguing idealism here, but opportunity costs. Nishi’s approach seems to me to have considerable merit, as she approaches the issue from a pragmatic standpoint in terms of anthropological and psychological realities, but the same worry emerges there as well: given that a Reformation of Islam is desirable and good (and no one here, I think, would question that), can it be achieved without the risk of considerable bloodshed within and without the umma? I’m not saying that this has to be the outcome, just that in the past such epic change has almost always played out in just this fashion, not least in the case of the very event that provides a model for most current discussion of Reformation. No question that the alternative is perhaps worse – the realization of Samuel Huntingdon’s thesis is a real possibility.
RS,
I assume you are not looking for a prediction from me , because that would be ridiculous. Maybe it’s me but I can’t get the image out of my head of the founding fathers resisting a total reform of our way of governing on the grounds of adversity to risk.
Zarathustra – since Jeff is reintroducing this matter in his post up the page a bit, this thread may be expiring. (I’ve got to confess, I’m still naive enough in netiquette that it isn’t always clear to me the moment at which a thread reaches its expiration date – it seems to by some sort of mutual unspoken consent, but not always!) Once again, I’m very taken by the cogency and orginality of what you’re saying, although in terms of means and methods I’m more convinced by Nishizono-chan’s ideas. My only point, and it’s a minor one at that, is not about the potential risk, but the need to be conscious of that risk, even to quantify it as best we can before undertaking such a project as you’re proposing. Your argument, if I’m reading you right, is that we must be brave enough to confront the risks Reformation of Islam would involve – that, certainly I would agree with, and I doubt others would hesitate to do so either. I just argue that everyone has to be on the same sheet of music regarding the pitfalls, both anticipated and unplanned, of re-engineering Islam on what would be a near-global scale. When the Founders pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor,” they did so with no illusions and no misunderstanding what that entailed for them and all who sided with them should they fail.
Zara’ and Nishi’, let me make clear that I see the difference in your approaches; I just mistook your risk-tolerance, I think, or something. Zara’, you’re calling for a kind of hudna, as I’ve heard the term defined recently – an Islamic truce-offer, which (connotatively) may be given in such terms that the party to whom it’s offered may have no choice but to refuse it. So it’s a fake truce that’s in reality an overture to war. Or, at least, you’re willing to have it be taken that way – this is how I interpret your statement that reformation would be “their decision but our responsibility.” It’s a sort of “Reform or else!” ultimatum, though it might be couched in gentler language and with willingness to help them on that path if they were to choose it.
Nishi’, you appear to be talking about, at its ultimate realization, a Soviet-Union-style co-opting of our enemies’ language, culture, and icons.
I can now see that, Zara’, if you’re as willing to take this conflict to its potential logical extreme – unequivocal world war – as you appear to be, you have (IMHO) the greater claim to credibility, because it doesn’t matter to your formulation whether it actually succeeds or not – the decision to reform, or to expel or marginalize radical elements, either will or will not come from within Islam; all we’ll do is respond.
Nishi’, you on the other hand require that the West, or perhaps more immediately the United States, get up to speed super-fast on Islam and engage our enemies on their own cultural ground, so to speak. I still wonder how we, the West, could expect any measure of success – that is, could expect any but the most liberal elements in Islam to listen to us no matter how knowledgeable our spokespeople are, which is why I asked about a cat’s-paw in the Islamic world in my previous comment. This cartoon thing puts us even more squarely at odds with the people whose attention we’d have to get and hold in order for your plan to work – that’s why I’m nervous. Twelve Danish cartoons might be the point of no return.
But let me add that, nervous or not, and even if the “wrong people” were to read my blog, I’m still on the side of the cartoons; being scared isn’t either a sin or a sign that I’d surrender. If I didn’t feel this way, I wouldn’t have written a word about it, I wouldn’t have put the “Buy Danish” banner up, I wouldn’t be posting under the email address I am. Little enough worth standing up for in my life: my kids, my husband, and my principles; that’s about it.
In previewing my comment, I see that I’m cross-posting with RS and that we’re completely opposite on who has the better chance of success. Huh. Figures.
Jamie ,
I would only add the following to you assessment:
Here lies the main problem with the multicultural approach, It is so consumed with every single detail at the expense of devaluing the broad stokes.
broad-stroke: Muslims need to resolve and make clear where they stand when faced with the reality that not only do people not believe in Islam , but many people are going to look at Islam and everything attached to it with ridicule, and this will have public manifestations. Is this a justifiable reason to break the law, commit violence up to and not excluding murder of people and their families and promoting wiping their names from the history books. It doesn’t take a millennium to resolve this issue.
It should not matter who “initiates “ such a discussion, the SD, Chinese, Russians , MSNBC, Aljeezar, or some existentialist Jeff’s blog. It doesn’t matter. Discus it and get back to us.
If they accept these fundamental facts about liberty and individual freedoms and actively work to promote and inculcate the population, even though (yes) this really sucks but hey fair is fair, then I’m willing to accept that in good faith and have no problem postponing the apocalypse while the multiculturalists work on all the fine points of whether a Dhimmi is good or bad or even relevant.
Completing the thought:
If they are unable to resolve this fundamental issue why would we waste on a multicultural approach, it only serves to by them time to increase our risk potential, ie. WMD.
If the roles were reversed I would fully expect them to make us decide whether or not we accept the vision they have for non believers within an Islamic society.
More:
I don’t see the big drama about addressing this issue head-on, after all they are used to making these types of decisions. (ENTER) OBL and his elk, what were they thinking when they decided to let these mass murdering fascist loose on the world with no serious legal checks much less discrediting there philosophic views,in essence they are the ones responsible for marginalizing the radicals. Exactly what box did they think they were working with?
If they have the impression that we are going to be intimidated with violence into surrendering our freedom , they should have focused on France.
My typos are too numerous to count, I am going to bed.
So he’s off goats?
tw: french…
His knees are going bad. With elk, he doesn’t need to bend as much.