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Islamophobia- the liberalism of fools?

  
  

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STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:56 / 13.02.06
From Ken MacLeod's blog, The Early Days Of A Better Nation-

Anti-semitism, said Bebel and Engels, is the socialism of fools. The rage of the small property holder - the peasant, the artisan, the stall-keeper - against his inexorable ruin by the competition of bigger capital is given a face and a race to hate: a physical particularity that stands in thought for the abstractions of 'finance' and 'the market' and 'the banks'. 'The Jew' becomes the concrete embodiment (in fantasy) of exchange value. So goes the Marxist tale, anyway, though it has many more subtle twists than that.

Is there another hatred that might be called 'the liberalism of fools'? The progressivism of fools? The libertarianism of fools? If anti-semitism is, in an important aspect, a rage against the machine, against progress, is there an opposite rage: a rage against reaction, a fury at the recalcitrance of the concrete and the stubbornness of tradition? A rage against what is sacred and refuses to be profaned, against what is solid and doesn't melt into air, against ways of life that resist commodification, against use-value that refuses to become exchange-value? And might that rage too need a fantasy object?

...

One wonders what new lens might focus that rage now. Is there some religion or people that has come to represent all that is backward in the world, and in need of a sound and salutary thrashing from the forces of progress? Orthodoxy, perhaps? Zoroastrianism? Tibetan Buddhism? Hinduism? None of them seem to quite fit the bill. There must be one out there somewhere. Because the rage still burns.

He certainly makes a good case for Islamophobia having replaced anti-Catholicism as the "liberalism of fools", but what do you think?

And leading on from this, if there is indeed a fantasy object, and it ISN'T Islam, what is it? If there isn't one, why not?

I'd say he (or rather Engels!) has a damn good point about the reasons for the strength of anti-Semitism... I'm still mulling over whether the same logic can be applied. Instinctively I'm drawn to "yes", but I'm still thinking it through, and would like to hear other Barbeloids' responses to the piece.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
11:27 / 13.02.06
At first reading it certainly seems to hold some water. Is this about the Fundamental Attribution Error trap? In that someone may well have these basically progressive ideas about religion, race, gender, and sexuality; but then they're hamstrung by the fact that it's so much easier to criticize a foreign body than our own, to the point where in some discourses this is seen as natural?
 
 
grant
19:30 / 13.02.06
Anecdotal, but I've noticed the outspoken, raving Democrats in my office are equally loud decrying the scoundrels in Washington and "those barbarians" rioting in the wake of the Prophet cartoons. I've also noticed a parallel (or complementary) trend in the centrist Democrat web folks... the hawkish current informing things like Talking Points Memo or Bull Moose Blog is definitely prone to use terms like "islamofascism" without elaboration or much thought. They're like the pinko commies of yore, only ethnic, too!
 
 
Tryphena Absent
23:11 / 13.02.06
Is Islamophobia used by progressives in the same way as anti-Semitism is by reactionaries?


Firstly I want to say that I think there's a huge misunderstanding of Islam because of the way that the press and sections of the community present it to people who know nothing about it. People could be forgiven for thinking, from the outside, that you're not a muslim if you don't practice in a certain way but it's rather like a hasidic jew saying a liberal or progressive isn't jewish. This happens in all religions but it's never the reality of them. I'm really clarifying this for myself but I think it's important because it's easy to forget.

Now islamophobia is easily propogated when we fail to separate fundamentalism and the simple naming of a group as has been happening over the last 5 or 6 years. Part of the problem with the cultural aftermath of the anti-Iraq war movement was that because so many liberals were in line with the thoughts of a large number of muslims, extreme or not, and because the extremer, committed side became so visible it became easy to conflate all muslims together rather than recognising it as a varied religion of people who treated it in different ways.

I think part of the problem for the left is religious governance. When people talk about hitting others with progress aren't they, to an extent, talking about the separation of church and state? Islam is perceived as a religion attempting to gain control of governance as a direct result of the recent history of countries like Afghanistan and Iran.

I don't know, I'm jotting my thoughts down here and at the moment they're not making too much sense. I'd welcome some help. My problem is always that I'm not so much Islamophobic as not in favour of religion and it tends to confuse these issues quite a lot.

against ways of life that resist commodification, against use-value that refuses to become exchange-value? And might that rage too need a fantasy object?

I'm not sure about this because I do think that the west has commodified Islam itself, made it into a commodification fantasy to an extent but I don't think the religion itself resists in the way that is being suggested. It seems to me that westernisation (back to the 90s) has been adopted in a specific way to suit the purposes of the Islamic world. The fight is different, it's about liberalism and its values versus religion at the core.

Sorry, I can't take this further because I need to think about what that last sentence means in the context of the religion, how religions withdraw from certain notions and the specifics of the zionist state in this context.

I do think this is very complicated and it's been treated with too many parallels, which is an easy way out a lot of the time. It's hit on something but perhaps not quite on the target.
 
 
Not in the Face
09:26 / 14.02.06
This article suggests reasons for such a line of thought - that one of the assumptions behind 'modern' secular states is that religion would invariably fade away. However the public commitment that many muslims have for Islam would appear to run counter to this idea and so be characterised as 'backward'. This certainly seems to have been part of the problem I encountered when talking about the cartoons with people - 'why are muslims making such a fuss, christians/jews/insert religous group, don't when images about their religion are posted, as if it was the lot of believers to shut up until they realised the error of their ways.

I think it goes beyond the issue of fundamentalism - one doesn't have to be fundamentalist for ones religous adherence to seem odd or bizarre within the west, particularly a religion developed within a different cultural framework. Rather it seems that much of the opposition to Islam stems from an unwillingness to accept that people would want to live within a western society and still publicly be identified with a religion.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:09 / 14.02.06
one doesn't have to be fundamentalist for ones religous adherence to seem odd or bizarre within the west... much of the opposition to Islam stems from an unwillingness to accept that people would want to live within a western society and still publicly be identified with a religion.

Some Catholics refrain from using contraceptives, a fact that many people find bizarre and that's a western religion that many people are publicly identiifed with so forgive me if I say that I don't agree with the specifics of what of you're saying. The idea of religion at odds with society I understand and the element of otherness but there are many muslims who aren't regarded as the other (in quite the same way. I'm trying to avoid notions of ethnicity because I think that's slightly different) because they're not immediately identifiable as muslims. I'm trying to get at the idea that there are grades of acceptance that we don't engage with because the awareness isn't there.

'why are muslims making such a fuss, christians/jews/insert religous group, don't when images about their religion are posted'

And the problem with this is that it does the same thing. When a group like Christian Voice makes a fuss about Jesus we see them as a wild element. That doesn't mean necessarily that the majority of Christians aren't a little offended, it's more likely that they're compromising. We don't refer to Christian Voice as "Christians" though or see them as entirely representative of the religion. Islam is generalised and that creates a far bigger response than the original reaction to the cartoon.
 
 
Not in the Face
08:38 / 15.02.06
Nina

As I seem to be agreeing with what you just said and thought I was saying it as well, I don't think I expressed myself terribly well.

My point about religous adherence extends to all religions within the 'progressivism of fools' referred to in the quoted article. As you say the issue of contraception for Catholics can equally seem bizarre within the context of a progressive framework where contraception is not only a sensible choice but a right. And I think its a good comparison - as Stoatie asks, has Islamophobia replaced anti-catholicism in this regard, as a fantasy object that represents everything a 'modern society' was supposed to leave behind?

We don't refer to Christian Voice as "Christians"

True but in this regard, we are a lot more familiar with the notion of diverse Protestant sects and so less likely to make a wider judgement based on the actions of just one. Conversly the Catholic Church has been historically seen in the UK as a single negative force in the same way that Islam is now being represented. References to Jesuits and the Inquisition in English literature and politics upto the 19thc are probably equivalent to current references to fundamentalists - using myths about one branch of the church not only to defame the entire body of believers but to demonstrate the rightness of ones own cause by comparison. Although I am also using a parallel here which as you say may confuse the real issue.

I'm trying to get at the idea that there are grades of acceptance that we don't engage with because the awareness isn't there.

I'll agree with you that there probably are but it seems that most of the gradation is lumped to the bottom end of the scale with the most benign atttitude of the majority being a ghettoisation of Islam rather than seeing it as an element within society. This attitude has assumed that religion will wilt away eventually as the 2nd and 3rd generations become incorporated into society - 'become like us'. That this isn't happening in the way that some people might wish is leading to the generalisations that Islam is a reactionary religion.

The fight is different, it's about liberalism and its values versus religion at the core.

This I think is true and part of the shock for liberals has been that they have assumed the argument to have been won.
 
 
ShadowSax
15:22 / 15.02.06
This is a great discussion.

I'd like to question one assumption that we seem to be operating on here. That being that western rage towards middle eastern reaction about the cartoons is directed at religion. It may be useful to consider that that rage is directed at a society. If we then connect middle eastern society to Islam, why are we doing that?

I guess I can be grouped into the gaggle of liberals who feel sort of disappointed slash angry about the reaction in the middle east to these cartoons. For one thing, we have to acknowledge that this reaction was specifically anticipated not by the newspaper (or not only by the newspaper) but also, and directly, by the Muslim clerics who brought the cartoons to the middle east, along with some others, thrown in for good measure. To the extent that the reaction was anticipated by those clerics, we can look at that reaction as something systemic, ingrained in that society/religion. But for myself, my "liberal rage" isnt directed at Islam, it's directed at middle eastern culture. Do we have to assume that rage at society equals rage at religion?

One more specific (tho still abstract) reason for the rage may also be that the liberal arm of western society is that which opposes the imperialistic, military capitalism of those in power right now, who are themselves seemingly aligned against middle eastern culture. So we might feel betrayed by the culture that we thought we had something in common with. Along the lines of "we'll support you because we support democratic freedoms but not if you're going to act like a bunch of crazy people."

If we consider this a social gap instead of a religious gap, then how do we reconcile the obvious religion connections? Who determined the religious aspect of it? Does it go as far back as the crusades or further? That western vs middle eastern is ALWAYS going to be christianity vs islam? Can we stop at the point at which middle eastern cultures seem to demand islamic governments? That the resistance efforts on the part of the middle eastern people themselves are more expressly religious than the western's capitalistic push? How much of the west's association with Israel is actually religious or ethnic and how much of it is more primarily political and economic?

I'm asking too many freaking questions, but thats all I have at this point. But somewhere I think we need to be able to criticize or at least analyze true cultural differences separate from religion. Are we allowed to acknowledge that the culture of the middle east is similar to western cultures many hundreds of years ago? Can we use the word "progression" to start to describe the "difference" between some cultures? Does the association of religion with those cultures make that kind of discussion taboo or dangerous? Should it?
 
 
bacon
17:31 / 15.02.06
i think the fact that these actions are being allowed to occur should be brought out, they're only running amok in the streets and attacking symbols of western culture such as embassies and KFCs because the authorities aren't dropping the hammer to stop them

i'm sure if the christian nutbags who had surrounded the hospice where terri schiavo was being allowed to die caught wind that the authorities would look the other way if they stormed the place they'd of turned the damned thing into a mirror image of the iranian students storming the american embassy in a second

ditto with the super orthodox israeli jews, if they were told they'd get away with rushing the noble sanctuary (or the dome of the rock or the temple mount or whatever the hell you want to call it) slaughtering every muslim who got in their way and tearing the place to pieces, they'd be up on top that wailing wall doing the jig and waiting for the red heffers and the arc to arrive

but the fact is, in both those instances the state would unleash the jack booted thugs and stomp everything back to civility, which doesn't happen in pakistan and palestine and wherever else, not sure if i managed to articulate my point
 
 
Tryphena Absent
18:47 / 15.02.06
If we consider this a social gap instead of a religious gap, then how do we reconcile the obvious religion connections?

That's partly what I'm trying to get at and I think Not in the Face is too. There's such a difficulty in reconciling religion and governance because the western liberal response to governing is to combine morality and practicality in a way that is far more difficult if religious law is also in place. This leads on to my "liberal rage" isnt directed at Islam, it's directed at middle eastern culture. Do we have to assume that rage at society equals rage at religion? The question that I suppose arises is are you considering the middle east as the same right across the board- there's marked difference between the middle eastern countries so what similarities and which particular countries do you actually feel rage towards?


they're only running amok in the streets and attacking symbols of western culture such as embassies and KFCs because the authorities aren't dropping the hammer to stop them

But people have been shot by the authorities and there have been other reactions as well.
Pakistan
Lebanon
Afghanistan

A timeline
 
 
ShadowSax
19:06 / 15.02.06
good point, even "middle east," is probably too broad.

i think what i feel is that there is something intrinsic in some societies that creates an environment in which torching buildings isnt an act reserved for revolt, but also used as a method of protest.

i guess it's possible that it's the authorities who prevented fundamentalist christians from going out en masse and torching movie theaters or the italian embassies when scorsese released "the last temptation of Christ". but i dont think so, i think other social factors played a part.

i guess my anger and disappointment is more towards social systems than towards governments or nations. i certainly dont claim that there is any western nation who's gotten it completely right, but i do also believe that there are some things that might be called "advances" in social and economic policies that help lead a society towards more civil behavior, and that these "advances" are more prevelent in western societies. i feel like, if we all give ourselves the chance as humanity, societies such as many of those in the middle east, in africa, in asia and central america and eastern europe, will naturally move away from some of the extreme public violence activities and human rights violations. so that, if we take away the niceties of phrasing, i would have to look at some societies as simply less advanced than others. i'm not claiming, again, that any society has gotten it right yet, and i'm also not claiming that there arent myriad reasons for these societies to be where they are, including racism, imbalance of power globally, capitalism, wars, shit, hell, etc.

i blame human weakness and the mob mentality and greedy hatemongers who take advantage of those things.

i think it's wrong to assign islam as the blame for this, because any religion can produce these things. i think this behavior is related more to the society than to the religion. so getting back to the question, i would have to say that people who let their perception of islam specifically become compromised by what's going on are wrong and are guilty of something similar to anti-semitism. if they let their perception of religion in general become compromised by this, then thats another thing, and probably something i'd support. God saves, religion kills.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
20:24 / 15.02.06
i think what i feel is that there is something intrinsic in some societies that creates an environment in which torching buildings isnt an act reserved for revolt, but also used as a method of protest.

and

i blame human weakness and the mob mentality and greedy hatemongers who take advantage of those things.

I'm interested in how you relate these statements to each other- are you saying that these societies are created by human weakness, greedy hatemongers and a mob mentality or that they provide a breeding ground for them?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
20:33 / 15.02.06
Why you define these actions as protest rather than revolt?
 
 
Simplist
21:04 / 15.02.06
He certainly makes a good case for Islamophobia having replaced anti-Catholicism as the "liberalism of fools", but what do you think?

This is a great discussion, but I feel compelled to point out that MacLeod didn't actually mention Islam or Islamophobia in the context you're implying. In fact his only mention of Islam was the following:

McCabe's enthusiasm for the grandeurs of classical Islam and the splendour of Moorish Spain was in part to compare and contrast them with what he considered - and documented - as the wretched record of Christianity. McCabe might be caustic about the later Caliphate, but his fiercest ire was reserved for Rome.

I'd personally argue that Islamophobia is specifically NOT a candidate for MacLeod's "liberalism of fools." At least here in the US, liberals much more commonly err in the other direction in regards to Islam, tending to excuse on cultural grounds excesses committed by Muslims while easily (and rightly) condemning similiar but less egregious behavior by, say, Southern Baptists. My impression from afar is that much the same is true East of the Atlantic -- MacLeod's exclusion of Islam from his short list of candidates would seem to confirm that impression (someone is sure to suggest this is a case of implication by conspicuous omission, but I don't think that reading really holds up).
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:19 / 15.02.06
This is a great discussion, but I feel compelled to point out that MacLeod didn't actually mention Islam or Islamophobia in the context you're implying.

No, but I think it was implied, particularly if you read some of his earlier posts about the Middle East.

and I thought Is there some religion or people that has come to represent all that is backward in the world, and in need of a sound and salutary thrashing from the forces of progress? Orthodoxy, perhaps? Zoroastrianism? Tibetan Buddhism? Hinduism? None of them seem to quite fit the bill. There must be one out there somewhere was a fairly obvious hint. I dunno, I could be reading him wrong.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:26 / 15.02.06
(Incidentally, and off-topic, going through his archives reminded me of this, which is a wonderfully angry, and compassionate piece of writing. Seriously, I started reading Early Days... for the science fiction stuff, but he's a wonderful political commentator. Probably what makes his SF so great, too).
 
 
ShadowSax
12:28 / 16.02.06
Why you define these actions as protest rather than revolt?

i may be picking up on the simplified messages from the media, but isnt the point that they are demonstrating their anger towards the danish people and western societies by attacking symbols (embassies, for instance) of those elements? if we were to call these riots revolts, who are they revolting against? the danes arent in charge of their governments or of their societies, certainly not to the direct degree that can justify behavior that (i would then say) pretends to be focused on the publication of these cartoons.

if we look at the anger as being anger towards the blasphemy, the sin of potraying a prophet in this manner (or any manner), the response would have to be defined as protest, because revolt implies power. i could see these riots described as revolts if the "reason" behind them was more general, these societies feeling that they are being controlled by western powers, but thats not how it's being portrayed, and the fact that the blasphemy had to be in part manufactured and as a whole delivered specifically to these countries by clerics themselves, i dont see the connection between the cause of the riots, the societies in which these are happening, and the riots themselves as something resembling a power that needs to be overthrown.
 
 
quixote
00:56 / 18.02.06
I'm confused by this thread. Islamophobics aren't liberals, not even foolish ones. Since I don't get the premise, I should probably shut up, but I won't (of course).

Discussions about Islamophobia, or Islamofascism, and the like, can miss an important point. What matters, between human beings, is whether someone is getting hurt or not. Being respectful of Islamic or other viewpoints is important because not hurting people is important. If one of those viewpoints insists on hurting human beings, it is not phobia or fascism to point that out.

Islam, and Middle Eastern cultures, have many and varied good points and have made huge contributions to the human story. The architecture of mosques is one of the most beautiful things in the world. Persian food, Ethiopian music, the mystical aspects of Islam, are all up there in the top 5%.

Socially, some of Islam and most of the Middle East is hanging on to a way of life that was said to be progressive in 1100, or 1000 or whenever it was. A lo-o-ong time ago is my point. It's bloody hopeless, and I do mean bloody. It is not fascism or phobia to point this out. It is simply true. If we call things by their right names, maybe it would be easier to distinguish those aspects of Islam and the Middle East that help rather than hurt. Maybe we'd actually have LESS Islamophobia.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:56 / 18.02.06
Actually, it isn't true. It's a convenient lie that allows you to construct a pseudohistorical narrative in which one culture (theirs) is "arrested", its development stopped at some point in the past, and another (ours) has continued on from that point. It's a perfectly natural impulse, but it's absolute cock, and it is fuelled by the sort of ignorance that graciously offers apparently two continents (Ethiopia is not in the Middle East, for future reference) a place at the top table for the bits of its culture we like to eat, listen to, read or or look at - that is, the stuff that serves as an enhancement to the lifestyle of people in the west who believe themselves to be cosmopolitan because they eat take-out and listen to world music. This narrative of progress and arrest is a very useful one, not least because it makes not only a right but a moral duty of bringing to societies all the good things that our mature culture has produced - liberal democracy, the secular state, cut-off jeans - but it also leads to a considerable risk of fallacy.

As a very obvious example, let's take a look at the President of Iran. You may notice that he does not wear a tie. To apply the logic of the progress/arrest narrative, this is because he either does not know what a tie is, or does not yet understand that politicians are supposed to wear them. Is this the case?
 
 
Not in the Face
11:12 / 18.02.06
I'm confused by this thread. Islamophobics aren't liberals, not even foolish ones. Since I don't get the premise, I should probably shut up, but I won't (of course).

Except MacLeod wasn't saying that Islamaphobia was a liberal idea or that liberals were fools - he was calling it the liberalism of fools, not foolish liberalism; where fools are presenting themselves as liberals to cover their basic foolishness.

As Haus says it is based around the idea that Islamic states have been living in a form of suspended animation, this idea being a product of the 19thc liberal view of history - that all history is essentially progress and that this is good and inevitable, and that non-progress (for whatever value of progress you hold) is bad and foolish.

Its not to say that there isn't a serious issue about how any set of religious laws fits in with the values of a secular, liberal state and what compromises people on both sides of the argument have to make.
 
 
Not in the Face
11:27 / 18.02.06
This leads on to my "liberal rage" isnt directed at Islam, it's directed at middle eastern culture. Do we have to assume that rage at society equals rage at religion?

I think its more a case that on the surface the two - middle eastern culture and Islam - are interchangeable to the casual observer because of obvious historical reasons that people in the middle east are predominately muslim, so people who dress like and look like they are from the area are assumed to be muslims.

I think that phrasing it as advanced vs not-advanced is falling to the same trap as outlined in the article. Is the issue the deeper one of how people within various states are able to safely express their views and live without fear of the government. The areas which have seen the most extreme reactions are characterised by instability and oppressive regimes. It seems to me that this is more likely to be the key to the violence than any religous fervour, which has been the way it has been characterised.
 
 
bacon
16:44 / 18.02.06
"Is the issue the deeper one of how people within various states are able to safely express their views and live without fear of the government. The areas which have seen the most extreme reactions are characterised by instability and oppressive regimes. It seems to me that this is more likely to be the key to the violence than any religous fervour, which has been the way it has been characterised."

i think the protests prove the citizens under these supposedly oppressive regimes enjoy greater amounts of freedom as far as their latitude in expressing their viewpoints through extreme behavior, they certainly enjoy a much greater amount of freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and freedom to start fires and freedom to ransack fast food establishments in asia (pakistan is not in the middle east) and africa (libya is not in the middle east) than we do in the western societies, and so any negative feelings one might experience watching the images or reading the accounts of these demonstrations can only be explained as jealousy, you're hating their freedom
 
 
Tryphena Absent
19:26 / 18.02.06
i think the protests prove the citizens under these supposedly oppressive regimes enjoy greater amounts of freedom as far as their latitude in expressing their viewpoints through extreme behavior, they certainly enjoy a much greater amount of freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and freedom to start fires and freedom to ransack fast food establishments in asia

In the UK if you're part of a violent crowd and you or someone around you throws a brick through a window or burns down a building you might get arrested or they might lock you in so that you're surrounded by Police. Hell someone might hit you but there's absolutely no danger that you're going to die when a member of the Police Force pulls a gun out and shoots randomly at the crowd. Potential death is not freedom and I for one am absolutely not jealous of the "freedom" to be shot at.

Not in The Face- that isn't my comment, it's ShadowSax's.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
23:45 / 18.02.06
I'm still working on a few things here, but I have some general responses:

i blame human weakness and the mob mentality and greedy hatemongers who take advantage of those things.

It could be noted that these are also the causus belli of the Iraq War.

My problem generally with the Marxist(?) interpretation of things like anti-Semitism is that it attempts to rationalize psychological artifacts which are inherantly irrational, so it needs a whole load of qualifiers and exceptions, and I don't see the point of a general rule that isn't general. Sometimes anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools, eg when there are no actual Jews present and one is using them in the way described. I mean, jeez, our fundamentalist US Government supports Israel! But sometimes hatred is based on experience. A person who is surrounded by Jews might have reasons to hate them that, objectively or subjectively, have little to do with capital. Likewise, terms like "Islam," "liberal," and "reactionary" have an uncertainty factor that I think prevents us from saying, "Liberals fear Islam because it is reactionary."

This is a digression of the wild-eyed conspiracist variety, but I'd also like to point out that, while the term "Islamofascist" is used ignorantly in many places these days, it had a legitimate and concrete meaning in pre-9/11 political science. Officers of the Nazi SS pursued a program during and after WWII of indoctrinating and training cells throughout the Middle East and North Africa, introducing a fascist strain to the perpetual Islamic "unrest", and the people recruited by the people recruited by the SS are active today. That is what is meant by "Islamofascist." The wild-eyed conspiracist part: Several of the upper-eschalon SS were brought stateside after the war to escape prosecution (fact), presumably because their expertise would help in the coming Cold War (supposition), and the CIA used the same methods in the Middle East to fight Russian influence (extended supposition). So a fascist axis can be imagined running through Saudi Arabia, Germany and Washington DC, in opposition to, and now finally victorious over, a Soviet axis in Ba'athist Iraq. Clearly the images of insane flagwaving mobs of bearded brown people scare the shit out of flagwaving fat white people who spend 20 hours a day sitting down, but I often wish I could remind people of these less compelling historical details.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
00:08 / 19.02.06
At least here in the US, liberals much more commonly err in the other direction in regards to Islam, tending to excuse on cultural grounds excesses committed by Muslims while easily (and rightly) condemning similiar but less egregious behavior by, say, Southern Baptists.

You're using "liberal" in an inaccurate way here. For the purposes of this discussion (correct me if I'm wrong, Stoat), "liberal" is a general label for beliefs which prioritize individual rights and priviledges. You're using it in a mutated form, belonging to FOX News and that ilk, which is a sort of plastic vilification that can be used to insinuate "socialist" or "intellectual" or "homosexual" or whatever. So, generally, these Southern Baptists, inasmuch as they are Americans and allow themselves to be governed by property laws and the like, are liberals and are "condoned" by liberals.
 
 
ShadowSax
14:06 / 20.02.06
haus: Actually, it isn't true. It's a convenient lie that allows you to construct a pseudohistorical narrative in which one culture (theirs) is "arrested", its development stopped at some point in the past, and another (ours) has continued on from that point. It's a perfectly natural impulse, but it's absolute cock, and it is fuelled by the sort of ignorance that graciously offers apparently two continents (Ethiopia is not in the Middle East, for future reference) a place at the top table for the bits of its culture we like to eat, listen to, read or or look at - that is, the stuff that serves as an enhancement to the lifestyle of people in the west who believe themselves to be cosmopolitan because they eat take-out and listen to world music. This narrative of progress and arrest is a very useful one, not least because it makes not only a right but a moral duty of bringing to societies all the good things that our mature culture has produced - liberal democracy, the secular state, cut-off jeans - but it also leads to a considerable risk of fallacy.



As a very obbious example, let's take a look at the President of Iran. You may notice that he does not wear a tie. To apply the logic of the progress/arrest narrative, this is because he either does not know what a tie is, or does not yet understand that politicians are supposed to wear them. Is this the case?

yes, that is definitely the case. wearing ties is a sure sign of progression. also cut-off jeans, too. i'd like to add to this list:

- homelessness
- bad singing of national anthems
- the "jennifer aniston" haircut
- that thing that kids do where they tie your shoelaces together
- hockey fights
- believing in the tooth fairy
- teaching creationism as science
- using "nigger" in popular songs
- asbestos
- instant messaging
- meth labs
- bad british dentistry
- paris hilton
- linear forum threads
- family television hour violence
- potholes

those are all things that all and only very advanced societies contain. if a society does not contain those things, it can be considered backwards.

i do appreciate being let in on the secret that ethiopia isnt in the middle east. on the same note, where exactly are the easter islands? i always get confused there, and the holiday is coming up, so i need to be particularly clear where i'm going to find my eggs.

Socially, some of Islam and most of the Middle East is hanging on to a way of life that was said to be progressive in 1100, or 1000 or whenever it was. A lo-o-ong time ago is my point. It's bloody hopeless, and I do mean bloody. It is not fascism or phobia to point this out. It is simply true. If we call things by their right names, maybe it would be easier to distinguish those aspects of Islam and the Middle East that help rather than hurt. Maybe we'd actually have LESS Islamophobia.

quixote, i agree with everything you said there. well put.

i think the protests prove the citizens under these supposedly oppressive regimes enjoy greater amounts of freedom as far as their latitude in expressing their viewpoints through extreme behavior, they certainly enjoy a much greater amount of freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and freedom to start fires and freedom to ransack fast food establishments in asia

what's wrong with that statement is that these societies are not free to express themselves, they are free to express views consistent with the policies and beliefs of the state. if a large group of protesters decided to try to burn down a national mosque, they would be quickly dealt with. it's not right to say that these are free protests.

dreams in the stoat house: i think what i feel is that there is something intrinsic in some societies that creates an environment in which torching buildings isnt an act reserved for revolt, but also used as a method of protest.



and



i blame human weakness and the mob mentality and greedy hatemongers who take advantage of those things.



I'm interested in how you relate these statements to each other- are you saying that these societies are created by human weakness, greedy hatemongers and a mob mentality or that they provide a breeding ground for them?

sure, happy to. human weakness and the mob mentality, when considered within societies that lack freedom of expression, freedom of the press, etc (leading to broader exposure to different viewpoints, information), that lack progressive education, that lack widely accessible running water and electricity and access to information, that lack modern health care, equality of diverse ethnicities, gender equality, an open and transparent judicial system, are easily taken advantage of and violent outbursts that risk the lives of innocent people in order to make a point about something that has no real bearing on the health and humanity of the people of that society.

human weakness, the mob mentality and greedy hatemongers exist in all societies. these are natural human traits, disgusting ones at that. we have a long way to go, as the human race, to deal with our darker sides in a way that lends itself to as much fairness and peace that we can muster. i certainly hope that 1000 years from now our generations are viewed as backwards and hopelessly ignorant, and that we dont blow ourselves up or drown ourselves in melting ice water before that.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:47 / 20.02.06
that lack modern health care, equality of diverse ethnicities, gender equality, an open and transparent judicial system

Do you want to tell him, or shall I?
 
 
Not in the Face
14:59 / 20.02.06
think the protests prove the citizens under these supposedly oppressive regimes enjoy greater amounts of freedom as far as their latitude in expressing their viewpoints

Or it could be that the severe restrictions for peaceful and constructive protest under which they live mean that their only meaningful form of expression is violent, mass protest. Also thanks for the geographical heads-up - my point is that Islam and Middle Eastern culture are so deeply linked that their surface features have become interchangeable to the casual observer even in countries not culturally or ethnically arabic.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:59 / 20.02.06
So, to return:

Socially, some of Islam and most of the Middle East is hanging on to a way of life that was said to be progressive in 1100, or 1000 or whenever it was.

Shadowsax believes that this is well-put, but I'd like to believe that some have a slightly higher standard of evidence. Quixote shows from his statement that he does not actually know what was considered progressive in 1100, or 1000, and therefore we might doubt that he is entirely correct in placing some of Islam and most of the Middle East in that timeslot. We can further question, as Not in the Face has, the idea that non-western societies can be identified as comparable to western societies, but having developed at a slower rate or having got stuck in an earlier period. We may note that this is almost exactly the reasoning that fuelled the idea of the white man's burden - that the slower societies have to be helped up to the ideal status of Western European society.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
16:49 / 20.02.06
Do you want to tell him, or shall I?

I don't think he's saying that the "West" is so perfect, but that we've got more of that stuff than they do. However, again, this doesn't consider certain causes and effects of history; we could also find equally "backward" places where people are less vulnerable to social chaos, as well as "frontward" places where they are, and we might wonder why people riot in the Middle East and Los Angeles and Detroit, but not so much in, I dunno, the Philippines or Venezuela.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
16:50 / 20.02.06
"frontward" places where they are... more vulnerable to social chaos, that is.
 
 
ShadowSax
17:23 / 20.02.06
However, again, this doesn't consider certain causes and effects of history; we could also find equally "backward" places where people are less vulnerable to social chaos, as well as "frontward" places where they are, and we might wonder why people riot in the Middle East and Los Angeles and Detroit, but not so much in, I dunno, the Philippines or Venezuela.

yeah, i mentioned that already. i'm not blaming anyone, just trying to come to some definitions. hopefully helpful ones. we can either say that all behavioral trends are due to differences that cant be prevented or discussed (religion), or we can say that they are in part due to advances in culture. i think it's most important to consider separating religion from culture and should we say that more advanced cultures do this? or do we simply say that deeply religious cultures are not only more resistant to "change" (progress?) but also are more justified in not changing?

We may note that this is almost exactly the reasoning that fuelled the idea of the white man's burden - that the slower societies have to be helped up to the ideal status of Western European society.

not considering western society (america isnt in europe, by the way) as ideal is key here. i dont consider western society ideal, and i already said that, what i'm referring to are more abstract ideals of human thought, such as democracy and personal freedoms, as well as more concrete and hopefully more inarguable things such as modern plumbing and vaccinations. should we argue how both western and eastern philosophies which are considered progressive tout these ideas of personal freedoms? can we make that assumption or do we need to take that under debate?

Or it could be that the severe restrictions for peaceful and constructive protest under which they live mean that their only meaningful form of expression is violent, mass protest.

that could be. thats probably a better path for discussion. should we consider these protests to be in part aimed at the governments that rule these societies?

i'm hoping that we can look at cultural causes for the behavior that some western groups may classify as "backwards" rather than religious causes. because i do think it's in some cases correct to blame cultural resistance to change, change that can sanely be described as progressive, for some of this behavior. if we do this, we can start to devalue religion as a root cause, and look at religion as an approach, and in some cases a merely contributing factor and often simply a scapegoat in terms of how it's approached, within societies, as is done in many western cultures. and then we can avoid islamophobia?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:12 / 20.02.06
(america isnt in europe, by the way)

The white man's burden is a product of 19th century Imperial thought. You may not have much of a grasp of history, but the US did not have much of an empire in Africa and Asia.

If you actually read what other people write, you might have noticed that I was talking about this. You did not, because you are, essentially, a troll with little point in opening your mouth beyond trying to let some of the air out of your head. Please try harder. Actually relating your prognostications to fact rather than uninformed rambling based on personal prejudice would be a good start. Let's start with quixote's idea that the Middle East espouses ideas that would have been considered progressive (by implication in a properly advancing society) in 1100 or 1000BC. You claimed that that was well-put. Go away and find out what constituted progressive thought in 1000BC or 1100BC, then come back and relate that to a variety of political systems currently in action in the Middle East. Cheers.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
18:25 / 20.02.06
They aren't resisting change, they're demanding it! I wish I could convince you that They do not Hate Our Freedom. They may be skeptical about the quality of freedom and liberty we are offering them, given the history of European/American interference in their economies--not culture (cf Halliburton vs. the Bin Laden construction group)--and the way we treat our own people, and they hate our racist and imperialist policies in their countries. Religion is being used to mobilize a diverse population, which is sort of what religion is for (cf abortion as a religious issue rather than a medical one), but this is not a culture war. The conditions exist within Islam, as within every religion that I have any understanding of, for the development of what we think of as liberalism--that is, protection of individual rights and priviledges--but it can't be imposed from without.
 
 
ShadowSax
18:39 / 20.02.06
haus, haus, haus. it's good to see you returning to this thread after trying to hijack someone else's with your fun fixation on troll me. however, i've no interest in engaging you. i'm pretty sure anyway that quixote didnt mean 1000BC. you can doublecheck, but that would require more nitpicking on your part, which is unlikely to advance this thread much.

even assuming for a second that you know more than the people you attack, you'd do well to refine your attitude if you're interested in civil conversations. constantly treating other people with such condescension is something you should keep off of public forums where contact is limited to simple paragraphs here and there.
 
  

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