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two big questions

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09:02 / 12.10.01

1. Why is it so unreasonable for the US to attempt diplomacy and remove its people from the Holy Land, and to diminish or eliminate its backing of Israel?

2. Can anyone name any major contributions or achievements any Islamic nations (not Islamic people in Western nations) have made in the field of medicine, science, the arts, philosophy, progressive politic thought, or anything similar for the past 700 years?

09:02 / 12.10.01

1) oil
2) oil

09:02 / 12.10.01

number two is an interesting question though. if our perception is "no," i'd like us to think about what that means for our expectations -- ie are we defining to the rule and then claiming those who dont play the losers? and secondly, if the answer is know, is there culpability for that fact in the western nations that are "contributing"? do our contribuations create a deficit somewhere else?

sirius

09:02 / 12.10.01

I have to take your questions separately and include links to let you discover the answers for yourself.

>1. Why is it so unreasonable for the US to attempt diplomacy and remove its people from the Holy Land, and to diminish or eliminate its backing of Israel?<

In Israel, only those of the orthodox Jewish faith are full citizens. Even other Jews who do not follow full orthodoxy are second class citizens.
Arabs who lived in Palestine welcomed Jews for centuries. When the colonial power, England declared the state of Palestine and formed the Jewish state of Israel, arabs were propagandized into fleeing their homeland for fear that like in the Old Testament, the origional inhabitants of the land would be slaughtered.
We know better, but people tend to believe what they are told by those whom they trust.
My answer to your question one is to say instead:

Jerusalem should be an international city, with all peoples free to come ang go as they please.

I personally would recomment that the UN headquarters be moved there in order to keep the peace.
All of those fundamentalist Bible thumpers want a holy war and Armageddon. the UN only wants peace.
--------------------------------------------
Question 2 is more complicated, and includes a preconception that Europeans developed science without any help.
Better perhaps to ask: "Why did the Dark Ages in Europe come to an end?

First, we had to stand on the shoulders of giants in order to rise from Europe's dark ages. http://www.khwarzimic.org/frontline/history.html
The Renaissance in Europe was a flame that began from a Muslim spark: http://users.erols.com/zenithco/index.html
Science and religion in conflict? Not in Islam: http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/intro/histo-body.html
Then to answer about Islamic contributions by date: http://www.islamset.com/bio/biography.html
Your time line allows for a factual addition: http://www.ummah.org.uk/science/islscience.htm

"The longest journey begins with the first step".
The Arab world taught European scientists how to walk.

09:02 / 12.10.01

(1) If the US stands for democracy, then why should it withdraw its support for the only democratically-elected government in the Middle East?

(2) Nope. Heard a fascinating statistic today, courtesy of the editor of the international edition of Newsweek: 4,000 books were published in Israel last year, while Saudi Arabia, with 5 times the population, saw publication of just 375--less than a tenth of that. The Islamic (not Islamist) states of the Middle Est are as arid culturally as literally, their political climate as hash as the meteorological.

The political frustration and stifling anti-intellectualism of a hereditary monarchial state does a lot to explain the appeal of Islamic extremism in these countries. The comparison was made to the role that the Catholic church and its "liberation theology" played in the struggle against South American dictatorships: the church, or the mosque, was the only place that people could talk about politics--and lacking any tradition of a "loyal opposition," the politically disaffected of these Middle Eastern states found terrorism the only meaningful form of opposition politics.

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: Jack Fear ]

Ronald Thomas Clontle

09:02 / 12.10.01

Sirius, I think a lot of people are in some ways aware of the things in a lot of the links you posted at the end, but don't you think it's a bit problematic that those achievements all seem to grind to a screeching halt by the 17th century?

I'm not sure exactly what that means. For a culture that has stopped dead in its tracks several centuries ago to have people therein feeling bitter towards those cultures which have steamrolled ahead taking advantage of them seems very short-sighted to me. They seem to be taking themselves out of some of the blame that made them so easy to push around for so long. This is a problematic view, but I don't think the people of Islamic nations shouldn't be held accountable for their own fates.

It's like they are the high school drop outs of the world...

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: Flux = VVX232 ]

sirius

09:02 / 12.10.01

Flux,
Europe's dark ages started about AD 450 and continued for three centuries.
The arab world had no weapons technology to protect them from our ancestors.
Dare we criticize those whose culture was wiped out by our ancestors weapons?

Matthew 7: 3"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

You must not have followed all of those links.
They are still involved in science, but we of european ancestry still lead in weapons of mass destruction.
That is our peoples' gift to the world. Death and destruction on a scale unmatched in all recorded history.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

09:02 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by sirius:
They are still involved in science, but we of european ancestry still lead in weapons of mass destruction.
That is our peoples' gift to the world. Death and destruction on a scale unmatched in all recorded history.

Please. To discount several hundred years of steady positive advances in medical science, technology, art, literature, music, athletics, philosophy, social engineering, humanitarianism and philanthropy for the mistake of simultaneously developing devastating weapons made in the interest of protecting those same achievements is very simplistic and ridiculous. The Western world has had many great things to offer the world over the past several centuries, and it has been very disproportionate to that of the Islamic world, cultural hegemony or no.

Look at it this way...in the sense of the cultures of the world coming together and giving to each other via exchanges of science, medicine, and culture, the Islamic world has by and large given nothing to the rest of the world for a very long time, while most of the other nations of the world (even some of the most impoverished!) give something back. Were it not for other nations, virtually all of the technology that is in the Middle East wouldn't even be there.. Think of it as a question of cultures pulling their own weight.

09:02 / 12.10.01

On question 2 I'm a bit concerned. Why set the bound of achievement of civilizations at 700 years ago? perhaps because lest remember that Islamic countries were a centre for learning and cuture when european cultures were still hopelessly feudal.

Also - assessing the 'cultural worth' of a society by the volume of books it published in recent years is also deeply suspect. I would hardly call (and with apologies to aficionados) say Jeffery Archer's volumous output a sign of cultural enlightenment.

09:02 / 12.10.01

These things keep turning around and around as regularly as the planet.

If we damn Islamic culture for its regression, we should be sure to damn ourselves in advance for our inevitable decadence and decline. It might take 100 years or 10,000... but we are not immortal and neither is our culture.

15:10 / 12.10.01

1. Because once you allow your nation to be blackmailed by the threat of force, you’re doomed. See “History”.

2. The Egyptian government has enabled incredible advances in archeology.

15:39 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Flux = VVX232:
Think of it as a question of cultures pulling their own weight.

but why are we expecting them to pull their own weight in an arena of our chooseing? it's like we've stormed into their society and then demanded that they not only make it like ours but be good at it. the very central issue for the terrorists and their idealogical supporters is that they don't want to be part of America. they don't want to be like us, they don't want to live like us, they dont want the stuff we have, they don't want our beliefs... and they sure as hell don't want to be judged by us.

think of it in a microscopic analogy. what if a crew of physicists wielding butane torches came to your house and started to torture you for not making contributions to the String Theory? woulld that be just?

15:44 / 12.10.01

I think the essential question here is: Is it possible to become modernized without Westernized?

Ronald Thomas Clontle

15:46 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Jack Fear:
I think the essential question here is: Is it possible to become modernized without Westernized?

Of course. One word: China.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

15:56 / 12.10.01

think of it in a microscopic analogy. what if a crew of physicists wielding butane torches came to your house and started to torture you for not making contributions to the String Theory? woulld that be just?[/QUOTE]

Just the same, I don't think it would be fair for 'me' to lash out against them because I have no interest or education in physics or String Theory, and attempting to ruin their creations in the name of the ignorance that comes from that lack of understanding.

this 'arena of our choosing' thing doesn't hold water...those are the important things in this world, the things that define cultural progress. The point is, Islamic nations have barely made any progress in any way for centuries. The blame for that should not be taken off of those cultures, and despite some very legitimate grievances with the West in particular, they are still the masters of their own destiny, and always have been. And it speaks volumes of their primitive cultures that the only way they can even attempt to advance themselves in this world is through violence - it is the quick easy way, but will result in an even greater failure for their culture regardless of the outcome of this chain of events.

If they are pummelled by the rest of the world, they are held back even further if they resist having their social structure reorganized in a progressive way.

If they somehow topple the West, they will have no real culture to spread, nothing but the aftermath of an empty goal: kill America, kill Israel. What then? There's nothing. Nothing at all.

16:01 / 12.10.01

The culture to spread would be one placing one's relationship to God above other concerns.

16:03 / 12.10.01

The vast amounts of wealth in the Middle East and they way it is distributed is what I find interesting.

16:08 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Flux = VVX232:
One word: China.

Arguable. The vast majority of the Chinese population, away from the cities, still lives a traditionally-based, largely pre-modern agricultural lifestyle.

Plus there's no viable independent (i.e., not state-run) media. That last could be regarded as a strictly Western phenomenon, but I think it's a prerquisite for "modernity": the "modern age" in the West began with Gutenberg liberating the distribution of knowledge from the exclusive purview of the Church.

Japan, of course, is super-modern, and is a culture just as baffling to Westerners as is the Islamic world. But it's taken a lot of the surfaces of Western culture, too, then presented them back in a distorted form: the corporation is a Western idea, but the Japanese corporate culture is uniquely Japanese, even if the salarymen are wearing suits rather than obi.

But it took a generation or more of US occupation to shift Japan out of traditional theocratic monarchy and headlong into modernity.

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: Jack Fear ]

Ronald Thomas Clontle

16:08 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by MJ-12:
The culture to spread would be one placing one's relationship to God above other concerns.

Sort of. That's the religion they spread. But what of the culture? Is the goal for history to end, for progress to end, for the world to turn back the clock?

No. This is why I think these cultures were dying to begin with, they stand in the way of this world moving fowards towards a potential utopia. They are relics of cultural evolution.

In the western world, more and more, religion is something that comes more from formality, habit, and something to be paid lip service to. The reason why is very clear: religion is a hindrance to society. It is increasingly obsolete, and it made more obvious all of the time. Religion and spirituality are different things, obviously...spirituality is fine. But Islamic cultures stress religion over spirituality, and that is their weakness.

16:22 / 12.10.01

On the other hand, if everyone converted to Islam that would be a utopia too.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

16:32 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Bio K-9 hates your stupid story:
On the other hand, if everyone converted to Islam that would be a utopia too.

but that will never, ever, ever, ever, ever happen.

and I strongly doubt that it would be a 'utopia' even if it did.

STRONGLY.

autopilot disengaged

16:48 / 12.10.01

i'm with sirius on this one.

the world is more unequal now than at any point in the modern era not because of religion, but economics, politics and military force. specifically, most of the inequality in the world today can be traced in a fairly straightforward manner back to the effects of exploitative western free trade capitalism and globalisation.

western progress is based upon the rank subjugation of the majority of the world's population. and that isn't a typo.

our prosperity, security and freedom of life is planted squarely in the absolute denial of others'.

Frances Farmer

16:48 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Jack Fear:
I think the essential question here is: Is it possible to become modernized without Westernized?

You know, Jack, I'm not sure if it's that I'm coming to a new realization in regards to my appreciation for your way of thought, or if all of this has brought out a hell of a critical mind in you.

Either way, I like the way you think.

16:57 / 12.10.01

Ahhh shucks... I'm just a media freak. I've been listening to more news and reading more opinions since this thing started, and I'm just kicking around the new ideas as I hear 'em. I haven't forged a coherent worldview out of 'em yet, though.

I heard a discussion with Fareed Zakaria from international Newsweek, on NPR yesterday, that asked the modernization/westernization question (it's where I got the books-published statistic), and it just made a lot of sense to me, is all. An obvious question in retrospect, but one that I'd never asked.

Fareed Zakaria: he smaaart man.

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: Jack Fear ]

Ronald Thomas Clontle

17:08 / 12.10.01

western progress is based upon the rank subjugation of the majority of the world's population. and that isn't a typo.

our prosperity, security and freedom of life is planted squarely in the absolute denial of others'.[/QUOTE]

Of course, what you say is true. The question is: is it even remotely ethical to reverse much of that progress in the interests of making the world more fair? Progress is a great thing, and must be kept moving fowards... Progress is arguably the greatest goal humanity can hope to have. But everything has its price, and everything should also be held accountable in some way for its own fate.

So, if to make the world a better place for all, the entire world must take a massive leap backwards, is that not potentially far worse?

autopilot disengaged

17:24 / 12.10.01

but Flux: couldn't it be argued that a world in which of the world's population weren't brought low by poverty of education, of finance and of opportunity would be more progressive? in both moral and practical senses?

i agree that certain sections of the islamic world are so repressive as to be counter-productive to the happiness of their current citizens, and the advancement of human knowledge - but likewise - look at the way in which pharmeceutical multinationals are derailing genuine medical research to better build their own profits - or the way in which an increasingly centralized western media reflects more and more closely the interests of the power elite...

and Jack - i think a large component of the answer to the modernized/westernized dilemma is locked into the fact the west is presently the most powerful international force (i know this is by no means an answer - but i think an important point to remember when approaching a solution).

Ronald Thomas Clontle

17:33 / 12.10.01

but Flux: couldn't it be argued that a world in which of the world's population weren't brought low by poverty of education, of finance and of opportunity would be more progressive? in both moral and practical senses?

Of course, but that is clearly not on the opposition to the western world's agenda.

Is seems obvious that the only way to level the playing field of the world is to bring the third world to technological, political, and economic point in which it could compete with the Western world and Asia, and it seems that would only be possible via 'westernization'. That's such a dirty word, I know, but it does seem ridiculous for the Western world to apologize for its great successes. I would hope that the events that have been set in motion result in the West making a serious investment in helping to bring the rest of the world to our level, it's the least we can do.

Of course, a lot of the benificiery cultures may feel a sense of pride, and resist 'westernization', but it's only at their own risk that they do not embrace it.

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: Flux = VVX232 ]

17:39 / 12.10.01

quote:Originally posted by autopilot disengaged:
Jack - i think a large component of the answer to the modernized/westernized dilemma is locked into the fact the west is presently the most powerful international force (i know this is by no means an answer - but i think an important point to remember when approaching a solution).Oh, sure--no question that the West, by an accident of geography the "dominant" culture, is easily equatable with modernity. But does the West have a lock on the concepts of "modernity"? Are those concepts inescapably wedded to "Western" values of material success, individual-over-the-group, and so forth?

I'd argue that the answer to both questions is no: but to build a modern society in a non-Western mode requires tremendous vision of leadership (it requires actually constructing a culture, rather than simply passively importing Western culture--or, in Flux's example, allowing the imposition of Western culture), a subversive turn of thought, and an extraordinarily well-tuned crap filter--taking from the "modern" world and the West that which can benefit your culture and discarding that which is harmful and/or stupid (the materialism, the unrealistic standards of beauty, the dumb gender roles... all the shit we hate about Western civ).

And it will take vision from within: I have to disagree with you, Flux, that the answer to this is "The West" bringing its glorious peace and freedom to all the world, whether the ungrateful little bastards want it or home. Sounds like colonization all over again--or like China invading Tibet in order to "liberate" it from itself.

Somewhat incoherent, methinks. Sorry. Not much time.

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: Jack Fear ]

autopilot disengaged

17:42 / 12.10.01

i don't know, Flux. i'm no economist, but i'm pretty sure globalization needs its third world sweatshops, its trade agreements that violate the rights of weaker states...

so i don't think third world advancement is in the interest of globalization - which is essentially just another word for the west's hegemony over global markets. if the underdeveloped nations became more prosperous, they might demand a living working wage, health warnings on their cigarettes, an end to the despoilment of their environment...

it's my undestanding of the working practices of globalization that the western boutique can only exist if the work that cannot take place here for legal and economic reasons is sourced to countries where peoples' lives are simply worth less.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

17:55 / 12.10.01

Yr obviously correct, global economies need cheap labor to function as they currently do... nevertheless, it may become a necessity in the future to attempt to appease those in the third world for fear of them becoming little al-Qaida Jrs. The motivation may have less to do with altruism than trying to protect our asses.

And Jack is correct, to truly 'modernize' a culture without simply bowing to cultural imperialism takes a great deal of vision and grand design... but many nations in this world (hello, Middle East) simply do not posess this, not in the past, not in the present, and very doubtfully in the foreseeable future. So what do we (meaning us AND them) do about that? Should they be left powerless, poor, bitter, and stranded in another distant century behind a large chunk of the world, making them a danger to themselves and to others?

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: Flux = VVX232 ]

autopilot disengaged

18:38 / 12.10.01

Flux: with regard to yr first point - yeah, i was at the point of honestly believing the events of 911 and the shift in power it seemed to sugest might make the west take a good hard think about foreign policy. i thought that for 3 weeks. i was starting to think that maybe globalisation had just become impractical - that we might see some changes purely based upon the exploiters realising their actions would no longer come with no consequences...

then we start bombing one of the poorest nations on earth in a disembodied, arrogant military campaign that could have been xeroxed from kosova, iraq...

for more on this, check my 'lo-tech terror' thread. there's also an updated view over at true dove.

and as for remaking the MidEast in our image - we ask them to take on a system that already has them under cultural siege - a system that will instantly put them at the bottom of our pyramid?

should they not only appease a system they might not agree with - but, further more, jettison their own way of life in favour of it? even though they can only ever be losers playing a game where the rules are rigged by someone else?

the Arab nations are, at present, desperately trying to appease the west. because they're scared of us.

because the west could starve them with sanctions, flatten them with weapons of mass destruction etc etc.

and as for the state of the Mid East, can we bear in mind the US generally supports as matter of preference, strong regimes that will work with it even if against the interests of its own poulation. the west has one rule for conditions at home, another for foreign policy. for all its bluster about democracy, the facts are clear - the US prefers to work with regimes that are willing to sell out their own population in order to serve more closely the west's agenda. the west's noble interest in democracy is a sham.

don't listen to the rhetoric. look at what they do.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

18:59 / 12.10.01

we ask them to take on a system that already has them under cultural siege - a system that will instantly put them at the bottom of our pyramid?

should they not only appease a system they might not agree with - but, further more, jettison their own way of life in favour of it? even though they can only ever be losers playing a game where the rules are rigged by someone else?

Well, it seems that 'democracy' isn't necessarily what any of this is about.
What yr saying in this quote is true, but how much longer is it wise for Middle Eastern countries to cling to their dead/dying culture? When will it come to a point when they are forced to throw their hands up in the air and begin anew, because they have to FINALLY learn that they will not otherwise survive or prosper?

It is not completely impossible for them to create a culture like Japan, where modern life and centuries-old culture live in tandem. It is not impossible for them to recreate themselves as a prosperous people with a lot to contribute to other world cultures. It would be a long, difficult undertaking, but no one has tried.

Their problem is as much western hegemony as it is pride.

06:15 / 13.10.01

The Christian Bible is an islamic contribution to society. The many of the source text were translated from the Arabic back into Greek after the Greek texts were lost.

There is some formidable architecture right through the middle east and here in the UK.

06:24 / 13.10.01

Here's another thought.

Maybe the central conflict at the moment is that between libertarian humanist strands of Islam, and those who are creating a kind of retro fascistic pseudo koranic culture based on the back of the vast cultural poverty of the Wahibi's and the physical poverty of many Shia's.

The Druze, Sunni, Sufi and secular strands of Islam are getting crushed, and the Americans are getting dragged in in order to justify further extremism in the Muslim world.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

11:59 / 13.10.01

Here's another thought.

Maybe the central conflict at the moment is that between libertarian humanist strands of Islam, and those who are creating a kind of retro fascistic pseudo koranic culture

There's no maybe there, baby. Afghanistan was slowly but surely moving fowards towards modernization for a nice chunk of the 20th century before the US began endorsing the Taliban, and thus knocking back all of the progress made in that time (increased levels of education, women in gov't and medicine, etc) about 100 years at least.

After thinking about this, and discussing it further with one of my friends, I think that maybe Iran is a better model for where the Middle East could go rather than the more drastic (and therefore unrealistic) Japanese model.. Iran is well on its way to having an active economy, culture, and political environment...and it's all happening far more naturally, which does not breed as much resentment or potential problems down the line...

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