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Topic: virus: The Ideohazard 1.1 (Read 4916 times) |
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Kharin
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Re:virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #30 on: 2003-09-24 17:04:04 » |
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Quote:| " To understand why these agreements are being undermined, I recommend "The West and the Rest" by Roger Scruton." |
Hmmm.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,210796,00.html
A right to represent the world
By DEEP K. DATTA-RAY
THE United Nations is on trial for its life. And not only because it was ignored over the Iraq war.
Though US Secretary of State Colin Powell has promised to restore some of its lost authority after the trauma of war, that has not silenced shrill voices - not only of the American neo-conservatives - calling for an end to the world body.
Eminent British philosopher Roger Scruton argues the UN has no right to represent the planet since it is a European product - steeped, he says, in Western values which are alien to what he calls, using an outdated colonial-era term, 'East of Suez'.
The phrase itself is Orientalist in Edward Said's pejorative sense for it reduces the Technicolor hues of non-European life to a monochrome.
Similarly, Scruton's European values are Occidentalist for they deny Westerners their individuality and the complexities of History.
Both terms have a long history. Karl Marx spoke of the 'Asiatic mode of production' as being inferior to some standard European system.
Such monotone arguments form the basis of Scruton's case. He shackles Europeans with the same handcuffs that Orientals found so repressive. Chafing at generalisations, Westerners might welcome the end of the myth of 'Occidentalism'.
Scruton's argument that the UN stems from a wave of innovative thinking known today as the European Enlightenment reeks of occidentalism. A leading light of the Enlightenment, Hugo Grotius, dwelt in the 18th century on the concepts that are enshrined at the UN's heart.
Grotius was certainly enlightened, but that did not mean that contemporary Europe was. He was not typical, he did not even represent the majority. His incarceration by the Calvinist orthodoxy that held sway in his native United Provinces - today's Holland - testifies to the fact that other Europeans disapproved of and shunned his ideas.
Grotius' contemporaries knew that they were few and scattered throughout an often hostile continent. That is why they spoke not of The Enlightenment - thick with modern biases - but of The Republic of Letters, which signified a territory and ideology, but lacked concrete shape or form.
The Republic was only as tangible as Letters. To say otherwise is to deny the brilliant flare of Grotius' intellect which allowed him to think what most did not and the courage to speak what others dared not.
The ideas that led to Grotius' imprisonment are now accepted in parts of Europe.
How has this come about? Voltaire's allegorical answer is that ideas travel, take seed, and blossom - just like coconuts from India might in Rome - if the environment is congenial.
Grotius' ideas have taken root throughout the world, the germination has borne precious fruit - the UN, which cannot be effective unless the environment is amenable.
Scruton also tried to expose the 'fiction' of treating non-Western states at par with European countries.
'African states are by no stretch of the imagination nation-states on the European model,' he says, citing Nigeria because it is composed of three disparate peoples.
But, what then of Belgium with 10 million people and five parliaments? There is one each for the entire country, for Brussels, for the tiny German-speaking community, for Wallonia and for French speakers.
Scruton's rejection of the differences within Europe denies Europeans their individual identity.
It is not just Africa that falls short of Scruton's idea of Europe. He dismisses the Middle East as just a 'more complex' Africa, while Iraq, over which the UN haemorrhaged, is only a 'legal entity created by two adventurous diplomats - Sykes and Picot', the British and French statesman who partitioned the defeated Ottoman empire after World War I.
Being typical of non-Europeans, Iraqis, he says, have no conception of allegiance to a single nation-state.
So should UN members not have debated Iraq? They certainly should have. The Suez Canal does not neatly divide humanity into two groups.
Yugoslavia's disintegration proved Europe, too, had its share of artificial states. Russia's Chechen and Spain's Basque separatists underline the same point.
Even the United Kingdom threatens to come apart at the ethnic seams. There are now three parliaments with Scotland and Wales jostling for more power, while England wants to know why Scots and Welsh MPs should sit in Westminster.
That European nations are also uniting as the European Union while some European countries are fragmenting is indicative of mankind's need to stand together.
The UN is the only organisation that makes this possible on a global scale. To destroy it because ahistorical theorists believe it is an irrelevant Western construct panders to the prejudice of occidentalism.
Europe is not united, just as the Orient is not. But every additional day that the UN survives is testimony to the courage and determination of individuals across time and space in their aim to unite the world.
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rhinoceros
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My point is ...
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Re:virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #31 on: 2003-09-24 19:40:10 » |
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[Jonathan Davis]
To understand why these agreements are being undermined, I recommend "The West and the Rest" by Roger Scruton.
[Kharin]
Hmmm.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,210796,00.html
A right to represent the world
By DEEP K. DATTA-RAY
<snip>
Eminent British philosopher Roger Scruton argues the UN has no right to represent the planet since it is a European product - steeped, he says, in Western values which are alien to what he calls, using an outdated colonial-era term, 'East of Suez'.
The phrase itself is Orientalist in Edward Said's pejorative sense for it reduces the Technicolor hues of non-European life to a monochrome.
Similarly, Scruton's European values are Occidentalist for they deny Westerners their individuality and the complexities of History.
Both terms have a long history. Karl Marx spoke of the 'Asiatic mode of production' as being inferior to some standard European system.
Such monotone arguments form the basis of Scruton's case. He shackles Europeans with the same handcuffs that Orientals found so repressive. Chafing at generalisations, Westerners might welcome the end of the myth of 'Occidentalism'.
<end snip>
[rhinoceros]
A small pedantic side note. I am not sure if Datta-Ray was just waffling when talking about the "inferior Asiatic mode of production" but, from what I recall, Marx used the term for a rather specific way of social organization which occured at several places in ancient times.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/a/s.htm
You can find lots of references using google. This topic seems to be very popular with both Marxists and Marxologists.
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JD
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RE: virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #32 on: 2003-09-25 05:27:47 » |
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Do yourself a favour, read the book. The rant below is an enormous straw man
attack and worse than bunk.
I invite you to look at the review on Amazon.com from top 50 reviewers:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1882926811/002-8539985-9668049
?v=glance
How many books are sold and praised in both the Liberal Democrats and the
Conservatives?
http://bookshop.libdems.org.uk/item.jsp?ID=2634
http://shop.conservatives.com/item.jsp?ID=2634
Finally, I recommend Roger Kimball's excellent review of the book here:
Why the West? by Roger Kimball
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/jan03/west.htm
Kind regards
Jonathan
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
Kharin
Sent: 24 September 2003 22:04
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re:virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
" To understand why these agreements are being undermined, I recommend "The
West and the Rest" by Roger Scruton."
Hmmm.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,210796,00.html
A right to represent the world
By DEEP K. DATTA-RAY
THE United Nations is on trial for its life. And not only because it was
ignored over the Iraq war.
Though US Secretary of State Colin Powell has promised to restore some of
its lost authority after the trauma of war, that has not silenced shrill
voices - not only of the American neo-conservatives - calling for an end to
the world body.
Eminent British philosopher Roger Scruton argues the UN has no right to
represent the planet since it is a European product - steeped, he says, in
Western values which are alien to what he calls, using an outdated
colonial-era term, 'East of Suez'.
The phrase itself is Orientalist in Edward Said's pejorative sense for it
reduces the Technicolor hues of non-European life to a monochrome.
Similarly, Scruton's European values are Occidentalist for they deny
Westerners their individuality and the complexities of History.
Both terms have a long history. Karl Marx spoke of the 'Asiatic mode of
production' as being inferior to some standard European system.
Such monotone arguments form the basis of Scruton's case. He shackles
Europeans with the same handcuffs that Orientals found so repressive.
Chafing at generalisations, Westerners might welcome the end of the myth of
'Occidentalism'.
Scruton's argument that the UN stems from a wave of innovative thinking
known today as the European Enlightenment reeks of occidentalism. A leading
light of the Enlightenment, Hugo Grotius, dwelt in the 18th century on the
concepts that are enshrined at the UN's heart.
Grotius was certainly enlightened, but that did not mean that contemporary
Europe was. He was not typical, he did not even represent the majority. His
incarceration by the Calvinist orthodoxy that held sway in his native United
Provinces - today's Holland - testifies to the fact that other Europeans
disapproved of and shunned his ideas.
Grotius' contemporaries knew that they were few and scattered throughout an
often hostile continent. That is why they spoke not of The Enlightenment -
thick with modern biases - but of The Republic of Letters, which signified a
territory and ideology, but lacked concrete shape or form.
The Republic was only as tangible as Letters. To say otherwise is to deny
the brilliant flare of Grotius' intellect which allowed him to think what
most did not and the courage to speak what others dared not.
The ideas that led to Grotius' imprisonment are now accepted in parts of
Europe.
How has this come about? Voltaire's allegorical answer is that ideas travel,
take seed, and blossom - just like coconuts from India might in Rome - if
the environment is congenial.
Grotius' ideas have taken root throughout the world, the germination has
borne precious fruit - the UN, which cannot be effective unless the
environment is amenable.
Scruton also tried to expose the 'fiction' of treating non-Western states at
par with European countries.
'African states are by no stretch of the imagination nation-states on the
European model,' he says, citing Nigeria because it is composed of three
disparate peoples.
But, what then of Belgium with 10 million people and five parliaments? There
is one each for the entire country, for Brussels, for the tiny
German-speaking community, for Wallonia and for French speakers.
Scruton's rejection of the differences within Europe denies Europeans their
individual identity.
It is not just Africa that falls short of Scruton's idea of Europe. He
dismisses the Middle East as just a 'more complex' Africa, while Iraq, over
which the UN haemorrhaged, is only a 'legal entity created by two
adventurous diplomats - Sykes and Picot', the British and French statesman
who partitioned the defeated Ottoman empire after World War I.
Being typical of non-Europeans, Iraqis, he says, have no conception of
allegiance to a single nation-state.
So should UN members not have debated Iraq? They certainly should have. The
Suez Canal does not neatly divide humanity into two groups.
Yugoslavia's disintegration proved Europe, too, had its share of artificial
states. Russia's Chechen and Spain's Basque separatists underline the same
point.
Even the United Kingdom threatens to come apart at the ethnic seams. There
are now three parliaments with Scotland and Wales jostling for more power,
while England wants to know why Scots and Welsh MPs should sit in
Westminster.
That European nations are also uniting as the European Union while some
European countries are fragmenting is indicative of mankind's need to stand
together.
The UN is the only organisation that makes this possible on a global scale.
To destroy it because ahistorical theorists believe it is an irrelevant
Western construct panders to the prejudice of occidentalism.
Europe is not united, just as the Orient is not. But every additional day
that the UN survives is testimony to the courage and determination of
individuals across time and space in their aim to unite the world.
----
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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RE: virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #33 on: 2003-09-25 07:03:50 » |
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[Blunderov]
This, from 'The New York Times', caught my eye.
<q>
Army Chaplain in Detention Sought to Teach About Islam
By SARAH KERSHAW
Published: September 25, 2003
his article was reported by Laurie Goodstein, Sarah Kershaw and Neil A.
Lewis and was written by Ms. Kershaw.
SEATTLE, Sept. 24 — Within days of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Capt.
James J. Yee, a Muslim chaplain stationed at the Fort Lewis Army base
south of here, dedicated himself to a new mission. He would tell anyone
who would listen, according to people who heard his sermons, that Islam
was not a violent religion, and he would deliver that message at the
base, in churches and mosques, on college campuses and on the streets of
Olympia, where he lived with his wife and young daughter.
Advertisement
Captain Yee, 35, would apply that same determination — an intensity of
purpose that had made him a star wrestler in high school, a graduate of
West Point and a deeply dedicated convert to Islam — when he was sent
last year to minister to Muslim detainees at the American prison camp
for militants and suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. There,
it was Captain Yee who arranged for the muezzin's call to prayer to ring
through the camp over a loudspeaker five times a day, and when the
compact disc player broke, he chanted the prayers himself into a
microphone.
Part of his job, he said in an interview there last April, was to deal
with the misunderstandings between the prisoners and the authorities.
"I advise the base commander with respect to religion and help
facilitate worship here," Captain Yee said. "But most importantly, I am
utilized to defuse tensions within the camp."
Captain Yee left Guantánamo two weeks ago to return home, but he has yet
to arrive. On Sept. 10 military officials arrested him on a layover in
Florida and locked him in a military brig in South Carolina while he is
being investigated in a growing military inquiry into spying at
Guantánamo. Military officials have declined to say precisely why
Captain Yee, who has not been charged with a crime, is being
investigated. But other law enforcement officials have said the
investigation was aimed at suspicions of espionage, improperly assisting
the prisoners or possibly another breach of military duties.
One military official said today that Captain Yee was found to have
hand-drawn maps of where the prisoners were kept in the camp, lists of
which interrogators had interviewed which prisoners and notations on the
subjects of the interviews.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one reason that
Captain Yee had come under suspicion was that he was seen in the company
of two other military people who had been under surveillance. It was
unclear whether one of those people was Senior Airman Ahmad I.
al-Halabi, a one-time translator at Guantánamo who has been charged with
espionage and passing military secrets to Syria.
Military officials would not provide the names of lawyers representing
Captain Yee, who under military law must be given a trial within 120
days of his arrest.
Those who knew Captain Yee in Olympia, where he had lived for four years
and where he was active in a local mosque, sometimes leading Friday
Prayers as a substitute for the imam, said they were baffled by the news
of his arrest. As strongly as he felt about correcting what he felt were
misrepresentations of Islam after Sept. 11, 2001, Captain Yee, a
chaplain with the 29th Signal Battalion at Fort Lewis, also spoke
frequently of his fierce loyalty to the United States and to the
military, they said.
"I think he is the opposite of a spy," said Imam Mohamad Joban of the
Olympia Islamic Center, where Captain Yee worshiped and led prayers for
a congregation of about 300, mostly Cambodians. "He is loyal to his
country. He tried to help this country understand Islam better, that
Islam is not a violent religion, as many people think."
Imam Joban said he was shocked when he heard of Captain Yee's arrest.
"All the congregation was shocked," he said in an interview today. "This
is not the kind of man who would do that. If you see Yee, you don't
believe this. He is so quiet and humble, I don't think he would hurt the
country."
Imam Joban said Captain Yee returned to Olympia from Guantánamo in
March, after six months, and was informed by the Army that he was being
sent back.
"I said to him, `What do you think?' " the imam recalled. "And he told
me it was difficult to be away from his family, but he said, `I am in
the military and I have to serve the country.' "
Imam Joban said Captain Yee never described conditions at Guantánamo or
expressed concern about the detainees, focusing instead on how he worked
to provide them with what they needed spiritually.
</q>
Looking on the bright side, it seems the US military has made at least
some sort of attempt to comply with 1 (one) of the articles of the
Geneva Convention.
Speaking as one who lived in the era of BOSS, I would suggest that there
is good reason to be afraid of those who have the both the desire and
power to remove their actions from public scrutiny.
Best Regards
Blunderov
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Kharin
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In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
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Roger Scruton
« Reply #36 on: 2003-09-25 14:31:25 » |
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Quote:| " Do yourself a favour, read the book. " |
I hardly think reading anything by Scruton (for the benefit of US readers, Scruton is our version of Falwell or Pat Buchanan) would do anyone a favour, and the only circumstance I can envisage purchasing a Scruton book is to ensure that it was safely burned.
However... in essence, Scruton describes a contrast between Western civilisation (which due to the inherent character of christianity allowed for a split between church and state) and Islamic civilisation (which did not). There is certainly something to this, but the problem is that, as one would expect for a christian apologist, Scruton grossly understates the theocratic character of many European states prior to the Renaissance and neglects to observe how the absence of formalised church structures in the Islamic world permitted the cultivation of much science and art that christian Europe would not have tolerated at the time. In addition, Scruton's solution to Islamic fundamentalism appears to be a revival of christian fundamentalism, expressed in such terms that he comes close to implying that September 11th was a just revenge for Western decadence and impiety:
Quote:| "It may be hard to sympathize with these spoiled and self-indulgent advocates of violence. But it is not hard to sympathize with the feelings upon which they depend for their following. Globalization, in the eyes of its advocates, means free trade, increased prosperity, and the steady erosion of despotic regimes by the growing demand for freedom. In the eyes of its critics, however, it means the loss of sovereignty, together with large-scale social, economic, and aesthetic disruption. It also means an invasion of images that evoke outrage and disgust as much as envy in the hearts of those who are exposed to them. In the United States, where pornography is protected as free speech, people are able to accept that this assault on human dignity is the price we must pay for freedoms too precious to relinquish. But if you have not known those freedoms, and believe in any case that happiness resides not in freedom but in submission to God's law, the impact of pornography is devastating. No less devastating, for pious Muslims, are what they see as the indecent clothes and behavior of young women in the West — clothes and behavior that are in no way modified when those women travel on business or as tourists to Muslim countries, there to presume on a toleration which they are willing to reciprocate but do little or nothing to earn." |
Or indeed this:
Quote:| "I would go further and suggest that what motivates the hostility of Islamic terrorists is not America’s material and political success but the flagrant democratization of those spheres that piety has traditionally protected. As Zakaria is aware, democratization seeks to turn every value into a price and then to bid down the price to the lowest that the market will sustain. This has happened to culture through the TV sit-com and chat-show, through MTV and the music video, through the Internet, and above all through pornography, protected by lawyers who invoke a constitution intended precisely to forbid such things. And it is these products of the moron culture that have the greatest and most shocking impacts on pious Muslims. " |
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Hermit
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Re:virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #37 on: 2003-09-25 16:25:13 » |
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As Kharin observes, Scruton is an apologist, not an historian. Again, I recommend Arnold Toynbee's "A Study of History" et al to Jonathan Davis' attention, with a reminder, "The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue..." [Arnold J. Toynbee, Civilization on Trial, New York, ISBN: 1112761721, p. 205]
The US is currently learning what the "happy Empire builders" once learned and have now apparently forgotten, that "Sword-blades are foundations that never settle" [Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, OUP, 1939, vol. 6 ,p. 196.]
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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JD
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RE: virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #38 on: 2003-09-26 07:07:41 » |
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Dear Hermit,
You, like Kharin, have stooped to defamation over content. Scruton is a
first and foremost an philosopher, and a superb one at that. I can testify
to this as I have read the book in question.
Why you inserted the irrelevant comments about race consciousness I do not
know. Redefining the out-group is easy when I can force you into the
in-group at spear point.
As a scientist, sceptic and atheist perhaps you would be better advised
expounding on Toynbee's "use of myths and metaphors as being of comparable
value to factual data and his reliance on a view of religion as a
regenerative force" [url]http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article?eu=406334[/url] ].
Or is your selective quoting of Toynbee just a case of a quoting another set
of scriptures for one's own purposes?
I find it delightfully ironic that you approving quote Toynbee's reference
to Islamic universalism -namely the surrendered are all equal before Allah
(hence no need for other classifications like race or nation), yet for
Toynbee "the West's universalist pretensions" are disgusting.
I am alarmed that how you are so forgiving and even admiring of our
deadliest and fastest growing competitor - Islam. Do you really mean to side
with this militant religion against our secular, Western model of politics?
Your words remind me of something Orwell wrote:
"why is it that the worst extremes of jingoism and racialism have to be
tolerated when they come from an Irishman? Why is a statement like "My
country right or wrong" reprehensible if applied to England and worthy of
respect if applied to Ireland (or for that matter to India)? For there is no
doubt that some such convention exists and that "enlightened" opinion in
England can swallow even the most blatant nationalism so long as it is not
British nationalism. Poems like "Rule, Britannia!" or "Ye Mariners of
England" would be taken seriously if one inserted at the right places the
name of some foreign country, as one can see by the respect accorded to
various French and Russian war poets to-day."
George Orwell's review of Drums under the Windows by Sean O'Casey [ The
Observer, 28 October 1945]
http://www.ukpoliticsmisc.org.uk/usenet_evidence/orwell_ocasey.htm
For any neutral readers, I recommend an interesting look at Toynbee here:
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/mar01/notes.htm .
As for you Hermit, oppugnancy is damaging you. Perhaps "surrender" is what
you really need?
Regards
Jonathan
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
Hermit
Sent: 25 September 2003 21:25
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re:virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
As Kharin observes, Scruton is an apologist, not an historian. Again, I
recommend Arnold Toynbee's "A Study of History" et al to Jonathan Davis'
attention, with a reminder, "The extinction of race consciousness as between
Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam and in the
contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the
propagation of this Islamic virtue..." [Arnold J. Toynbee, Civilization on
Trial, New York, ISBN: 1112761721, p. 205]
The US is currently learning what the "happy Empire builders" once learned
and have now apparently forgotten, that "Sword-blades are foundations that
never settle" [Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, OUP, 1939, vol. 6 ,p.
196.]
Hermit
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Hermit
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Re:virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #39 on: 2003-09-26 09:23:01 » |
|
[Jonathan Davis] You, like Kharin, have stooped to defamation over content. Scruton is a first and foremost an philosopher, and a superb one at that. I can testify to this as I have read the book in question.
[Hermit] Nope. Scruton isn't a "superb" philosopher. He is a media figure who plays the role of a philosopher on programs appealing to Fux TV viewers. He is probably most famous for accepting money from Japan Tobacco International to write pro-smoking articles in the various newspapers that murder trees on his behalf. And then getting found out. Said newspapers ended up sacking him for his pains. (Kharin's contribution.)
[Jonathan Davis] Why you inserted the irrelevant comments about race consciousness I do not know. Redefining the out-group is easy when I can force you into the in-group at spear point.
[Hermit] Not when the tip is irrefutably entagled somewhere in your own anatomy.
[Hermit] Having told two people whom you regularly characterize as intelligent, fair, experienced and articulate that they are engaging in defamation - which you should recognise is always stupid - something seems to be out of kilter.
[Hermit] My recommendation was for you to read some Toynbee in order to try to get a better handle on history before you decide that Scruton represents a pinnacle of historical excellence upon which you can base your entire opinion of the field.
[Jonathan Davis] As a scientist, sceptic and atheist perhaps you would be better advised expounding on Toynbee's "use of myths and metaphors as being of comparable value to factual data and his reliance on a view of religion as a
regenerative force" http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article?eu=406334
[Hermit] Perhaps you were unaware that Toynbee was an atheist and a skeptic - and probably the first historian to attempt a modern scientific approach to history on a grand scale (i.e. looking at the macro-event level). Perhaps that is why I appreciate him.
[Hermit] Look in a mirror. Observing that myth and metaphor is important and plays a huge role in life and history is no more, and certainly no less, than what the CoV is engaged in. What else is "memetics" other than myth, metaphor and their effects on their carriers.
[Hermit] In any case, I suggest that somebody's perspective is flawed and that cognitive dissonance is almost certainly at work. Particularly when it comes to your repeatedly rejected strange idea that I advocate any Theistic religions. The difference between you and I, it seems, is that I condemn them all equally, rather than reserving a fondness for the Anglicans. This includes recognizing that your (and that of your sources) blanket condemnation of Middle Eastern and Asian culture is rooted in your apparently shallow perspective. Had you been brought up in, e.g. The PRC, your opinion would no doubt be different. Which allows me to condemn your judgements, They are not measured, but are rooted in cultural prejudice.
[Jonathan Davis] Or is your selective quoting of Toynbee just a case of a quoting another set of scriptures for one's own purposes?
[Hermit] The man was prodigiously productive, having written upwards of 100 works, many of them seminal. I recall your complaining of a few paragraphs of summary recently - on the grounds you had no time to read them. If you don't want a flood which will make Dees look restrained, I suggest that you be glad that I am selective.
[Hermit] As for quoting Toynbee, he serves as a counterpoise to Scruton and Co, reminding you of their "western universalist" position. While your knowledge of Islamic history as portrayed here is so flawed as to render discussion meaningless until you obtain a better background, bigotry and prejudicial interpretations abound, and you seem to have soaked up and in consequence appear to be advocating some percentage of it.
[Jonathan Davis] I find it delightfully ironic that you approving quote Toynbee's reference to Islamic universalism -namely the surrendered are all equal before Allah (hence no need for other classifications like race or nation), yet for Toynbee "the West's universalist pretensions" are disgusting.
[Hermit] Think about what you say - or better, research it. Preferably not in a book written by an ahl al-q'itab with his own problems - and writing out of field. Who defeated the alchemists and Jews of Medieval Europe? Where did they flee? What is the purpose of jizya? Can somebody "conquered" be subjected to "Dhimmitude" and "equal in surrender"? I know the answers. Do you?
[Jonathan Davis] I am alarmed that how you are so forgiving and even admiring of our
deadliest and fastest growing competitor - Islam. Do you really mean to side with this militant religion against our secular, Western model of politics?
[Hermit] You shouldn't be alarmed. You certainly shouldn't imagine that Islam is deadly - except in a rather boring sense. Like any other belief system, its adherents adapt it to fit their situation and justify their actions. When living repressed in a brutal environment, it can be used to justify suicide bombing. Just as Christianity justified revolution in England and the forcing of China to purchase opium from the English - and apartheid lead to the necklacing of teachers by "rational atheistic humanists" and economic crises and belief in racial superiority lead the US to justify nuking Japan. When times are better, the very same beliefs might lead to quiet discussions over tea and cucumber sandwiches with the Imam.
[Hermit] As a second issue, you need to read the news from time to time. Neither of the two global "B"s (i.e. the smirking chimp and his poodle) hide the fact that they were called by a Middle Eastern god to save the world from itself. So much for a secular Western model of politics.
[Jonathan Davis] Your words remind me of something Orwell wrote:
[Jonathan Davis] "why is it that the worst extremes of jingoism and racialism have to be tolerated when they come from an Irishman? Why is a statement like "My country right or wrong" reprehensible if applied to England and worthy of respect if applied to Ireland (or for that matter to India)? For there is no doubt that some such convention exists and that "enlightened" opinion in England can swallow even the most blatant nationalism so long as it is not British nationalism. Poems like "Rule, Britannia!" or Ye Mariners of England" would be taken seriously if one inserted at the right places the name of some foreign country, as one can see by the respect accorded to various French and Russian war poets to-day."
[Hermit] Actually that could be another example of bigoted jingoism (and possibly your cognitive dissonance flaring up again). As a half-Scotsman, I reject the idea that England is synonymous with Great Britain! And if you had comprehended anything I have written on politics, you would be aware that I regard all "nationalistic jingoism" as being equally harmful to humans. Indeed, doubly harmful, in that "nationalism" by itself is a curse, and "jingoism" a disease of the intellect.
[Jonathan Davis]As for you Hermit, oppugnancy is damaging you. Perhaps "surrender" is what you really need?
[Hermit] Despite it having become the norm in American politics, your diagnosis appears as flawed as the idea of the inmates running the asylum. All right thinking people recognise that the world is neither black nor white, but a rather attractive shade of grey. Perhaps it is difficult to recognise when you are running around with beams in your eyes. Maybe an optician could assist you?
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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RE: virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #40 on: 2003-09-26 11:30:50 » |
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[Jonathan Davis]I am alarmed that how you are so forgiving and even admiring of our deadliest and fastest growing competitor - Islam. Do you really mean to side with this militant religion against our secular, Western model of politics?
[Mermaid]practicing UTism again?
[Mermaid] 'our deadliest and fastest growing competitor' is stupidity. not islam. among all the religions of the world, i'd say islam comes out as the most fair and the most appealling.
for your...err..my amusement..
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=3489689
Secretary of State Colin Powell called the United States a Judeo-Christian country on Monday but quickly amended that to "a country of many faiths."
The first amendment to the U.S. constitution prohibits the establishment of any state religion -- a provision usually interpreted as requiring strict separation of church and state, though Christian activists dispute that.
Powell made the remark in an interview with the Charlie Rose Show on public television while talking about Washington's vision of what kind of government Iraq should have.
He said he expected it to be "an Islamic country by faith, just as we are a Judeo-Christian..."
"Well, it's hard to tell any more, but we are a country of many faiths now," he added quickly.
The remark was likely to antagonize millions of American Muslims, most of whom want to be included in the mainstream.
Some American Muslims have coined the term Judeo-Christian-Islamic to reflect their ideal of what the United States should be.
[Mermaid]I am sure the Iraqi Christians are just as amused as the American Moslems.
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JD
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RE: virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #41 on: 2003-09-26 11:55:26 » |
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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
Mermaid
Sent: 26 September 2003 16:31
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: RE: virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
[Jonathan Davis]I am alarmed that how you are so forgiving and even admiring
of our deadliest and fastest growing competitor - Islam. Do you really mean
to side with this militant religion against our secular, Western model of
politics?
[Mermaid] practicing UTism again?
[Jonathan 2] There is us (The CoV), and them (Christianity, Islam etc.). We
are competing. So, yes.
[Mermaid] 'our deadliest and fastest growing competitor' is stupidity. not
islam. among all the religions of the world, i'd say islam comes out as the
most fair and the most appealling.
[Jonathan 2] There is a category error here. Stupidity may animate Islam,
but it is not in the same class. As for Islam being the fairest and most
appealing religion, I have to state that for me, that is not true.
As for the comments about Judeo-Christian, of course Powell is right. By
tradition the US (indeed all of western civilisation) is overwhelmingly
dominated by the Judeo-Christian cultural tradition.
Regards
Jonathan
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RE: virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #42 on: 2003-09-26 13:29:10 » |
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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
Hermit
Sent: 26 September 2003 14:23
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re:virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
[Jonathan Davis] You, like Kharin, have stooped to defamation over content.
Scruton is a first and foremost an philosopher, and a superb one at that. I
can testify to this as I have read the book in question.
[Hermit] Nope. Scruton isn't a "superb" philosopher. He is a media figure
who plays the role of a philosopher on programs appealing to Fux TV viewers.
He is probably most famous for accepting money from Japan Tobacco
International to write pro-smoking articles in the various newspapers that
murder trees on his behalf. And then getting found out. Said newspapers
ended up sacking him for his pains. (Kharin's contribution.)
[Jonathan 1] The tobacco thing is completely irrelevant. It was a crude
attempt at the same sort of well poisoning I complained about earlier.
[Jonathan Davis] Why you inserted the irrelevant comments about race
consciousness I do not know. Redefining the out-group is easy when I can
force you into the in-group at spear point.
[Hermit] Not when the tip is irrefutably entagled somewhere in your own
anatomy.
[Jonathan 1] Yes, but why did you put it in?
[Hermit] Having told two people whom you regularly characterize as
intelligent, fair, experienced and articulate that they are engaging in
defamation - which you should recognise is always stupid - something seems
to be out of kilter.
[Jonathan 1] Not at all. There is no deliberate malice on your or Kharin's
part. I see such things as mistakes, rhetorical devices that are unfair.
[Hermit] My recommendation was for you to read some Toynbee in order to try
to get a better handle on history before you decide that Scruton represents
a pinnacle of historical excellence upon which you can base your entire
opinion of the field.
[Jonathan 1] That is completely fair, but not what you said (or at least
what was communicated to me). Firstly, I would have corrected you: I was not
basing my my entire opinion of any field on any one person or book.
Secondly, I recommend Scruton's book "To understand why these agreements are
being undermined". These agreements referred to certain agreements and
notions in western politics. Scruton examines what happens to consensus
models when pre-political loyalties are dissolved.
[Jonathan Davis] As a scientist, sceptic and atheist perhaps you would be
better advised expounding on Toynbee's "use of myths and metaphors as being
of comparable value to factual data and his reliance on a view of religion
as a regenerative force" http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article?eu=406334
[Hermit] Perhaps you were unaware that Toynbee was an atheist and a skeptic
- and probably the first historian to attempt a modern scientific approach
to history on a grand scale (i.e. looking at the macro-event level). Perhaps
that is why I appreciate him.
[Jonathan 1] I will try and get hold of some of his volumes or perhaps an
abridged work.
[Hermit] Look in a mirror. Observing that myth and metaphor is important and
plays a huge role in life and history is no more, and certainly no less,
than what the CoV is engaged in. What else is "memetics" other than myth,
metaphor and their effects on their carriers.
[Jonathan 1] Perhaps. That is a different albeit interesting discussion
perhaps as a topic for a chat.
[Hermit] In any case, I suggest that somebody's perspective is flawed and
that cognitive dissonance is almost certainly at work. Particularly when it
comes to your repeatedly rejected strange idea that I advocate any Theistic
religions. The difference between you and I, it seems, is that I condemn
them all equally, rather than reserving a fondness for the Anglicans. This
includes recognizing that your (and that of your sources) blanket
condemnation of Middle Eastern and Asian culture is rooted in your
apparently shallow perspective. Had you been brought up in, e.g. The PRC,
your opinion would no doubt be different. Which allows me to condemn your
judgements, They are not measured, but are rooted in cultural prejudice.
[Jonathan 1] Here you revert to the standard charge that those who disagree
with you suffer from a pathology of some sort. I do not blanket condemn
anything. Neither does Scruton. It would be useful if you could serve some
examples as I do not think they exist.
You can label me or my perspective whatever you like (shallow etc.) The
vehemence of your contempt does not actually help your arguments all. I
could, but shall not, make exactly the same plausible claims about you that
you are making about me. It is specious and unhelpful.
[Jonathan Davis] Or is your selective quoting of Toynbee just a case of a
quoting another set of scriptures for one's own purposes?
[Hermit] The man was prodigiously productive, having written upwards of 100
works, many of them seminal. I recall your complaining of a few paragraphs
of summary recently - on the grounds you had no time to read them. If you
don't want a flood which will make Dees look restrained, I suggest that you
be glad that I am selective.
[Jonathan 1] You may be incontinent if you choose. I do have delete but
after all and a fast internet connection.
[Hermit] As for quoting Toynbee*, he serves as a counterpoise to Scruton and
Co, reminding you of their "western universalist" position. While your
knowledge of Islamic history as portrayed here is so flawed as to render
discussion meaningless until you obtain a better background, bigotry and
prejudicial interpretations abound, and you seem to have soaked up and in
consequence appear to be advocating some percentage of it.
[Jonathan 1] Instead of calling me names and talking up your boy Toynbee,
why don't you do something substantive like support an assertion or craft an
argument?
You make claims about Toynbee, yet I read he is a buffoon. I give you (and
Toynbee) the benefit of the doubt, you respond with name calling. I am not
allowed to mention your bigotries and prejudices in case you accuse me of
risking your life.
[Jonathan Davis] I find it delightfully ironic that you approving quote
Toynbee's reference to Islamic universalism -namely the surrendered are all
equal before Allah (hence no need for other classifications like race or
nation), yet for Toynbee "the West's universalist pretensions" are
disgusting.
[Hermit] Think about what you say - or better, research it. Preferably not
in a book written by an ahl al-q'itab with his own problems - and writing
out of field. Who defeated the alchemists and Jews of Medieval Europe? Where
did they flee? What is the purpose of jizya? Can somebody "conquered" be
subjected to "Dhimmitude" and "equal in surrender"? I know the answers. Do
you?
[Jonathan 1] Yes. The answer is 42. This display of cut and paste
"learning" does not wash. Scruton crafts superb arguments based on real
learning. Hint: That is the way you can earn my respect.
[Jonathan Davis] I am alarmed that how you are so forgiving and even
admiring of our deadliest and fastest growing competitor - Islam. Do you
really mean to side with this militant religion against our secular, Western
model of politics?
[Hermit] You shouldn't be alarmed. You certainly shouldn't imagine that
Islam is deadly - except in a rather boring sense. Like any other belief
system, its adherents adapt it to fit their situation and justify their
actions. When living repressed in a brutal environment, it can be used to
justify suicide bombing.
[Jonathan 1] Yes. The problem is that actions are often unjustified and
reasons faulty. Being a pampered fat and rich Saudi can justify attacks on
towers. The justifications can be as bizarre and they are numerous.
[Hermit] Just as Christianity justified revolution in England and the
forcing of China to purchase opium from the English
[Jonathan 1] The Opium Wars were part of the larger British Empire strategy
of forcing global trade. It has next to nothing to do with Christianity.
[Hermit] and apartheid lead to the necklacing of teachers by "rational
atheistic humanists"
[Jonathan 1] Those teachers were necklaced by bloodlust aroused mobs
scapegoating.
[Hermit] and economic crises and belief in racial superiority lead the US
to justify nuking Japan.
[Jonathan 1] I don't man to object to your examples. I know it is bad
manners and distracting, but how can you justify this sort of statement. It
strikes me as..well..a joke? An economic crisis in 1945? Racial superiority
justified the bomb? Are you for real?
[Hermit] When times are better, the very same beliefs might lead to quiet
discussions over tea and cucumber sandwiches with the Imam.
[Jonathan 1] Yes. Humans are situational creatures.
[Hermit] As a second issue, you need to read the news from time to time.
[Jonathan 1] On the contrary, I need to read it less. I have such a range of
sources and feeds that I tire from analysing them all.
[Hermit] Neither of the two global "B"s (i.e. the smirking chimp and his
poodle) hide the fact that they were called by a Middle Eastern god to save
the world from itself. So much for a secular Western model of politics.
[Jonathan 1] Using puerile labels for Bush and Blair is fine, if a little
sad. That they think that their actions are ordained in a guess.
[Jonathan Davis] Your words remind me of something Orwell wrote:
[Jonathan Davis] "why is it that the worst extremes of jingoism and
racialism have to be tolerated when they come from an Irishman? Why is a
statement like "My country right or wrong" reprehensible if applied to
England and worthy of respect if applied to Ireland (or for that matter to
India)? For there is no doubt that some such convention exists and that
"enlightened" opinion in England can swallow even the most blatant
nationalism so long as it is not British nationalism. Poems like "Rule,
Britannia!" or "Ye Mariners of England" would be taken seriously if one
inserted at the right places the name of some foreign country, as one can
see by the respect accorded to various French and Russian war poets to-day."
[Hermit] Actually that could be another example of bigoted jingoism (and
possibly your cognitive dissonance flaring up again). As a half-Scotsman, I
reject the idea that England is synonymous with Great Britain! And if you
had comprehended anything I have written on politics, you would be aware
that I regard all "nationalistic jingoism" as being equally harmful to
humans. Indeed, doubly harmful, in that "nationalism" by itself is a curse,
and "jingoism" a disease of the intellect.
[Jonathan 1] He does not make them synonymous at all so as a half-Scot you
let your nationalism cool again. The paucity of objections suggests you
agree with him.
[Jonathan Davis]As for you Hermit, oppugnancy is damaging you. Perhaps
"surrender" is what you really need?
[Hermit] Despite it having become the norm in American politics, your
diagnosis appears as flawed as the idea of the inmates running the asylum.
All right thinking people recognise that the world is neither black nor
white, but a rather attractive shade of grey. Perhaps it is difficult to
recognise when you are running around with beams in your eyes. Maybe an
optician could assist you?
[Jonathan 1] [Side Note: "All right thinking people" - So many kooky
conspiracy theories, fallacies and extremist rants have this marker imbedded
in them it is a useful shortcut for discarding bunk at the scanning phase.
Simply scan for it and if found, hit delete. ]
Again, irony creeps into our discussion. No sooner have you reminded me of
your being Scottish than you commit the "No True Scotsman Fallacy".
Priceless.
Kind regards
Jonathan
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Hermit
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Re:virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #43 on: 2003-09-26 15:01:44 » |
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Scrutinising Scruton
Stephen Moss on Roger Scruton's hymn to a time past, England: An Elegy
Source: The Guardian
Authors: Stephen Moss
Dated: 2000-11-16
Noticed by: Kharin
There was one important qualification to review Roger Scruton's England: An Elegy (Chatto and Windus, £16.99) - you had to be a man, preferably a middle-aged white man. It appears that only men of a certain age are permitted to pronounce on English history, character and culture.
As Nicholas Wroe noted in his profile of Scruton in the Guardian, the Tory philosopher has at times been a hate figure for the left. "His books have been unmercifully slaughtered by reviewers and his pronouncements on society mocked," said Wroe. "He is accused of being a grammar-school boy in thrall to the upper classes."
I looked forward to plenty of unmerciful slaughterings (incidentally, is it possible to be mercifully slaughtered?), but only Terry Eagleton in the Irish Times came up to scratch. Eagleton's first sentence showed the glint of his blade: "Few books are as odiously self-satisfied as this one." This was going to be bloody.
Eagleton allowed one note of mercy before the slaughtering: "This is a silly book rather than a stupid one. Some of its reflections, not least on English common law, are probing and suggestive, and Scruton himself is one of Britain's most brilliant philosophers." Then the punchline: "But the priggish, mawkish tone of this elegy suggests that he has now degenerated from Kant to cant."
The knockabout had a serious point: "The book either edits out uglier English realities or disingenously excuses them. Its vulgarly sentimental hymn to the English countryside, a land which may have been green but was rarely pleasant, is mostly silent on the dispossession and exploitation which made it the first capitalist rural set-up in world history."
James Wood in the London Evening Standard was almost as dismissive, and also began with an arresting, almost novelistic opening sentence: "There is always a danger of confusing one's childhood with the universe."
Where Eagleton wielded a machete, Wood skewered Scruton with an elegant dagger. "Scruton's vision of England mixes Burke's conservatism (in which a proper society honours both the dead and the unborn) with Orwell's quiet patriotism. But he lacks the eloquence of the former and the precision of the latter. Instead, his intellectual tone is closer to the windy popular travel books of the 1930s, by writers like HV Morton, which went 'in search of the English'.
"What dismays is the utter conventionality of what Scruton loves: he laments the passing of the country house, the death of the hedgerow, the debunking of empire by left-wing academics, the killing of the grammar schools, the fading relevance of the Church of England, the demise of the idea of the English gentleman and the hereditary principle. It is not that what Scruton writes is necessarily untrue, though his generalities unman verification; it is that what he writes is too true, is bloated on truism ... So in a curious paradox, the book which so praises English individuality entirely lacks it." A clever putdown.
Blake Morrison, in the Independent on Sunday, used neither machete nor dagger, but sought to kill the book by irony. It was a wickedly effective weapon. "If there was a kinder, wiser, more equable place than Old England, he [Scruton] can't think of it. And if a people ever matched the English for 'their stoicism, their decorum, their honesty, their gentleness and their sexual puritanism', he hasn't met them."
Surely the Sunday Telegraph would gallop to Scruton's aid. Sadly not. Alasdair Palmer was neither entertained by the prose nor convinced by the polemic. "Scruton's philosophical analysis of England is in fact very un-English. In its determined ponderousness, its true homeland is not England, but Germany. We get an Hegelian analysis of cricket and of public schools - something which no Englishman who had participated in either would ever be tempted to formulate."
Parts of Scruton's book - the better parts, many thought - are autobiographical, and Palmer got personal at the end of his review. "Just about everything that Dr Scruton values about his own life derives from the changes he excoriates as having killed off England. It would be too much to expect a Germanic philosopher to be grateful for that. But you might expect an Englishman to notice it." Ouch.
There was some respite for the harried Hegelian in previously hostile territory - the Guardian. "Scruton, who is a huntsman and Tory philosopher, and runs an austere 'experimental farm' in the hard, dry soil of northern Wiltshire, has written a defence, of some elegance and sophistication, of the crustiest version of Englishness imaginable," wrote Andy Beckett.
Beckett admired the style and passion, and enjoyed the biographical bits, but he too found the argument unfocused: "This story has some of the moral momentum and intensity of a Victorian novel," he wrote. "Around his grainy memories, Scruton arranges essays about the educational, legal and geographical structures that bred his favourite sort of Englishness in others. These sections are less successful. Over-familiar assertions of national uniqueness ... replace the usual Scruton logic and economy of expression."
Scruton did have one supporter, again an unlikely one - the Labour peer, Lord (aka Melvyn) Bragg, in the Independent. "This is an elegant and moving book. It will be read by those whose affection for Roger Scruton's England has survived the disparaging assaults of the last few decades. It deserves to be read by those who have often led the half-baked attack on this particular view of England. Scruton's England, apart from its final over-compressed, over-simplified chapter, is a classic elegy: biased, selective and resonant, done with that passionate regret which can seed re-emergence."
A romantic Tory vision rejected by the Telegraph and embraced by the artistic arm of New Labour: we live in confusing times. Now let's hear from a few non-male, non-white, non-Oxbridgeans. There are, apparently, one or two such people in England.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:virus: The Ideohazard 1.1
« Reply #44 on: 2003-09-26 20:11:40 » |
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At 07:23 AM 26/09/03 -0600, Hermit wrote (in reply to Jonathan Davis):
snip
>[Hermit] In any case, I suggest that somebody's perspective is flawed and
>that cognitive dissonance is almost certainly at work. Particularly when
>it comes to your repeatedly rejected strange idea that I advocate any
>Theistic religions. The difference between you and I, it seems, is that I
>condemn them all equally, rather than reserving a fondness for the Anglicans.
I have come to appreciate religions in the same way that I appreciate
redwood trees. Both are highly evolved "living" systems, worthy of respect
on that aspect alone. My appreciation is partly because religions are
symbiotic to human minds. As such the combination of a human with a
religion is/was more likely to survive and reproduce than one
without. Religions of course *evolve* to the symbiotic state, typically
taking 300 years to move from dangerous cult to a more or less mutualistic
state.
Unfortunately in my case knowing/appreciating the nature of religions
precludes me from religious memes from being part of my active set. I.e.,
I can't take any of them more seriously than the Easter Bunny.
>This includes recognizing that your (and that of your sources) blanket
>condemnation of Middle Eastern and Asian culture is rooted in your
>apparently shallow perspective. Had you been brought up in, e.g. The PRC,
>your opinion would no doubt be different. Which allows me to condemn your
>judgements, They are not measured, but are rooted in cultural prejudice.
I share to some extent a cultural prejudice for "western", mostly Christian
culture. My bias is empirical. Western culture is the one which developed
tools of insight. Islamic cultural may well have been the highest in the
world at one time, but it is sadly eclipsed now.
Keith Henson
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