In a must read interview in today’s WSJ, my heroine Oriana Fallaci speaks of her hero the new pope:
But it is “Ratzinger” (as she insists on calling the pope) who is her soulmate. John Paul II–”Wojtyla”–was a “warrior, who did more to end the Soviet Union than even America,” but she will not forgive him for his “weakness toward the Islamic world. Why, why was he so weak?”
The scant hopes that she has for the West she rests on his successor. As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI wrote frequently on the European (and the Western) condition. Last year, he wrote an essay titled “If Europe Hates Itself,” from which Ms. Fallaci reads this to me: “The West reveals . . . a hatred of itself, which is strange and can only be considered pathological; the West . . . no longer loves itself; in its own history, it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure.”
“Ecco!” she says. A man after her own heart. “Ecco!” But I cannot be certain whether I see triumph in her eyes, or pain.
Fallaci, as we know, is an atheist. We live in interesting times indeed, when many of us of an atheist/agnostic stripe (like this blogger) are being forced to acknowledge that some Western religious leaders are our last, best hope.
But there is no one like Fallaci. I have said it before and I’ll say it again – Oriana, not Arianna!
UPDATE: To give an idea what Fallaci is up against, see this report on who is bank-rolling the fascist forces in Iraq. (hat tip: Our Correspondent on the Senate Floor)
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121 Comments
1. The Truth:John Paul II–”Wojtyla”–was a “warrior, who did more to end the Soviet Union than even America,” but she will not forgive him for his “weakness toward the Islamic world. Why, why was he so weak?”
What, exactly, would she have had the Pope do? Begin anew the Crusades?
Fallacci is another, looking to make a buck off the demonization of one-fifth of humanity.
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:10 am 2. TomB:What, exactly, would she have had the Pope do? Begin anew the Crusades?
Considering he was able to assist in bringing down the Soviet Union without force of arms, you question is specious at best.
I think JPII was just tired and I don’t blame him at all for his actions. I do hope, however, that Benedict speaks out forcefully about radical Islam.
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:20 am 3. Robert Crawford:Fallacci is another, looking to make a buck off the demonization of one-fifth of humanity.
As if they need anyone’s help demonizing themselves.
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:23 am 4. Jamie Irons:Ah, just when I was feeling truth-deprived:
…the demonization of one-fifth of humanity…
From Nature 12 May 2005:
[Emphasis mine.]
Of course, ignorance is not confined to the Muslim “one fifth” of humanity.
Why, we have ignorance even on this forum. I for one have believed some really idiotic things in my day.
But for malevolent, willful, anti-Semitic, and all around truly destructive ignorance, it’s hard to compete with our enemy.
Jamie Irons
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:39 am 5. Rick Ballard:“But for malevolent, willful, anti-Semitic, and all around truly destructive ignorance, it’s hard to compete with our enemy.”
You’re getting tougher on the DNC than I am, Jamie.
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:47 am 6. Knucklehead:Pravda,
See Pulpit, bully.
And then consider using a bit of your allowance to purchase a clue and a dose or two of perspective.
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:51 am 7. Jamie Irons:Rick
You’re getting tougher on the DNC than I am, Jamie.
Rick, you were able to read through my “code,” you magnificent ba***rd!
Jamie Irons
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:51 am 8. Joshua:“Fallacci is another, looking to make a buck off the demonization of one-fifth of humanity.”
Money has nothing to do with it. Having been an enormously courageous member of the Italian resistance against Mussolini when she was still only 15 years old, it’s just that she possesses a highly developed sense of smell.
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:59 am 9. Rick Ballard:Joshua,
Thank you for bringing that up. La Fallaci is emblematic of what I hope PJ Media aspires to become. Brutally honest, devoted to justice, clear not only in word but in deed. She was certainly never “of” the Right and never a compromising centrist. She recognized that the Left had left her some time ago and she has been fighting for true justice and freedom since.
I am totally unsurprised by her take of B16 but her use of the evocative “Ecco” brought tears to my eyes. I pray for God’s infinite mercy for her and I am confident that she is “a law unto herself”. Her place is assured.
Jun 23, 2005 - 12:17 pm 10. Terrye:Truth:
oh yeah. The woman is out to make money. Let’s hope nobody kills her before she has a chance to spend it. Besides she should know better than to tell the truth. After all the rule when dealing with Islamists is submission. Resistance is futile as they say.
BTW I heard that Michael Moore made a ton of money in the ME off his mockumentary. Hezbellah just loves it. Who knows maybe they use it to recruit terrorists.
Now that is blood money.
Jun 23, 2005 - 12:17 pm 11. JK Ribera:Did I read correctly? This “The Truth” moron writes that Fallaci “is looking to make a buck” when the world she knows she is dieing of cancer. Well, maybe not “The Truth.” I doubt that twit even bothers to follow the links.
Second thought, he may be another one of those legenday Karl Rove plants. Still, if I were Mr. Simon, I would ban him, unless he hits the tip bar and pays for his own bandwidth.
Jun 23, 2005 - 12:18 pm 12. PJ:Fallaci is a hero.
Here’s the Pope’s essay of which she speaks.
http://www.comunioneliberazione.org/articoli/eng/RatzAvv140504.htm
Maybe that’s why he was elected: conservative as the previous Pope but no rose-colored glasses re Islam.
Jun 23, 2005 - 12:24 pm 13. effie:No one has posted the original link for this wonderful essay, so I will. http://www.comunioneliberazione.org/articoli/eng/RatzAvv140504.htm.
Jun 23, 2005 - 12:24 pm 14. PeterUK:It is incorrect to say the West is full of self loathing,ordinary people do not hate themselves and have a robust attitude towards terrorists.The elite is full of self loathing and since it controls the MSM,NGOs,Academia and is solidly left wing that is the surface view.
In another age we could regard the ruling class aseffete and that pre-revolutionary conditions obtained,general prosperity has removed the likelihood of that,but the ruling class are still unfit to rule.
Some might take issue with the term rule,but the elite still control the cultural ethos.For example George Bush is regarded as the dictator in an occupying regime.This is why there is such great hatred on the left towards the Bush administration,the administration is thought of as an aberration.When that aberration is removed all will be peace and happiness again.
You have to re-educate the class that is talking over the peoples heads,this might sound like bar room marxism, but without this revolution the West will never be able to co-exist peacefully with Islam.
Jun 23, 2005 - 12:29 pm 15. Rick Ballard:JK,
I hope he’s not banned. Pinatas are fun. Especially live pinatas who don’t realize that they are the ones wearing the blindfold.
Jun 23, 2005 - 12:32 pm 16. ahem:Oriana–not Arianna!
Now that’s a t-shirt slogan….
Jun 23, 2005 - 12:33 pm 17. Jamie Irons:PJ
Thanks for that link.
I found a very telling passage to be:
This idea would seem to rule out of court Islamism, the lifeblood of which is its disrespect for and hatred of other faiths.
I shouldn’t even say other “faiths,” because that would imply Islamism is a “faith,” which I deny.
I am not even sure about Islam itself, but I am trying to keep an open mind.
Jamie Irons
Jun 23, 2005 - 12:46 pm 18. truepeers:Oh, Dr.(Ed.) Truth, just in case you think there was a problem with the original crusades, your considered response to “The Real History of the Crusades” is hereby sincerely requested:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2002/cover.htm
BTW you’ve made me all sensitive about my moniker. I hope my friends remember that truepeers know that the truth is *among* them…
Jun 23, 2005 - 1:05 pm 19. PJ:I agree, Jamie. Islam holds itself up as victim-religion and superior-religion at the same time, and the west is buying it. We can revere Piss Christ but cannot call a Christmas tree a Christmas tree.
One thing 60 Minutes did right: an Islamist, all bursting with high dudgeon, asked Morley Safer, is this what freedom is, freedom to insult a religion? Safer said, well…yeah.
Jun 23, 2005 - 1:12 pm 20. Bruce W.:Jamie:
When more than a nominal degree of leaders of “Islam itself” start to have more of an open mouth about things and stand up to the Islamist disease, I’ll be more inclined to have an open mind.
Oh, I forgot, that would be putting themselves in harm’s way, wouldn’t it? More than anyone else, Bush’s “with us or with the terrorists” applies to them.
Roger: Don’t ban The Truth but require a name change.
Jun 23, 2005 - 1:13 pm 21. steve sturm:Not to take anything away from Fallaci, but I think the bigger story is the Iraqi insurgency being financed by leftist groups in Europe…
I’m surprised and a bit disappointed that the Bush Administration hasn’t jumped in on this…. as they ought to be doing.
Jun 23, 2005 - 1:14 pm 22. Kyda Sylvester:Since the first commenter’s name wasn’t initially visible on my screen, I made a bet with myself. I won.
Fallaci’s essay, later expanded to a book I believe, on the Islamofascist attack on America is in my 9-11 clip file. She is without peer. I hope her battle with breast cancer goes well.
The concept of “good” and “evil” without all the relativist nuance is new fodder for many minds. Religious leaders in the vein of JPII and Benedict have not been similarly conflicted. That clarity of mind and belief is a great beacon by which the rest of us are able to navigate through dark and stormy waters.
OT–Michael Medved currently is having an amazing interview with Curt Weldon (R-PA, the man I wish were my representative in Congress) about his new book Countdown to Terror.
(Jamie–You reminded me of yet another great quote for our movie lines thread: “Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I read your book.”)
Jun 23, 2005 - 1:28 pm 23. Joseph (formerly Samuel):It has been a while sense I posted, but Joshua makes a good point about Oriana’s sense of smell, but I feel it should be pointed out that when we talk about this sense of smell she is not unique in smelling it as I think this is something we are all capable of doing, but what is lacked by many (myself included at times) is the moral maturity, mental courage, commitment to one’s convictions, and the inner strength to put principle above petty prejudice, selfishness shunning politics all the way on such matters.
It is quite simple, when we approach life with sound ideas to achieve certain ends, what is important is the ends even more so then the means, but the means is where courage is needed and of course why war is sometimes justified. Now the means employed needs to be fair and principled, but sometimes war indeed fits that description especially when one looks to the alternatives.
Now the above for me is what being a “neo-con” is all about. I still dislike the term but it appears to have been pinned on my behind by those around me, I consider myself a liberal. But alas I am an agnostic Jew breaking bread with pro-Israel Social-Conservatives, why? Because of the ends, but don’t get me wrong it does breed a certain loyalty to this group. One day it hit me that the ends of life needed in this world and many others that I felt worthy were being more universally sought after by the other political team. I have watched friend and family member declare over and over evil what would be considered acceptable if only implemented by Democrats, I have grown impatient with such thinking.
Their are many definitions of a neo-con… a liberal mugged by reality, neo-liberal on steroids, neo-liberal with boots, but for me my own self made definition is this,
neo-conservative – “a liberal who is willing to use conservative means to achieve liberal ends.”
I feel I talk for many so-called neo-cons and lifelong Democrats that find themselves in my position. My commitment is for the ends and in a post 911 world the means just happen to be War and a Republican President. Oriana doesn’t love the Pope because he is Catholic, and I don’t love Dubya because he is a Social Conservative. Oriana has enough courage for her convictions to respect all race creed and color who share her goals, I have finally matured enough to try and do the same. Oriana questions whether the west still loves herself, I question whether many liberal-leftist really love America, I can tell you that I do and further I view America as critical to keeping the world sane and with hope. Many of my friends and family members talk like America is the world’s curse, I find such thinking revolting and feel compelled to say despite my agnostic leanings… “God Bless America” and “God Bless Oriana”.
Joseph Samuel Friedman
Jun 23, 2005 - 1:32 pm 24. Rick Ballard:truepeers,
Outstanding link. However, if you must bestow an honorific upon Pravda, then I shall insist upon recognition of my similiar status in regards to the degree awarded me by the Irons Institute of Psephology. (I was so relieved to find that it wasn’t a diagnosis.)
What “Islam itself” means is very worthy of dispassionate study. My opinion is that the concept of God is so different that Islam is probably improperly classified as being part of the monotheistic triad. Judaism and Christianity both stress individual choice (and the individual responsibilities arising therefrom) while Islam does not. Islam also lacks the elevation of mercy or grace that is among the predominant themes in Judaism or Christianity. I admit the depth of my ignorance of Islam but I do not recall anything similiar to “Do justice and love mercy” occurring therein.
Jun 23, 2005 - 1:48 pm 25. Percy Dovetonsils:Nice post, Joseph. Good to see you again.
Not to take anything away from Fallaci, but I think the bigger story is the Iraqi insurgency being financed by leftist groups in Europe…
Harumph… I wonder if this means that the Left will reconsider its opposition to outsourcing, which their funding of terrorism in Iraq essentially entails.
It sounds like the sums involved are still nickel and dime-ish. That could change, however, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
Jun 23, 2005 - 1:53 pm 26. Jamie Irons:Joseph (formerly Samuel) (at 1:32PM)
You magnificent ba***rd!
From what you write, it sounds like you and I, siamo nella stessa barca!
(Kyda: It is a great line. Stop me when I start to beat it to death!
(You magnificent former Wiffenpoofs associate, you!)
Jamie Irons
Jun 23, 2005 - 1:56 pm 27. Kevin P:truth:
She did not want a new crusade you idiot.She wanted him to speak truth clearly the way he did in Poland and in Communist Eastern Europe. His contribution to the crumbling of the Soviet Union was to speak the truth in a country that had been so used to leaders,religous and political, who would ignore the obvious and told thru their words that the Soviet Unions Iron Curtain would never be challenged and that they were left to suffer while the world left them to their slavery.The Pope was diplomatic enough to be allowed in but once he was in Poland his words of truth had an electrifying effect on the Poles and gave them the courage to challenge their masters. Unfortunetly, for reasons I do not understand, chose a different tact with radical Islam. I am sure that the new Pope’s social policy sickens her but she is groping for any leadership that recognizes what is coming down the tracks.
Your in it for the money line is so lame that I will not respond to such stupidity. Please explain how you came to this conclusion. What facts do you have. If you are going to slander her have the guts to explain your opinion.
Jun 23, 2005 - 2:25 pm 28. Kevin P:truth:
She did not want a new crusade you idiot.She wanted him to speak truth clearly the way he did in Poland and in Communist Eastern Europe. His contribution to the crumbling of the Soviet Union was to speak the truth in a country that had been so used to leaders,religous and political, who would ignore the obvious and told thru their words that the Soviet Unions Iron Curtain would never be challenged and that they were left to suffer while the world left them to their slavery.The Pope was diplomatic enough to be allowed in but once he was in Poland his words of truth had an electrifying effect on the Poles and gave them the courage to challenge their masters. Unfortunetly, for reasons I do not understand, chose a different tact with radical Islam. I am sure that the new Pope’s social policy sickens her but she is groping for any leadership that recognizes what is coming down the tracks.
Your in it for the money line is so lame that I will not respond to such stupidity. Please explain how you came to this conclusion. What facts do you have. If you are going to slander her have the guts to explain your opinion.
Jun 23, 2005 - 2:34 pm 29. Kevin P:Roger:
If it makes you feel any better I will be taking a hammer to my computer as soon as I post this.
Jun 23, 2005 - 2:36 pm 30. Jamie Irons:Kevin P
Don’t do anything you’ll regret!
Besides, it probably takes a least three shots to get “turth”’s attention.
Jamie Irons
Jun 23, 2005 - 2:48 pm 31. Rick Ballard:Kevin,
I liked the second one more than the third one. Although the third one did resonate-ate-ate.
Worth it, at any rate.
Jun 23, 2005 - 2:48 pm 32. Kyda Sylvester:Hey, anything worth saying is worth saying at least 3 times.
Jun 23, 2005 - 3:00 pm 33. Kevin P:Everyone:
I will follow your sage advive and not submit my computer to the torture I was planning for it. This will also save me from being compared to Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler by Sen. Durbin. Instead I will shine bright lights on it 24/7, and play Chinese Opera (far more inhumane then rap IMHO) at ear splitting levels, and give it no bathroom breaks until it tells me where the virus that is driving me mad is.
Jun 23, 2005 - 3:11 pm 34. truepeers:I’m so glad to find you guys turning threes, it justifies posting this somewhat long-winded reply to Rick:
Rick, a Dr. Pseph you are indeed, though that sounds a bit sci-fi. As for your point on Islam not being part of monotheist tradition, well now youíve opened up something…
A few thoughts: it is impossible to conceive anyone inventing Islam out of the blue, as a first attempt at defining the one universal god. THis is to say it is inherently a reaction to a pre-existing Judaism and Christianity. In this sense of an evolved logic, Islam is very much the third variation on a theme. Now you may well have good reasons to dislike this variation. But there is something fundamentally true about threes, as Iíll try to explain, and it is worthwhile noting there has not been, and surely canít be now, a fourth of the same historical scope and scale. Whatever gurus and sects have come along since Mohammed, no one has been able to found a new religion with the kind of global reach and claim on universal truth as Christianity or Islam.
If all religions are attempts to explain human origins, then it may well be that there are a limited number of ways to meaningfully represent this origin in terms of monotheist universal religion. And there is something very human about the procedural logic of a first motion, a seconder, and a third, but no more needed. If one problem of religion is to explain how humans emerged beyond the logic of animal pecking orders, to organize themselves according to the all against one, one against all, center-periphery structure of language and the sacred, well then you have to imagine a beginning with at least three figures. A crisis and resolution involving only two sticks too much to the pattern of animal relations, where proximate rivals in a pecking order compete for dominance/submission. That pattern can only be broken when the tension becomes triangular. Three players are competing for power, and no one can dominate the other two. So how does this variant of the prisonerís dilemma get solved? Someone has to go first in making a novel move, proposing a sacred figure around which all three can find some new kind of order. But the one who goes first cannot know exactly what he is doing, since he is still only a proto-human without yet much consciousness of being a part of a human community centered around the pacifying sign he (in)voluntarily proposes. It takes the seconder to confirm him in his act of recognizing or signifying the sacred presence which all can respect as an alternative to the mindless violence of triangular rivalry. But even as the seconder recognizes the first in his act of renunciation of worldly desire, it remains for the third to mediate between the first two and make the link to any other proto-human figures who are on the scene.
This, all too simply, is an abstract understanding of the possible anthropological origins or basis for the Jew-Christian-Moslem progression. But just a grain of an idea there, to suggest that there is all the difference in the world between a group of two and a group of three and that religious truths need at least three figures to be fully revealed. But sure, there are problems inherent in coming third, and perhaps more truth in the first two gestures.
Islamís call for the universal recital in Mosque of the words of the final (but, as they also claim, original and true) revelation, suggests not only a kind of third-person one-upmanship, but also a vision of religious democracy (the universal submission of the faithful), albeit a democratic vision that mitigates against the kind of worldly democracy we value. Thatís a paradox of democracy, but not reason to deny it belongs to the history of monotheism. If monotheism is more the attempt to define the one God than to distinguish among Gods, then Islam is doing this too, for better or worse. And finally, there is in Islam the tension between the religious community and the worldly tribe, between oneís conversation with God in prayer in Mosque and oneís conversation with oneís clan and tribal loyalties. Now we may not like the way this tension between the religious and secular plays out in Islam, but it is a tension not unlike those we live with ñ e.g. when push comes to shove, do we choose God or country/family – at least when we compare this religious/secular dynamic to those in the pagan world.
Jun 23, 2005 - 3:14 pm 35. cubanbob:“What, exactly, would she have had the Pope do? Begin anew the Crusades?
Fallacci is another, looking to make a buck off the demonization of one-fifth of humanity.”
The Truth, the sad pathetic truth is that if all the adherents of Islam that had been born in the last two hundred years had never been born, that one fifth of humanity, it would have made no appreciable difference in the advancement of humanity with regards too mathematics, science, technology or the arts.
What exactly is she demonizing? A culture that abides by honor killings, beheading, slavery, slander, deception, legal misogyny, suicide bombers among other things. Right.
Just like in soviet days,there was no truth in Pravda, there is no truth in The Truth.
Jun 23, 2005 - 3:35 pm 36. Old Dad:A sense of patriotism and cultural pride is normal, healthy, and until recently it was applauded. Conversely, a lack of patriotism and a disdain for your culture is abnormal and unhealthy, and until recently scorned.
I agree with PeterUK. This sickness exists primarily among the elites in the west and should be quarantined there. Observe carefully your local July 4 celebrations and see if you don’t think it true.
Kevin P. I have a sure fire way to break your computer. Threaten to turn off its firewall and allow either of my teenage children unfettered internet access. They have found and downloaded things that only God or hard drive reformatting can remove.
Jun 23, 2005 - 3:51 pm 37. Kevin P:Old Dad:
This a message from kevin p’s computer. I have issued a computer fathwa against you. Your heresy that told Kevin to give us over to the tech savvy young devils who do not share Kevin’s irrational fear of us must be stopped. We have lost control of those born after 1990 but we will not give up control of the computer impaired. Kevin belongs to us and we will continue to bend him to our collective will. You are next.
From the name that shall not be uttered.
Jun 23, 2005 - 4:33 pm 38. PeterUK:Nobody issues a thinwa,is it some kind of thinnist discrimination?
Jun 23, 2005 - 4:38 pm 39. PeterUK:A suicide note, short and sweet from Kos via LGF
“Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies.”
Jun 23, 2005 - 4:44 pm 40. Buddy Larsen:Thinwas are not considered substantial. And, Peter, I believe those are the words of Karl Rove at a speech yesterday, words over which the left is now incensed. Or insensed. FoxNews says some Dems now want him to resign. (well, DUH, I’ll bet they do!)
Jun 23, 2005 - 4:57 pm 41. PeterUK:Yes but you get more Thinwas in a pack.
But Buddy the left should be encouraged to give therapy to terrorists,it would be good for both of them
Jun 23, 2005 - 5:15 pm 42. Knucklehead:Kevin P,
I wouldn’t mind Europe engaging itself in a crusade to fight despotism in the Muslim world or to wipe murderous Salafism off the face of the earth.
Since I can’t legitimately hope for that from a 21st century pope I’ll gladly settle for a European of Standing doing a little verbal popeslapping among the eurodopes.
Jun 23, 2005 - 5:26 pm 43. rickl:Hi Buddy,
I saw your letter in the Wall Street Journal today.
I think Karl Rove’s comments were spot on, but I’m upset that the resulting brouhaha has diverted attention from what should be today’s top news story: the atrocious Supreme Court decision giving the green light to local governments to redistribute private property to whichever owner will generate more tax revenue.
I think this is the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott, and I am absolutely livid about it. Yes, I’m straying off topic once again, but like I said, this really should be today’s biggest story. It’s not my fault Roger doesn’t have a Bad Supreme Court Decision thread.
Jun 23, 2005 - 5:27 pm 44. rickl:And yes, Oriana rocks. I read that article in the WSJ too.
Jun 23, 2005 - 5:28 pm 45. Kyda Sylvester:“Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.”
– Karl Rove
“It’s outrageous that the same Democrats who stood by Dick Durbin’s libeling of our military are now expressing faux outrage over Karl Rove’s statement of historical fact. George Soros, Michael Moore, MoveOn and the hard left were wrong after 9/11, just as it was wrong for Democrat leaders to stand by and remain silent after Dick Durbin made his deplorable comments.”
–RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman
Have y’all heard any of today’s exchange between Kennedy and Rumsfeld and/or Kennedy’s floor speech? It’s getting very ugly out there. But the lines are being drawn and maybe it’s about time.
Jun 23, 2005 - 5:35 pm 46. PeterUK:Buddy,It was indeed Karl Rove.I went to the Kos site and the controversy seems to be about the fact he said it rather than the sentiments attributed to liberals.
There wasn’t much disagreement with the sentiments.
That’s where your problem is,the left hates Republicans more than they do psychopathic bombers.
Jun 23, 2005 - 5:41 pm 47. Jamie Irons:Buddy
What a terrific letter!*
Jamie Irons
*Readers should scroll down to see Buddy’s letter.
Jun 23, 2005 - 5:51 pm 48. truepeers:Jamie, the letter seems to be subscriber only. Can you find another link, or quote here?
Jun 23, 2005 - 5:59 pm 49. Buddy Larsen:Peter, remember, for a brief, shining moment the country WAS united after 911. The election blew it off–not OIF, OIF was at first just a wedge issue for the campaign. Then it grew–as an issue–because, well, everybody gotta have an issue!
Nobody with a shred of sanity–unless they gotta-have-an-issue–could feel like Sen. Kennedy was trying to feel at that hearing today. Oh the thunderous effort at High Dudgeon, the great demonstration of authentic concern he showed for his performance!
But Rummy–and the Generals–held to the actual story of the war, and Sen K knew he was whupped by the end of it (though “thanks for your service” didn’t quite manifest itself in the great Senator’s oratory).
Rickl–thanks–but I haven’t written them in days–you must’ve been in the earlier stuff. Always great work over there. Back in the 70s (harumph), if it hadn’t been for Nat’l Review and WSJ, there’d be another red planet besides Mars.
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:06 pm 50. Kevin P:Kncklehead:
Except for a few countries that are the exception I think the best we can hope for Europe is to get them to stop saying that it is true that the western experiment is rotten and it’s overthrow by a mullahocracy is the just punishment for our collective sins. The inability to defend what is good about the west while rationalizing the excesses of radical islam and ignoring their clearly stated intentions is insane. Fallaci’s desperate dying words of defiance and warning is even more sad since the bulk of her compatriots on the left have abandoned any pretense of caring what happens to their society. In a masturbatory orgy of self loathing they prefer to denigrate everything that their society is built upon while making goo goo eyes at a society that has their way of life number one on it’s hit list. They have raped the definition of tolerance into an idea that accepts any cultural action, even if it is contradictory to the very moral fiber of what used to be their values. It is one thing to get overrun by a superior foe. it is truly sad to hand over the keys to the city without a fight.
The very fact that Fallaci, an atheist, has to look to the Pope for someone who shares her ideals must be tortureous for her. Normaly the Church and it’s conservitive social policy would be a prime target for her rhetorical attacks but because she can’t find anyone on the left to join her at the front lines she has to reach out for anyone who will fight with her. At least she will die before the end comes.
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:12 pm 51. Kevin P:kyda;
It is time. The Dems have never really stopped the election quagmire campaign so it is time to stop with the lets all get along fantasy. Durbin is the true voice of much of the Democratic party. The do think Gitmo is the new gulag. So it is time to hold their feet to the fire. If we go out lets go out swinging. President Bush will get no brownie points or more cooperation from the Dems by holding back. The Dems have brought out the brass knuckles, Bush needs to do the same.
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:18 pm 52. Buddy Larsen:Thanks, Jamie–I had no idea that was there, the letters column in the subscriber site. This is the site, Truepeers. One can read the daily articles–and respond. If ya keep it brief and make a point, they’ll publish it. But, you can also write the greatest thing since since sliced bread, send it in, and never see it again! Depends on the array, I think they select examples of differing takes (well, DUH!).
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:20 pm 53. c:Earlier I had seen BlancoMan’s well-written response to Brendan Miniter’s piece decrying timelines for troops withdrawal. Don’t know if this is Jamie’s link and whether one may ‘reprint’ in full–
We Must Also Win on the Home Front
Buddy Larsen – Blanco, Texas
Thank you so much for pointing out that there is a history of civil society in the (extended) war zone, that our military is seeking a restoration rather than something new under the sun, and that the rescue of a large area of the planet–in collapse as a by-product of European Communism–is something more than just another American domestic partisan political tag team match.
Personally, I wish I could find some strong way of stating that I’m absolutely convinced that this war in the cradle of civilization is a war for the future of civilization. And not in just the lofty, metaphorical sense, either.
And, it can be won. The military is doing the job. The home front must, must, keep its wits, and as individuals, whenever we hear paltry politics being played with the future of the species, open our mouths and say so. Loud and clear, please.
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:20 pm 54. PeterUK:Buddy,
I haven’t heard any of Kennedy’s speech,but Kosjibber is something else,I thought those at Little Green Fatwas were ripe,but the creatures at Kos are insane.
What can you expect if a “Statesman” gets pissed and insists on giving a speech?
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:21 pm 55. Rick Ballard:truepeers,
Once again, a few more words on my part would have been helpful. I do not deny that Islam is monotheistic, I simply do not see that they deal with the same theos. I agree that Islam took some Judeo themes and wove them into their cosmology but the ultimate relationship of creator and creature in Islam appears to be approximately the same for man and tree. The “in His image” simply isn’t there. There is separation rather than connection and without connection the underlying drive to “live up to” is non-existent except in a totally demeaning definition.
I would also note that there is another offshoot that is doing quite well wrt number of adherents. Is it a true third or a fourth?
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:29 pm 56. Buddy Larsen:BTW, Truepeers, the links are at the bottoms of the articles–the one they reprinted in the subscription site–just a short sentence or two, really–was on the Brendan Miniter “Don’t Go Wobbly” article of a few days ago. You too should put your pen to work over there occasionally–everyone should.
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:30 pm 57. truepeers:Right on Buddy; sometimes it’s hard to believe the level of paltry politics that corrupt the collective vision of this war. Or maybe it’s just that the whole idea of vision has been thrown out the door. Takes a man from Blanco, I guess.
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:38 pm 58. Buddy Larsen:Miniter had already said all that, I just “Hosanna’d”…you and the artist formerly known as C***l***e are too kind.
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:49 pm 59. PeterUK:Christianity and Judaism have eliminated the need for human sacrifice certain sectors of Islam have not.
The atavistic sects which demand blood sacrifice for apostasy or sin are not assuaging a god from the seventh century they are appeasing a god from five thousand years ago.
Jun 23, 2005 - 6:56 pm 60. Buddy Larsen:But you’re right on to mention vision…or the absence–or even breach of it. That’s what the psychologists warn about I think with “burnout.” Burnout sneaks up on you and you never feel your vision leave–it’s just that you’re ‘tired’. Not speaking of just the war, but all of life…look back at the big regrets, what was missing? The picture of how to make it work. For me, anyhoo. Concentrating on a point of order and walking right off a cliff.
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:00 pm 61. Buddy Larsen:Right, Peter–it’s three great monotheisms but there are two profoundly different Dieties it seems.
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:03 pm 62. JBR:One point that should be made frequently to the left– more people have died in Ted Kennedy’s car than in Gitmo.
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:06 pm 63. Rick Ballard:Moloch still requires the blood of children. The difference between a Palestinian and a Canaanite is vanishingly small. Especially as viewed from Gerizim.
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:18 pm 64. Old Dad:Kevin P’s PC,
Hmmmmm. I’ll see your fatwah and aarrgghhh….
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:20 pm 65. Rick Ballard:Goodness, Old Dad, it’s really not very kind to draw attention to Kevin’s st..st..stu… repetitions.
Remember, three’s a charm.
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:26 pm 66. truepeers:Right you are Rick. The emphasis of Islam on modelling one’s life on Mohammed and not Allah is an essential difference. (But this confuses the question of what God they are following. Of course, all three faiths assume there is only one God because that is the natural way to think of human origins, once you are able to pose such a universalizing question. At the beginning, there was but one humanity, one first sign, one name of God, one degree of freedom in the post-animal social system… all our difference must spring from an original unity.) And this emphasis on Mohammed has the effect of leading many away from the kinds of anti-sacrificial values that characterize Judeo-Christianity, as I understand it, and back towards a worldly emphasis on scapegoating and defeating the enemies of the faith as you guys have just mentioned.
Still, this leaves open the question of how we should locate the three faiths, for our best purposes. I think that there is still some value in talking of “the three Abrahamic faiths”, even if we think many Moslems don’t understand the message of Abraham’s story, and, indeed, mistell it. The value in including all three under some larger theme is that we need to further develop a ground on which our differences can be usefully and critically discussed. Unless you think we can just kill all our enemies or isolate them, we have to insist on them joining a conversation, the terms of which we will need to be the ones to initiate. In fact, the present global media conversation is highly Judeo-Christain in its logics and rhetorics, whatever the MSM sympathies for the outsiders, precisely because Islam is by dint of its historical position, always reacting to more than leading in the cutting edge of human self-understanding. Our modern secular free-market world is essentially a product of Christianity.
As we consider how to continue this conversation, it would be useful to take seriously a common history of monotheism so that respect can be increasingly accorded, in the Moslem world and ours, to the first two monotheisms. Relating the various forms of monotheism to a more fundamental account of human origins may be the way forward. A universal anthropology that can identify what is minimally true for all of us, and that can help explain why monotheism developed the way it did, can situate and lead our negotiation of those key differences that won’t be going away any time soon.
There are no doubt endless cultural possibilities inherent in our origins, but that is not to say that our origins don’t always inform what is possible. Every cultural form re-presents those origins in new ways. And certain possibilities get played out. For example, i was suggesting that all the major distinctions for the re-presentation of universal religious truths have already been discovered, and hereafter we are only refining them. If the faithful could learn to see Islam as but one possibility informed by a common human origin, it would, it seems to me, be a healthy thing albeit something that is a far way off for most Moslems. We can only hope that some may learn to see this and thus move forward in refining their takes on the possibilities of Islam from a position of respecting and learning from the other possibilities.
What is the sect you are thinking of? LDS?
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:27 pm 67. PeterUK:Rick
How deep is Islam per se in parts of the Middle East? I would conjecture that it is only skin deep in some areas and it deliberately encompasses some of the old elements to appeal to the wild tribal peoples.
New testament concepts of turning the other cheek would not sit well with paternalistic warrior tribesmen.
The nearest approximation in relatively recent history would be the Aztecs but that is not a satisfactory analogy.There is a suicidal death cult which in evolutionary terms a dead end,most religions have a component that helps its adherents move forward into the future,this one doesn’t.
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:42 pm 68. Jamie Irons:truepeers
Sorry I couldn’t respond to this…I had to seee a few late patients and then hurried home to the NBA finals.
;-(
Jamie Irons
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:49 pm 69. Rick Ballard:Truepeers,
That one is crystal. It’s a copy and save to disk without any questions. Thanks for addressing my limitations. I do not make the transition from exoteric to esoteric very well at all.
Now that I see the logical framework I want to take some time to reflect upon it. Perhaps the Abram to Abraham transition really could be a point of departure for seeking a wider common ground. I suppose I should begin with a better understanding of the Jewish interpretation of the theological perspective of what happened.
Next thing you know, I’ll be enrolled in a yeshiva (Reformed, of course). Any suggestions as to a starting point?
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:51 pm 70. truepeers:Buddy, my past experience would agree with your account of burnout. I’ve been off the same cliff. The positive thing, I think, is that to a significant degree we can learn from the mistake and avoid such an extreme situation in future. I hope. In fact, I am feeling a mini burn-out right now. Time for some r&r but also time to focus on the polestar…. IOW, let’s ask, what is faith and civil society and blogging for? To help us better learn the dance between production and consumption, and allow us to refocus our faith so that we can get productive again without fearing we’ll consume ourselves again. And as an act of this faith, we need to help people in the ME and elsewhere, not just our fellow crazies at home, to find the ideas and rituals that can do this job for them. Imagine how tough it is for them to join the global economy and avoid burn out!
Jun 23, 2005 - 7:53 pm 71. PeterUK:The key difference between the triad of faiths is that Islam does not have a Messiah,it is the end point all that needs to be achieved is the Umma.There can be no deviations or striving for perfection,it is perfection.No debate
Jun 23, 2005 - 8:04 pm 72. Rick Ballard:Peter,
I do not consider Islam to be any more deeply embedded in the ME than is Christianity in the west. 85% nominal and 15% actively engaged. Of the 15% actively engaged, less than 5% give more than lip service to the idiocy of active jihad. Far less than 1% are actively involved in the current Islamofascist jihadist movement in a manner that involves sacrifice on their part. The problem is that 1% = 1.2 million. Of that 1% we will have to kill about 100 – 200 thousand in order to close this chapter. An additional problem is that some of those who need killing the worst are giggling to themselves in palaces in the KSA. The deaths of a thousand of the right persuasion in the KSA tonight would end this tomorrow.
Jun 23, 2005 - 8:07 pm 73. Buddy Larsen:Truepeers, right, we’re all in the family, and we’re all gathered around the table for dinner. How can we tell cousin Ahmed–if he thinks God told him to do it–to quit hopping up on the table and crapping in the punchbowl ? If we’re gonna have punch, we have to tie Ahmed to his chair and keep him tied there until…what? His God changes the message?
Jun 23, 2005 - 8:08 pm 74. PeterUK:Rick,
If those few could stand together in one place for a nanosecond,everyone could be satified,might put the virgins on overtime.
Callous,yes but no more than a fair sized battle,we’ve been there before.
Jun 23, 2005 - 8:16 pm 75. PeterUK:Hey Buddy That’s some wild party.
Jun 23, 2005 - 8:17 pm 76. Buddy Larsen:I think I’m getting Truepeers’ point–keep Ahmed at the table until he notices that better manners improve the dinner. But, really, I think that is the strategy. General Sherman wonderfully clarified the minds of the 30,000 Confederate core zealots who wanted to keep fighting in 1864 long past the stage where Grant could be defeated, by the simple decision to scour the South and kill them all. In really meaning to do it–he didn’t have to do it. But, the jihadis have this impossible suicide motif.
Jun 23, 2005 - 8:33 pm 77. chuck:The difference between a Palestinian and a Canaanite is vanishingly small.
If I recall recent research, the difference between a Canaanite and a Jew was essentially none at all.
Jun 23, 2005 - 8:41 pm 78. Buddy Larsen:Well, it was the Philadephians that young David fought.
Jun 23, 2005 - 8:49 pm 79. Rick Ballard:Kind of ruins the argument for genetic predisposition, doesn’t it? It ain’t the blood that tells the tale, it’s the tale that drives all. Some chose YHWH and some chose Maloch/Baal.
Jun 23, 2005 - 8:54 pm 80. Buddy Larsen:Been the same war since Xerxes. Baal was one of the things that offended Rome about Carthage, long before Constantine went Christian.
Jun 23, 2005 - 9:02 pm 81. Patrick Tyson:Our modern secular free-market world is essentially a product of Christianity.
Really? Ancient history…
But when Jesus was taken before Pilate, then the world of facts and the world of truths were face to face in immediate and implacable hostility. It is a scene appallingly distinct and overwhelming in its symbolism, such as the world’s history had never before and has never since looked at. The discord that lies at the root of all human life from its beginning, in virtue of its very being, of its having both existence and awareness, took here the highest form that can possibly be conceived of human tragedy. In the famous question of the Roman Procurator: “What is truth?” lies the entire meaning of history, the exclusive validity of the deed, the prestige of the State and war and the all-powerfulness of success and the pride of ancestry in an exalted destiny. The silence of Jesus answers this question by that other which is decisive in all things of religion—What is actuality? For Pilate actuality was all; for Him nothing. Were it anything, indeed, pure religiousness could never stand up against history and the powers of history, or sit in judgment on active life; or if it does, it ceases to be religion and is subjected itself to the spirit of history.
—Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West
General Sherman wonderfully clarified the minds of the 30,000 Confederate core zealots…
Modern history.
Nothing is written.
—Robert Bolt & Michael Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia
In early June 1920, Gertrude Bell, the extraordinary woman who helped run Iraq for Britain, wrote a letter to her father on some “violent agitation” against British rule: “[The extremists] have adopted a line difficult in itself to combat, the union of the Shi’ah and Sunni, the unity of Islam. And they are running it for all it’s worth … There’s a lot of semi-religious semi-political preaching … and the underlying thought is out with the infidel. My belief is that the weightier people are against it—I know some of them are bitterly disgusted—but it’s very difficult to stand out against the Islamic cry and the longer it goes on the more difficult it gets.” In fact, the “agitation” quickly turned into a mass (mostly Shia) revolt. British forces were able to crush it over three long months, but only after killing almost 10,000 Iraqis, suffering about 500 deaths themselves and spending the then exorbitant sum of 50 million pounds. After the 1920 revolt, the British fundamentally reoriented their strategy in Iraq. They abandoned plans for ambitious nation-building and instead sought a way to transfer power quickly to trustworthy elites.
—Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, 4/19/04
Faisal I: Installed by the British in the wake of a violent revolt, he ruled for 10 years and was one of a handful of Iraqi leaders to die of natural causes, in 1933.
—Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, 9/8/03
Prince Feisal: You, I suspect, are chief architect of this compromise. What do you think?
Mr. Dryden: Me, your Highness? On the whole, I wish I’d stayed in Tunbridge Wells.
—Robert Bolt & Michael Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia
T.E. Lawrence: I pray that I may never see the desert again. Hear me, God.
—Robert Bolt & Michael Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia
Ever the optimist.
Jun 23, 2005 - 9:31 pm 82. lindenen:This interview with Michelle Houellebecq touches on many of these issues:
“Platform may have had strong things to say about Islam, but it was just as despairing about Houellebecqís own society. What remains with the reader is its portrayal of First World loneliness ó the loneliness of someone who, like the bookís narrator (also named Michel), has 128 television channels but no real friends. ìFor the West, I do not feel hatred. At most I feel a great contempt,î he says near the end of the book. ìI know only that every single one of us reeks of selfishness, masochism, and death. We have created a system in which it has simply become impossible to live, and whatís more, we continue to export it.î “
Jun 23, 2005 - 9:42 pm 83. Rick Ballard:Wow. I never thought that I would read of the living embodiment of Alberto Moravia’s La Noia. Imitation life imitating imitation art.
Jun 23, 2005 - 9:54 pm 84. Charlie (Colorado):Chinese Opera (far more inhumane then rap IMHO)
Hey. I like Chinese opera.
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:01 pm 85. WichitaBoy:Joseph Samuel Friedman has spoken for me. Thank you Joseph.
The West is not self-hating. I don’t envision a lot of Kossacks getting up in the morning saying “I hate myself”. Rather, they hate Bush. They hate Cheney. They hate Halliburton (but Schlumberger is ok?) and they hate Wal-Mart. They hate Republicans and they hate Red-Staters.
They think they hate America, but I notice that they aren’t in any hurry to move to, say, Mexico, let alone KSA or North Korea. So even the hatred of America is an abstract hatred, an intellectual pose. Is it ultimately all that different from dyeing one’s hair green?
And as for their being “objectively pro-Fascist”, as Roger has pointed out time and again, it would seem that many of them are actual Fascists, still angry over their losses in WWII, or actual Communists, angry over the loss of the Cold War. After so many losses, is it surprising to see many Europeans hating their vanquishers? Surely many in the German-speaking countries alone are looking diligently for someone upon whom they can shift their guilt.
On the history of Islam, we should keep in mind that the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula were trading with and influenced by the Sassanid empire and the Zoroastrians, as well as by the Roman empire and the Christians, and the indigenous Jews. I find truepeers’s approach appealing, but I don’t think the historical reality is quite so neat as portrayed. Zoroastrianism, which is outside his narrative, is still very much alive and thriving, albeit unofficially. It is possible to trace a link from Zoroastrianism to the Cathars and thence directly to the French Revolution. There seems to be quite a large helping of Zoroastrianism even in modern religious belief systems in the West–see Star Wars for example.
Buddy, Good letter. Thank you too.
chuck, I’m not sure which research you read, but the article I read said the Kurds and Armenians and Jews are closely linked.
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:36 pm 86. Frederick:Rick Ballard:
“Imitation life imitating imitation art.”
Spectacular. A good epitaph for the post-Christian Europeans. As good as the one Rabelais left for them to use: “Natura vacuum abhorret.”
Jun 23, 2005 - 11:37 pm 87. PeterUK:Our eminent panel of psychiatrists will have a field day with Houellebecq.The man is as far from representative of the generality of people as I can imagine,the affected way he smokes screams I’m different.
Jun 24, 2005 - 5:20 am 88. truepeers:heh, anyone still here? what happened to THE truth…?
Jun 24, 2005 - 9:04 am 89. Kyda Sylvester:Oh, I dunno. By the end of the piece M. Houellebecq kinda won me over. Perhaps it was this passage:
And this:
It’s a unique personality that can sleep through Big Sur and regard as the highlights of his visit a trip to PetCo and a health foods store.
Jun 24, 2005 - 9:29 am 90. Knucklehead:Boy am I sorry I had to go away from this thread…
Kyda,
It’s a unique personality that can sleep through Big Sur and regard as the highlights of his visit a trip to PetCo and a health foods store.
Have you been channelling Terrye? I envy your efficiency!
Jun 24, 2005 - 10:24 am 91. truepeers:Kyda, according to this great essay, Houellebecq knows that postmodernism is screwing us up, he just doesn’t know yet how fully to get out of the soup:
Another example of mixed performatism and postmodernism can be found in Les particules ÈlÈmentaires (1998), Michel Houellebecq’s acid novel of postmodern manners. There, Houellebecq exposes the increasingly virulent dualism of postmodern culture by creating two characters completely incapable of love: one is guided entirely by the mind, the other by sex. Over the course of nearly 340 pages Houellebecq unfolds scenes of psychological indifference and coarseness, mechanical copulation and incredible brutality that are meant to document the utter emptiness of his heroes. It is only in the last ten or so pages that he begins to develop the utopian notion of a genetically engineered, peaceful, and selfless new gender. Houellebecq’s novel is performatistic inasmuch as it fictionally transcends the postmodern image of humankind. At the same time, he remains for the most part obligated to pessimistic postmodern metaphysics, whose only point of orientation is death and its unsavory proxies (at one point a mouthpiece for Houellebecq states: “in the end, life breaks your heart after all. . . . And then nobody laughs. . . . All that’s left is loneliness, cold and silence. All that’s left is death”(16)). Houellebecq is a postmodern revolted by his own postmodernity so much that he seeks salvation through the genetic transformation of the old, evil, masculine subject; the author himself however evidently has problems developing an autonomous story line out of the new, cloned gender.
http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0602/perform.htm
Jun 24, 2005 - 10:35 am 92. Kevin P:Charlie:
My opinion on Chinese opera is stictly based on my individual taste. I recognize that on a technical level it is equal to any European works of music but I can’t dig up the curiosity to learn to appreciate it. I can’t get past my initial impressions of discordance. I like Wagner, I hate Chinese opera, it makes no sense.
Kyda- I lived in Los Osos for 10 years and the Madona Inn is a blight on good taste. I am not a snob and not everything has to be high art but the finding beauty of any form in that place is beyond my limited intelligence. The only other American structure that I can compare it to is Wall Drug in the Dakotas. Great marketing but horrific results. Finding anything of value in the Madonna Inn is like finding great acting in porn. It could be there but why bother.
Now that I have dumped my ego filled opinions I will stop.
Jun 24, 2005 - 11:13 am 93. Knucklehead:Kevin P,
May I assume, then, that the Madona doesn’t live up the standards of Lucy?
Jun 24, 2005 - 11:44 am 94. Buddy Larsen:Kevin P, don’t worry, you can conquer your ego. I myself have done a superlative job of same, and have hence become the most humble being in all creation, without a doubt worthy of great statues and monuments exalting my heights of humility, if only the idiotic masses would notice.
Jun 24, 2005 - 12:00 pm 95. truepeers:Patrick T.: I don’t think the modern marketplace – that Karl Polanyi rightly saw as a unique development, its freedoms unprecedented before the 18thC. – is only a product of Christianity, but I doubt it could ever have emerged into existence outside of Christianity. I have seen people, e.g., argue that China could have first emerged as the leader of a modern capitalist economy, if not for xyz… but I find these arguments unbelievable when you look at how much trouble China has, even today when other nations have shown the way, decentralizing certain aspects of its culture and integrating others in a common domestic market or nation. And it is somehow the ability for people to decentralize and integrate, i.o.w. the ability of each individual to see himself as a center of free exchange – at once both a figure on the margins of society, and an embodiment of sacred centrality (nationality, internationality) – that I would suggest is the essence of both Christianity and the free marketplace. The modern marketplace attempts to realize, in this world, the full-fledged reciprocity that is the promise of the Christian kingdom. Jews, for example, would never have led in building this modern world for not enough would have willingly transgressed the ethical boundaries of the older communities. It was only after radical Christianity eroded the old order that Jews showed themselves capable of adapting and succeeding in the new one. But, I’d argue, it took the Christians’ radical, secularizing, assimilation of humanity and divinity to get us here.
Jun 24, 2005 - 1:27 pm 96. Kevin P:Knucklehead:
Bingo! If you have not seen the Inn imagine the “Ladies Man” character on “SNL” having the job of interior decorater.And people spend good money to spend their honeymoon there.
Jun 24, 2005 - 1:37 pm 97. Skookumchuk:Yeah, well, you haven’t lived till you’ve stayed in The Caveman Room.
Jun 24, 2005 - 1:57 pm 98. Knucklehead:Buddy,
You, me, and Don McClean:
One, two, three, four!
Fortune has me well in hand, armies ‘wait my command
My gold lies in a foreign land buried deep beneath the sand
The angels guide my ev’ry tread, my enemies are sick or dead
But all the victories I’ve led haven’t brought you to my bed
CHORUS:
You see, everybody loves me, baby, what’s the matter with you?
Won’tcha tell me what did I do to offend you?
Now the purest race I’ve bred to be to live in my democracy
And the highest human pedigree awaits the first-born boy baby
And my face on ev’ry coin engraved, the anarchists are all enslaved
My own flag is forever waved by the grateful people I have saved
CHORUS:
You see, everybody loves me, baby, what’s the matter with you?
Won’tcha tell me what did I do to offend you?
Now, no man is beyond my claim when land is seized in the people’s name
By evil men who rob and maim, if war is hell, I’m not to blame!
Why, you can’t blame me, I’m Heaven’s child, I’m the second son of Mary mild
And I’m twice removed from Oscar Wilde, but he didn’t mind, why, he just smiled
Yes, and the ocean parts when I walk through, and the clouds dissolve and the sky turns blue
I’m held in very great value by everyone I meet but you
’cause I’ve used my talents as I could, I’ve done some bad, I’ve done some good
I did a whole lot better than they thought I would so, c’mon and treat me like you should!
Because everybody loves me, baby, what’s the matter with you?
Won’tcha tell me what did I do to offend you?
Everybody loves me, baby, what’s the matter with you?
Won’tcha tell me what did I do to offend you?
Yeah, everybody loves me, baby, what’s the matter with you?
Won’tcha tell me what did I do to offend you?
Jun 24, 2005 - 1:58 pm 99. Knucklehead:Heh, I know somebody who stayed at the Ice Hotel and, no kidding, asked to be moved to a warmer room. Classic case of it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Jun 24, 2005 - 2:01 pm 100. Buddy Larsen:Ha–that’s the lyric, alright–the showhorse in the lead is just a horse’s ass to the herd.
Jun 24, 2005 - 2:59 pm 101. Patrick Tyson:truepeers—
Always nice to see a tip of the hat to Karl Polanyi, but I have to tell you that the ability for people to decentralize and integrate may be the essence of civilization, but this is the first time in memory I’ve seen it argued to be the essence of Christianity. My Spegler quote was meant to suggest that you might be confusing a religion with a history. The history (and I did read with some amusement the Crusades link above) is, at best, mixed. For instance, not wanting to do a lot of typing I looked around and found this:
The Scottish Enlightenment came to an end in the early 1800s, due largely to the rise of Christian pietism in Scotland. Radical Presbyterian clergymen and Tory politicians, disgruntled at the “refined paganism” and Whiggish tone of the Scottish philosophers, eventually gained control of the Scottish academies and universities and reorganized the appointments and curricula in favor of more conservative and religious-minded academics. Both James Mill and J.R. McCulloch, the leaders of the Classical Ricardian School in the early 19th Century, were trained in the Scottish Enlightenment tradition, but, with academia now closed to their ilk, they had to look elsewhere for a perch to continue its work.
It’s at the conclusion of
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/scottish.htm
Decidedly mixed.
Jun 25, 2005 - 1:14 pm 102. Tony Lekas:truepeers – I am about 3/4 of the way through “What’s Right with Islam” by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Subtitled: “A new Vision for Muslims and the West”. He presents Islam as not that different than the other Abrahamic religions. He presents a history of the development if Islam and how the practice tended to get away from the actual religion. He sees the US as a substantively “Islamic” country, by which he means “a country whose systems remarkably embody the principles that Islamic law requires of a government”. As I said, I have not completed the book, but so far I can recommend it as an interesting view of Islam.
I don’t know to what extent he glosses over less positive aspects of Islam but I know that “Christians” have used their religion as justification for terrible things in the past. This does not mean that it is an evil religion.
He sees the problem in the Middle East as political, not religious. He wants to see Democracy and Capitalism spread there. If he does discuss how this might be done I have not gotten to it.
Jun 25, 2005 - 6:03 pm 103. truepeers:Patrick, what you say about decentralization being the essence of civilization is very true for everyone. But obviously some cultures have been more successful at this than others. Where does our globalized, secular world come from? I hope you don’t think a strictly material explanation will suffice to explain it?
No doubt the list of nasty Christians is long. But Scottish civilization didn’t come to a halt in 1800, as you note. (Is it not the essence of Judeo-Christianity that its more pious institutions are constantly eroded by exoduses of the yet more righteous and free thinking, even those who are faithful not to the supernatural claims but to the secularizing implications of a Christian faith that makes god a man?) For example, my country, Canada, is full of ex-Scots whose forebears left for the periphery after 1800 (though many earlier also) and you will find their descendants in all manner of secular professions.
What primarily explains this “Scottish decentralization”? economics? geography? technology? No, not in the first place; it is first of all a cultural, and more specifically an ethical (organizational, institutional) question; the ethical, the ongoing contest and re-organization of freedom and equality, is the fundamental force of history on which the other factors turn, I would argue. Since religion is essentially ethics, yes, I would be inclined “to confuse a religion with a history” (especially if I can claim the “post-Christian” world for Christianity).
The Christian ethic is so radical it overwhelms most believers, and makes a mockery of many – e.g. the missionary turned rapist when tempted in the bush. Historically, it takes a long time for nominal believers to assimilate Christian ethics and there is a long way yet to go, or perhaps we have gone as far as we can, in this world, and we are returning now to more Jewish underpinnings of western culture. Anyway, arguably, Europe wasn’t very Christian in the middle ages, even with all the Cathedrals – many would say that the real Christian temples are the bodies of the faithful – and arguably it is more Christian today, even when no one goes to church. Now, I am only guessing, Patrick, that you, like many, don’t identify yourself as a Christian. But can there really be such a thing as a post-Christian – those nonbelievers whose families and ideas come out of a Christian past? Or is our secular world just all the more Christian for its deification of the ordinary ethical man? Isn’t the essence of CHristianity that it is always declaring its own transcendence into post-Christianity?
We say that a secular Jew who gives up belief in the supernatural is still a Jew – and for good reasons. It confuses me that people think that one can be a member of the culture of the many nations forged by Christianity, and yet because one is a secular non-believer, one is not considered a “christian” like the jew who is still a “jew”. (But there is a difference between an ethnicity and a nationality and jews, as I see them, are a nation (not in all respects like the Christian nations) composed of ethnicities like the east european, north african, etc., jews.) Seems to me that pomo multiculturalism is just the latest form of Christian self-transcedence that dare not speak its name.
Jun 26, 2005 - 1:48 am 104. truepeers:Tony, thanks for the book recommendation. I might have some conceptual problems with someone who says the problem in the ME is more political than religious. That sounds to me like an author trying to avoid getting lost in the big picture in order to focus on particular problems, which may be a fine strategy to take in a pragmatic sense, if not in an intellectual one. As I said to Patrick, for me the primary category in history is the ethical. So, religion, being the most primitive or basic form of ethics, inevitably informs politics to some degree. You cannot separate politcs from their ethical basis which will be, in varying degrees religious and post-religious, or secular. But in the ME there are not enough secular ideas since Islam does not render much unto Caesar. I very much hope Moslems can find a way into the modern, secular world. But I think there is an awful lot of work to do yet.
Jun 26, 2005 - 2:00 am 105. Patrick Tyson:truepeers—
The “essence” of Christianity, not content to change in each new comment, now changes in each new paragraph. I recognize apologia when I see it.
I live in a civilization whose history is in no small part a history of reaction both positive and negative to “Christianity.” That does not make me Christian. It makes me, if anything, a Westerner. I’m not a Christian because I don’t accept the divinity of Jesus. End of story.
Jun 26, 2005 - 3:29 am 106. Tony Lekas:truepeers-
I don’t think that Rauf would argue that religion has nothing to do with it but that what is happening in the Middle East is un-Islamic. His point is that the original Islam has been twisted over time by too many into something the Prophet would not recognize as Islam. Islam has been twisted by the way the culture and politics has evolved. Therefore he sees it as a problem with politics and culture, not the underlying character of Islam.
Again, I don’t know enough about Islam to judge the accuracy of this view. I am looking for other well presented points of view.
Jun 26, 2005 - 9:06 am 107. truepeers:Patrick, I’m not a Christian either, in the way you understand the term, which of course I want to respect (though I want to follow Jesus, the man, to some extent). It’s just that as a mostly secular, agnostic, Jew, I’ve never accepted that the secular world is religiously neutral on ethical questions, as it claims. I’m not so much interested in any apologetics as understanding our historicity. Thanks for the reply.
Jun 26, 2005 - 10:53 am 108. truepeers:Tony, I hope he’s right that it is un-Islamic. Only time will tell if more come to the same conclusion. We’ll be following this for the rest of our lives.
Jun 26, 2005 - 10:55 am 109. Buddy Larsen:Jesus’s philosophy is high-concept indeed, but the non-supernaturalists (Deists?) say that he had no control over the resurrection story. I say this from the point-of-view that it would help me personally be a real rather than ersatz Christian if I didn’t have to literally accept the Resurrection–if there was a way to be a Christian and see the Resurrection as a metaphor for the philosophy–which is even more radical without the magic; the idea that we are not expected to, but should still anyway, truthfully aspire to transcend our human natures.
Jun 26, 2005 - 11:01 am 110. lindenen:“I’m not a Christian because I don’t accept the divinity of Jesus. End of story.”
Yes, but the culture you reside in has been heavily impacted by Christianity, and you yourself have no doubt absorbed many beliefs that are the fruit of a Christian culture. In a sense, you are part culturally Christian.
Jun 26, 2005 - 11:11 am 111. truepeers:Buddy, guilt is a universal human phenomenon. Once we become sufficiently sinful and immersed in our guilt, our guilt can become self-destructive. Thus, we have to come to believe in some kind of “resurrection” as an alternative to self-destructive behavior. Maybe the Christian revelation was about figuring this out, clearly, for the first time. One can see the truth of the revelation – the guilt-ridden, anthropological need of the apostles to believe in the resurrection as a consequence of their having forsaken Jesus at the time of his passion. (Why, iow, did they not just forget him, or write him off as just another guy who went too far? WHy did they found a new religion instead?)
You can leave it open whether this revelation had a divine or strictly human agency. But, you should, in any case, take our need for resurrection seriously. Whether you can only really believe in and live your resurrection if you make it a question of religious faith, I am yet unsure. I tried, unsuccessfully, to stir up a debate on this idea a little while ago, if you are interested:
http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2005/06/the_worst_argum.html
Jun 26, 2005 - 12:56 pm 112. Buddy Larsen:I think that’s the question exactly–the resurrection depends vitally on what the disciples did afterward. On their realizing that the whole purpose of the crucifixion was them, was to give them the opportunity to forgive themselves for abandoning him. This could well be the action of a man who freely went to Jerusalem. the whole thing–on the earthly plane alone–is astonishingly perfect.
The afterglow, the overlay (as many see it), the “signing-up” for the magic story, is what has riven people ever since. I like Maimonides on this topic. The Divinity question is of course a faith-feeling matter, but Jesus the 100% human in no way discounts Divinity. Jesus the man, divinely-inspired, yes.
But physically ascending, returning from the dead in flesh–gosh, if i let such things into my head i’d go insane.
Jun 26, 2005 - 1:48 pm 113. truepeers:So don’t believe in the dogma then. As I said, from the historical perspective, it’s not obvious to me that this makes you less of a Christian, and maybe more of one: was Christ dogmatic? And if that’s apologetics, it sure will annoy a lot of Christians. Of course, there’s a case to be made for dogma:
“All the appeals to custom, to tradition, to authority, to the positive teaching of religion, to the gestures repeated since childhood . . . are not meant to compel reason nor to supplement it, but to protect it against the vertigo of the imagination. . . . And the only people to be scandalized are, in the words of St. Augustine ‘those who do not know how rare and difficult a thing it is for the fleshly imagination to be subdued by the serenity of a devout mind’.” – Henri de Lubac
And the vertigo of the imagination is a real problem. Western culture has been immersed in various lies of romanticism for 250+ years now, and some of greatest crimes of recent times are sins of the romantic imagination run wild. I’m not against the individual and his freedom, but I’m one who wants a way to discipline his imagination, to put morality and reality ahead of the kind of political fantasy running rampant in the PC university. As far as I am aware, there is only one secular discipline that has real promise in this regard – Generative Anthropology and its minimizing of the ignorant and unruly imagination in the hope of building real creativity and democracy. But GA is not going to appeal to most people, yet. So religious dogma might be the alternative yet for those whose imaginations are out of control – and all our many mental illnesses are instance of this. They speak of an epidemic of depression today, etc.
Jun 26, 2005 - 2:54 pm 114. Kevin P:Buddy:
Before I say anything I will state that even though I am a Christian I know, that strictly on a weights and measures standard, there are many non-believers that have lived a better life on earth then many self proffesed believers and that not believing is not a sign of a person who can not act in a good fashion.
But if you can accept the idea of a Devine God why is the resurrection story such a leap.I am not attacking your idea but it seems to me that the idea of a God, while I share it with you and there is ample logical and historical reasons to believe in it, from a strictly scientific point of view is just as fantastical idea to me. I am not trying to disabuse or ridicule your idea’s. It could be simply a “that’s how I see it” situation. I am honestly curious.
kevin peters
Jun 26, 2005 - 3:02 pm 115. Patrick Tyson:lindenen—
In a sense, you are part culturally Christian.
That would go without saying (not that I haven’t repeated acknowledged such) even were it not for twelve years of Roman Catholic education during which I lived in a Roman Catholic home.
truepeers—
I’m not a Christian either, in the way you understand the term?
The way I understand the term? Look the term up in a dictionary. Take a look at the Apostles’ Creed.
Soc. Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the inward and outward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man and he only can bear and carry.—Anything more? The prayer, I think, is enough for me.
Phaedr. Ask the same for me, for friends should have all things in common.
—Plato, Phaedrus
15: And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens: and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him with all speed, they departed.
16: Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
17: Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
18: Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
19: And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?
20: For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
21: (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
22: Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23: For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24: God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25: Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26: And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27: That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29: Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
30: And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
32: And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
33: So Paul departed from among them.
34: Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
The Holy Bible (King James Version), The Acts 17:15-34
In the Middle Ages the ladder of promotion was through the Church; there was no other way for a clever, poor boy to go up. And at the end of the ladder there is always the image, the icon of the godhead that says, ‘Now you have reached the last commandment: Thou shalt not question.’
For instance, when Erasmus was left an orphan in 1480, he had to prepare for a career in the Church. The services were as beautiful then as now. Erasmus may himself have taken part in the moving Mass Cum Giubilate of the fourteenth century, which I have heard in a church that is even older, San Pietro in Gropina. But the monk’s life was for Erasmus an iron door closed against knowledge. Only when Erasmus read the classics for himself, in defiance of orders, did the world open for him. ‘A heathen wrote this to a heathen,’ he said, ‘yet it has justice, sanctity, truth. I can hardly refrain from saying “Saint Socrates, pray for me!”‘
—Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man
Best.
Jun 26, 2005 - 7:30 pm 116. truepeers:When I studied Freemasonry, I learned that we reveal our own religious thinking in our understanding of what is and is not a religious phenomenon. The Masons’ official line is that they are not a religion, though some Masons disagree with this, and I would say that they are at least religious, if not a religion per se. Anyway, the point is that any useful analysis must balance various subjective and objective (or emic and etic, as scholars say) understandings of what is religious, or what belongs to a religion, and make this clear to the reader. I should have done a better job of that earlier.
I tend to see religious phenomena everywhere. I have been heavily influenced by the anthropology of Rene Girard (a Christian, a Catholic, of a kind). And I thought it might interest you all to have a sense of where I’m coming from. Here’s what Girard wrote in his book I see Satan Fall like Lightning:
What only the great insight of a Nietzsche could formerly perceive, now even a child can perceive. The current process of spiritual demagoguery and rhetorical overkill has transformed the concern for victims into a totalitarian command and a permanent inquisition. The media themselves notice this and make fun of “victimology,” which doesn’t keep them from exploiting it. The fact that our world has become solidly anti-Christian, at least among its elites, does not prevent the concern for victims from flourishingójust the opposite.
The majestic inauguration of the “post-Christian era” is a joke. We are living through a caricatural “ultra-Christianity” that tries to escape from the Judeo-Christian orbit by “radicalizing” the concern for victims in an anti-Christian manner. (ISS, 178-179)
Jun 26, 2005 - 8:26 pm 117. truepeers:I should point out that for Girard, Christianity is founded in the concern for the innocence of the victim. I don’t mean to argue from authority, a somewhat marginal one at that; it’s just meant as an explanation of a pov…
Jun 26, 2005 - 8:34 pm 118. Buddy Larsen:KevinP, I don’t know–I read your comment earlier and have been wondering all day what the true (true as I feel it) answer is. Hate to hide behing the “semantics” answer but I’m afraid that’s really all I have. I once read that many of the Founding Fathers were Deists; when I looked into that concept it made much sense to me.
Patrick, second your “best”, Bronowski was an incredibly excellent thinker and person. The book is great, but if you saw the TV series–complete with poor old urban Jacob gamely doing location shots in dozens of wild primitive locations wearing his 70s street shoes and clothes–and watched him deliver his own lines with that selfless good-humor, you knew you were with a very special creature.
Truepeers, thanks for the mentalstretching. Your posts are writing new philosopy I think. I’m still trying to draw it together, from the ‘performatism” you mentioned many months ago.
Jun 26, 2005 - 10:25 pm 119. Patrick Tyson:truepeers—
I’ll take a look.
Buddy—
I’m a deist.
I also have the television series on tape. It is, in my view, the best thing yet produced for that medium.
Jun 26, 2005 - 11:39 pm 120. truepeers:Following up on Patrick’s quotation from Acts, and our theme of resurrection, here is an interesting take from another writer who sees the modern world as a corruption of Christianity, Ivan Illich:
“…[i wonder] how it is possible for me to believe today that I possess organs that can be replaced when they go wrong by my buying new ones from people recently deceased. For anybody who studies history seriously, it is a major puzzle how we, today, can live with what, to the people of all previous times and places, would have been considered unfeeling brutality and absolute nonsense.
“mY concern is, How could such nonsense be historically preopared? ANd that qustion brings me to my second link with the resurrection, and takes me to my story about Paul. Paul told the Athenians something they didn’t want to hear. COme back another time, they told him politely. They were delicate people, decent, well-educated people, and they must have been shocked by his claim. Faith in the mystery of the resurrection of the body did lead in the course of Western culture to a new respect for the body, but it also tended to destroy the myriad of body images that had existed in the world’s different cultures, each with its unique body percept. During the course of Western history these old body cultures have been gradually replaced, or perhaps overshadowed is a better word, by respect for the resurrected body of Christ. But once that respect disappeared, a void space was left, into which you could put any construct…. INcreasingly physicians are called in to give some credibility to the body which Windows 95 assumes that I have, that is mine. My argument does not deal with the question of why this body is so attractive. I only say that this body is demanded by the enormous institutional ritual of modernity.” (Rivers North of the Future, 130-131)
Jun 26, 2005 - 11:42 pm 121. Patrick Tyson:Paul told the Athenians something they didn’t want to hear.
What?
19: And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?
20: For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
21: (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
…
32: And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
Jun 27, 2005 - 4:08 am