Last week saw the murder and imprisonment, respectively, of two dissidents on opposite sides of the line that is becoming increasingly reified in current discourse, that between "Islam" and "the West." The first was Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist and outspoken critic of the war in Chechnya, shot dead in her apartment over the weekend. The second was Ayatollah Mohammed Kazemeini Boroujerdi, who was arrested in Tehran on Sunday for his opposition to clerical rule in Iran.
Ms. Politkovskaya's reporting revealed that the treatment the Putin regime dealt the Chechen people rose to and surpassed the level of cruelty visited upon the Kurds by Saddam Hussein. The fact that Saddam Hussein sits in jail while Vladimir Putin remains at the helm of one of the G8 can hardly create any other impression except that crimes against Muslims will be held to account only if they are committed by other Muslims. The only redemption for "the West" on this score was provided by the outspoken courage of Ms. Politkovskaya herself, in that Saddam Hussein let no one of her ilk survive in his Iraq. Now she has paid for that courage with her life, and the thin thread by which any conceivable moral superiority of "the West" hung in this instance has snapped.
Ayatollah Boroujerdi provides a counter-example of the crimes of "Islam," but one that confounds the usual parameters within which that boogeyman is perceived. Here is an oppressed critic of the rightly decried Tehran regime, but rather than being an apostle of "modern rationalism" or "enlightened secularism" he speaks from the heart of Islam itself. Though Boroujerdi has not yet paid the ultimate price for his stance and his clerical rank perhaps affords him a degree of protection Ms. Politkovskaya did not enjoy, still his criticism took a similar kind of courage. His reasons for opposing clerical rule are no doubt complex, but the fact that they are rooted more in Koran and Hadith than in Locke and Rousseau does not make them any less principled.
What then, may we learn from Politkovskaya and Borourjerdi? Whatever else may be true of "Islam" and "the West" they are alike in the capacity to oppress or destroy those who take a principled stand against values that have strong institutional roots. Pope Benedict XVI's recent call for a "great dialogue of cultures" rooted in rationalism and tolerance was no doubt a message for the age. It will only serve a constructive purpose, however, if all people of conscience understand that no culture exercises a monopoly on intolerance or irrationality; these are universal human potentials that find expression wherever abstract principles or naked self-interest are put before the sanctity of human life. In this light, "the West" and "Islam" are best abandoned as categories that lack any real utility in a genuinely productive "great dialogue of cultures."
Dear Madman,
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't necessarily disagree with the thrust of your argument, I'm not sure that we ought completely to abandon the categories you decry, even in our dialogue with -- what shall I say? -- people who live in states where Islam is the dominant religion.
First of all, the fact that Western states often fail to live up to Western ideals does not necessarily render it a useless or meaningless category. Sure, "the West" and "Islam" are huge, rambling, multifaceted ideas, but so are, say, "Protestantism" or any number of other labels and categories that, however unwieldy they may be, are nonetheless useful in describing ideas, cultures, and values that have long and complicated histories.
Secondly, I don't think either side in the dialogue -- perhaps especially the "Islamic" side -- would be interested in abandoning the distinction. It's better, I think, to recognize that there are values at the heart of both Islam and the West (I feel silly constantly putting those in quotes)that are compatible with each other.
Finally, a quibble. You say, "The fact that Saddam Hussein sits in jail while Vladimir Putin remains at the helm of one of the G8 can hardly create any other impression except that crimes against Muslims will be held to account only if they are committed by other Muslims."
-- Can you really not think of any other reason that Putin remains at the helm of one of the G8? What if I said that Robert Mugabe remains at the helm of Zimbabwe because crimes against whites will be held to account only if they are committed by other whites? Now, you may respond that you were referring only to the "impression" created by Putin's "remaining at the helm," but I would submit that if one can come up with other reasons that Putin remains, then one cannot claim that there's only one impression to be taken from the failure to "hold him accountable." Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you, and you were referring to the failure of the Russian people to hold him accountable.
In any event, how would you square your account of that "impression" with the fact of the "West's" intervention in Bosnia/Kosovo?
Dear Kate Marie,
ReplyDeleteOne can come up with reasons other than a lack of empathy for the Chechens why Putin remains at the helm of Russia just as one can come up with reasons other than an altruistic regard for the Kurds as to why Saddam Hussein is in jail. None of those reasons control the perception of affairs in Russia and Iraq in various communities throughout the world. Those who brought Saddam to justice bruited his genocidal bloodlust about the globe by way of justification for taking the sword, is it reasonable to expect that their concern for the Kurds will not be compared to their disposition toward the Chechens? It would be silly to insist that the same measures applied to Hussein could pragmatically be applied to Putin, but would it be any less silly to insist that the US and their allies have exerted themselves as thoroughly on behalf of the Chechens as the Kurds? Could Muslims be blamed for perceiving a double standard? Bosnia/Kosovo might ameliorate that impression or it might not, people are very rarely fair or logical when they insist on applying reductionist categories like "Islam" and "the West" to the complex patterns of human social behavior.
As to "Islam" and "the West" I agree that they are huge and rambling but hardly multifaceted. Speaking of "Islam" having a common and reducible set of values or characteristics that can be counterposed to that of "the West" really doesn't allow for the vast differences that can and do exist between, say, a Sufi mystic in Morocco and a female aerobics instructor in Malaysia, much less those that exist between two mutually opposed Ayatollahs in Iran.
As to whether either "the West" or "Islam" ever succeed or fail to live up to their respective values, in my experience that determination is entirely a product of who is constructing the category in question at the moment. Whether or not the Russians (Sudanese) have betrayed the spirit of "the West" ("Islam") in Chechnya (Darfur) or shown the world its true colors depends greatly on who one asks, and it is impossible to settle upon an objectively true verdict. In the final analysis the question is really not all that useful, as these are complex human events, and religious culture is only one factor among many that have culminated in tragedy in both cases and that continue to cause dire suffering. I am with Benedict XVI that ideas matter and that principles must be taken seriously, but to remain focussed on some essential difference between "Islam" and "the West" can only result in chasing one's tail in discursive circles while the world burns.
Dear Madman,
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that whether "Islam" and the "West" are reductionist categories depends on how the categories are constructed and defined. To speak of "Islam" needn't be any more reductionist than to speak of Protestantism, as I mentioned in my original comment. For instance, I could modify your statement thus: "Speaking of 'Protestantism' having a common and reducible set of values or characteristics that can be counterposed to that of 'Catholicism' really doesn't allow for the vast differences that can and do exist between, say, the Archbishop of Canterbury taking tea on his estate and a sweat-drenched Pentecostal minister witnessing for Christ from his pulpit in the bootheel of Missouri, much less those that exist between two mutually opposed Episcopalian priests in Connecticut." Should we do away with the category of Protestantism then? I think the danger of reductionism accompanies any attempt to construct categories or define cultures, but I don't see how the solution is to do away with categories altogether, especially when one is hoping to have a dialogue with those who consider themselves as speaking from "the heart of Islam."
Should we remain focused on "essential differences"? I don't know about "essential" differences, but just plain differences matter precisely because, as you say, ideas matter. I would quibble, for instance, with your suggestion that it's always and everywhere wrong to put abstract principles above the sanctity of human life; so, probably, would many Muslims; that is, many Muslims and I would probably agree that there are some "abstract principles" for which one should be willing to die, and even, in certain circumstances, to kill. Those principles, and the differences between them, matter -- and perhaps neither the Muslim nor I would take very kindly to your attempt to elide them in favor of a notion of "universal human potentials" that is, at bottom, as much a product of a particular culture as the worldview of the Moroccon Sufi mystic.
To be completely honest, your point seems a bit amorphous. Maybe you could explain what the dialogue between the people who live in Europe and America and Canada and Australia, etc. and the people who live in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran and Malaysia, etc., *should* focus on? Can one define the general parameters of the dialogue without being, in some sense, "reductionist?"
Dear Kate Marie,
ReplyDeleteModifying my statement in the way you propose doesn't make it any less true. Any categorical analysis of a lived reality entails a degree of distortion. That is not reason enough to dispense with categories altogether. It is true, however, that the degree of distortion introduced by a category is amplified to the extent that it is forced to persist in a fixed relation to other categories. Any conversation about or between Catholics and Protestants will only be genuinely meaningful and productive if those categories are used in the understanding that
1)Catholics and Protestants are free to define and construct themselves without reference to one-another, thus
2)There exists a wide range of possiblities as to how Protestants and Catholics will disagree or concur among and between themselves, so
3)The two traditions will interpenetrate and resemble one-another in ways that are sometimes unanticipated and upon which there are few limits other than those imposed by the participants in the traditions themselves, thus
4)At times the conversation will have to relinquish the very categories of "Catholic" and "Protestant" in order to make sense of a lived reality that does not fit the categorical divide.
One might insist that a conversation about/between "the West" and "Islam" can conform to those guidelines, but "the West" lacks any intrinsic content and can only be meaningfully sustained by contrast to categories like "the East" or "Islam," which must themselves remain stable if "the West" is to cohere. If one allows "Islam" the same categorical flexibility as "Protestantism" and "Catholicism" in the above examples (the only real way such a category will be at all useful in understanding the lived reality of the Islamic world) it is impossible for it to be meaningfully compared to "the West."
As for "abstract principles," I never suggested "that it's always and anywhere wrong to put [them] above the sanctity of human life." Rather, I asserted that whenever this is done there is the (universal human) potential for tragedy and injustice, irrespective of the origin of the principles in question or even their soundness in the abstract. Such a choice should never be made in the absence of much fear and trembling, and categorical divides like "Islam" and "the West" serve only to distract people from the potential pragmatic consequences of acting on abstract principles without doing anything to clarify or prioritize the principles themselves.
As to the conversation that can and should proceed "between the people who live in Europe and America and Canada and Australia, etc. and the people who live in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran and Malaysia, etc.," there is perhaps no model to structure such a discourse that would be wholly free of reductionism. That doesn't preclude developing better parameters than a dialogue between "Islam" and "the West," however. Envisioning a multipolar discourse in which convergences and differences of opinion across geographic and cultural boundaries are never simplistic or predictable would come closer to the actual situation of the world and would embody a greater respect for human beings' capacity for autonomy and self-construction.
Dear Madman,
ReplyDeleteSorry I'm late getting back to your last comment. I flaked.
You say, "Envisioning a multipolar discourse in which convergences and differences of opinion across geographic and cultural boundaries are never simplistic or predictable would come closer to the actual situation of the world and would embody a greater respect for human beings' capacity for autonomy and self-construction."
I'm not sure exactly what that would look like in practice, but I'm beginning to wonder if much of this discussion isn't a matter of semantics. What if one replaces "the West" with "Western secular classical liberalism" or something else? If all you're saying is that "Westerners" who wish to engage in a dialogue with people in the "Islamic world"
or people in the "Islamic world" who wish to engage in a dialogue with "Westerners" ought to be mindful of complexities and respectful of "human beings' capacity for autonomy and self-construction," I concur. But anyone who wants to speak of differences is going to have to attempt to define them, and definitions -- however nuanced they may be -- are always in some sense reductionist. As long as an interlocutor in the "great dialogue of cultures" makes a good faith attempt not to treat categories as monolithic and simplistic, that's good enough for me.
It just seems silly to have to put sneer quotes around everything.
Moreover, your point is well taken, but it can be taken too far. An unrelenting policing of the terms of discourse can often chill honest dialogue instead of encouraging it.
Dear Kate Marie,
ReplyDeleteI'd just as soon see "the West" dropped altogether, that would preclude the need for sneer quotes. If you specify "Western secular classical liberalism" I'd ask what are the parameters of that tradition? Who is authorized to speak on its behalf? Is Orhan Pamuk? Tariq Ramadan? It is hard for me to imagine a meaningful discursive model in which Ramadan's credentials as a spokesman of "Western secular classical liberalism" do not exceed those of the French legislators who have banned Muslim headscarves or criminalized the denial of the Armenian genocide. You aren't really addressing my point. Call my concerns semantic if you will, but there are more and less reductionist ways of discussing difference, and on that scale recourse to a model of "the West" versus "Islam" will inevitably fall on the more reductionist end of the spectrum. You assert that you will be satisfied if participants in a dialogue of cultures make a good faith attempt to treat categories as complex and multidimensional, but the initial move toward constructing "the West" breaks with that good-faith injunction. One cannot have "the West" without making a host of arbitrary choices of exclusion and inclusion, thus all the "differences" that one perceives on that basis are in effect self-fulfilling prophecies.
You might protest that this is so of any categorical distinction, but this simply isn't true. Your example of "Catholics" and "Protestants" does at least provide some non-arbitary basis of distinction- the self-identification of the particpants in these traditions themselves. Though there are many self-identified "Westerners," none of them are able to draw the parameters of that identity without conscripting many figures who never elected to be identified as "Westerners" and excluding many figures without whose contributions none of the achievements of "Western" civilization would have been possible.
Dear Madman,
ReplyDelete"If you specify "Western secular classical liberalism" I'd ask what are the parameters of that tradition? Who is authorized to speak on its behalf? Is Orhan Pamuk? Tariq Ramadan?"
-- Yes, of course, why not? If Ramadan or Pamuk wish to speak on behalf of Western secular classical liberalism, who is stopping them? You may argue that there is no such thing as "the West," but I think it's much harder to argue that there is no such thing as Western secular classical liberalism, and, as an intellectual hisotorian, I would think you wouldn't want to. The history of *any* intellectual/philosophical tradition bears the mark of all sorts of influences that may complicate its genealogy, but that doesn't mean the philosophical tradition can't be defined or that it doesn't exist.
Oooops, please forgive the dangling modifier and the typo ("as an intellectual hisotorian"). You get the gist, though.
ReplyDeleteDear Kate Marie,
ReplyDeleteWhether or not any particular intellectual/philosophical tradition one cares to identify has any historical basis can be a bone of contention between intellectual historians to lengths that are difficult to exaggerate. In the case of "Western secular classical liberalism," if Tariq Ramadan or Orhan Pamuk can embody it (indeed if they are more authentic participants in it than the French legislature), what makes it particularly "Western?"
Dear Madman,
ReplyDeleteI can authentically embody Buddhist or a Confucian principles, but that doesn't mean Buddhism and Confucianism aren't particularly "Eastern" or "Asian."
What makes it particularly "Western"? I dunno ... off the top of my head? John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Enlightenment philosophy, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams . . .
Dear Kate Marie,
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of any tradition as "Eastern" is just as meaningless as speaking a particular tradition as being "Western," as "the East" only exists relative to "the West," and the parameters of both are almost wholly arbitrary. From the Chinese perspective Buddhism is as much a product of "the West" as Christianity, and from an Indian perspective Alexander the Great and Menander are much more natively significant figures than Confucius.
"Asian" is a horse of a different color. In terms of geographic origins one can't really quibble with calling both Buddhism and Confucianism "Asian" traditions. I wouldn't have the same qualms about talking of "European" or "American" culture or traditions, that categorical analysis at least affords objectively determinable geographic boundaries as a referent. Even so, one couldn't call either Confucianism or Buddhism exclusively "Asian" religions today.
Still, that leaves the question of whether "classical secular liberalism" can have such neat geographic parameters. You give a fine list of "Westerners" who represent this tradition, but I can make a list of their contemporaries who, like Ramadan and Pamuk today, were possessed of the same credentials and were likewise participants in the same movement of "classical secular liberalism"- Toussaint L'Ouverture, Sequoya, Fukuzawa Yukichi, Ahmed Sefik Mithat Pasha. The tradition you circumscribe is only "Western" if you limit it to the list of men you note and their ilk, and that is choice is in no way intuitively obvious or logically necessary.
Dear Madman,
ReplyDeleteOkay, so call it European and Anglo-American classical secular liberalism. A little unwieldly, perhaps, but it works for me.
As for Yukichi, et al., I might concede the point if those figures and their writings were very influential in the development of European classical liberalism, instead of it being, mostly, the other way around (that is, they were more influenced *by* European classical liberalism).
Dear Kate Marie,
ReplyDeleteIf only "classical secular liberalism" could be confidently located in Europe and Anglo-America. You pronounce very assuredly on who was influencing who, but the reality is far from clear. While Toussaint L'Ouverture was pleading with the French Republic to refrain from reinstituting slavery in Haiti as a violation of natural human rights, was he (from the perspective of liberalism)influencer or influencee? He can hardly be blamed for France's failing to adopt his perspective. Sequoyah and other Cherokee leaders were attempting to create a Cherokee Nation in tandem with the efforts of Jefferson et. al. to create the U.S. Whatever ideas the Cherokee may have gotten from the US, one can hardly deny that the roots of classical secular liberalism in the latter would have been strengthened if the Founders and their legates had paused to think through the philosophical implications of their policy of ethnic cleansing that destroyed the Cherokee republic. Perhaps the issues of race and region that led to the Civil War might have been negotiated less violently. Again a case where the Cherokee cannot be blamed for their lack of influence. Fukuzawa Yukichi was a contemporary of Mill and produced an interpretation of the liberal tradition that was no less original. Mill may be perceived as a "generator" of and Fukuzawa as "influenced" by liberalism only if one starts from the presumption that Mill was born into the culture that "owned" it. Japan today is as much a product of Fukuzawa as it is of Mill, and as distinctive Japanese political forms and philosophy can hardly be deemed as lacking influence it is again difficult to relegate Fukuzawa to a passive role in the grand sweep of the liberal tradition.
Dear Madman,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how to respond to your last comment. I wasn't claiming the moral superiority of European classical liberalism or its philosophers and representatives, so I'm not sure what accounts for your segue into the lecture about Toussaint L'Ouverture and Sequoyah. I was claiming that Europe and North America are the places where classical liberal ideas were, by and large, articulated, and where they gained their earliest purchase over state and civil institutions. I'm not assigning Fukuzawa a passive role (though your claims for his role in the "grand sweep of the liberal tradition *could* be called simplistic and reductionist); I'm assigning him a belated role.
For the sake of argument, though, I'm willing to dispense with the "European and Anglo-American" part of my formulation. Can we now call it classical secular liberalism? I'm just trying to pin you down, Madman, but you're bobbing and weaving, floatin' like a butterfly and stingin' like a bee.
I must say that this kind of exercise has the potential to shade off into the absurd, don't you think? What useful purpose is served by chasing a good-faith interlocutor into the wilds of postmodernist theory? Here I must again protest that while you reject the terms I suggest, you have yet to offer any of your own, or to define -- except very vaguely -- on what terms the "great dialogue of cultures" is to be conducted.
Dear Kate Marie,
ReplyDeleteForgive my brusqueness, but your difficulty in responding to my last comment arises from not having understood it. I wasn't making any claim about the moral inferiority/superiority of anyone, I was trying to demonstrate that the question of "where classical liberal ideas were articulated and where they gained their earliest purchase over state institutions" is much less obvious than you seem to assume. For your list of "articulators" of classical secular liberal ideas I provided a list of their non-European or Anglo-American contemporaries (in the case of all but John Locke) who were articulating congruent ideas. Sequoyah and Toussaint L'Ouverture lived and worked during the American and French Revolutions, respectively, thus they were participating in the classical secular liberal discourse at seminal moments when the purchase you speak of was first achieved. They did not make your list of "Western" exemplars because their ideas were not institutionalized during those seminal moments in the history of the discourse, but that doesn't in any way logically disqualify them from being classed as "founders" of a classical secular liberal tradition any more than the fact that Socrates was forced to drink hemlock disqualifies him as a "founder" of Athenian philosophy. Sequoyah and L'Ouverture were able to demonstrate how, even as liberal ideas were being first applied, they were imperfectly realized, thus your dismissal of them as not being "very influential in the development of European classical liberalism instead of it being, for the most part, the other way around" is logically unsound. Sequoyah and L'Ouverture were only belatedly vindicated, but they were prophetic voices in demonstrating how the flaws in the institutional "purchase" achieved by liberal ideas would ultimately lead to schism and/or collapse, thus they deserve as much credit as Adams or Jefferson or Voltaire for being conceptual architects of the liberal discourse. The fact that neither Toussaint L'Ouverture or Sequoyah spring to mind when one is listing founders of classical secular liberalism is rooted more in the charter myths of modern social and political systems than in a critically historical examination of the liberal discourse and its origins.
This goose chase we are on is arguably as much a product of your attempts to save the phenomenon as my exploration of the "wilds of postmodern theory." As for the useful purpose it serves, I cite the recent absurdities effected by the French legislature. There is an institution that most (including its constituent members) would include among the instantiations of "secular classical liberal" ideas, yet it flies in the face of such principles when it bans Muslim headscarves or criminalizes the denial of the Armenian genocide. Such self-contradiction is only made possible because the French legislators presume to represent a "West" that has proprietary claim over this secular classical liberal tradition and thus is empowered to teach the denizens of "Islam" regardless of the principles themselves or their particular application. Outside of such a sense of entitlement it is hard to understand how such individuals could violate the very principles they presume to teach to others.
So for me the point is not trivial. If you want the secular classical liberal tradition to have any meaning or power you must relinquish the notion that it belongs to some geographic or cultural group- it simply doesn't. Classical secular liberalism was the product of an early modern world that was becoming increasingly integrated. A Europe or America isolated from China, India, and the Ottoman realm could not have come up with any of the ideas that constitute the "classical secular liberal" discourse, and any conversation that presumes that "classical secular liberal" ideas are more authentic or intrinsic in one cultural context over another ignores both the historical origins of those ideas and their fundamental principles.
Dear Madman,
ReplyDelete"Such self-contradiction is only made possible because the French legislators presume to represent a "West" that has proprietary claim over this secular classical liberal tradition and thus is empowered to teach the denizens of 'Islam' regardless of the principles themselves or their particular application. Outside of such a sense of entitlement it is hard to understand how such individuals could violate the very principles they presume to teach to others."
-- Excuse my brusqueness, but says you. Any number of reasons may account for, or complicate, the French legislature's action -- including political expedience or aspects of French history and culture that don't involve making grand claims about Islam and the West. And I must say that for one who seems so invested in policing other people's bigoted and reductionist discourse, you seem remarkably willing to apply reductionist critiques to the "West." Since classical secular liberalism doesn't "belong" to any particular cutlural or geographic group (you'll note I never said it did), why does most of your criticism seem reserved for "the West," when there are so many non-"Western" countries whose religious bigotry and betrayal of classical secular liberalism is far more pernicious than the French legislature's?
I don't claim that "classical secular liberal" ideas are "more intrinsic or authentic in one cultural context over another" -- simply that, at this point in history, they're more prevalent in certain cultural contexts.
You still haven't responded to my request that you describe the terms on which the "dialogue of cultures" *should* take place, which puts you at a distinct advantage. You can take potshots at my doomed-to-bigotry-and-reductionism formulations without having to subject your own formulations to target practice.
Dear Kate Marie,
ReplyDelete"Any number of reasons may account for, or complicate, the French legislature's action -- including political expedience or aspects of French history and culture that don't involve making grand claims about Islam and the West."
It would be tendentious to deny that various reasons like the ones you describe can or do feed into these latest misadventures, but it is equally tendentious to deny that concepts of "the West versus Islam" are involved. I guess we can agree to disagree, but for me these actions are a cautionary tale warning against complacently embracing a world view which distinguishes between "the West" and "Islam/the East/the non-Western world."
" Since classical secular liberalism doesn't "belong" to any particular cutlural or geographic group (you'll note I never said it did)"
Perhaps I misunderstood your "John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Enlightenment philosophy, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams..." formulation, in that I took you to mean that it was this particular constellation of figures (and their ilk) who, because they were so seminal, made "classical secular liberalism" "Western." I suppose you could have meant to delineate ONLY that part of the secular classical liberal tradition that was generated in "the West," but that introduces some confusion as to when "Western secular classical liberalism" opens up so that, as you noted, figures like Ramadan can participate. Even if this was your meaning, I would contend that such a "Western classical secular liberal" discourse is an abnormally truncated one, as it cuts off many with whom your "Western" liberals were dialectically engaged.
"And I must say that for one who seems so invested in policing other people's bigoted and reductionist discourse, you seem remarkably willing to apply reductionist critiques to the "West." ...why does most of your criticism seem reserved for "the West," when there are so many non-"Western" countries whose religious bigotry and betrayal of classical secular liberalism is far more pernicious than the French legislature's?"
This is a rather weak ad hominem criticism. Calling my criticism "policing" makes it sound scary and authoritarian but has little value apart from rhetoric. Moreover, whom I criticize has very little bearing on whether or not my criticism is logically sound. My initial post advised that the categories of "the West" and "Islam" be dropped all around. If you examine many of the majority Muslim countries in which the kind of bigotry and betrayal of liberal ideals abounds you will find that those aberrant discourses are just as animated by a reified model of "the West versus Islam" as that of the French legislature, only with the normative polarities reversed. This doesn't argue for the validity of those categories, quite the contrary. It can hardly be helpful if the very Europeans and Americans whom Muslim bigots would cram into distorted reductionist categories turn around and treat Muslims the same way.
"I don't claim that "classical secular liberal" ideas are "more intrinsic or authentic in one cultural context over another" -- simply that, at this point in history, they're more prevalent in certain cultural contexts"
This is a change in your position, as your discussion of Jefferson, Fukuzawa etc. entailed claims that went beyond the scope of "this point in history." In this new formulation I have no argument with you, I would only insist that anlaysing the world in terms of "the West" and "Islam" provides little useful guidance as to where "classical secular liberal" ideas prevail. Classical secular liberal ideas are arguably in healthier shape in India, home of the world's third largest Muslim community, than in Russia. The world's largest Muslim community in Indonesia is following a trajectory informed as much by "classical secular liberal" ideas as Koran or hadith. Malaysia is as democratic as most "Western" countries. If one surveyed the entire Muslim world one could not generate a neat algorithm that would predict how much support classical secular liberal ideas receive in any given Muslim society. It might (I stress might, as I've seen no data to support such a conclusion) be true that one could demonstrate statistically that the frequency of violation of secular liberal ideas *in practice* is higher for Muslim societies than European and American societies, but that fact itself says little about the cultural attitudes and values of Muslim societies in general. Such statistics on Germany 1935 would be very different for West Germany 1965, but one would be deluded to attribute the disparity solely to a change in cultural attitudes and values.
As for how a "dialogue of cultures" *should* take place, I did respond-
"A multipolar discourse in which convergences and differences of opinion across geographic and cultural boundaries are never simplistic or predictable."
Such a discourse precludes a bipolar standoff between "the West" and "Islam," but requires the participants to adopt categories that accomodate the diversity and complexity of the world we live in- Muslims, Christians, Jews, Atheists, Europeans, Americans, Arabs, Persians, Secularists, Fundamentalists, Acrobats- as many categories as one can conceive of. The more categories one can meaningfully incorporate into the discourse and the more fluid one can make them, the more productive the discourse will be.
In the final analysis, what is wrong with a discourse in which everyone speaks for his or herself and assumes as little as possible about what other people think or believe? I resent it when someone insists that my words must be read in the context of my being an American or a Jew or an academic or whatever else as if those conditions circumscribed the range of what I could potentially think or feel. That doesn't preclude the possibility of perceiving a "deep cultural" influence in my thinking of which I myself am not aware, or some unspoken connection between the ideas I profess right now and some larger cultural discourse of which I am a part. I would only ask that anyone who calls attention to such aspects of my thinking remain open to the possibility that I have things to communicate about my own opinions and values that cannot be predictably inferred from any external source. My idea of a "great dialogue of cultures" is one in which we all extend that courteousy to one-another.
Dear Madman,
ReplyDeleteI apologize for the heated, ad hominem rhetoric. I shouldn't have used the term "policing," as I didn't mean to imply that your argument is scary or malignant.
I don't think my main point here was either weak or ad hominem, though; I merely meant to point out how easy it is to resort to reductionist interpretations when you're describing the beliefs/actions of large groups of people. And, no, I'm not claiming that whom you criticize has any bearing on whether your criticism is logically sound in any particular instance, but if, as you claim, secular liberal principles have no instrinsic connection to a geographic region or culture, then an excessive focus on the faults of "the West" seems odd and inconsistent. I should note, though, that I've made no systematic account of your criticisms and arguments, so the way it "seems" to me may be inaccurate or the product of my own biases.
The vision of the "great dialogue of cultures" that you expound in your final paragraph is an admirable one, and I wholeheartedly endorse the idea of a dialogue in which we all extend the courtesy of assuming as little as possible about what other people -- or I should say, what other individuals -- think or believe. But there's a difference between assuming as little as possible about what any single person thinks or believes and inferring, based on the best evidence and the most complex models available, what large groups of people may think or believe. Your noble goals notwithstanding, the latter project will continue to be an important one, as it has always been -- not least for historians.
Dear Kate Marie,
ReplyDelete"I merely meant to point out how easy it is to resort to reductionist interpretations when you're describing the beliefs/actions of large groups of people."
If your point was that ascribing the French legislature's actions to a model of "Islam versus the West" was reductionist, well touche. I didn't call this point ad hominem. It is weak, though, in that however complicated the motives of the French legislature may have been, my characterization of their motives is less reductionist than the view of Muslims their actions evince (if only for the reason that my analysis was applied to a much smaller and self-selecting group of people). You keep insisting that "all categorical analyses are reductionist." I have repeatedly granted that that is true, but that simply doesn't preclude prioritizing such analyses as more or less reductionist.
"An excessive focus on the faults of 'the West' seems odd and inconsistent."
By my count in this post and comments I've criticized one Muslim country (Iran) and two European countries (Russia and France), so it is hard for me to see where I have focused excessively on "the West." To even the score I'll include a few shots at Muslims- The Mahdi Army have killed liquor store owners in southern Iraq. The Turks brought Olhan Pamuk up on charges for slandering the Turkish nation. A nun was shot in Somalia, apparently as retribution for Benedict XVI's speech. All of these (and many more such injustices) were in part motivated by a deluded concept of "Islam versus the West." None of these, by my reading, provide compelling evidence that such categories are useful in a productive "great dialogue of cultures."
"But there's a difference between assuming as little as possible about what any single person thinks or believes and inferring, based on the best evidence and the most complex models available, what large groups of people may think or believe."
This is very true, and it is precisely the need for "the most complex models available" that compels avoidance of "Islam versus the West."
Dear Madman,
ReplyDeleteMy point, at its most basic, is that, as long as someone comes up with a complex model to describe the differences that *do* exist between some of those classical liberal types and the non-classical-liberal types, I'm not overly concerned about the terms they choose.