Hi guys--please excuse the terseness of what follows, I've exams to grade and a presentation to write, and may have to bow out of this for a bit...
Sherry Darling said:
Regarding the conversion mandate within at least Christianity and Islam (feel free to correct me, but I don't think Judaism has an equivilant--can any Jewish FYMer help me on this?)...
Right, we don't proselytize, if that's what you mean. Nor--which I think *may* be significant here--do we accept the notion of original sin, so we don't believe that following God's covenant with the Jews is an everyone-do-this-or-else-go-to-hell proposition. (I'm NOT suggesting all Christians or Muslims take the doctrine of original sin to mean that, I want to make that clear.)
One of the most powerful conflict theories I have come across in my grad studies talks about identity formation and transformation in a conflict...In every case, the author notes, "genocide" identities did not seperate between the poltiical, the ethnic and the religious...By contrast, you can be an American without being a member of any one party (Karl Rove's implications aside ), you can be American and be Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, for most folks Muslim LOL...It was the merging of those identities that made it such a powerful force, the author aruged, because when it was threatened, there was no other identity to relate to and feel secure in.
Hobsbawm? Anderson? Huntington (ugh)? Help me out here, I'm getting deja vu but can't place this theory to a name...Anyway, yes, American national identity is obviously a special beast in this regard. HOWEVER, I do not share this author's total (?)confidence that under the "right" future circumstances, the obvious prevalence of Christian cultural influence within our tradition could not be tapped as an excuse to narrow that identity. Very unlikely, but possible. It was not, after all, the *intention* of the Founding Fathers to obliterate European-style nationalism...though they certainly threw a wrench into its m.o.
Irvine511 said:
do think that it is a mistake... that card-carrying members of AQ willing to bring bombs on the underground are simply anti-imperialist, socialist freedom fighter folk.
that's my main point. and, one step further, i think it is the presence of religion that transforms one from a (for example) Shining Path mercenary into someone willing to fly an airplane into a buildling.
Erm...I think perhaps you and A_W both misunderstood me then, because I would NEVER describe al-Qaeda as "freedom fighters." I referred to anti-imperialism in the context of the overall development of Islamism...which is a huge, bewilderingly diverse and complicated animal, not a simple hair-trigger fundmentalist cult. I don't appreciate culling soundbites from individual militant fanatics as "proof" that I'm some sort of naive ignoramus when it comes to the role of Islamism in present conflicts. After all, one could quote plenty of disgusting, bigoted filth from militant settler Zionists and present it as "here's what Zionism REALLY is!" too, but I would hope that's not how the world judges how to handle Israel/Palestine.
Are you aware that it was the (secular) Tamil Tigers who invented suicide bombing, and who still--not by much, admittedly--hold the dubious record for most people killed this way by any one group? Yes, I know their scope is limited to the Sinhalese...but then Hinduism in general (and its Dravidian, South Indian form in particular) has never commanded a global empire, nor the grievances associated with its collapse. Difference in scope, yes; in strength and persistence of motivation to kill...I am not so sure, myself.
Of course, the Tigers are not going to plant a nuclear bomb in their own home. I *could* see the Kashmir conflict coming to nuclear war, though, God forbid. Would this be fueled by militant fundamentalism? Depends on which party starts it; there is more than enough precedent for nationalism alone becoming the trigger. Would the result be any worse if it was a "God bomb?" No. Mass death is mass death.
Irvine511 said:
looking back at the Cold War, one of the many things that, i think, prevented any sort of nuclear attack was that both the Americans and the Soviets wake up every day and love their children and what they have in this world. i don't think your most extreme islamist loves anything in this world; i think, to them, this world is simply immaterial, and so are all the other people who live in it. the feeling of being in the world but not of it -- and we see this attitude in some American Christians as well, including some people who post on this board that a true Christian is really not of this world -- is what produces a mentality able to embrace apocalyptic, nihilistic solutions to real world problems.
That is a powerful statement and I am not sure what to say to it, honestly. I have never at any point denied that "fundamentalism + failed states + the grievances (just or otherwise) of an empire lost" is more dangerous than any of those in isolation. Of course it is. You misunderstood me if you thought I meant otherwise, and perhaps that is my fault.
Remember, this all started because I was offended that a simple holiday wish cannot be offered without it turning into a meditation on the divisive evils of religion. And I continue to find it deeply troubling that we (collectively) are so much more ready to see that potential in Islam than elsewhere. That is not prudence; that is not rationalism; that is not the way towards the desperately needed global cooperation on this issue.
I am too pragmatic and world-weary to imagine that we will ever tame the forces that tell us who we are and what we belong to into a state where they are invulnerable to being perverted and warped. But I am certain that the best solution doesn't lie with Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld or Hitchens.
One last note, Irvine...the postmodern theory of the Holocaust is one I'm familiar with, but again feel unqualified to evaluate. I will say, though, that as a Jew, one of the lessons of it for me is that "your secularism will not protect you." Could religion have stopped it...I doubt it. My religion teaches that our job in this world (and Jews generally spend little time contemplating what comes after it...that will be another covenant and a whole different sort of revelation) is to work together with God on
tikkun olam, the work of loving and healing a broken world. God needs and wants our help in this endeavor, and we are his partners as much as his subjects. But God cannot force us to listen, nor control how we choose to understand the message. Nonethless, the obligation to participate in this work is there; it is inherent in the universe; and I believe that the destination it means to lead us towards is merciful and just. That is how I find meaning in the deaths of six million people. I know no other way.