demagogue on 16/9/2012 at 05:53
I'd agree, a mix of poverty and lack of education and the particular track of religion & history & politics that molded mainstream Islam into what it is, and the culture that builds around that. It's IMO exactly the wrong thing to write these countries & people off, just after they've had their democratic flowering. Every nation & peoples has a right to democracy, education, and freedom from ignorance and irrational hate... So you want to encourage the countries to set up the conditions for that, although they have to build the culture of tolerance & rule of law within themselves. This isn't the same as excusing hateful behavior. You help to set up the conditions so their grandchildren can look back on it with regret and not follow in the footsteps of their parents. This is a job for universal education, suburbs, and a monolithic generation gap.
LarryG on 16/9/2012 at 08:42
Suburbs?
demagogue on 16/9/2012 at 08:52
I think few things are as moderating as a boring suburban middle class upbringing surrounded by shallow vacuous people, swimming pools, video games, wedding showers, shallow civic religion, and the extent of one's passions directed at saving up for a new car or deck for the house.
Edit: It's worth adding that for many Arab countries, radical organizations serve as a surrogate for local social security and get much of their legitimacy and support from that. Groups like Hamas in Gaza & Hezbollah in S. Lebanon are the ones on the ground getting people's lives stabilized. I really liked how this connection was made in the movie Syriana. You could see these two younger guys getting gradually radicalized after they became unemployed and a radical madrassa was the only institution around able to take care of them and get them eating and working again, and turning their frustration conspiratorially against "the West" as a placeholder for all the market & social forces working against them, and "Islam" as the placeholder for the only force around working in their favor.
SubJeff on 16/9/2012 at 09:19
I'm squarely of the opinion that some cultures don't suit democracy, at least not when they are so economically and educationally stunted. They need benevolent dictatorships. You only have to look at Africa to see what happens when democracy hits 3rd world nations in a flash - it's a money and power grab and open to the worst kind of foreign exploitation.
Muzman on 16/9/2012 at 09:24
Indeed. (ed. I'm indeed-ing demagogue, but I guess it works) I think people underestimate just how easy this is made by trying to bring capitalist democracy/bureacracy to the whole world. We've got down to a fine art a system that does not give a shit about you. Calculatedly does not give a shit about you. Its cruel indifference is supposed to be its greatest feature and a mark of true fairness. But when lauding our great culture we've often forgotten all the little bits and pieces that hold that up and make it tolerable (and why we spend so much time on grooming the individual ego from birth, for better or worse, for one thing).
There was a great bit on This American Life once about stuff immigrants had a hard time getting used to. One guy from Pakistan, I think, was saying something like "Someone had told me that in America if you cannot pay your rent they will throw you out in the street and the police won't stop them! I could not believe it. Who would do that to people?"
Westerners would generally judge that situation that guy came from as all shiftless cronyism and corruption. Which it probably is to some extent. It also seems more human to him though.
demagogue on 16/9/2012 at 09:59
Yeah I think I could say what I said and not underestimate that cultures don't just "turn to democracy & rational discourse" at the drop of a hat, and then there's the whole J-Curve argument I said in the Democracy thread. If you try to force democracy on to a culture that's not ready for it, it can be a recipe for disaster a la Yugoslavia, Gaza, or west Africa... At the very least you have to start local & have a long term process.
What gets me is it's always with the "conspiracies". You try to say democracy, & human rights, & science & rational discourse will improve life, and the instant reaction is suspicion that this is some Western conspiracy to destroy these cherished traditional values... Not that we don't have the same issue even here in the West.
True to my cogsci background, I don't think cultures are totally set in stone in human brains... People can evolve their mindset. But I think it's set pretty deeply, and it's socially reinforcing, so usually it takes either some pretty deep individual disillusionment or crisis or some total social upheaval to uproot things as deep as basic values & worldviews, and even then that level of chaos just risks entrenching them deeper down the rabbit hole. That's why I was thinking more in terms of some epic generation gap in kids being brought up today (it's what Asia's gone through this last generation), rather than even trying to make a chip in people whose minds are already set.
BTW, I finally saw that video that caused this whole thing, and I'm sure my reaction was like most people's here... *This* piece of shit is what what's causing all this violence?? WTF? It looks like he made it in his backyard with a phone camera and about $15 for props. And there are these newspaper articles talking about the "Mystery" of Sam Bacile, if he were really an Israeli-Jewish financier then why XYZ... If they'd really spent $5 million on this movie then why XYZ... And I'm thinking, no shit Sherlock. I figured that out after about the first 7 seconds it was some random turd trolling YouTube. There are only about 6 billion trolling videos like that coming out every day. Why is this getting so much attention?
SubJeff on 16/9/2012 at 10:28
You got a link to the video? I'd love to see what the fuss is all about.
demagogue on 16/9/2012 at 10:38
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAiOEV0v2RM) Here you go. How to spell troll'd in Arabic. Basically just a barrage of cheap insults of Islam. (Naturally if one of us is a Muslim it's not going to be pleasant to watch, so I wouldn't bother.)
june gloom on 16/9/2012 at 10:47
Man, if Uwe Boll did it, it'd be taken as parody.
SubJeff on 16/9/2012 at 11:41
That is so bad it's hilarious. There are far worse anti-culture/religion X vids out there that are much higher quality and far more insidious.
