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Monday, June 26, 2006

Enemy Mine: A Middle Path Between Decadence and Repression?

From The Gathering Storm

On April 3, 2005 Mr. Soliman al-Buthe (aka AlBut’hi), a Saudi Wahabi, wrote James Arlandson at the American Thinker a letter in order to open a dialogue about Islam. It evolved into, as of now, a four part series. In part four, one of the issues Mr. Arlandson focused on was the way Saudi women are treate din that country. The answer fits very nice into a post I wrote few days ago entitled ‘Enemy Mine: Give Me That Ol’ Time Religion’. Mr. Arlandson asked:

“One of the hallmarks of modernity and progress is women’s freedom. Why are not Saudi women allowed to drive cars and to vote?”

Mr. Soliman al-Buthe responded with a very revealing understanding of Islam which I talk about in my post mentioned above.
“What is modernity? And what is freedom? Take “modernity,” a very vague term. Your references suggest that it merely is the state of being modern. But what does it mean to be modern? Apparently “modernity” means whatever happens to be currently popular in the West. The West is modern in many disparate ways. To be “modern” in this sense would require every non-Western society to abandon its culture and live in a constant state of imitation of changing Western norms. We are emphatically against this wholesale adoption of Western modernity as it relates to a promiscuous freedom.”

He goes on.

“…. we think that there is a significant difference between “modernity” in general and religious/moral modernity….Thus we reject the notion that we must do something simply because it happens to be Westerners’ current prevailing cultural prejudice. We are simply not impressed by being told that something is one of the hallmarks of modernity as the West does in the following examples. We evaluate things by being true or false, useful or harmful, suitable or not suitable, and not just because the West counts them among the hallmarks of your modernity.”

Mr. Arlandson replied.

“I am confused about something. You say in your Open Letter, which you initiated to the American Congress, that Saudi Arabia is compatible with modernity (your word). Then, when I bring up the word “modernity,” you talk about “cultural prejudice” and the “wholesale adoption of Western modernity as it relates to a promiscuous freedom.” No one said anything about adopting the extremes or the vices in the West. I agree that the West has gone too far in that regard. But Saudi Arabia has let the pendulum swing too far to the other extreme—to the far side of repression, such as executing or flogging or imprisoning sexual sinners”

Mr. Soliman al-Buthe replied.

“One of the primary aims of Islam is the welfare of the family. To protect the family Islam prohibits all kinds of extra-marital sexual relations and has severe punishment for those who commit adultery and fornication. As a consequence, free mixing between men and women is not encouraged. Today some of our learned men thought that it would be advisable for women not to drive cars as this would tempt women to mix easily with men and vice versa. Thus the prohibition on women driving was seen as a precautionary matter."

There you have the gist of why women are treated so poorly and forced to cover up their personal identity and their bodies and remain asexual in public. The reason – Muslim me can not control themselves. It’s the seam with any fundamental religious belief. As is aid in my previous post, the path to God for Muslims is the path of ‘right action’- the one of discipline, duty, injunctions and restraint which results in denial. It is the direct opposite of the path of self-expression, self-trust, and unconstraint. In the latter case, freedom itself can lead to the goal of self-improvement of the spirit by providing the greatest opportunity for experience and choice.

But with freedom comes responsibility. With total restraint comes a dead culture. We’ve seen that with Islam. Nothing created new, no new ideas, with no contribution to the human race and modern civilization for hundreds of years.

Our modern day culture believes that self-improvement can only be achieved by the greatest opportunity for experience and personal choice, unrestricted by any discipline, duty, injunction or restraint. Taken to extremes, one approach leads to the restriction of everything, the other, the permissiveness of everything. Neither one leads to a healthy evolving society. As I said in my recent post, the outlook is not good for any kind of integration of the two ‘paths’.

Take the way of action that demands discipline, duty, injunctions and restraint – that is, the removal of any and all physical world distractions (the female body, music, movies) and entities (nationalism, personal freedom, freedom of the press) that would hinder the true believer’s goal of reaching paradise - and we have the Taliban. Allow freedom to disintegrate into license and we are left with the nihilism of Nietzsche.

Mr. Arlandson adds.

“…. Bahrain, an island and independent state that is connected to Saudi Arabia by a bridge, provides a “breathing lung” for Saudis because the Islamic island allows people to do as they want. The words “breathing lung” mean that Saudi Arabia suffocates people. On the weekends an average of 40,000 cars line up to cross the bridge. Surely there is a middle path between decadence and repression."

Mr. Arlandson is correct. And we have to find it if we are ever to integrate the two opposite paths of right action that would help both our civilizations advance.

9 comments:

  1. Saudi Barbaria seeks to suffocate the whole of humanity with its poisonous exports of Islam and Jihad.

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  2. WC,
    I think I understand your point here, but I would ask your clarification on this:

    Do you think the West is as far off as the world of Islam?

    It seems to me that while our pendulum has swung too far into decadence, the pendulum of Islam has swung so far to the other side that it has gotten stuck. There is no movement of the Islamic pendulum and there really hasn't been for many years.

    The West does actually veer between periods of relative morality and immorality, especially in the United States.

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  3. Pastorius

    Yes I agree. It seems our current state of morality is flip side of the same coin. But I like your analogy of the pendulum too. The problem is, IMHO, is that the further we drive our pendulum towards a 'classless' society - meaning we've lost our sense of class today in our culture – the further we drive Islam in the opposite direction to defend itself in a world they see as decadent and a threat to their religious mores.

    The nation of Islam feels threatened by American culture and believes with all its heart that the society it sees is decadent, immoral, even depraved and corrupt and a threat to its very survival. Leftist liberal acceptance and celebration of Pornography, Gangster Rap, TV and radios shows like Sex in the City, South Park, Family Guy (who claim in their show’s musical introduction to be a show about family values) and Howard Stern, nudity, sex and vulgar language in movies, homosexuality, lesbianism, freedom of speech and expression unrestrained by responsibility, and attacks on the Judeo-Christian religion, to name just a few, are a danger Islam since they can make a devout Muslim stray from the ‘path’.

    That’s why entitle posts like this ‘Enemy Mine’. The very existence of secular society that has strayed from our Judeo-Christian roots helps create the enemy that we face. IMHO we should show some restraint in the expression of our freedoms and temper it with more responsibility.

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  4. I think immorality is the exhaust of a free and creative society.

    I do not at all agree with your idea here. I think it is just another form of blaming the victim.

    You and I will agree to disagree on this one. I'm pretty sure I am in the minority on this one.

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  5. Pastorius

    Al I'm saying is that our culture has become more and more crase over the last few decseds and what we gain from freedoms untied from reponsibility while exercising those freedoms had led to our society losing a certian amount of 'class' - not morals or ethics or even religious mores - but 'class'. What we are left with is a bumper sticker philosphy and the current state of our politics where we are talking at each other instead of to each other.

    I may be wrong but I think the current move towards conservatism in the country is a direct response by people to bring a little more class into our society.

    But this is just my opinion based on my observations.

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  6. I agree with you there. And, I think it is part of the pendulum swing. We will become more conservative for a time. And, then we will go wild, but in a different way.

    Like I said, I am in the minority in the extremity of my viewpoint. I am practically an absolutist on freedom of expression.

    If you ever want to know why, I'll have an email conversation with you about it.

    I sincerely believe that if we don't make a firm commitment as a society to freedom of expression, we will lose our humanity within the next 100 years.

    This is not the place for me to go into an explanation of why I believe that.

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  7. Pastorius

    Don't get me wrong. I agree with you. I don't want any restrictions at all on free speech. Just the responsible use of it (just because you can doesn't mean you should) that individuals and ONLY individuals can exercise. Only an individual can make that decision not the government.

    Great back and forth by the way. Hope lot's of people are reading our exchanges. (grin)

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  8. I always say, the more arguing the better.

    :)

    Admittedly, I don't much like trolls and moonbats.

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  9. I’m only sorry that I’ve come to this conversation so late—it’s very interesting. A couple of points I’d like to make, if I may play Devil’s advocate: i) I don’t disagree with Buthe’s definition of modernity vis-à-vis the West. His argument, stripped of the Islam factor, is logical and genuine—once again, removed from the inherent biases and assumptions we Westerners make when confronting someone like Buthe; ii) Arlandson states, “One of the hallmarks of modernity and progress is women’s freedom.” Yes, we define certainly define modernity as such but consider what “women’s freedom” has wrought for us. For starters: lower birth rates and a declining population (abortion, divorce, etc.), and the mainstreaming of pornography (as women are now free to sell their ‘goods’ and be quite proud about it). And before some harpy jumps down my throat, don’t forget that you are otherwise proud of these things. Now, you and I would agree that these things, made possible by “women’s freedoms” have led to this “coarsening” of society that we bemoan. But more than anything, it is the extreme individualism—the idea that each person is a self-empowered individual within their state-given rights to pursue the unquenchable, even the expense of your neighbor—of the West, that the Buthes of the world must take exception to. Individualism, which saps a community’s power and threatens the anonymity of the tribe/family/group is the real threat to Buthe—not women, not homos, not infidels. It is the power of distinctiveness and egoism which carries with it the power to reveal one’s inferiority (and we all known the Arab world suffers from a great inferiority complex.) The irony is that these things will, in time, render us incapable of sustaining ourselves as well.

    WC adds “But with freedom comes responsibility. With total restraint comes a dead culture. We’ve seen that with Islam. Nothing created new, no new ideas, with no contribution to the human race and modern civilization for hundreds of years.”

    Buthe doesn’t see it that way; and if my understanding of the writings of various Islamic jurists is correct, neither would the true Muslim. It comes back to that pesky definition of modernity; or, how do you define new? Remember: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” Nor was it a Muslim who said it. What’s new? Cable TV? Stretch hummers? Medical advances which merely prolong our lives? Much of what we consider progress comes in terms of practicalities; what progress have we made in answering those aged old questions that have plagued man since he could think? Those questions religion answers for us. Even the most scientifically reductionist view of the universe cannot answer those questions. Absent those answers and living the “religious” life, all else is distraction. This is why the Muslims destroyed Alexandria, remember. The books that contradicted Islam were heresies and those that supported Islam were superfluous. So the true Muslim shouldn’t care for WC’s definition of “contribution” and “modern.” They’re simply meaningless.

    As to freedom, we’ve gotten into quite the dilemma over that in the West. We claim to prize two things in the West, freedom and equality. Unfortunately, those two cannot co-exist on very happy terms. To paraphrase Eric Hoffer, “To maximize equality, freedom must be minimized and in a society where the majority seek equality, freedom is the passion of a minority. Where freedom is the order of the day, equality is the passion of masses. Furthermore, Hoffer says that equality makes for a much more stable society than freedom. And now look at the Islamic world. WC sees stagnation. The Muslims see stability and strength. I think we underestimate our enemies if we see it any other way.

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