As long as we are tilting at cultural relativism, here is a pithy account, by a former Muslim, of why we should not be shy about saying that post-Enlightenment Western culture is arguably humanity’s best effort yet.
The author is an outspoken critic of Islam who, cognizant of Islam’s benevolent attitude toward apostates, goes by the pseudonym Ibn Warraq.
In the article we read:
A culture that gave the world the novel; the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert; and the paintings of Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Rembrandt does not need lessons from societies whose idea of heaven, peopled with female virgins, resembles a cosmic brothel. Nor does the West need lectures on the superior virtue of societies in which women are kept in subjection under sharia, endure genital mutilation, are stoned to death for alleged adultery, and are married off against their will at the age of nine; societies that deny the rights of supposedly lower castes; societies that execute homosexuals and apostates. The West has no use for sanctimonious homilies from societies that cannot provide clean drinking water or sewage systems, that make no provisions for the handicapped, and that leave 40 to 50 percent of their citizens illiterate.
Sheer provocation, of course, but by George, I think he’s on to something, even if he did leave out Ellington, the Beatles, Jimi, and Miles. Read the rest here.
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The interview with Chris Hedges at http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/03/13/chris_hedges/ responds to this argument, albeit somewhat obliquely, with far more eloquence than I could ever hope to muster. I’m interested to know what you think of his ideas.
Well, Pete, I’ve never been any sort of a fan of Chris Hedges — quite the contrary, and for all the reasons you might imagine. But I’ll take a look.
I can’t open this link; it appears to be within the Salon.com walled garden. Paste the text into an email and send it to me and I’ll read it.
I’ll warn you, though: every time I see Chris Hedges on one of the political chat-shows I start looking around for stuff to throw at the TV.
OK – never mind – I found it. About what I expected. Couldn’t agree less. Looking for something to throw at the screen.
I suppose (sigh) I’ll respond later. As time permits.
You know what? I’m not even going to respond to this piece. I disagree so fundamentally, so axiomatically, with Chris Hedges’s view of the West, of religion, of what constitutes valid reasoning, what fundamentalism is, of what is of value in civilization, of what science is, what atheism is, what progress is, and just about everything else that there is simply not enough common ground for anything but ranting across the unbridgeable intellectual and moral gulf that separates us.
I hope he finds some culture, somewhere, that he can enjoy being part of. God only knows where it might be. He sure doesn’t like this one.
Hmmm. I think he is spot on, and in my view his experiences and background give him a lot of credibility. So I don’t suppose we will go very far in resolving this.
I agree that Hedges has had broad experience, but in his loathing of Western civilization, and indeed modernity, he makes Noam Chomsky look like Kate Smith. It seems this is the lens through which all his experiences are filtered.
In his carping, pinched, joyless worldview the West has done nothing but rain destruction on the world; all progress is an illusion; the Enlightenment was worthless because it “ended up” with the Jacobins (as if it has “ended up” at all, or at any one point); neocons are the devil, and the New Atheists are neocon devils too; not cutting girls’ clitorises cut off is grudgingly admitted to be “better” for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but not simply better; we mustn’t talk of jihadists as enemies because “enemies” is a “loaded word”; Israel is the seondary focus of evil in the modern world (guess who’s on top!); the Palestinians are long-suffering heroes; the Iraqis were better off under Saddam; it’s wrong to judge Palestinian terrorists as foes because “people who start dividing the world into us and them fail to have empathy” (never mind that that is precisely what all the blighters he’s defending do, in spades); jihadists become jihadists because they have had to live under (presumably American) ‘abuse’; atheists are fundamentalists; intelligence professionals are evil for saying that another attack by Islamic terrorists is a matter of not ‘if’ but ‘when’; Hitchens is a jerk because he chided Hedges for defending suicide bombers — but Hedges has “stood at the edge of a suicide attack” and Hitchens hasn’t, so Hitchens shouldn’t be allowed to criticize him; and on and on and on.
He attacks one straw man after another. He is not hampered at all by any need for consistency, or bothered by double standards. His enervating harangues promise nothing but defeat and decay. He castigates Hitchens for “not believing in anything” but all he seems to believe in is that everything the West does is wrong; certainly he is unwilling to make the slightest stand against tyranny, totalitarianism, religious barbarism, oppression of women, or any other offense against human freedom and dignity, as long as it isn’t the USA or Israel perpetrating it. He exemplifies everything that is wrong with radical multiculturalism; he is the Platonic form of the blame-America-first liberal.
So I guess I’ve responded, sort of, although I said I wouldn’t. I could paste his whole interview into a blog post, and fisk it from top to bottom, but it just isn’t worth it; it would simply do no good.
One thing that amused me immensely, though, was this:
Gee, that’s strange: no matter who he debates, or which side of the issue he’s on, everybody roots for the other guy. “It’s just insulting.” No, Mr. Hedges, the problem isn’t the audiences. It’s you. You’re dour, and dreary, and defeatist, and depressing. Nobody wants to hear it.
Geez, Mac, did we read the same interview? In my view, he makes a number of statements which are arguable, but they all are defensible.
1) I don’t see anything in his remarks which indicates hatred for America, the West, or modernity. And I certainly didn’t see any defense of suicide bombers: the way I read it, he was outraged to be accused of support for them, especially considering that he witnessed the consequences of suicide bombs. I don’t see anywhere where he makes the case that other cultures or ideologies are better than ours, or that the USA and Israel are the sole (or even primary) sources of misery in the world. I don’t agree that “he is unwilling to make the slightest stand against tyranny, totalitarianism, religious barbarism, oppression of women, or any other offense against human freedom and dignity:” that wasn’t relevant to any of the questions he was asked. He is pretty clearly against Islamic fundamentalism, which he considers a “disease” (“I’m an enemy of fundamentalism, period.”) When asked about genital mutilation, he called it “disgusting” (“I’m not a cultural relativist. I don’t think that if you live in Somalia, it’s fine to mutilate little girls.”) I don’t view him as the Ward Churchill, hate the West type which you do.
2) The most problematic statement (to me) is “there is nothing in human nature or in human history that points to the idea that we are moving anywhere.” I think there are areas where mankind has improved, but I find it difficult to argue with his premise that along with the benefits of science and technology come nuclear weapons, environmental degradation, and genocide. If the history of Western civilization is one of uninterrupted progress — starting with Aristotle and leading up to America’s Next Top Model — then it’s hard to look at the most recent century and make the case that it is better than the ones which preceded it. Certainly there was death and destruction on an unprecedented scale. I don’t think he is a Luddite for pointing out that human knowledge, science, and technology are making enormous strides, but human nature may not be. Are people’s lives happier and more fulfilled than in previous times? Maybe, maybe not: I don’t know. Do people (and nations) behave better to each other now than before? I’m not so sure. What are the things which really count, and have they improved?
3) I’ve never read Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, but his comments about Hitchens seem right on the money. Hitchens shares with religious fundamentalists a binary view of the world which is absolute in its rigidity and its contempt for those who feel differently. I’m not religious and I have no use for religious dogma, but I recognize that there are many people far wiser and smarter than me who have embraced religion fully and found profound meaning there. By definition, faith is the willing suspension of belief and logic to conform with some higher force. That’s clearly not for me. However, when I look at people ranging from Reinhold Niebuhr to Jimmy Carter to Leo Tolstoy who have become passionate advocates of religious belief, I have to admit the possibility that I just don’t get it. To quote John Sebastian: maybe it’s like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll. If others can find meaning or solace or sustenance in religion, then who am I to criticize that?
However, Hitchens and his ilk exhibit an intolerance and a contempt for the faithful which is every bit as extreme as that exhibited by religious fundamentalists to those of “lesser” faith. I didn’t follow the recent debates between Hitchens and religious leaders, but I would be willing to bet that the clerics found inner peace through their faith, while Hitchens is a dyspeptic crank with a drinking problem. Maybe they know something he doesn’t know.
4) We grew up in the bucolic surroundings of central New Jersey, in a country which has never been occupied by foreign soldiers. A Palestinian kid grows up in a region where poverty, violence, and unemployment are endemic, and where his freedom of action and movement are regulated by occupying forces. To be clear: I am not suggesting that all Palestinians are noble martyrs or that they don’t have their share of responsibility for the endless conflict there. They have been spectacularly ill-served by Arafat, and they never seem to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. My point is simply that different backgrounds and experiences will lead to different perceptions of the world.
So when Hedges states that “I spent so long in war zones that I think we don’t know what we would do under repression and abuse — you know, if somebody killed my father,” I think he is making a rather obvious point. It is easy to sit in an air conditioned room and insist that Palestinians just chill out and give the peace process another few decades to see what happens. (I’m not suggesting that they lob bombs into pizza parlors in Israel either: quite frankly, I’m not sure what they should do to improve their situation.) The fact is that neither of us knows what we would do if we were in extreme situations — Hedges refers to Bruno Bettleheim, whose first-hand account of what actually happened in concentration camps is much different than what one might expect — ought to provide a different perspective on those who are in these situations. This is not to excuse what they do as much as to explain what they do, which is the first step in finding a solution.
4) I don’t know any American who has lived in a Third World country who has not had his perceptions changed about both America and the world. When I lived in Asia, my impression of America became much more favorable: among other things, I had never realized how incredibly vibrant our culture is. However, I also gained an enormous amount of respect for the cultures of China, Thailand, Japan, and Korea — in some ways, I found them to be more advanced than ours. (Better food, too.) My point is simply that I don’t view the West as the standard by which all other societies are to be judged, and I don’t consider the Western set of beliefs to be the criteria against which all other belief systems are to be measured. The Asian cultures, while diverse among themselves, often differ from ours in the role of the individual, the state, and the family. I’m hesitant to declare these beliefs wrong simply because I disagree with them.
This is not to suggest a mushy kind of laissez-faire ethics where whatever you do is OK because others in your society do the same thing. That’s not my point, and I don’t think it is Hedges’s point either. Some things are wrong regardless of context: Hedges cites genital mutilation, and it’s as good an example as any. However, I think we ought to have much greater tolerance towards those who believe differently than us, rather than adopt the uncompromising and absolutist views of Christopher Hitchens. Of all people, Hitchens’s lurch from left to right ought to inform him that a little humility is a good thing to have. (Let’s leave out the fact that he was spectacularly wrong about Iraq: for that matter, he can reliably be counted upon to be wrong concerning just about everything.) His binary view of the world and his contempt of those with other views is no different in tone or substance than what we hear from religious fundamentalists around the world. I think it is better to err on the side of tolerance than the side of intolerance, and it is better to be inclusive than exclusive. For all the clichÁ©s about being in others’ shoes, I think that having the perspective of others will lead to a much more informed judgment. Hedges’s experience living in the Middle East and other war zones gives him a much different perspective than a polemicist like Hitchens, and I find his views to be arguable but very difficult to dismiss.
Well, Pete, I can see you spent some time on this, and it’s fair and well-argued. I think it deserves a response, though I think we have some intractable disagreements.
Unfortunately I haven’t the time right now to respond as fully as I’d like, but I’ll do what I can.
And yes, we did read the same interview.
As for Hitchens (who by the way has spent a great deal of time in troubled corners of the world as well), I don’t hold his apostasy from the Left against him. Many people have been seduced in youth by the Utopianism of left-wing ideas, and I think it is to his credit that he parted company with them once he realized how bankrupt they are. Hedges suggests that he is utterly amoral, but I think their natures are so different that he simply doesn’t understand. Hitchens’s criticism of fundamentalism, and his support of Israel and the West against the backwardness of radical Islam, Palestinian terrorists, and the like are motivated, I think — as was his previous socialism — by a sincere desire to advocate what seems the morally correct course for human progress. (And his drinking, by the way, has nothing to do with any of this. We’ve all heard the old joke “I used to be messed up on booze. Now I’m messed up on the Lord.” Choose your poison.)
And you don’t have to look far in Hedges’s work to find support for the notion that he is no fan of either America or Israel. Here we have the terror attacks of the innocent, long suffering Palestinians merely being perfectly natural responses to “horrific Israeli assault”, etc. In one breath he denies that he’s a cultural relativist, and in the next he is saying Western culture is “better” than Somali Islam only on a case-by case basis for women who don’t want their genitals mutilated, and goes on to trash Western culture for doing nothing but raining death and destruction. All I can say is you don’t see refugees flooding out of America or Western Europe to go to Somalia, Gaza, Iran, Afghanistan, and so forth.
His remark about morality is telling as well:
This is a glimpse of his deep-rooted relativism. What Hitchens and the rest of us are condemning is a set of ideas. Yes, we think that the Enlightenment ideals are morally nobler than the tribal barbarisms of theocratic Islamic cultures. This is not about the superiority of the West over other human beings; it is about the superiority of an ennobling political philosophy over a toxic, benighted, virulent set of memes that have unfortunately formed a highly resistant infection in a great many minds. But for Hedges, it’s all personal. Is American culture, with all its superficial trash, the zenith of human potential? Of course not. Nobody is saying that it is. Nobody is suggesting that peaceful Asian cultures like the Balinese water-temple system ought to be overthrown and replaced with the Iowa caucuses. Hitchens et al. have reserved their criticism for a particular set of morally repugnant ideologies that the world would, quite simply, be better off without. And again, it’s not the people, it’s the memes.
Regarding Hedges’s suggestion that Western, Enlightenment ideas haven’t led the West to any progress, I think he is once again motivated by his bitterness. We have abolished slavery, empowered women, made tremendous strides against all forms of institutionalized discrimination, have made extraordinary achievements in medicine and all aspects of our understanding of nature. If he, with typical dreariness, wants to moan about human nature being the same old thing it always has, well, it is the sciences of evolutionary and cognitive psychology that have the best chance of bringing these aspects of ourselves to light, so that we can move forward in wisdom rather than ignorance. And his attribution of Nazism to atheism and some fictitious “cult of science” is just the same old palaver we’ve heard again and again.
As for his support of suicide bombers, he may have been outraged by the accusation, but defend them he did. And does. And we’ve all seen the effects of suicidal terror, not just Hedges; I, for one, watched from my roof as the Twin Towers collapsed right here at home, and my daughter saw it all from just two blocks away.
Do people (and nations) behave better to each other than before? If you look at the relations between the modern, liberal, Enlightenment-based democracies, the answer is unquestionably yes. Were these to become the core values of every nation on Earth, we’d have a far safer, freer, and more dignified world.
Regarding Niehbur and Tolstoy: indeed there are profound, life-altering spiritual experiences available. The problem is that so far they have been inextricably linked to religions. There is no reason to believe that this must be so; we can have the good things that religion offers without the superstitions and the mind-stunting dogma. As Hitchens has said, it’s time we learned to decouple the numinous from the supernatural.
Here’s the key point: I think Hedges’s experience — a lifetime of war — has actually diminished his moral perspective. I think it may have robbed him of the notion that there is ultimately anything redeemable about human civilization, and that seeing how awful the fighting can be has convinced him that nothing is ultimately worth fighting for.
P.S.
We certainly have one point of diametric disagreement: You say of Hitchens that “he was spectacularly wrong about Iraq: for that matter, he can reliably be counted upon to be wrong concerning just about everything.”
Funny, but I think he was right about Iraq, and indeed I seem to find myself agreeing with him on “just about everything”.
I think he writes well, too.
Well, for one who agrees with Hitchens on just about everything, you might be interested to hear his view that the Palestinian jihadists “operate among an occupied and dispossessed and humiliated people, who are forced by Sharon’s logic to live in a close yet ghettoised relationship to the Jewish centers of population. Try and design a more lethal and rotten solution than that, and see what you come up with.”
So maybe he has a better understanding of their situation than he lets on.
Yes, in this context he is arguing that Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are religious-fundamentalist/racist lunacy, and I couldn’t agree more. You can read the whole interview here.
He understands the Mideast very well, I think. That he doesn’t defend Palestinian suicide bombers, and castigates others for doing so, does not mean that he sees the situation in the binary terms that ad-hominem attacks by folks like Hedges would lead you to believe.
The Israeli government announced yesterday the construction of an additional 750 houses in Gaza.
Which I think is utterly reprehensible, not to mention idiotic.
To be precise, that’s not in Gaza. The Israelis withdrew from Gaza.
The 750 houses would be constructed on the West Bank, in Givat Zeev (which you may have misremembered as Gaza).
Jeffery Hodges
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Yes, of course – right you are, Jeffery. This news actually came out a few days ago; there was a story about it in the Times, and a photo. I swore out loud on the subway when I saw it, attracting a glance or two.
This settlement-building proceeds entirely without my approval; I think it is sheer provocation, and quite insane.
Well, then that raises an obvious question. If you are a Palestinian, what do you do?
The “peace process,” such as it is, has gotten them nowhere. In any event, there is a weak Israeli government which is unlikely to alienate the conservatives and make bold moves or conciliations. Violence is the only leverage they have, but this is something we all disapprove of.
What would you do if you were in Palestinian shoes?