[So, friends, excuse the brackets, but I thought you might find this interesting. I have been in an on going discussion with a fellow named Adam, one I would call a highschool-friend, but whom I suspect would call me an unfortunately recurrent memory. Who can say, we so rarely ask people if they like us now, let alone whether they imagine that they once liked us. But I digress.
The following is a series of emails he and I have been sending back and forth in which we both speak very broadly, but which I think you may find interesting. If anyone thinks I have gone far astray, please post me. Aside, of course, from my spelling, which I think has gone haywire. Of course, if any of you think I am being embarrasingly stupid, please tell me with the same disgression you would apply if my fly were open in public, and I will quietly delete this.
The intial impetus was this, a "Bulletin" post which he sent to his myspace friends, among which I am numbered:]
----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Spong
Date: Aug 11, 2006 10:05 PM
Ayn Rand Institute Press Release
http://www.aynrand.org/
August 11, 2006
Irvine, CA--Following news of the foiled plot to bomb airlines, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) criticized President Bush for calling the would-be killers "Islamic fascists."
"CAIR is demanding that we evade the actual goal of those trying to kill us," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Just as the Soviet Communists and the Nazis sought to impose their version of socialism on the world, so the new killers seek to impose their version of Islam on the world. They seek total power to enact the dictates of Islam. Theirs is an Islamic totalitarian movement.
"I wish Bush would take his own rhetoric seriously, because understanding this fact about the killers is crucial to achieving victory in the war. Only when the political aspiration of Islam--the imposition of its religious dogmas by force--has been shown to result in the deaths of Islamists, not their victims, will we be safe. Only when the cause of Islamic totalitarianism has been thoroughly discredited, will victory be achieved.
"CAIR's demand that we evade the role of religion in this conflict is undermining America's self-defense. For this, the group should apologize to all Americans."
...... ...... ......
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[And this was my answer:]
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: "The Bible" [Pseudoeponymous]
Date: [Aug 12, 2006 10:38 AM ]
Dear Adam,
I find it rather surprising that you would repost this press release. I presume, of course, that you read it carefully before placing it here, and cannot imagine in what sense you thought it would be helpful. Honestly, I expect more philosophically and historically honest releases from the ARI.
The issue is that President Bush called the terror suspects in Britain "Islamic fascists" and CAIR complained that this phrase "equated the religion of peace with the ugliness of fascism." For this complaint Dr. Brook of the Ayn Rand institute demands an apology. Clearly, CAIR overstated the problem of Mr. Bush's statement. If this action demands an apology, however, none will be brought about by statements like the one you posted here. If anything, this press release illustrates the kind of prejudice against which CAIR was created to protect American citizens.
The first paragraph is fine. Dr. Brook, like Mr. Bush, evokes the commonplace that imperialist totalitarianism must not be tolerated. I, like most readers, agree, and need little further persuasion. Certain Muslim people seek to impose their version of Islam on the world just as "Soviet Communists and the Nazis sought to impose their version of socialism on the world" and Brook and Bush both call these people fascists. I am not quite sure if the descriptor is as precise as it is evocative, but it works. There is a threat from certain types of Muslims and something must be done. Point well taken.
To this point it is notable that both men have allowed that this is a problem with fascist contingents within Islam, those with a particular and particularly dangerous "version" of the religion. There are, of course, other versions. Groups ranging from CAIR itself (to cite only the most spectacularly divergent cases) to the Bahai faith are also promoting versions of Islam, both of which envision democratic inter-religious harmony. CAIR's biggest mistake was ignoring President Bush's syntax. He is clearly indicting only a version of Islam, only the fascist variety, and not the religion as a whole. Whether or not that is consistent with his private opinions and his larger policy decisions is not the issue here. This is an indictment of Fascist Islam and not an equation of Islam and fascism, and the statement is valuable.
Because there are groups, however, which fail to recognize diversity, potential and actual, within Islam, perhaps we can understand why CAIR would overreact. Passages of the Quran and ahadith which call upon Muslims for military action are too often cited by politicians and pundits of varying stripes as proof that the peaceful Muslim is a contradiction in terms. Of course, I will not claim that this literary tradition does not exist. It does. There is unarguably violence in these texts, and at certain points in history it has become quite manifest. However, the only way these passages could demonstrate an inevitable tendency towards violence within Islam would be if religious history tended to show that violence in scripture correlates with violence in reality. Even the most cursory survey of the history of religions makes it clear that this is not the case.
For instance, within in Judaism, there is sufficient Biblical basis for a surprising amount of violence. The leadership tactics of Moses and military record of Joshua alone, as two of the earliest types for the Messiah present models for the Messianic future which are driven by merciless human action. This is the vision of the Messiah to which Jesus was heir, but it was on the way out. When historical circumstances made a vision of violent change through human actors dangerous and inefficient, a new vision emerged. It was in the image of the military Messiah that the Bar Kokhbah revolt rose and fell in the second century. But soon after this monumental failure and the tragic death toll it brought upon the Jews, a new vision for the Messiah emerged. The Mishnahs vision of him tends towards the supernatural and discourages any effort to predict or speed up his reign, tendencies which are still more emphatic in the Talmud. These texts, though they can never have the official status of the Bible, form the official filter for interpreting the Bible within Judaism. The violent vision is now safely trapped behind their exegetical screen. Though scripture had created one image of the future, social change precipitated philosophical, and eventually scriptural, change.
And the case of Christianity is equally instructive. The New Testament is a work which gives quite nearly no defense for military action (even including the quite exceptional cases of Matt. 10:34 and Luke 22:36). Despite this, when historical circumstances have made military action desirable and feasible, Christianity has mustered its scant scriptural justification towards some of the most theologically oriented and wide ranging military campaigns in history. Christianity, like Judaism, has no monolithic version, but rather creates versions which are more or less violent by adapting scripture to make sense of changing historical circumstances. Some readings of any tradition, even CAIR must acknowledge, will be dangerous.
Unfortunately, the article you posted ignores the overwhelming evidence of history. Whereas President Bush (and Dr. Brook's first paragraph) called for action against a certain group within Islam, the end of the press release called for action against Islam as a whole, precisely the sort of unilateralism that CAIR is protesting and which I maintain can only be defended through ignorance (whether willing or not). That this press release would claim that "the imposition of its religious dogmas by force" is "the political aspiration of Islam" is a frightening overstatement which simply does not become the philosophically or historically minded. Islam does not have any aspirations, desires, or tactics. Perhaps Dr. Brook could have spoken on tendencies, historical records, or scriptures of Islam, all measurable phenomena, but as the press release stands, he does not. He is generalizing Islam as a necessarily fascist religion. With these sorts of voices in positions of power (and the head of the ARI is a position of some influence), is it any wonder that CAIR is easily spooked? Clearly, there are those who would eradicate Islam on the (amazingly anachronistic) notion that it is inherently fascist, and CAIR is a group which exists expressly to keep ammunition out of those people's hands.
So, if you are saying that CAIR should apologize for being Muslim, I understand and disagree, and if you are saying they should apologize for misunderstanding Bush's statement, it seems something of an overreaction. Most importantly, though, no such reaction will come about from Mr. Brooks press release. The question is what economic and political realities are contributing towards fascist readings of Islam. Dr. Brooks generalizations will also not lead to an answer to that most critical question.
So, what, if not philosophy or history, orients the press release? Perhaps you know, but I certainly do not, Adam. If the Ayn Rand institute is placing the political ambitions of some of its members before her highest charge of philosophical living, that is to say, if it is being run by conservatives and not Objectivists, then I think you should be careful what you repost. In any case, I look forward to further press releases.
Sincerely,
Vince
[To which he replied:]
RE: U.S. Muslim Group Should Apologize [Aug 14, 2006 3:59 AM]
Vince,
Leaving aside Dr. Brook's comments for the moment, consider the moral status of CAIR's objection to the use of the term "Islamic fascists" to refer to Muslim terrorists. You concede that the term accurately describes the fascist "contingent" within Islam. The fundamental nature of this movement is that it seeks to impose a totalitarian *Islamic* theocracy. "Islamofascism" therefore identifies the essential content of our enemy's ideology--it names a glaringly obvious and urgently important fact of reality. Yet CAIR is outraged that anyone would dare to acknowledge the facts, because they reflect badly on Islam. CAIR wants us to studiously evade the basic nature of an enemy that is systematically killing us--as such, CAIR's craven dishonesty goes far beyond mere political correctness--it is epistemological treason that severely undercuts our ability to defend ourselves and eliminate the threat to our lives.
Sadly, this evasion has been widely complied with in the West. It took Bush *years* to even suggest that Muslim terrorists and the states that support them are an essentially Islamic movement--prior to that he laced every speech, including the one immediately after 9/11, with abject appeasement of Islam, insisting that the terrorists' avowed religious motivation somehow had nothing whatever to do with Islam, and that we admire the great and peaceful Islamic culture (and despite some progress on naming the enemy, Bush's evasions largely continue). These sentiments are ubiquitous in our culture. The religious right wants desperately to avoid the conclusion that religion can lead to so massive and obscene an evil, and the relativist left is opposed on principle to judging any non-Western ideology as inferior, no matter how tyrannical, violent, or primitive.
The standard smokescreen tactic, which CAIR epitomizes, is to smear anyone who condemns Islam (or, if you like, the "influence" of Islam on its militant wing) as guilty of "ethnocentric" prejudice and bigotry, equivalent to racism. Yet this smear tactic is moral relativism at it's worst--its aim and its effect is to whitewash evil and destructive ideas, and to brand the exercise of objective judgment--the recognition of facts--as depraved.
Racism is irrational and brutish because race is objectively irrelevant to a person's character and moral worth--it is *unchosen*, and morality applies only to volition. Ideas, in contrast, are chosen--moreover, ideas have consequences. False ideas--those inconsistent with the facts of reality--are harmful to human life and human values. True ideas--those reached by using reason to identify and integrate the facts of reality--promote human life and values and thus are morally good.
Thus, contrary to your postmodernist literati, an objective standard exists--the standard of human life--by which one ideology, and one culture, can be shown to be inferior to another.
Islam--and religion as such--is demonstrably inimical to human life. The rejection of reason--man's only means of knowledge of reality--in favor of arbitrary mystical fantasy, has always led and will always lead to destruction, misery, and mass death. In politics, religion is incompatible with freedom and individual rights--ideas which only emerged from the rational thought of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, not from the millenium of religious barbarism that preceded them. The attempt to live by religion consistently is the attempt to sever the mind from reality--as such it can only destroy human life--it is therefore morally *evil.*
The many moderate religionists, Muslim or Christian, who are basically decent, who live and function in the modern world, and who reject the primitivism and oppression of religious fundamentalism, survive *in spite of* their religion--they are proof of the value of the Enlightenment ideas that have diluted their religious views. These people accept significant elements of a rational worldview, such as science and secular learning, political freedom, the pursuit of happiness here on earth, the enjoyment of sex, the production of wealth, etc. In the West, Christianity has been largely attenuated in this way. The Islamic world, sadly, never experienced an Enlightenment--with the result that we are confronted today with the obscenity of a medieval religious barbarism intent on returning us to the horrors of our own theocratic past.
So with regard to Dr. Brook's comments--it is entirely appropriate to identify Islam--and religion *as such*--as the essential source of the unreasoning ideology that threatens our freedom and our lives. It is important to distinguish between moderate Muslims and the more consistent fundamentalists. We are in a physical war with *Islamofascist* states, chiefly Iran, and their terrorist proxy groups. This movement, not Islam as such, is the enemy that we urgently need to destroy, militarily or otherwise, if we are to survive.
However, it is ultimately also of life or death importance to recognize that religion *as such* is the deadlly enemy of human life--and that any Muslims or Christians .
Should you want the full philosophic context validating reason as man's indespensible and sole means of achieving knowledge, happiness, and flourishing life on this earth, I refer you to the Objectivist literature, as against a brief press release, no matter how effectively it exposes the moral bankruptcy of the so-called moderates at CAIR .
See also:
America at War
A War against Islam
Regards,
Adam
[The following is a clarification from Adam to me.]
ommission from post [Aug 14, 2006, 4:19 AM]
The second to last paragraph should read:
However, it is ultimately also of life or death importance to recognize that religion *as such* is the deadlly enemy of human life--and that any Muslims or Christians who promote the fundamental ideas of mysticism, while they may stand with us against the literal barbarians, are still essentially promoting a contradiction that will inexorably destroy the achievements of our rational, Enlightenment civilization.
[More to come, friends!]
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