So What SHOULD We Do About ISIS?

[sultan2075]

Why is it so inconceivable that followers of a morally conservative faith which is explicitly political (ie, there's no Koranic equivalent of Matthew 22:21) might have a different understanding of the purpose of life than secular post-Enlightenment liberals? Hobbes says the purpose of the state is comfortable self-preservation. That's something new. The ancients and the medievals would not have viewed the state in such a way. We ought not to take it for granted. Just because we have severed the theological from the political (part of our heritage as a civilization built on the principles of both Athens and Jerusalem) does not mean that others want to do the same thing. And our Christian heritage arguably makes it easier to do that because Christianity calls for inner transformation of the self through love of God and love of one's neighbor, not through the union of religious and political authority or the enacting of a divinely mandated plan of governance.

[markfiend]

Do most followers of Islam have such "a different understanding of the purpose of life"? Most Muslims just want to get on with their lives, do their jobs, bring up their children. I think it's overly simplistic, and potentially dangerous, to frame this as Christianity versus Islam, or even as secularism against Islam; I believe that we risk alienating the huge numbers of Muslims who don't support ISIS by doing so.

[sultan2075]

Do most followers of Islam have such "a different understanding of the purpose of life"? Most Muslims just want to get on with their lives, do their jobs, bring up their children. I think it's overly simplistic, and potentially dangerous, to frame this as Christianity versus Islam, or even as secularism against Islam; I believe that we risk alienating the huge numbers of Muslims who don't support ISIS by doing so.

In fairness, if anyone is framing it that way, it's ISIS, al Qaeda, etc.

That being said, I think you're making the same assumption that the neoconservatives did: you're assuming that everyone really just wants the fruits of bourgeois liberalism. Inside everyone is a bourgeois liberal just waiting to come out! But that is not necessarily the case, and many voices from that part of the world have rejected bourgeois liberalism on the grounds that it offers freedom, but it is a freedom to be a moral degenerate.

One needn't be a member of ISIS to look at western moral relativism with a jaundiced and suspicious eye. More importantly, secular governments in the Middle East have nearly all been tyrannies. Secular western liberalism has been discredited in the eyes of many. Whether they are right or wrong to conclude that secular politics is a failure is a different story. Nevertheless, if God has given you the Law, and the secular politics you imported from outside has failed, where do you turn? You turn back the Law, which is what ISIS is doing.

[nowayjose]

Free will is an illusion. Not the whole world operates like modern industrialized societies. Just look at Pakistani madrassas, where little boys are beaten with sticks until they have memorized the Koran. If you grow up in such an environment, your whole behaviour is shaped by that world view and for most people it seems to be incredibly hard to shake that off. The same applies to other circumstances, of course, someone who grows up in a pious bible-belt community will also have a strong religous conditioning from their earliest life on. If you have been formed from earliest childhood according to the Koran (or the Old Testament), you will have internalized a rather different set of values and priorities than people who grew up in a more secular environment.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Not fifty years ago my dad took several beatings with a steel ruler for not being able to quote the Holy Book by heart.
To the best of my knowledge, my dad, now being 65 did not behead anyone yet. Save for a few sick pigeons.
I am also a bit annoyed about people swinging with Quran verses in every Facebook article about ISIS while I'm sure they wouldn't even know the true meaning of the ramadan.

Iz.

[Being645]

Free will is an illusion.

I absolutely agree to this. And I would add that being human is a decision, and we know the cost ...

Not the whole world operates like modern industrialized societies. Just look at Pakistani madrassas, where little boys are beaten with sticks until they have memorized the Koran. If you grow up in such an environment, your whole behaviour is shaped by that world view and for most people it seems to be incredibly hard to shake that off. The same applies to other circumstances, of course, someone who grows up in a pious bible-belt community will also have a strong religous conditioning from their earliest life on. If you have been formed from earliest childhood according to the Koran (or the Old Testament), you will have internalized a rather different set of values and priorities than people who grew up in a more secular environment.

Anyway, I think the differences are not as large as one might imagine at first sight ... I remember that back at primary school it was normal for teachers to hit children with sticks, pull and turn their ears and stuff, girls as much as boys. Yeah, it is hard to shake it off for anyone who suffered violence and suppression under any sort of standardisation programme. Though, IMHO, no values whatsoever can wipe away the suffering people encounter or mete out, that's what we all have in common. And also the joy.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

ISIS arrive on Syrian-Turkish border

[Izzy HaveMercy]

IZ.

[euphoria]

Without having too much time or capacity for a proper analysis, but just looking back the last decades, it is obvious that the more we do there, the worse it gets there. But we need their natural resources to maintain our lifestyle, so if we want to maintain our lifestyle, it IS our problem (Kuwait 1991). I don't have any solution, but I think that the natural resources in MENA are more of a curse than a blessing, so that eventually, in a post-oil future, there might be some hope for that part of the world.

[markfiend]

Do most followers of Islam have such "a different understanding of the purpose of life"? Most Muslims just want to get on with their lives, do their jobs, bring up their children. I think it's overly simplistic, and potentially dangerous, to frame this as Christianity versus Islam, or even as secularism against Islam; I believe that we risk alienating the huge numbers of Muslims who don't support ISIS by doing so.

In fairness, if anyone is framing it that way, it's ISIS, al Qaeda, etc.

You may be right, but I see a lot of commentary, especially from the right, that seems happy to follow that framing. There are voices calling for forced conversion of western Muslims to Christianity for example.

That being said, I think you're making the same assumption that the neoconservatives did: you're assuming that everyone really just wants the fruits of bourgeois liberalism. Inside everyone is a bourgeois liberal just waiting to come out! But that is not necessarily the case, and many voices from that part of the world have rejected bourgeois liberalism on the grounds that it offers freedom, but it is a freedom to be a moral degenerate.

I think that convincing people with "the fruits of bourgeois liberalism" has failed because the only of those fruits they ever see are bombs, drone-strikes, and occupying armies.

One needn't be a member of ISIS to look at western moral relativism with a jaundiced and suspicious eye.

I don't really know what "moral relativism" has to do with anything. I've most frequently seen it used as a phrase used to beat up a straw-man version of secular humanism and to suggest that humanists, atheists, etc. have no morality.

Surely descriptive moral relativism is uncontroversial? People do in fact disagree about that which is moral: ISIS find it morally acceptable to behead people; we do not.

More importantly, secular governments in the Middle East have nearly all been tyrannies. Secular western liberalism has been discredited in the eyes of many.

But this is self-contradictory; secular liberalism has been defeated because people in the Middle East have never seen it?

Whether they are right or wrong to conclude that secular politics is a failure is a different story. Nevertheless, if God has given you the Law, and the secular politics you imported from outside has failed, where do you turn? You turn back the Law, which is what ISIS is doing.

But I don't in fact think that they do see us in the West as "secularists", they see us as Christians and this conflict as an extension of the Crusades, a view shared by many on the right in the West.

[iesus]

ISIS arrive on Syrian-Turkish border

Turkey and Qatar (with the approval of Saudis) were the main allies of ISIS so far. When Mosul fell in the hands of ISIS there where about 50 Turks that were captured and given back to Turkey in the borders.

[sultan2075]

Do most followers of Islam have such "a different understanding of the purpose of life"? Most Muslims just want to get on with their lives, do their jobs, bring up their children. I think it's overly simplistic, and potentially dangerous, to frame this as Christianity versus Islam, or even as secularism against Islam; I believe that we risk alienating the huge numbers of Muslims who don't support ISIS by doing so.

In fairness, if anyone is framing it that way, it's ISIS, al Qaeda, etc.

You may be right, but I see a lot of commentary, especially from the right, that seems happy to follow that framing. There are voices calling for forced conversion of western Muslims to Christianity for example.

No remotely serious person has called for the forcible conversion of Muslims to Christianity. Ann Coulter advocated it in 2001.

That being said, I think you're making the same assumption that the neoconservatives did: you're assuming that everyone really just wants the fruits of bourgeois liberalism. Inside everyone is a bourgeois liberal just waiting to come out! But that is not necessarily the case, and many voices from that part of the world have rejected bourgeois liberalism on the grounds that it offers freedom, but it is a freedom to be a moral degenerate.

I think that convincing people with "the fruits of bourgeois liberalism" has failed because the only of those fruits they ever see are bombs, drone-strikes, and occupying armies.

Of course, this is simply untrue. The 9/11 hijackers were well-acquainted with bourgeois liberalism. They were educated people and had lived in the West. Most of the funding ISIS has worked off of (at least prior to the capture of oil fields and subsequent oil smuggling, and capture of territory and subsequent taxation) came from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait. These are not nations which fit your description. ISIS has historically been funded by fabulously wealthy, well-educated elites. These are not ignorant peasants, nor were al Qaeda. They are quite familiar with "the fruits of bourgeois liberalism."

One needn't be a member of ISIS to look at western moral relativism with a jaundiced and suspicious eye.

I don't really know what "moral relativism" has to do with anything. I've most frequently seen it used as a phrase used to beat up a straw-man version of secular humanism and to suggest that humanists, atheists, etc. have no morality.

Surely descriptive moral relativism is uncontroversial? People do in fact disagree about that which is moral: ISIS find it morally acceptable to behead people; we do not.

I have suggested no such thing. However, when we, as a civilization, adopt the view that morality is simply relative to culture (or to put it another way, that there is no such thing as the possibility of moral knowledge or moral truth) we have lost all ability to give a rational defense of Western civilization. The position of al Qaeda, ISIS, etc., in regard to the West includes a well thought out moral critique of Western civilization. The West cannot offer a coherent response insofar as it has accepted the postmodern position whereby neither reason nor revelation can serve as a guide for life.

I do think normative moral relativism is a philosophic dead end; descriptive moral relativism, however, does not lead to it necessarily (as Aristotle points out in the Nicomachean Ethics 2000+ years ago, descriptive moral relativism leads to more and deeper inquiry). Nevertheless, some variation on normative moral relativism is the reigning moral ideology in the West today.

More importantly, secular governments in the Middle East have nearly all been tyrannies. Secular western liberalism has been discredited in the eyes of many.

But this is self-contradictory; secular liberalism has been defeated because people in the Middle East have never seen it?

Yes, that's a misstatement on my part; they have adopted Western political ideologies (the Baath party borrowed heavily from the worst of the West, for example). The point is that secular (illiberal) Western politics has been tried and been discredited. Liberal democratic politics require liberal democrats, which are few and far between in the middle-east. Since secular politics has proved to be a failure, the turn back toward a religious politics is inevitable.

Whether they are right or wrong to conclude that secular politics is a failure is a different story. Nevertheless, if God has given you the Law, and the secular politics you imported from outside has failed, where do you turn? You turn back the Law, which is what ISIS is doing.

But I don't in fact think that they do see us in the West as "secularists", they see us as Christians and this conflict as an extension of the Crusades, a view shared by many on the right in the West.

"Crusaders, Christians, Jews, and infidels" covers a lot of territory. As far as ISIS and al Qaeda are concerned, these are kuffir. Arguing the distinction between Christians and secularists is like arguing the distinction between the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front. It's all very important to the members of those two groups, but not to anybody else. More importantly - and this was the point I was trying to make earlier - you can't separate the development of Western secularism from Christianity. Secularism is a Christian development. It doesn't exist in the classical world, for example. It comes into existence as result of two crucial factors.

First, the Christian separation of the things of Caesar from the things of God allows for the autonomy of human reason in the things of this world; hence St. Thomas's natural law theory argues, in essence, that reason alone, unaided by revelation, can guide you in this world. In fact, that's the entire point of the natural law: you can know your moral duties without religion.

Secondly, while the classics and the medievals generally thought that there was an inherent and unresolvable tension between reason (which is aims to transcend political society) and the political community, the modern project is predicated on the reconcilability of the two. The Enlightenment is predicated on the view that they can be reconciled on terms favorable to reason (Kant, I'd say, is the classic statement of this, but it's also in Descartes): reason will trump the particular, the historical, or the social. Reason is universalizable. This is the fundamental premise of world government (unless that government is to be a mere tyranny). The Counter-enlightenment project tries to reconcile reason and culture as well, but it argues that reason is always subsidiary to or an outgrowth of culture or society or history (Hegel, for example, says that philosophy is only the spirit of the age expressed in thought. Contemporary historicism and moral relativism are derivative of the counter-Enlightenment. Hegel and Rousseau occupy this space, as do traditionalist conservatives).

Because Christianity leaves a space for the autonomous use of reason in response to moral and political problems, the Enlightenment is possible (perhaps even inevitable). Judaism and Islam, as religions of law, leave much less room for this autonomous, self-legislating reason. Ayman al-Zawahiri, for instance, declared elections in Iraq to be blasphemous. Why? Because God has already given you the law. Who are you to make your own?

[EvilBastard]

This chap thinks that the best thing to do with ISIS/ISIL/ASHCMWG* is to have nice cup of tea and a sit down. I suspect that his may be the most sensible idea yet advanced, but as such will be the last one explored.

*Angry Shouty Head-Chopping Men With Guns

[nowayjose]

Apparently noone gives a f**k about the people of Kobane. The duplicitous Turks are happy if ISIS handles the "Kurdish problem" next to their border. And the morally bankrupt 'West' only cares about the dollar and the sensitivities of the religious fascists abroad and at home.

[markfiend]

I don't really know what "moral relativism" has to do with anything. I've most frequently seen it used as a phrase used to beat up a straw-man version of secular humanism and to suggest that humanists, atheists, etc. have no morality.

I have suggested no such thing.

No you have not, and i didn't mean to imply that you had, I'm sorry.

[markfiend]

No remotely serious person has called for the forcible conversion of Muslims to Christianity. Ann Coulter advocated it in 2001.

No, but that's not what I said. Ideologues like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter on your side of the pond and Richard Littlejohn on ours are not "serious" but they have the ears of millions.

I think that convincing people with "the fruits of bourgeois liberalism" has failed because the only of those fruits they ever see are bombs, drone-strikes, and occupying armies.

Of course, this is simply untrue. The 9/11 hijackers were well-acquainted with bourgeois liberalism...

Hah, of course. I completely failed to consider that. And the 7/7 bombers were British-born and -educated.

What I meant was the general population of the middle-eastern countries aren't so aquainted. But you could justly accuse me of shifting the goalposts here. I'll concede the point and move on.

However, when we, as a civilization, adopt the view that morality is simply relative to culture (or to put it another way, that there is no such thing as the possibility of moral knowledge or moral truth) we have lost all ability to give a rational defense of Western civilization. The position of al Qaeda, ISIS, etc., in regard to the West includes a well thought out moral critique of Western civilization. The West cannot offer a coherent response insofar as it has accepted the postmodern position whereby neither reason nor revelation can serve as a guide for life.

Well, I would argue that reason can serve as a guide for life, moral relativism notwithstanding. If one accepts (for eample) human dignity as axiomatic ("We hold these truths to be self-evident...") then a compassionate morality can be arrived at through reason alone. Are you restating the problem of induction in the realm of morality?

I do think normative moral relativism is a philosophic dead end; descriptive moral relativism, however, does not lead to it necessarily (as Aristotle points out in the Nicomachean Ethics 2000+ years ago, descriptive moral relativism leads to more and deeper inquiry). Nevertheless, some variation on normative moral relativism is the reigning moral ideology in the West today.

OK, but I don't see how you escape it. In the final analysis, morality, it seems to me, is just a matter of opinion.

"Crusaders, Christians, Jews, and infidels" covers a lot of territory. As far as ISIS and al Qaeda are concerned, these are kuffir. Arguing the distinction between Christians and secularists is like arguing the distinction between the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front. It's all very important to the members of those two groups, but not to anybody else.

Yes, I think we're in agreement here.

More importantly - and this was the point I was trying to make earlier - you can't separate the development of Western secularism from Christianity. Secularism is a Christian development. It doesn't exist in the classical world, for example. It comes into existence as result of two crucial factors.

First, the Christian separation of the things of Caesar from the things of God allows for the autonomy of human reason in the things of this world; hence St. Thomas's natural law theory argues, in essence, that reason alone, unaided by revelation, can guide you in this world. In fact, that's the entire point of the natural law: you can know your moral duties without religion.

Interesting. I believe that the consensus is that the synoptic gospels (or at least "Mark" with whom the pericope presumably originates) use it in an attempt to distance themselves from the Jewish revolutionaries in the wake of the disaster of the destruction of the Temple, and to more closely align with Romans and gentiles in general. But this is seriously off-topic!

Secondly, while the classics and the medievals generally thought that there was an inherent and unresolvable tension between reason (which is aims to transcend political society) and the political community, the modern project is predicated on the reconcilability of the two. The Enlightenment is predicated on the view that they can be reconciled on terms favorable to reason (Kant, I'd say, is the classic statement of this, but it's also in Descartes): reason will trump the particular, the historical, or the social. Reason is universalizable. This is the fundamental premise of world government (unless that government is to be a mere tyranny). The Counter-enlightenment project tries to reconcile reason and culture as well, but it argues that reason is always subsidiary to or an outgrowth of culture or society or history (Hegel, for example, says that philosophy is only the spirit of the age expressed in thought. Contemporary historicism and moral relativism are derivative of the counter-Enlightenment. Hegel and Rousseau occupy this space, as do traditionalist conservatives).

Because Christianity leaves a space for the autonomous use of reason in response to moral and political problems, the Enlightenment is possible (perhaps even inevitable). Judaism and Islam, as religions of law, leave much less room for this autonomous, self-legislating reason. Ayman al-Zawahiri, for instance, declared elections in Iraq to be blasphemous. Why? Because God has already given you the law. Who are you to make your own?

But I don't see how this view accounts for the flourishing of Muslim scholarship in the European dark ages, without which (and the associated preservation of classical texts) the Enlightenment could not have happened?

All this, as interesting as it always is, is somewhat off the point. ISIS and their fellow travellers reject Western liberal democracy, on that much we agree. We cannot impose democracy at the point of a gun, that seems obvious. And a number of measures put in place by Western governments ("anti-terror" restrictions on human rights for example) give the lie to any notion that they are concerned with preserving our essential liberties. So what is to be done?

[eastmidswhizzkid]

So what is to be done?

exactly. for all the (mostly) (very) intelligent arguments and debates we have had here, apart from a consensus that in hindsight we ALL should have done things differently, no-one has even come close to a non-military solution (and a military solution is only a military "solution" iMHO)...so -bring on armageddon!

[sultan2075]

However, when we, as a civilization, adopt the view that morality is simply relative to culture (or to put it another way, that there is no such thing as the possibility of moral knowledge or moral truth) we have lost all ability to give a rational defense of Western civilization. The position of al Qaeda, ISIS, etc., in regard to the West includes a well thought out moral critique of Western civilization. The West cannot offer a coherent response insofar as it has accepted the postmodern position whereby neither reason nor revelation can serve as a guide for life.

Well, I would argue that reason can serve as a guide for life, moral relativism notwithstanding. If one accepts (for eample) human dignity as axiomatic ("We hold these truths to be self-evident...") then a compassionate morality can be arrived at through reason alone. Are you restating the problem of induction in the realm of morality?

Well, Jefferson's claim is embedded in an entire system of (Lockean) thought. The recognition of human equality leads to a whole host of moral and political conclusions in a rather geometric fashion. For the record, I am quite sympathetic to the idea that reason can serve as a guide for life, but today this is a minority opinion in the West (even in Jefferson's own country, alas).

I do think normative moral relativism is a philosophic dead end; descriptive moral relativism, however, does not lead to it necessarily (as Aristotle points out in the Nicomachean Ethics 2000+ years ago, descriptive moral relativism leads to more and deeper inquiry). Nevertheless, some variation on normative moral relativism is the reigning moral ideology in the West today.

OK, but I don't see how you escape it. In the final analysis, morality, it seems to me, is just a matter of opinion.

If that's the case all bets are off. If morality is just a matter of opinion, and can never be anything else, we are left with the chaos of moral relativism and no way to overcome that chaos. "Rape is wrong" seems to me to be more than a matter of mere opinion or prejudice (though I admit, with Aristotle, that having the right moral prejudices is in most cases the first step toward recognizing why they're the right moral prejudices).

"Crusaders, Christians, Jews, and infidels" covers a lot of territory. As far as ISIS and al Qaeda are concerned, these are kuffir. Arguing the distinction between Christians and secularists is like arguing the distinction between the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front. It's all very important to the members of those two groups, but not to anybody else.

Yes, I think we're in agreement here.

More importantly - and this was the point I was trying to make earlier - you can't separate the development of Western secularism from Christianity. Secularism is a Christian development. It doesn't exist in the classical world, for example. It comes into existence as result of two crucial factors.

First, the Christian separation of the things of Caesar from the things of God allows for the autonomy of human reason in the things of this world; hence St. Thomas's natural law theory argues, in essence, that reason alone, unaided by revelation, can guide you in this world. In fact, that's the entire point of the natural law: you can know your moral duties without religion.

Interesting. I believe that the consensus is that the synoptic gospels (or at least "Mark" with whom the pericope presumably originates) use it in an attempt to distance themselves from the Jewish revolutionaries in the wake of the disaster of the destruction of the Temple, and to more closely align with Romans and gentiles in general. But this is seriously off-topic!

Secondly, while the classics and the medievals generally thought that there was an inherent and unresolvable tension between reason (which is aims to transcend political society) and the political community, the modern project is predicated on the reconcilability of the two. The Enlightenment is predicated on the view that they can be reconciled on terms favorable to reason (Kant, I'd say, is the classic statement of this, but it's also in Descartes): reason will trump the particular, the historical, or the social. Reason is universalizable. This is the fundamental premise of world government (unless that government is to be a mere tyranny). The Counter-enlightenment project tries to reconcile reason and culture as well, but it argues that reason is always subsidiary to or an outgrowth of culture or society or history (Hegel, for example, says that philosophy is only the spirit of the age expressed in thought. Contemporary historicism and moral relativism are derivative of the counter-Enlightenment. Hegel and Rousseau occupy this space, as do traditionalist conservatives).

Because Christianity leaves a space for the autonomous use of reason in response to moral and political problems, the Enlightenment is possible (perhaps even inevitable). Judaism and Islam, as religions of law, leave much less room for this autonomous, self-legislating reason. Ayman al-Zawahiri, for instance, declared elections in Iraq to be blasphemous. Why? Because God has already given you the law. Who are you to make your own?

But I don't see how this view accounts for the flourishing of Muslim scholarship in the European dark ages, without which (and the associated preservation of classical texts) the Enlightenment could not have happened?

That flourishing is (relatively speaking) over pretty quickly (I also want to quibble with describing the middle ages as "dark" ages). Just as today there are powerful forces that want Islam to return to the 7th century, there have always been powerful forces that want to return to the 7th century. Partly this is because there is no central doctrinal authority in Islam (in the sense that the Pope is for pre-reformation western Christians), and there are consequently continual innovations in interpretation of doctrines (Osama bin Laden, for instance, had his own scholars who issued fatwas, but there is no official or central body that could have condemned them).

All this, as interesting as it always is, is somewhat off the point. ISIS and their fellow travellers reject Western liberal democracy, on that much we agree. We cannot impose democracy at the point of a gun, that seems obvious. And a number of measures put in place by Western governments ("anti-terror" restrictions on human rights for example) give the lie to any notion that they are concerned with preserving our essential liberties. So what is to be done?

So what is to be done?

exactly. for all the (mostly) (very) intelligent arguments and debates we have had here, apart from a consensus that in hindsight we ALL should have done things differently, no-one has even come close to a non-military solution (and a military solution is only a military "solution" iMHO)...so -bring on armageddon!

Sometimes, I think the region needs to be left alone to have the great big war that the West has been preventing for years. Let the Sunnis and the Shiites duke it out like they clearly want to. Americans are not comfortable with this because it means a massive slaughter, however, so we continue to be involved in the region, always forgetting that you can't have liberal democracy without having liberal democrats. George W. Bush was, in essence, an idealist who did not understand this - he thought (not entirely incorrectly) that previous Western support for middle-eastern despots in the name of stability had contributed to the rise of anti-Western jihadism. His idealist reading of human nature (see his second inaugural, for instance) led him to try to export democracy to the middle east. His historical successors have no excuse for not learning from his lessons.

There are no good options here, only various bad ones. Some have argued that the only way to completely discredit the jihadist ideology is to let them have a state and watch it fail. Perhaps. But that too is awfully dangerous to, well... nearly everyone.

[markfiend]

OK, but I don't see how you escape it. [moral relativism] In the final analysis, morality, it seems to me, is just a matter of opinion.

If that's the case all bets are off. If morality is just a matter of opinion, and can never be anything else, we are left with the chaos of moral relativism and no way to overcome that chaos. "Rape is wrong" seems to me to be more than a matter of mere opinion or prejudice (though I admit, with Aristotle, that having the right moral prejudices is in most cases the first step toward recognizing why they're the right moral prejudices).

I can't disagree with you. However to reject ones conclusions because one doesn't like their implications is pure sophistry.

That flourishing is (relatively speaking) over pretty quickly (I also want to quibble with describing the middle ages as "dark" ages). Just as today there are powerful forces that want Islam to return to the 7th century, there have always been powerful forces that want to return to the 7th century. Partly this is because there is no central doctrinal authority in Islam (in the sense that the Pope is for pre-reformation western Christians), and there are consequently continual innovations in interpretation of doctrines (Osama bin Laden, for instance, had his own scholars who issued fatwas, but there is no official or central body that could have condemned them).

Contrariwise, the Enlightenment could only really get going once the centralised power of the Papacy had been broken; Giordano Bruno's burning at the stake must have still been fresh in a lot of memories, and Galileo, who died only months before Locke's birth, only escaped the same fate by recanting his "heresy". Benedict XVI was still railing against the "evils" of secular humanism a few months before his retirement.

Sometimes, I think the region needs to be left alone to have the great big war that the West has been preventing for years. Let the Sunnis and the Shiites duke it out like they clearly want to. Americans are not comfortable with this because it means a massive slaughter, however, so we continue to be involved in the region, always forgetting that you can't have liberal democracy without having liberal democrats. George W. Bush was, in essence, an idealist who did not understand this - he thought (not entirely incorrectly) that previous Western support for middle-eastern despots in the name of stability had contributed to the rise of anti-Western jihadism. His idealist reading of human nature (see his second inaugural, for instance) led him to try to export democracy to the middle east. His historical successors have no excuse for not learning from his lessons.

There are no good options here, only various bad ones. Some have argued that the only way to completely discredit the jihadist ideology is to let them have a state and watch it fail. Perhaps. But that too is awfully dangerous to, well... nearly everyone.

I think you're in danger of being overly charitable to GWBush, but this is not dissimilar to the sentiment I expressed earlier in the thread.

I think we just have to walk away.

...and it's difficult to disagree with...

...the more we do there, the worse it gets there.

[paint it black]

was gonna post some deep meaningful s**t with historical context. for example the highway of death, but this is just

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... im-bigotry

and at the Stun

[paint it black]

barbaric -because they are-

a bit like lions and christians, a heads on spikes and english concentration camps - to the victor, the spoils and twas ever thus

the diff is this isn't just some nutters (perspective) but this is some nutters who have a clear plan and are executing it using best practice techniques

Tainter: ‘humans somehow fail to recognise situations outside the contexts in which they usually learn about them’.

oh come on ez - i respect where i think/hope you're coming from but lions and christians, heads on spikes etc are all barbaric concepts. if the perpertrators aren't nutters and have thought this out then that is even less excuse, surely?

rule number 1 (nearly) humiliate the enemy by dehumanising them

IS are itching for a land battle, so rule number 2 (probably) antagonise the enemy

but this isn't military nutters, this is military nutters with money, support, strategy and yes, modern thinking - excuse? depends who they think is to blame. my 5$ is on the US

[paint it black]

even muslims lol at the world

https://np.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/ ... emn_ebola/

[markfiend]

I think I'm going to spin the morality stuff off into a separate topic to avoid clogging this one up too much.

Not posted it yet, I'm still thinking...

[sultan2075]

OK, but I don't see how you escape it. [moral relativism] In the final analysis, morality, it seems to me, is just a matter of opinion.

If that's the case all bets are off. If morality is just a matter of opinion, and can never be anything else, we are left with the chaos of moral relativism and no way to overcome that chaos. "Rape is wrong" seems to me to be more than a matter of mere opinion or prejudice (though I admit, with Aristotle, that having the right moral prejudices is in most cases the first step toward recognizing why they're the right moral prejudices).

I can't disagree with you. However to reject ones conclusions because one doesn't like their implications is pure sophistry.

Indeed it is. I don't just reject the conclusions of moral relativism, however. I actually reject the premises, and sympathize greatly with thinkers like Aristotle and Locke. Even Nietzsche, I'd argue, ultimately finds a basis in nature for morals - he just rejects moral universalism. But then again, so do Locke and Aristotle. Locke distinguishes between beetles and bees among human beings, each with their own desired victuals, and Aristotle recognizes virtue as a mean relative to each individual, so while all human beings ought to be courageous (Aristotle considers it an excellence or virtue), what it is to be courageous differs according to particular circumstances, including the condition of the one who is to act.

That flourishing is (relatively speaking) over pretty quickly (I also want to quibble with describing the middle ages as "dark" ages). Just as today there are powerful forces that want Islam to return to the 7th century, there have always been powerful forces that want to return to the 7th century. Partly this is because there is no central doctrinal authority in Islam (in the sense that the Pope is for pre-reformation western Christians), and there are consequently continual innovations in interpretation of doctrines (Osama bin Laden, for instance, had his own scholars who issued fatwas, but there is no official or central body that could have condemned them).

Contrariwise, the Enlightenment could only really get going once the centralised power of the Papacy had been broken; Giordano Bruno's burning at the stake must have still been fresh in a lot of memories, and Galileo, who died only months before Locke's birth, only escaped the same fate by recanting his "heresy". Benedict XVI was still railing against the "evils" of secular humanism a few months before his retirement.

Bruno wasn't tried over his scientific but over his heretical opinions on religious matters (virgin birth, etc). At the time of his execution in 1600 there was not yet a church position on the Copernican position.

More importantly, though, the possibility of the Enlightenment has less to do with the pope than it does with thinkers like Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes, all of whom, sometimes more and sometimes less explicitly seek to overthrow the ossified doctrines of Aristotelianism and Scholasticism in physics, metaphysics, and philosophy. For the ancients and medievals, philosophy aims at contemplation; for the moderns, it aims at the conquest of fortune (Machiavelli), the relief of man's estate (Bacon, Hobbes), and rendering humanity "masters and possessors of nature" (Descartes). The key to the Enlightenment is less a rebellion against clerical power than it is a rebellion against the teachings of Aristotle. There's a deliberate decision made to reject formal and final causality because such conceptions a) lead to limits on scientific inquiry (thus Descartes, in one of his letters, claims that his Discourses and Meditations are meant to overthrow Aristotelian/Scholastic philosophy and science by undermining the metaphysical/physical foundations) and b) have been used to justify tyranny, however much Aristotle and Thomas would have argued otherwise (Hobbbes's Leviathan, chapter 46, makes this explicit. Aquinas, incidentally, clearly favored the separation of political from religious power when one considers his natural law teaching).

As for scientific inquiry into the world, the medieval Christians were already doing that, and felt that they had a religious mandate for such inquiries: God revealed himself in the book of the Word (Scripture) and the book of the world (the natural order). Both were equally valid sources of understanding about God.

Sometimes, I think the region needs to be left alone to have the great big war that the West has been preventing for years. Let the Sunnis and the Shiites duke it out like they clearly want to. Americans are not comfortable with this because it means a massive slaughter, however, so we continue to be involved in the region, always forgetting that you can't have liberal democracy without having liberal democrats. George W. Bush was, in essence, an idealist who did not understand this - he thought (not entirely incorrectly) that previous Western support for middle-eastern despots in the name of stability had contributed to the rise of anti-Western jihadism. His idealist reading of human nature (see his second inaugural, for instance) led him to try to export democracy to the middle east. His historical successors have no excuse for not learning from his lessons.

There are no good options here, only various bad ones. Some have argued that the only way to completely discredit the jihadist ideology is to let them have a state and watch it fail. Perhaps. But that too is awfully dangerous to, well... nearly everyone.

I think you're in danger of being overly charitable to GWBush, but this is not dissimilar to the sentiment I expressed earlier in the thread.

I don't know. I think he was sincere in his hopes. I know we're all supposed to think he was an evil maniac who invented Iraq WMD so that he could bathe in the blood of Iraqi children, but I think that's pretty ridiculous. Oil? Saddam would happily have sold America cheap oil if we'd have left him free to brutalize his people. Bush's second inaugural address is an extremely progressive/idealist speech. It seems pretty clear to me that he thought of himself as inaugurating a new, more moral post Cold War policy (we will not coddle dictators anymore), and that he sincerely believed that people in that part of the world wanted liberal democracy. He thinks a longing for liberal democracy is inherent in the human condition. I think you can't have liberal democracy without liberal democrats.

There are no good options for the middle east. If the West leaves it alone, it will descend into a paroxysm of violence, elements of which will affect the West and Western interests. If he stay involved, it will still be violent and messy, because the real root of the problems in that part of the world is not something that can be solved by Western intervention (at best it could be contained, but that requires an extraordinary degree of competence).

I think I'm going to spin the morality stuff off into a separate topic to avoid clogging this one up too much.

Not posted it yet, I'm still thinking...

I actually think the two topics are intimately related, for what it's worth.

[markfiend]

I don't just reject the conclusions of moral relativism, however. I actually reject the premises, and sympathize greatly with thinkers like Aristotle and Locke. Even Nietzsche, I'd argue, ultimately finds a basis in nature for morals - he just rejects moral universalism. But then again, so do Locke and Aristotle. Locke distinguishes between beetles and bees among human beings, each with their own desired victuals, and Aristotle recognizes virtue as a mean relative to each individual, so while all human beings ought to be courageous (Aristotle considers it an excellence or virtue), what it is to be courageous differs according to particular circumstances, including the condition of the one who is to act.

Am I wrong, but Locke's Natural Law seems to me to rely on divine command as the ultimate arbiter of morality? As for a natural basis for morality, it seems to me that our nature as social animals, the fact that we need a morality to survive is the closest we can get... but many theists will reject anything other than their alleged supernatural basis as some kind "moral relativism".

Bruno wasn't tried over his scientific but over his heretical opinions on religious matters (virgin birth, etc). At the time of his execution in 1600 there was not yet a church position on the Copernican position.

An execution for heresy, no matter the exact details thereof, still has a chilling effect on the expression of free thought, this is the point. And without free thought, any form of rational enquiry is impossible.

More importantly, though, the possibility of the Enlightenment has less to do with the pope than it does with thinkers like Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes, all of whom, sometimes more and sometimes less explicitly seek to overthrow the ossified doctrines of Aristotelianism and Scholasticism in physics, metaphysics, and philosophy. For the ancients and medievals, philosophy aims at contemplation; for the moderns, it aims at the conquest of fortune (Machiavelli), the relief of man's estate (Bacon, Hobbes), and rendering humanity "masters and possessors of nature" (Descartes). The key to the Enlightenment is less a rebellion against clerical power than it is a rebellion against the teachings of Aristotle. There's a deliberate decision made to reject formal and final causality because such conceptions a) lead to limits on scientific inquiry (thus Descartes, in one of his letters, claims that his Discourses and Meditations are meant to overthrow Aristotelian/Scholastic philosophy and science by undermining the metaphysical/physical foundations) and b) have been used to justify tyranny, however much Aristotle and Thomas would have argued otherwise (Hobbbes's Leviathan, chapter 46, makes this explicit. Aquinas, incidentally, clearly favored the separation of political from religious power when one considers his natural law teaching).

Well, yes, but isn't this at least partly to do with the privileging of Aristotle within Catholic thought? Again, this sort of questioning of Church teaching only becomes safe once the Church's hegemony is broken.

I think [Bush Jnr] was sincere in his hopes. I know we're all supposed to think he was an evil maniac who invented Iraq WMD so that he could bathe in the blood of Iraqi children, but I think that's pretty ridiculous. Oil? Saddam would happily have sold America cheap oil if we'd have left him free to brutalize his people. Bush's second inaugural address is an extremely progressive/idealist speech. It seems pretty clear to me that he thought of himself as inaugurating a new, more moral post Cold War policy (we will not coddle dictators anymore), and that he sincerely believed that people in that part of the world wanted liberal democracy. He thinks a longing for liberal democracy is inherent in the human condition. I think you can't have liberal democracy without liberal democrats.

OK I understand what you're saying and to some extent I might even agree. However Bush's naive idealism made him a "useful idiot" to the hawkish elements in his circle who have undeniably gained a very great deal from the Iraq war and its aftermath.

There are no good options for the middle east. If the West leaves it alone, it will descend into a paroxysm of violence, elements of which will affect the West and Western interests. If he stay involved, it will still be violent and messy, because the real root of the problems in that part of the world is not something that can be solved by Western intervention (at best it could be contained, but that requires an extraordinary degree of competence).

Yes, we're in 100% agreement here. Unfortunately.

I think I'm going to spin the morality stuff off into a separate topic to avoid clogging this one up too much.

Not posted it yet, I'm still thinking...

I actually think the two topics are intimately related, for what it's worth.

Well, as you can see, I have left it within this one.