[Romulus]

"Dispassion" is a good word. I spent last night flipping through VS Naipaul's Among the Believers, looking for clues to the Muslim mind. So far it's a mystery. I do not understand what makes these people tick, nor how we are to live in peace with them. All I know is that the alternative is unacceptable.

[Migraine]

I spent last night flipping through VS Naipaul's Among the Believers

That is a work which I admire and from which I have profited greatly. Much of the mindset generalizations are found between the lines, in a neo-Freudian sort of way. The fatalism Naipaul refers to again and again is troublesome. Perhaps it derives from having a god who is there, but unknowable and unapproachable (in any personal sort of way, a la Christianity). Perhaps it derives from advanced society passing the religion by.