Posted on 05/16/2004 12:11:32 PM PDT by quidnunc
Q: How solid is the support of countries like Denmark and the Netherlands. What explains their lone support of the US amid the rest of (Old) Northern Europe?
A: I think they would like to support us even more…
Q: Do you think you have underestimated the ways in which the values of the West have been modified and developed since ancient Greek times, the extent to which the Enlightenment bequeathed to us a moral imperative to reduce suffering, a sensitivity to suffering, a greater squeamishness about inflicting it or witnessing it, and that therein lies our military weakness in Iraq?
A: Most of our present ideas of common humanity is already in Socratic thought; but you are right that both the Enlightenment and Christianity have altered our earlier Western notions of the role of war — in that sense that “thou shall not kill” is much different from the Greeks’ notion of civic militarism, as well as the Kantian idea that educated and enlightened folk can all sit down together and hash out a peaceful resolution. Add in our present leisure, affluence, and cynicism and it will be tough going in this so-called war against terror — witness Fallujah which was a political problem more than a military challenge.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
VDH
I point that out because I love VDH and use his "Carnage and Culture" as my textbook in one of my classes, but surprisingly, even HE lacks faith sometimes . . . which itself is a western cultural trait!!
Your comment is spot on! Empires come and go and sometimes a culture is neglected within one civilization only to resurface, rejuvenated, years later, in another. Of course, just because VDH recognizes the difficulty of the political game (we are in an election year, after all) that does not mean that he is jumpy around the whole issue.
In fairness to VDH, that was written pre-9/11. Do you think Afghanistan and Iraq would have been liberated by now if it had not been for 9/11?
Well, this is sort of the point. As brilliant as VDH is, even he didn't foresee that there will ALWAYS be new threats that will cause western armies of liberation to undertake new crusades. The very fact that he didn't envision such an instance in fact proves his overall thesis---that the west is superior and that it always will defeat such tests.
It took THREE TRIES for Rome to get Carthage "right." After one decisive defeat, the Carthaginians still didn't learn their lesson and were eradicated. Yet even the cruel Romans were in no hurry to totally obliterate a people.
Islam is at war with itself. There are dozen variants, none of which agree with each other: Sufism, Sunni, Shiite, Wahaabism, Mahdism, etc. Admittedly most hate the West, but this is less theological and more cultural: we in the west embarrass them every day with our very existence.
Well said. We will be in this struggle for at least a generation. Islam is at a fork in the road.
Either they shed their chauvinism and transform their religion, despite the subusidies of the Wahabbis, or I have little doubt that there will be a terrible war ahead, involving all nations that are predominitely Islamic, from Indonesia to Morocco.
Coming here helps to strengthen both faith and resolve.
Likewise.
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