Why the Muslims Misjudged Us

city journal ^ | Winter 2002 | Victor Davis Hanson

[dennisw]

They don't use graven images.
___________________

The Kabba rock they revere and dance around is a pagan idol as far as I'm concerned.

[BADROTOFINGER]

Bump for later...JFK

[syriacus]

As I was reading this, I began to wonder if the "tension" in the West between the various Christians religions (or between the various branches of Judaism) hasn't helped lead to the Western acceptance of new ways of looking at things (creativity).

Here in the West, people question their own abstract (religious) beliefs, seeking to be open to the truth. In the Muslim world, people are discouraged from thinking freely or speaking freely or doing things differently than others. They are "forbidden" to seek the truth.

[syriacus]

Clinton is such a little boy.

[Physicist]

Values and traditions—not guns, germs, and steel—explain why a tiny Greece of 50,000 square miles crushed a Persia 20 times larger; why Rome, not Carthage, created world government; why Cortés was in Tenochtitl`an, and Montezuma not in Barcelona; why gunpowder in its home in China was a pastime for the elite while, when stolen and brought to Europe, it became a deadly and ever evolving weapon of the masses.

I have to disagree with his historical analysis in an otherwise superb essay. The good guys haven't always won. It isn't clear that Rome was more moral and civilized, by our standards, than was Carthage. It's fairly clear that the barbarian hordes that sacked Rome and moved in to stay were not more enlightened than what they replaced. I'm not prepared to say that the digestion of Tibet by communist China was an inevitable moral triumph. I could go on at length, but you get the picture.

Western culture is morally superior to other cultures, but we shouldn't read into that any kind of historical inevitability. Leave that sort of thing to the Marxists.

[dennisw]

Values and traditions-not guns, germs, and steel-explain......

He's taking a poke at Jared Diamond's materialist theories of history. I take the middle ground.

[MoGalahad]

Right on, Maelstrom! Their fundamental belief system is completely at odds with the concept of personal freedom and its concomitant individual responsibility.

[eddiespaghetti]

Thanks for the posting!

[eddiespaghetti]

. Socialist/liberals world wide are so crazy as to think they can negotiate with people like this. It's beyond their mental capacity to grasp that they have finally come nose to nose with the ultimate in diversity.

ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!

[hosepipe]

Expect soon a host of muslim mullahs decrying the acts of as they will say "some"....(((( BUZZZ))))
Too late.....too little .... protesting too much by then..

[Criminal Number 18F]

I was going to comment on VDH's slam-dunking of Diamond, but you beat me to it!

Guns, Germs and Steel was a good and thought-provoking read, but in the end it tried to attribute too much to a limited number of factors. Diamond begins with an a priori position and shores it up as best he can (and as he is a good writer and imaginative guy, that is surprizingly well). But in the end it's still BS. d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[jjm2111]

Good read bump.

[PLOM...NOT!]

Clinton is such a little boy

Please, you give him way too much credit, I have a little boy who has more morality in his little finger than Clinton will ever possess in his entire life. Clinton is ooze, pond scum, evil incarnate. He is not worthy of licking clean my dogs food bowl.

[syriacus]

You are right, of course.

I stand corrected.

Please accept my sincerest apologies to you and to your son.

[semaj]

Thank you for posting this very articulate and thoughtful article.

[semaj]

"Thank you for posting this very articulate and thoughtful article."

That was supposed to be delivered to you.

[timestax]

bttt

[xJones]

This was written in Febuary 2002 and posted back then. I re-posted it because it is still very good and will be for a long time.

Bump.

[dennisw]

btttttttttttttttt

[Gerfang]

Hanson makes clear what divides our views and politics are not the result of accidents of geography (as Jared Diamond hypothesizes in Guns, Germs, and Steel), but result from the underlying culture of the people.

Culture doesn’t develop in a vacuum. In order to develop great institutions, or culture at all, one needs the surpluses gained through accidents of geography. Hanson’s article wasn’t bad but it’s clear he never read Diamond’s book. Guns Germs and Steel focused on the environmental factors that allowed men to create cultures and not the cultures themselves. It is a groundbreaking text.

(The left hates this argument because they believe holding cultures responsible for backwardness is racist; there must be some "objective," external-factor explanation.)

Many leftists don’t consider such arguments racist but rather elitist. The powerful ascribe virtue as the chief determinant of their success because they want prestige in addition to power. It is often circumstances that allow virtue to take root.