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Why Does the U.S. Get All the Tornadoes?
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Friday, July 29, 2011 - 11:29 AM
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I was in New York City the past two days and left my laptop in my bag for a change. The main purpose of the trip was to pick up my daughter (who was flying home from a language immersion program), but we did manage to sneak in a benefit concert at the Beacon Theater. Go here for a peek at The Life I Could Have Had if I Had Talent.
Along the way I've been reflecting more on the shooting/bombing in Norway and the debates that have surfaced since last weekend. One of the striking features of Anders Breivik's worldview (which is shared by some of the Islamophobe ideologues who influenced his thinking) is the idea that he is defending some fixed and sacred notion of the "Christian West," which is supposedly under siege by an aggressive alien culture.
There are plenty of problems with this worldview (among other things, it greatly overstates the actual size of the immigrant influx in places like Norway, whose Muslim minority is less than 4 percent of the population). In addition, such paranoia also rests on a wholly romanticized vision of what the "Christian West" really is, and it ignores the fact that what we now think of as "Western civilization" has changed dramatically over time, partly in response to influences from abroad. For starters, Christianity itself is an import to Europe -- it was invented by dissident Jews in Roman Palestine and eventually spread to the rest of Europe and beyond. I'll bet there were Norse pagans who were just as upset when the Christians showed up as Breivik is today.
Moreover, even Christian Europe is hardly a fixed cultural or political entity. The history of Western Europe (itself an artificial geographic construct) featured bitter religious wars, the Inquisition, patriarchy of the worst sort, slavery, the divine right of kings, the goofy idea of "noble birth," colonialism, and a whole lot of other dubious baggage. Fundamentalists like Breivik pick and choose among the many different elements of Western culture in order to construct a romanticized vision that they now believe is under "threat." This approach is not that different from Osama bin Laden's desire to restore the old Muslim Caliphate; each of these extremists is trying to preserve (or restore) an idealized vision of some pure and sacred past, based on a remarkably narrow reading of history.
In fact, any living, breathing society is driven partly by its "inner life," but also inevitably shaped by outside forces. Indeed, as Juan Cole notes in a recent post, most societies benefit greatly from immigration, especially if they have strong social institutions (as Norway does) and the confidence to assimilate new arrivals into the existing order while allowing that order to itself be shaped over time. What is even more striking about conservative extremists like Breivik is their utter lack of confidence in the very society that they commit heinous acts trying to defend. On the one hand, they think their idealized society is far, far better than any alternative, which is why extreme acts are justified in its supposed defense. Yet at the same time they see that society as inherently weak, fragile, brittle, and incapable of defending itself against its cruder antagonists.
This is really an old story: American hard-liners used to believe that the decadent Western democracies couldn't stand up to Soviet communism, and previous generations all believed that the current wave of immigrants would bring some sort of fatal infection to an otherwise healthy body politic. We've suffered a similar wave of paranoia since 9/11, somehow believing that a handful of radicals in Central Asia posed a mortal threat to a society with 300 million people and a $14 trillion economy. (Of course, the real threat turned out to be the self-inflicted wounds that we suffered in Iraq, Afghanistan, and on Wall Street.) By contrast, those of us who are more sanguine about such matters have greater confidence in the inherent strengths of a liberal society and are therefore more worried about departures from these principles undertaken in the name of "national security."
Finally, to what extent can Islamophobes like Pamela Geller or Robert Spencer be held responsible for Breivik's act? As someone who has some personal experience with "guilt by association," I do think we should be careful about assessing blame. None of these hawkish pundits openly advocated violence, and all have (for the most part) distanced themselves from Breivik's act. But it is also clear that their writings consistently portrayed Islam in a crude and monolithic way and tended to depict all Muslims as part of some looming threat to core Western values. And it seems clear from Breivik's manifesto that these writers did have a considerable impact on his worldview, even if they did not advocate the horrific response that he chose. Yet this seems to have sparked little or no self-reflection on their part, as befitting the committed ideologue.
As you'd expect, some of their defenders have pointed out that the late Osama bin Laden also cited some writers favorably, including Noam Chomsky, Michael Scheuer, and yours truly. Bin Laden also mentioned John Perkins (author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) and Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. The defenders suggest that these two situations are identical and accuse those who see a link between Breivik and his Islamophobic inspirations of a double standard.
This line of defense is pretty silly because it completely ignores conventional notions of causality. Osama bin Laden began his terrorist career over a decade before the authors he cited had even started the books to which he subsequently referred. He didn't need to read Chomsky, Perkins, Scheuer, or me in order to develop his violently fundamentalist outlook; it was firmly in place long before I wrote one word and wholly at odds with the central views of the people to whom he referred. Indeed, I doubt he ever read my work; if he had, I wonder what he made of our defense of Israel's right to exist, our condemnation of terrorism in general and al Qaeda in particular, and our explicit denunciations of anti-Semitism?
By contrast, it is clear from Breivik's own statements that his thinking was shaped by the various Islamophobic writers whose work he cites (and whose websites he patronized and posted on). He wasn't dreaming up terrorist plots 20 years ago and then citing these writers after the fact to justify it; on the contrary, these works apparently helped convince him that radical violence was necessary in part because there was a looming danger to "the West." Geller, Spencer, and their ilk are not responsible for his specific decisions and actions, of course, but they do bear some responsibility for creating and promoting a vision of cultural conflict that makes such extreme responses more likely.
Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
EXPLORE:MEDIASPHERE, THE BLOGOSPHERE, THUMBS, EUROPE, AL QAEDA, CULTURE, DISASTERS, HISTORY, ISLAM, MIGRATION/IMMIGRATION, TERRORISM 
I read this post after having read Rothkopf's evocation of Ionesco's absurdism. And I now wonder - to what extent must a realist, of foreign policy, economics and so on factor into an account the essential herd nature of many humans. Is it something akin to an iron law of foreign policy that a country with a good hand will throw it all away as the benefits reaped allow indulgence in fantasy and corruption? Is a good realist ruler one who rules not just by Machiavelli's rule, but as a Machiavelli of the public consciousness too - taking advantage of the average person's narrow-minded and ignorant perspective, seeding useful if nonsensical philosophies into the populace's mind? If religious fundamentalists, Nazis and communists have all be capable of this - why not a form of two-tier liberalism? One mind rule for the elite, one for the masses. And give technocrats and experts control of important policy decisions.
"he is defending some fixed and sacred notion of the "Christian West," which is supposedly under siege by an aggressive alien culture."
When you write about Western Civilization and Christian Europe being a construct, you are overtly showing the atheistic worldview, particularly the criticism of anything Christian or Western.
You're a good IR scholar, but when it comes to history and sociology, not so much.
Based on your suggestion that anyone who recognizes that the very notion of Western Civilization is a construct indicates an "atheistic worldview", Walt knows a hell of a lot more about history and sociology than you do. It also indicates you need to study logic for a bit, since to say that Western Civilization or Christian Europe are constructs is not a criticism of them, any more than saying a burger is made of beef is a criticism of burgers.
Additionally, it suggests an implication that anything related to atheism is inherently wrong and can't possibly explain anything about society. If you would like I could name a few professors and scholars who will freely admit that what we call the Bible is a collection of writings from many different points in time by many different writers, many of whom were not especially interested in things like accurate dating of events.
And, many of the scribes who translated, recorded and reproduced the Bible were illiterate, or tried to correct previous errors they assumed were included.
Atheism is wrong. But libs like you who have been indoctrinated would never understand that. And your post-modernist, critical theory, neo-liberalism is why the West is in dire straights now not only physically speaking but on the metaphysical level too.
I'm not a fundamentalist so you stating the Bible (as well as other Holy Books) was written by various men doesn't change the fact that we do have a Creator.
DRLAKE777:
Maybe you are a construct too, are you sure you exist?
It sure should influence whether you find in-errancy in an equivocal work.
I wish some people would learn to look out the window or go for a walk before using some events in the news as a hook for the expression of beliefs they held anyway.
We all do it, those of us who write about public affairs for a living or as a hobby. It's not always a bad practice, or a harmful practice. All I'm saying is we should use some common sense. This Breivik person went to a place he knew had many children and no security, and spent well over an hour hunting down children with automatic weapons. His were the acts of a monster.
What I understand from news reports to be this man's political ideology doesn't commend itself to me in any way, but ideology can serve as a pretext for morally despicable acts as easily as it can be a reason for them. This man clearly spent a great deal of time and effort thinking of a way to justify slaughtering children. If he hadn't come up with his goofy idea of being a modern Knight Templar, he'd have come up with something else.
We don't tie ourselves into intellectual knots worrying what Jack the Ripper means for our tolerance of prostitution. He doesn't mean anything. This is no different.
It is an annual gathering of activists of Labor Party's youth wing activists. The youngest victims were 14, but the majority of participants were older. The terrorist's object was to exterminate the next generation of Labor Party politicians. Monstrous it is, but it is also a rational plan with a political aim.
(All Norway's political parties have similar summer camps for their youth wings)
I think you're confusing two different psychologies. If we're talking simply about Jack the Ripper or a serial killer then there is little to learn, esp. on a FP blog. But, if ideology driving this then that is another matter. The ideology drives the motive to kill. I see this as different from terrorism, which is another psychology all together. The "terrorist" is fighting utter lack of democracy, or an effective political voice. He is protesting foreign meddling into the sovereignty of his own nation. The Dec. of Ind. says one has a duty to throw off the oppressive and tyrannical ties that bind them. The "terrorist" is a soldier, the mass murderer is a psychopath, the "Breivicks" of the world are true terrorists.
Hopefully his strange agenda is an isolated one
Thanks for explaining this. I've always wondered why he would slaughter innocent kids for no apparent reason but this explains it all. Breviks agenda is a strange one in indeed and hopefully it is an isolated one. read more...
European countries cannot be analysed though American standards
1. Analysing a unicultural nation state from across the sea in a multicultural ideologically founded union of states could be a problem i guess. Especially when you ignore the differences between the Western and European civilizations...
A majority of countries in Europe actually wanted the (now dead) Constitution of the European Union to directly mention the Christian cultural heritage. You as an American might not like a lot of what happened in European history, but many Europeans are still proud of our past. The problem is not his view of the past, it is his desire to relive it without understanding it completely.
2. Breivik is not conservative (conservatives believe in the evolution of politics and general order of thing above all else), he is reactionary. Revolutionary reactionary to be more exact, which usually is closely related to (although not always the same as) fascism...
3. Christianity/The Catholic church is the natural successor to the Roman Empire (to some degree Russia claims to succed the Eastern Empire, so there are some disagreement on the details), you know the thing Europe has a historic love affair with and want back in a modern form, but because of internal differences it didn't work until the EU...
In the middelages it was refered too as Respublica Christiania, though it was a dream about a united Europe that never materialized (we destroyed the Roman Empire and now we want it back), because the kings cared more about their own power, than winning the holy war down south.
4. Breiviks interpretation of the past is valid, but his idea of bringing it back is insane and his methods even more so. It is like a 30 year old wanting to be 15 again, it is an interesting fantasy, but impossible in reality, and you also forgot all the bad things back then.
1. is an artificial construct, and the majority of European people are NOT religious, so your fact is skewed here.
3. your comment is incomplete and ignorant. There are at least 4 popes, and the Russians have their own Pope. You don't appear to know European history. Try reading Candide, it will offer enough information to utter undermine this argument. Considering the various popes, Greek, Russian and Eastern Orthodox churches never saw themselves as Catholic. Again, "Western Europe" is an artificial construct. Does Norway even belong? Do the Greeks?
The Orthodox churches do not have popes, they have patriarchs who are on the same ecumenical level as the Catholic Pope.
Furthermore, Moscow is referred to as the 3rd Rome, so the guy does know what he is talking about. I'm afraid you are the one who needs to read history, and drop the foucault post modernist bs.
"I'll bet there were Norse pagans who were just as upset when the Christians showed up as Breivik is today."
And imagine the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe for 200,000 years and then 50,000 years ago there was this massive immigration of Homo sapiens out of Africa.
"...pointed out that the late Osama bin Laden also cited some writers favorably, including Noam Chomsky, Michael Scheuer, and yours truly. Bin Laden also mentioned John Perkins (author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) and Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."
It's tempting to guess that, since Bin Laden went to hiding, many writings that appeared under his signature were concocted in the US in order to influence the American public.
The growth of Islamophobia and the neocons
FOR a few hours after the killings in Norway, when many people guessed that the perpetrators were Muslims, the blogosphere buzzed with told-you-so indignation from those who argue that the threat to the Western world from political Islam has been underestimated. Surely now, it was said, people would see the need for vigilance, not only against Islamically inspired violence but against any Muslim talk that abets such violence.
Soon after, as it emerged that the killer was a self-appointed warrior for the white Christian West, the boot was on the other foot: defenders of Muslim rights began arguing that xenophobic violence, even by the unhinged, was abetted by any language that demonised Islam and all those who practise it. Then it came to light that many of the best-known critics of Islam in Britain and the United States were cited in Anders Breivik’s rambling 1,500-page manifesto. To some this seemed like proof that Islamophobic talk, even of the most cerebral kind, could have a cost in blood.
In response, critics of Islam were defiant, not embarrassed. In the sarcastic words of Mark Steyn, an Islamosceptic writer, posted in the National Review Online: “If a blond blue-eyed Aryan Scandinavian kills dozens of other blond blue-eyed Aryan Scandinavians, that’s now an ‘Islamophobic’ mass murder?” Equally strident in self-defence was Robert Spencer, an American whose website Jihad Watch is widely read by adversaries of Islam.
But for better or worse, the word Islamophobia, implying an intense, potentially violent antipathy towards the Muslim faith and its followers, is now firmly in the world’s political vocabulary. That may be one of the consequences of the Norwegian horror. Hitherto the term has often been called into question, especially if used to outlaw any strong dissent from Islam as a creed. A phobia suggests a prejudice, an irrational fear or hatred. Surely, some say, it is possible to criticise a religion, by disagreeing with its tenets or even arguing that they could have bad social consequences, without being malicious.
On the other hand, for those who do want to demonise a social group or pick a fight, appeals to religious sentiment can—as every rabble-rouser knows—be an effective rhetorical device. People who have never darkened the door of a church can easily be persuaded that minarets on a skyline are a threat to everything they hold dear, to be resisted in every way.
Across Europe and America, the denunciation of Islam as such—as opposed to fundamentalist or radical readings of Islam—has gained respectability in the past few years, even as Muslim communities have grown in size and confidence. Lisa Bjurwald, a Swedish writer on far-right politics, points to three powerful strands of Islamophobia at work in Europe.
First, in almost every European democracy there are semi-respectable political parties which trade on antipathy towards Islam (and immigrants in general—especially dark-skinned ones). Second, there are street movements, such as Germany’s Pro Deutschland, which might evolve into genuine parties. Third, on the fringe, there are groups such as the English Defence League (EDL), and its embryonic imitators in some other countries, whose supporters barely conceal the fact that they are spoiling for a fight on the streets. Mr Breivik claimed to have been in touch with the EDL—which does not imply any responsibility on its part.
For several years after the terror attacks on the United States in 2001, senior figures in both Europe and America held back from any denunciation of Islam as such; they were careful to distinguish between the faith and the people who practised violence in its name. When, in 2001, Franklin Graham, an American preacher, denounced Islam as “a very evil and wicked religion”, the Bush administration was deeply embarrassed. That self-restraint—the sense that it is indecent or irresponsible to make a general attack on a religion that hundreds of millions of people practise—has now partly evaporated.
In 2009 the leader of Norway’s Progress Party, to which Mr Breivik belonged for several years, made waves by saying: “The reality is that a kind of sneak-Islamisation of this society is being allowed…we are going to have to stop this.” The Flemish-nationalist Vlaams Belang party laments in its manifesto that Muslims have made little or no attempt to adapt to “our Western lifestyle”. In Denmark the People’s Party leader, Pia Kjaersgaard, has deplored the arrival in her country of “thousands of persons who apparently civilisationally, culturally and spiritually live in the year 1005 instead of 2005.” This week an Italian MEP from the Northern League caused outrage by calling Mr Breivik’s ideas “good” and in some cases “excellent”.
In America, where national culture is seen as a work perpetually in progress, and the constitution guarantees freedom of religion, it may be harder to make purely nativist arguments against Islam. But denunciations of Muslims and their beliefs have been couched in terms of security. A mosque, even an ostensibly peaceful one, could pose a terrorist threat; and America’s constitution could be threatened by an attempt, however improbable, to impose the sharia code over the law of the land.
In the argument over whether to allow a mosque near the site of the 2001 attacks, much of the language implied the “collective guilt” of all Muslims, suggests John Esposito, a professor at Georgetown University. Mr Esposito, who advocates Christian-Muslim reconciliation, gets a torrent of abuse as a “fellow-traveller” with Islam. Herman Cain, a Republican with dreams of the presidency and also a Baptist minister, recently said that it was right to oppose the building of mosques (in Tennessee, for example) because they might be part of a plot to impose sharia.
Still, even as arguments over Islam get more intemperate, many people see a greater need to protect religious free speech, to distinguish clearly between outspoken theological dialogue and incitement to hatred or violence. The best way of defusing explosive religious tensions is to safeguard a “respectful, robust, religiously literate debate” between faiths, says Elizabeth Hunter of Theos, a British think-tank. Keith Porteous Wood, of Britain’s National Secular Society, says the Norwegian tragedy must “not silence legitimate debate about Islam and Western values”, because that would be a gift to deranged extremists such as Mr Breivik.
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water ...
And even so, in spite of all the psychologizing of Breivik that is now going on, some of his ideas hold water.
One of Breivik's fundamental ideas is that each people, each ethnic group, is entitled to a domain in which any immigrant, if he wishes to live there, is required to assimilate. Immigrants must conform to the customs of the natives, and may practice their religion freely within the limits of customary Norwegian conduct.
After WWII Norway admitted many Jewish families who had been uprooted by the war, and for various reasons would not be repatriated - like Hungarian and Polish refugees whose countries had been occupied by the Soviet forces. After a short acclimatization in centers where they were introduced to Norway, the families were scattered all over the country and assisted in finding employment. These families integrated completely, and nothing further has been heard of them. Some of these Jews are even more attached to Norwegian culture than the ethnics.
The idea that each culture has its own domain is not essentially different from that of the Moslems who want Israel gone because they see the Jews as interlopers on Moslem lands, the Middle East.
Terrorism is a Tactic not an Ideology
One cannot be so firm about what was going in the killer's head until the trial is complete. The quantum leap from "liberals/social democrats are supporting the dilution of Western culture through multiculturalism" to "large scale terror against liberals/social democrats" is necessary appears, the trial may confirm this, to have been made by the killer himself. Let's wait and see before establishing causality.
But we can make one logical point.
Take the bin Laden example. He was personally close to Abdallah Azzam. It was Azzam that shifted the jihadi thought of Qutb and Faraj away from the emphasis on Islam as such back to defence of territory from foreign attack in the context of a pan-Islamic ideology. Analysts do not say that Azzam was then responsible for creating an ideological climate that led to the idea that the US homeland , post Gulf War/dual containment/post Oslo intifada, must be attacked in a transnational jihad. That quantum leap came from bin Laden himself.
Say a nutter goes to Davos and kills as many people as he can at the World Economic Forum. Suppose he leaves a manifesto and cites Chomsky et al, after years of reading, that states that there is a conspiracy by the global rich and power elite to further their interests at the expense of the poor. By the reasoning adopted here one can state that Chomsky et al are, partly, responsible for creating a worldview that facilitated violence. But that would be false; the quantum leap to violence is made by the killer himself.
Is the Pope, partly, responsible for the bombing of abortion clinics because of the right-to-life, abortion is a type of murder, worldview that he actively promotes and that the bombers share?
Terrorism, when not purely nihilist, is a political tactic. A writer could be said to be partly responsible for terrorism, a tactic not ideology, when that writer explicitly states that pursuit of such a tactic is necessary. QED. That applies to left and right and to Christian and Muslim.
What I understand from news reports to be this man's political ideology doesn't commend itself to me in any way, but ideology can serve as a pretext for morally despicable acts as easily as it can be a reason for them. This man clearly spent a great deal of time and effort thinking of a way to justify slaughtering children. If he hadn't come up with his goofy idea of being a modern Knight Templar, he'd have come up with something else.
We don't tie ginecomastia ourselves into intellectual knots worrying what Jack the aumento peniano Ripper means for our tolerance of prostitution. He doesn't mean anything. This is no lipoaspiração different.
Islamization, perhaps... grinding poverty certainly
Don't know about Islamization but the West is manifestly proved itself to be incompetent when it comes to East Asian Mercantilism.
Will we all be Muslim in 30 years? I don't know.
Will the entire US be a third world hell hole in 10 years?
You betcha!
Such events can increase violence in the country, I think Govt must take strict actions against involved groups. Lets see how general public will react to this incident. Orchid Recovery
Thanks
May I humbly request that the editors of Foreign Policy Magazine please make room for transcripts (or summaries) of the speeches which have been delivered by Jens Stoltenberg?
As well as accounts of his actions since the Breivik massacre.
It is with great dismay, that after this event, all that I seem to be able find everywhere is even more internecine squabbling, finger-pointing, warring, rationalization, dissembling and – if I may put this way – a reiteration of the darkest theses and ideas of eg. Carl Schmidt.
The only voice of Progress, post-war peace making, reconciliation and “loving of one’s enemy” would seem to be that of Jens Stoltenberg.
I think we may do well to heed his words and observe his actions.
I don’t know if I can be quite as sanguine about Liberalism, which is not yet 300 years old. Breivik appears to represent a much longer and quite robust tradition.
Europeans—descendants of the barbarian waves that had brought ancient Rome to its knees and intermarried with the indigenous population of the western half of the continent—militarized Christianity at the onset of the second millennium as conquerors of the highly refined Muslim culture of the Holy Land.
Thus was established the tradition of Holy War and persecution that would help to define the character of Europe through the High Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the birth of a system of patriarchal states fueled by imperialist ambitions. Addicted to war, these empires destroyed each other in the two most destructive conflagrations in human history: the Great War and its even more destructive encore, World War II.
In other words, Europe and its descendants have a very long history of proficiency in the technologies of violence. Liberalism is a newcomer, and is proving rather fragile in this current transition from liberal democracy to corporate imperialism.
A few more Breiviks, and Liberalism could prove to be nothing more than a blip in the history of Western civilization. For the problem for Liberalism is that it has not even been able to deliver its promise of equality to all white men, much less to women and other Others.
History doesn't stert with the Crusades ...
I see you're trotting out the noble Saracen - brutish European image, kind of a Hollywood in reverse. But why start with the Crusades?
The wars started when Allah's warriors thundered out of the Arabian peninsula, swept across North Africa and penetrated into Spain over Tarik's Rock, Djebel al-Tarik - Gibraltar. The Moslem warriors swept all before them as they plundered and pillaged their way to the north, through the whole of Spain and into France. There, finally, the Moslem armies were beaten in battle at Tours by the Franks under the leadership of Charles Martel the Hammer, the father of Charlemagne. The year was 732 A.D.
It took a full 800 years to drive the Moslems out of Spain. The last Moorish stronghold fell to the Spanish crown in the fateful year of 1492. During this time the Moslem rulers exacted heavy tolls from the subject peoples, and Jews fared particularly poorly, as fits the anti-Jewish sentiment openly expressed in the Koran.
There have been recent attempts at painting the period as a benevolent rule when Christians and others were allowed to flourish, but it was an oppressive time when the conquered peoples were subjected to the humiliation with which ruling Moslems treat dhimmis.
Meanwhile, Islam opened a second front when Ottoman Turkey attacked the Byzantine Empire in 1204 AD. The Moslems continued their advance into Europe and the war progressed until the Moslem armies were defeated at the gates of Vienna in 1529. Here's what Wikipedia says:
"The Ottoman failure to capture Vienna in 1529 turned the tide against almost a century of unchecked conquest throughout eastern and central Europe, which had previously directly annexed Central Hungary and established a vassal state in Transylvania in the wake of the Battle of Mohács. According to Toynbee, "The failure of the first [siege of Vienna] brought to a standstill the tide of Ottoman conquest which had been flooding up the Danube Valley for a century past."
The Moslem defeat at Vienna led to 150 years of guerrilla war and attacks by both sides until the final showdown, again in Vienna in 1683. That is not so very long ago, historically speaking. We still feel the reverberations of those times, as in the Bosnian war in the 1990s which was one more step in a centuries-long effort to expel all Moslems from Europe. So it's a generational battle in a long war. We are not exempt from history and bear the consequences of actions in the past by generations long gone.
from liberal democracy to corporate imperialism
I agree Diana when u say. "in this current transition from liberal democracy to corporate imperialism. " As Ludwig von Mises said almost a century ago: ""The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production... All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand." "
supported national healthcare. Libertarians miss that there are at least 3 markets, not free markets. There is a free market, this features competition and alternatives which empower the customer such that they are always right. There's a professional market, where there is no alternative, though some competition--here, the customer can't be right, he's buying expertise after all. Then, we have the monopoly/utility market. These are inherently flawed markets, no competition, no alternatives here the customer is powerless, and customer service should come with KY. Finally, there are two professional utilities, that are even more problematic, banking and health care. It's not crazy that the utilities would be wholly socialized, this need not bother libertarians, see water, the best run of all utilities and wholly socialized.
We are all ashamed, one way or another, of one thing or another
Breivik's warped world view is of his own making. I will not claim that I can even guess at what influenced him, let alone caused, him to embrace terrorism. But he is yet one more of the few crazed white Caucasians who did just that. Against his own people, his own government, for more or less the same "reason" as the Jihad-inspired--far more--terrorists: A real or imagined grievance or injustice.
So we are ashamed, of him, surely of what he has done, of sharing the same color of skin and cultural heritage,maybe.
However, things are not as clear as Mr. Walt may think they are, with regards to Breivik's state of mind and what caused him to act criminally.
What seems clear from Breivik's manifesto, is not what Mr. Walt thinks "did have a considerable impact on Breivik's world view" ( the writings of "Islamophobes" ). It is rather that Breivik, as deluded and lonely as his manifesto indicates he was, HE found a convenient refuge in those writings.
For someone concerned about conventional notions of causality and the need to be careful about assessing blame, to my disappointment, Mr. Walt ended ignoring both.
Breiviks's worldview (sic ) is warped by his belief that he is allowed, even demanded, to act out his deluded wish to set straight a real or imagined injustice by violence. That's the parallel to Islamic terrorism, like it or not.
Do you feel responsible for US foreign policy, do you feel responsible for all Christians? I find most people are pretty thoughtless about these issues. I don't feel the responsible for their ignorance or intellectual sloth. I try to educate them, but don't bear any guilt for failing. I don't belong to groups I don't agree with, hence I try to participate in everything and belong to nothing. All institutions are flawed, should I be ashamed of this?
You're wrong to equate "Islamic" terror with Breivik. Muslims committing acts of terror are justified, not by the Quran, but by our own Declaration of Independence. Breivik is not denied the opportunities that other Euros would extend to themselves, but Muslims in foreign lands (particularly resource rich or otherwise "important" states) are denied the same dignity, sovereignty and fair policies.
@Scottindallas
""You're wrong to equate "Islamic" terror with Breivik. Muslims committing acts of terror are justified, not by the Quran, but by our own Declaration of Independence""
Does it really go all the way back to The Declaration of Independence, the justification of killing innocent people by extremist Muslims?
There is never any justification for terrorism, for Muslims or anybody else.
It is the duty of the oppressed to throw off the ties that bind them. Tyranny is an evil all men had a duty to oppose. The Quran doesn't allow this, but it was certainly the crux of Jefferson's letter to King George. Sorry if you're unable to extend to others the essential liberties you'd claim for yourself. It's far too common and far too base to support the rank hypocrisy and narcissism as you have.
Stephen,
I suppose we could say all civilizations are constructs, the question is what you mean to achieve by relativizing them in this way, and whether you consider aspects of them "inauthentic" or unacceptable to your own civilizational worldview.
You've surely done a more through reading of the terrorist's manifesto than I have, but I'm finding Pamela Geller's name mentioned only once, and in a context about the supposed need to protect her from her detractors. While there may be similarities to her ideas, it's not like he quotes long passages from her, as he does for others like the Unabomber. I found about 55 mentions of Robert Spencer, mainly direct quotes out of his Jihad Watch. For example, Robert Spencer is quoted about the hate speech of Muslim preachers who call for violence, citing the Koran, and the "defamation of religions" issue which has been used by the OIC at the UN to call for restrictions of free speech. You don't have to have any use for Robert Spencer, and certainly not Breivik, to see this sort of restriction as a problem, if you can't criticize theocracies and their supporters. So it really seems important not just to free-associate, but to find specific passages that you think are calls for imminent violence or even just vicious hatred that you really can trace to American conservative bloggers.
A lot of the passages of hatred and racism seem more like traditional Nazi propaganda, not modern American blogs with their Islamophobia, whatever their parallels. There's the fixation about nation and purity of blood and the need to avoid mixture with other races, etc. etc. You don't find American jihad-watchers going on about those sorts of topics. And your thesis about causality -- that Breivik read these toxic blogs and then got to making his deadly plan -- could just as well be stated otherwise, that he became upset at the influx of Muslim immigrants to his country, as small as the percentage as it was, and then went shopping for views to match his own perspectives.
The ultimate issue is whether you can find anything in any of the views infusing his graphomanic text that constitute, as in the Supreme Court ruling, incitement to imminent violence, because that is really only the way you could legally take action. The standards aren't as strict to reach hate speech thresholds in Europe, but even there, nothing in any of the comments on forums or writing that the killer did up to that point was enough to activate any police against him.
One can certainly both find Geller's views objectionable yet concede that if she is only mentioned once, she may not be an influence and you have to keep looking. What would really qualify as being an influence, anyway? And if you concede that she and other extreme bloggers don't call for violence, what exactly is it you would want them to do, and still remain consistent with the First Amendment? How could you realistically expect them to have "days of reflection" on command? They have done their reflection, as have you, and you have very divergent perspectives. What is the task then, to eradicate theirs? I think you can only morally and legally expect that the task is to then counter them with more media, more arguments, not silence their extremist blogs.
In another era, more attention might have been paid on his playing of World of Warcraft, a MMORPG which desensitizes people to killing, and much might have been made of his break with his father at an impressionable age and his mother's illness. These factors alone could be present in a school shooter without reference to Islam and be explanations for criminal behaviour; add the hatred of Islam, and they are overlooked completely.
As for the romanticized vision of the Christian West, what stands out more for me in the manifesto is this desperate need to make a warrior's creed that gives this killer an identity and heros, and the need to borrow from all the crusade memes and so on to construct a narrative. Is it a religious tract or a cultural Christianity of a violent, fundamentalist sort? Jesus is only mentioned a few dozen times, and usually in conjunction with denouncing Dan Brown's book or fixating on the Magdalene story. There don't seem to be passages with Jesus' teachings, or inspiration from Jesus or his life, or any sense of prayer.
I don't make any claim to understanding or defining what "the Christian West" is, as it really no longer exists in our time, especially in our country, although one of its chief legacies is that it enables people to disagree vehemently about just what it is or was.
Even so, I would challenge you to think about what, if anything, you feel Islamic fundamentalism *does* challenge about a world where it is still possible to disagree. The notions we have of liberalism and universality of human rights are part of a Judeo-Christian heritage even if there is no longer the civilizations that once informed them. And those are good values and values to uphold. And that's really the point -- something in the various social democratic and multicultural theories of modern states and his homeland made this monster believe that only deadly force and the atrocities he committed could stop it -- it was a maniacal view that does not contain any cues in reality.
I suspect there will be an endless cottage industry now in many places of people mining this terrorist's manifesto to find political enemies -- a task that was never undertaken for the Fort Hood killer, for example or most Islamic terrorists. Why do you think that is?
As for your views that the decadent West didn't stand up to Soviet communism -- the history was far more complex and nuanced than you let on, and the lingering effects of Soviet communism and Western reluctance to confront it still persist in many cases. But it's not really an apt analogy to analyze the Breivik, as it involves some countries opposing others, not one man who is possibly part of a shadowy conspiracy of individuals, but possibly acting alone.
Your final paragraph suggests that the terrorist was shaped by websites -- but then you cite Geller and Spencer as not responsible -- although you essentially just made them so by naming them. As a Norwegian, he was mainly looking at situations in his own country. He was also going to extremist groups in England and elsewhere in Europe to find comrades -- who in some cases rejected him as more extreme than he was.
It seems to me that the horror of Norway should be more readily taken on its own terms in the context of that country and Europe and a long-standing history of racist ideologies that existed before the Internet, and existed in Europe, rather than be laid at the doorstep of modern American extremist bloggers, as bad as they are, and as much as they were even cited. And you don't need to tie them ideologically or literally to this atrocity to counter them.
liberalism and universality of human rights
"The notions we have of liberalism and universality of human rights
are part of a Judeo-Christian heritage even if there is no longer the civilizations that once informed them. And those are good values and values to uphold."
With the second assertion one cannot disagree. But it has nothing to do with "Judeo-Christian heritage". First, the latter is a modern ideological construct
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Christian ). Historically, Jews and Christians were very much at odds (to say the least), and Muslims gave Jews a refuge from Christian oppression (say, after expulsion of Jews - and Arabs - from Spain in 15 cent.) And second, "liberalism and universality of human rights" have nothing to do with historical Judaism and Christianity (which
interested only about the rights for "chosen people")
Judeo-Christian Civilization Exists, You're Soaking in It
@Sasha,
Wikipedia is hardly a credible source on a controversial topic like this -- and it's reductive. Again, yeah, we get it that "everything is a construct." But which construct, for whom, and what is the purpose behind reductivism of this nature? Are you to claim that our societies had no influences on them, and no *religious* influences?!
At some point the construct *is* the culture, obviously. It's truly absurd to posit that there is nothing called "the Judeo-Christian civilization." You can argue about what it is, and whether it still exists or has the influence it once did, but THAT there is a body of beliefs forming an influential civilization isn't disputed by most people. The ideas of monotheism, the sanctity of the individual, empathy for others, respect for women a moral life, all come from these religions. Western societies grew as they did as a result of the culture provided by these religions. It doesn't matter if Jews and Christians were antagonistic, or if Christians had splits and divisions that became a force for greater openness and tolerance as a result. The values do come from somewhere, and they come from these religions. You could not have the notion of human rights, the tolerance of minorities, free speech, if it were not for these cultures.
The chief feature of this Judeo-Christian civilization beneficial to you today is that it enables you to question whether such a thing even exists, and it enables everyone to question authority.
You can hardly claim that Jews are interested only in "rights of the chosen people," and there have been many Jewish scholars and lawyers over the years very involved in the formation of the body of international law protecting human rights.
I'd rather agree with Gandhi who, asked what he thinks
about European civilization, told that "this would be a
great idea" (or something to this end).
Both Jewish and Christian culture gave the world
great men - like other cultures did, simply because
humanity produces great personalities once in a while,
which has nothing to do with particularities of religions.
As a whole, both cultures were soaked in bigotry,
self-adoration, and incomprehensible cruelty.
The old European history of
permanent idiotic religious wars and crusades, the
savageness of colonial rule, slavery, the rape of North
America ("the manifest destiny") - all done by
highly religious people and glorified in religious terms.
When deprived of state, Jews fared much much better -
but the history of modern Israel tells that this was the
only reason.
I do not say that this was a direct result of
particular flaw of both religions either (the enforced
anti-religion in Soviet Russia of 1920s-1930s yield
same result). Still, I'd mention that monotheism
is responsible for a very wrong attitude towards
the word in general - anthropocentrism - which
says that humans have more value than other beings
(of course, the chosen humans have more value than
others, etc.).
"The ideas of monotheism, the sanctity of the individual,
empathy for others, respect for women, a moral life,
all come from these religions." Except for monotheism
(that has nothing to do with the rest of the list) - why???
What gave you such an idea? All the list (except for
monotheism) you find, say, in Buddhism. And if
monotheism is so important to you, why don't you
add to your Judeo-Christian culture the Muslim one
(which is, after all, a branch of Arian heresy of
Christianity)?
"You can hardly claim that Jews are interested
only in "rights of the chosen people," and there
have been many Jewish scholars and lawyers
over the years very involved in the formation
of the body of international law protecting
human rights."
I did not claim this - what I said was that
historically the notion of "chosen
people" played very very ugly
role both in Christian and in Jewish history.
And I'd think that, like all things
racial, the notion of being Jew is pure delusion
- what makes a person beautiful or ugly has
nothing to do with that nonsense.
But, there's no problem condemning a theocracy. There is a problem with misrepresenting a faith tradition and telling lies, obfuscating the truth and failing to judge one's own traditions by the same harsh terms. Venerating a theocracy is heresy, we should venerate nothing of this earth. Condemning Islam is something that Muslims are willing to freely discuss. But, you should be open to the same critiques. Few Christians have even an elementary understanding of their own tradition, the Trinity nor much dogma. Islam is more pluralistic, less fantastic and never demands one check their brain at the door.
you wrote, "but even there, nothing in any of the comments on forums or writing that the killer did up to that point was enough to activate any police against him." If he condemned Jews with such language, European laws would come into effect. Muslims are the niggers of Europe.
I don't know what you are trying to say about the Judeo Christian tradition. There is nothing in the Quran that compares to the utter racism, the celebration of genocide and pillaging in the Old Testament. Frankly, the book of Joshua makes the Vikings look like pikers. So, I have no idea what you are waxing about here. It your myth, it's not fact based. Muslims were widely considered better colonialist than their Euro/Christian kings. They taxed less and offered more rights and protection. Your cottage industry comment is equally ignorant. Anwar Allowki or whatever in Yemen, a US citizen with a Presidential death warrant, free of due process, free of any court charges might differ. Your evidently unable to see the log in your own eye.
Communism is nothing, was nothing and was never a threat. It was a chimera used to overthrow disfavored regimes. What does Communism mean? The Soviets were very interested in securing natural resources, trade routes, ports and the like. They were greedy. Though I agree that Communism is a poor analogy to Breivik.
You fail to acknowledge the vast number of rightwing parties in Europe. I again agree with you for criticizing Walt for his overly American focus.
has a better historical record regarding women's rights and all the rights of minorities. The liberalism of the "Christians" is a very novel thing. Before we allowed women into universities, the head of Iraq's great university legal studies was a woman. Women were given the right to property, the right to their own money, guaranteed education all under Islam. These became women's rights in the West only in the 1960's. Women, under conventional Judaism and Christianity were Chattel. But, you continue in your shibboleths and propagandized history. You know when the British and French were fighting over Europe and the New World, the Turks rules the Mediterranean. Though you likely don't know that either. More propaganda, suppressed history and vast gaps in our understanding of history.
You err when you even say that Christians are monotheists, they aren't they believe in a Triune god--something entirely unsupported by the Bible, but hey, bring on your best quotes to support the Trinity heresy; cause a couple of very vague quotes is no argument to embrace an utter blasphemy and repudiation of the First Commandment.
You are also wrong about monotheism promoting anthropomorphism of God. I do agree that this is a problem. But, Islam never fell into that trap, nor, frankly have the Jews returned to the illogical, early God portrayed in the first descriptions of God in the OT. Frankly, Christianity, and its heretical worship of a man has done this more than any other. But, one finds anthropomorphizing of god all over various faith traditions, not just monotheistic ones.
The West didn't start slavery but it sure as hell was the only one to work to outlaw it! But hey, that makes the West look good, and we can't have that since all civilizations are equal and every is relative. Oh and I forgot, we are all constructs.
>You err when you even say that Christians are monotheists,
>they aren't they believe in a Triune god--something entirely
>unsupported by the Bible, but hey, bring on your best quotes
>to support the Trinity heresy; cause a couple of very vague
>quotes is no argument to embrace an utter blasphemy and
>repudiation of the First Commandment.
And why a heresy (i.e., an opposition to orthodoxy) would be
wrong? I am not an admirer of Pentateuch, and of the concept
of monotheism in particular, so the First Commandment
does not mean much for me.
When I say that Christians are monotheists - it is what they
claim. And what other meaning can this assertion have to
one who does not share this particular sort of delusion?
>You are also wrong about monotheism promoting
>anthropomorphism of God. I do agree that this is a problem.
>But, Islam never fell into that trap, nor, frankly have the
>Jews returned to the illogical, early God portrayed in
>the first descriptions of God in the OT. Frankly,
>Christianity, and its heretical worship of a man has
>done this more than any other. But, one finds
>anthropomorphizing of god all over various faith
>traditions, not just monotheistic ones.
Sorry, I did not write about "anthropomorphism of God".
It was "anthropocentrism" which a different subject.
I would think that monotheism brought a hierarchical
vision of the world: single God as the top commander,
then my tribe ("chosen people"), then the
rest of humans (goyim, heretics, unbelievers,...,
whatever you call them), then the rest of the world.
With the lower layer being completely subservient
to the upper one. Which is very idiotic. But idiotic
assertions stated authoritatively - especially those
that tell you are the best and give you permission
to murder - is what humans commonly take for truth.
Unfortunately this very idiotic attitude - in particular,
that humans are more important than all the rest
in the world - was/is taken for granted in
"Western civilization", as opposed to the East.
(Among well-known people of Christendom - I can
remember only St. Francis who would not fall for it).
And it played central very poisonous role for the
destruction of the world so immediately seen now.
best, S
here's some facts for you to read
http://original.antiwar.com/lobe/2011/08/02/us-muslims-more-tolerant/
Actually the Quran severely limited slavery 1400 years ago. The only excuse for taking slaves was in lieu of killing them in battle. The Quran allows no lifetime of indentured servitude, the terms of a slave's release must be explained from the outset, and the "slave" must be fed from your own table, clothed from your own closet and quartered in your own home. The West took over a millenia to catch up.
SCOTTINDALLAS
6:53 AM ET
August 2, 2011
"Islam has a better historical record regarding women's rights and all the rights of minorities." I'm sure you have an excellent apologia for the apartheid of dhimmitude.
"Women, under conventional Judaism and Christianity WERE Chattel." Consider this:
http://www.expatforum.com/articles/visas-permits-and-immigration/saudi-arabia-visas-permits-and-immigration.html Quote:
"Women with plans of permanently residing in Saudi Arabia should be informed that all children and females living in the country as members of a Saudi household such as adult women married to Saudi nationals, unmarried adult women who are daughters of Saudi fathers, and males below 21 years old with Saudi-born parents *are considered household property* and will need the permission of the Saudi household male head before leaving the country." And this:
"Married women need to be allowed by their Saudi husbands to depart the country, while male Saudi fathers or guardians grant permission to unmarried women, children and young boys to depart the Kingdom. Saudi mothers cannot independently grant permission to minor children without their husbands consent."
I KNOW you have pat answers for every question: "Saudis don't represent true Islam.", or "These regulations have been forced on the Saudis by depredations of the West." Etc.
And you TOTALLY ignore the Koran's PRESCRIPTIVE injunctions to hate and kill the other, (compared to the descriptive accounts in the Bible) particularly Jews. And that's not only in the Koran; THAT hate is chanted 5 or 17 times per day. To clarify that, link to it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Fatiha
He was apparently a gamer. He played World of Warcraft and Call of duty as well as followed Star Wars: The Old republic.
Might that be what made him go nuts?
A pretty terrible post with very little logic behind it. Does Brevik have to like everything about European history? No, and his attack on members of the ruling political party in his country shows his antipathy toward parts of it. But does that mean he cannot prefer what currently exists to what expects more immigration/multiculturalism to result in? You say that Norse pagans may have disliked the import of Christianity, but you haven't given any argument that they were wrong!
Juan Cole sites Milton Friedman on immigration representing the pull of labor demand which is hard to route around. A good model of immigration to the U.S from latin america, but BREVIK WAS NOT AN AMERICAN. He was a Norwegian, where much immigration consists of refugrees and asylum seekers from conflict ridden countries. When they arrive in Norway they tend to live on government-provided benefits as an underclass rather than doing manual labor as a working class. I recommend reading Tino Sanandaji, who blogs at supereconomy.blogspot.com and whose Iranian Kurdish family immigrated to Sweden, and has some shocking stats on the labor participation rates of Somalians in Sweden vs the U.S (where it is merely 50%, an admirable model to be emulated according the center-right party in Sweden!).
By the way, did you hear that 100% of the rapes in Oslo were reported as being committed by foreign men?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_rHFKRwv5Y
Norway is certainly being "shaped by outside forces", but is it for the better? Where is the evidence that Norwegians have benefited from allowing in all those refugees?
@TGGP
Logic has nothing to do with it.
Nor Democracy or Free Speech. There is not one paragraph in the author's writing that even hints at the reality that, sadly, a fairly large number of Europeans have been driven to feelings of dislike for the way governments have messed with immigration and multiculturalism. These people are not Islamophobes or Far Right wingers, they have valid concerns, and --the nerve of them!-- they have managed to elect their representatives to power in their respective countries where society has been impacted by immigration.
The author's view is dismissive of all these people and their rights. What's four percent to worry about? He speaks from America, he is more "sanguine about these matters". He says: Listen to Juan Cole, " Most societies benefit greatly from immigration if they have strong social institutions (as Norway does) and the confidence to assimilate new arrivals into the existing order while allowing that order to itself be shaped over time." You see, it's just a matter of time.
What if the strong social institutions and the confidence to assimilate new arrivals into the existing order prove to be only half of the equation, as they actually are, well, huh, let the order to itself be shaped over time.
So, do you see the logic now, TGGP ? Nor can I.
The truth is that America, from right, left and hopefully less from center, loves to meddle in everybody's affairs, give advise even as the advise is not followed at home, sometimes with catastrophic results, but knows and understands so little about the world that it can afford to be sanguine about matters of the world. Politicians and pundits from America will for ever quarrel among themselves but are unanimous in their belief that they know it all.
that America loves to point the finger an never consider condemning herself. But, your comment about immigration is ignorant. Just as your fellow travelers love to condemn immigrants for lot learning the language. (what other languages do you speak?) Yet, 100% of their children grow up speaking native caliber language, and a acculturated. Of course, these people threaten you more, cause they aren't timid, but Western acculturated, Western Citizens. They show you your bigotry, and you hate them. We got it. I live in Dallas, I know Jim Crow and Jaime Paloma.
She is only on the ticket why so much hate?.......Obomba has "0" foreign policy experience and he is on the top of the ticket....rio bouyguesthis really shows the despotism of the Demoncrat party..
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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