The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam[W:197]

[coldjoint]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

Which is:
Instill fear
Raise hate levels
Divide the public along Religious lines.
Create distrust
New laws that remove freedoms
Or for many, target all Muslims as a threat.
The overreaction is ludicrous.
And now we have met all of those, next will be an increase in attacks on Muslims.

Total emasculation is much better. How about we just surrender?

 

[JANFU]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

Total emasculation is much better. How about we just surrender?

Not what I said now is it?

 

[Fledermaus]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

When we understand history at this level, we have a full, nuanced picture, and a closer understanding. So what happens when we dive into history without this background? The result is that we dehumanize the players, and this is what is happening regarding Islam right now. Well-meaning people (usually liberals), who would find the reality of the historical Islamic world 'wicked' by our standards, whitewash it instead of trying to understand it as a complex human endeavor. As a result, an entire cottage industry has sprung up dedicated to 'debunking' liberal lies about Islam. This cottage industry, to put it lightly, employs dubious scholarship. When you compare the great Orientalists of the last two centuries to many modern commentators on Islamic history, the difference is appalling. But young people today don't read the great Orientalists, who focus on the human elements of Middle Eastern history in a nuanced, scholarly manner. They're either reading simplistic material which casts Muslims as devils, or simplistic material which casts them as angels. Whichever one they disagree with makes them intensely angry, and whichever one they agree with offers the false security of consensus. And the reason that this spell isn't broken is because only the inhuman can be fully good or fully evil, and the vast majority of Westerner have a more human understanding of fictional characters than they do any real people from Middle Eastern history. If I tried to tell someone that Christianity was a bloodthirsty religion, most people in the West could bring up St. Thomas of Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi, George Fox, and many other examples which contravene that simplistic narrative. If they were told that Christianity was a perfectly peaceful religion, they could come up with the Spanish Inquisition, many of the Crusades, the persecution of astronomers, the murder of Hypatia, and the Salem witch trials. But if they are told that Islam is violent, will they know to mention Attar of Nishapur, Rumi, and Rabia Basri? If they are told that it is peaceful, will they know to mention Tamerlane, as-Saffah, or Aurangzeb?

So long as this status quo continues, we won't have any useful dialogue about Islam. More than anything, this conversation needs a heavy dose of intellectual humility, and a chastening realization of the intricacy of the subject matter.

I picked up a book in Spain which detailed the crusades and the internecine Muslim infighting through the eyes of the Muslims. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf

Salah Ad-Din is captured in detail as are Nur Ad-Din and others....

 

[JC Callender]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

I think this is as far as most non-Muslims are willing to look into history to understand the differences between them and us:

 

[Chagos]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

Not what I said now is it?

It never is that anyway, certainly not with people so enamoured with their own message that they resemble an over-amplified transmitter that let's no incoming signals thru.

Add their overall governing Dunning-Kruger effect and we might all of us just as well argue with a brick wall.

 

[Chagos]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

I think this is as far as most non-Muslims are willing to look into history to understand the differences between them and us:

It's demonstrations of soaring intellect like these that make one proud of being a member here.:roll:

 

[JC Callender]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

It's demonstrations of soaring intellect like these that make one proud of being a member here.:roll:

Aww thanks! Are you still defending the Cologne New Years Eve rapists?

 

[Chagos]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

Aww thanks! Are you still defending the Cologne New Years Eve rapists?

Which ones? You got figures?

 

[JANFU]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

It never is that anyway, certainly not with people so enamoured with their own message that they resemble an over-amplified transmitter that let's no incoming signals thru.

Add their overall governing Dunning-Kruger effect and we might all of us just as well argue with a brick wall.

True enough.
Nothing will change them.

 

[Coldwine]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

I picked up a book in Spain which detailed the crusades and the internecine Muslim infighting through the eyes of the Muslims. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf

Salah Ad-Din is captured in detail as are Nur Ad-Din and others....

That's an interesting time period; though I know more about other ones. I did find Salah Ad-Din's rise to power to be particularly interesting.

 

[Coldwine]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

Which is:
Instill fear
Raise hate levels
Divide the public along Religious lines.
Create distrust
New laws that remove freedoms
Or for many, target all Muslims as a threat.
The overreaction is ludicrous.
And now we have met all of those, next will be an increase in attacks on Muslims.

To some point. It's often also to cause foreign policy blunders, economic harm (shutting down airports), or to sow internecine conflicts. Terrorism, for example, is raising tensions within the EU right now.

 

[Coldwine]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

It is however conveniently easy and will appeal to the lazy.

Saving the so afflicted from any study of history of the evolution of any society, group, sociological concepts, ideology or indeed religion.

The idea alone of Christianity today (let alone over the almost 2,000 years of its existence) being a one-to-one reflection of what showed in the 1st century A.D. is idiotic on its own (and to the extreme).

But then what can be expected of self-proclaimed experts other than the deep conviction of there being nothing left to learn?

I think that this is important in any discipline. To constantly remind yourself, every time you learn something, that there is infinitely more that you haven't learned yet. It keeps you receptive to new information. The moment you tell yourself that you understand something absolutely is the moment that you stop learning about it.

 

[Port & Starboard]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

When we understand history at this level, we have a full, nuanced picture, and a closer understanding. So what happens when we dive into history without this background? The result is that we dehumanize the players, and this is what is happening regarding Islam right now. Well-meaning people (usually liberals), who would find the reality of the historical Islamic world 'wicked' by our standards, whitewash it instead of trying to understand it as a complex human endeavor. As a result, an entire cottage industry has sprung up dedicated to 'debunking' liberal lies about Islam. This cottage industry, to put it lightly, employs dubious scholarship. When you compare the great Orientalists of the last two centuries to many modern commentators on Islamic history, the difference is appalling. But young people today don't read the great Orientalists, who focus on the human elements of Middle Eastern history in a nuanced, scholarly manner. They're either reading simplistic material which casts Muslims as devils, or simplistic material which casts them as angels. Whichever one they disagree with makes them intensely angry, and whichever one they agree with offers the false security of consensus. And the reason that this spell isn't broken is because only the inhuman can be fully good or fully evil, and the vast majority of Westerner have a more human understanding of fictional characters than they do any real people from Middle Eastern history. If I tried to tell someone that Christianity was a bloodthirsty religion, most people in the West could bring up St. Thomas of Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi, George Fox, and many other examples which contravene that simplistic narrative. If they were told that Christianity was a perfectly peaceful religion, they could come up with the Spanish Inquisition, many of the Crusades, the persecution of astronomers, the murder of Hypatia, and the Salem witch trials. But if they are told that Islam is violent, will they know to mention Attar of Nishapur, Rumi, and Rabia Basri? If they are told that it is peaceful, will they know to mention Tamerlane, as-Saffah, or Aurangzeb?

So long as this status quo continues, we won't have any useful dialogue about Islam. More than anything, this conversation needs a heavy dose of intellectual humility, and a chastening realization of the intricacy of the subject matter.

Yeah...Yeah...Yeah!

Same old worn out approach towards defending a animalistic ideology........... disguised as a religion.

I have a great idea. Why don't you and your other "intellectual" pajama boys can continue on with your "heavy dose of intellectual humility", while the rest of us people in the real world continue clean up the carnage the Islamists leave behind.

 

[Fledermaus]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

That's an interesting time period; though I know more about other ones. I did find Salah Ad-Din's rise to power to be particularly interesting.

I was amazing at all the backstabbing going on between the Kurds, the Turks, the Egyptians and every one else involved.

The was no real united Muslim front until Salah Ad-Din rose to power. One Muslim prince would face the "Franj" (Crusaders) and some brother or cousin would march on the prince's possessions.

There was no real concept of unity.

A quote from Salah Ad-Din - 'Regard the Franj! Behold with what obstinacy they fight for their religion, while we, the Muslims, show no enthusiasm for waging holy war.'

 

[Fledermaus]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

Yeah...Yeah...Yeah!

Same old worn out approach towards defending a animalistic ideology........... disguised as a religion.

I have a great idea. Why don't you and your other "intellectual" pajama boys can continue on with your "heavy dose of intellectual humility", while the rest of us people in the real world continue clean up the carnage the Islamists leave behind.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

 

[JANFU]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

To some point. It's often also to cause foreign policy blunders, economic harm (shutting down airports), or to sow internecine conflicts. Terrorism, for example, is raising tensions within the EU right now.

Build Ghettos, ostracize people, do not accept that those born there are citizens, discrimination, some, it a appears a few out of many millions became radicalized.

 

[coldjoint]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

It never is that anyway, certainly not with people so enamoured with their own message that they resemble an over-amplified transmitter that let's no incoming signals thru.

Add their overall governing Dunning-Kruger effect and we might all of us just as well argue with a brick wall.

Those things Janfu said are standard and repeated talking points that prove that effect works both ways. Also feel free to respond to me. You have visited my forum page enough. Why is that?

 

[Northern Light]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. The problem is not Islam.

 

[Port & Starboard]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

It never is that anyway, certainly not with people so enamoured with their own message that they resemble an over-amplified transmitter that let's no incoming signals thru.

Add their overall governing Dunning-Kruger effect and we might all of us just as well argue with a brick wall.

Or the illusion of knowledge that seems to be widespread. :roll:

 

[Chagos]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

Or the illusion of knowledge that seems to be widespread. :roll:

Indeed.

Even where we possibly do not mean the same.

 

[coldjoint]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

I think that this is important in any discipline. To constantly remind yourself, every time you learn something, that there is infinitely more that you haven't learned yet. It keeps you receptive to new information. The moment you tell yourself that you understand something absolutely is the moment that you stop learning about it.

How hard is it to learn people are dying at the hands of Islamists? And what makes you think learning why is going to stop it? The only thing that you have learned is how to blame someone else for someone elses actions. That, you will learn, saves no one and stops nothing.

 

[JC Callender]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

I don't think that either of those are relative considerations. Terrorism isn't dangerous because of the people that it kills, as the death toll is statistically negligible. It is dangerous because the reaction to it is often self-injurious. Focusing on the deaths misses the entire point of the tactic.

What about focusing on all of the Muslims celebrating after these terror attacks, don't you think that's a little unsettling?

 

[coldjoint]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

What about focusing on all of the Muslims celebrating after these terror attacks, don't you think that's a little unsettling?

It seems she is too busy learning to think about anything.

 

[Lafayette]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

These men were interesting, intelligent, inspiring. They also killed, lied, and cut corners. They were, when all was said and done, profoundly human.

May I suggest that these men were not "profoundly human"? Animals kill in order to feed themselves.

Aside from self-defense, humans kill in order to dominate. Those who do are an abomination upon mankind, whatever the reason and wherever.

There can be no deviation from this rule if a civilized order amongst us is to be maintained. Our differences should be uniquely decided at the ballot box - where we accept that majority rules (for better or for worse) ...
____________________

 

[Lafayette]

Re: The Roots of The West's Problem Understanding Islam

SUFFICIENT TIME

What about focusing on all of the Muslims celebrating after these terror attacks, don't you think that's a little unsettling?

I live in France, where (just this week) a catholic-priest had his throat cut by a Muslim radical (ISIS).

The outcry from both communities, I repeat both communities, has been inspiring. Christians and Muslims have risen as one to show/demonstrate their abject disgust at this heinous act. ISIS has not promoted its cause one iota in the Muslim community because of this act.

In fact, the opposite has happened. Both perpetrators have been killed resisting arrest. And, we are told, they will end up in unmarked graves to mark their passing; according to a Muslim tradition there was no honor in their act, and quite the opposite.

The percentage of the Muslim population in France, since a great while, has been far more substantial than in the US. The two/three religions have a respect for one another, but they have not achieved the same level of profound mutual respect as exists between Christians amongst themselves. But, they are "working on it".

I live in a community with members of the Muslim faith, and find little intolerance that another generation of well-educated Muslims cannot eradicate entirely. Which is happening presently.

It took a few generations, of course. Muslims started coming to France from the Mahgreb (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco), which was entirely colonized by France (as elsewhere in Africa). They have been a mainstay of the population since the 1950s, which is over a half-century, contributing much needed manpower.

That's what it took for the younger generation to grow-up without a "lifestyle" that had been brought in with their parents originally.

It takes time to absorb a people who arrive without identical beliefs to our own. The absorption process is long but inevitably across at least two generations it functions properly. The "old world" recedes as the younger ones adapt to their present existence.

What is fundamentally different is that "present existence", which now is far more open and welcoming than it has ever been before. We have lived and learned.

We need only give time to time ...
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