Monday, July 24, 2006
Some Scholarly Insights Into the Current Jihad and Those of Days Past
I was fortunate enough to have had a very insightful professor in college. Dr. Robert Pois at the University of Colorado in Boulder was (I only recently found out that this great teacher had passed away) brilliant. Although he described himself as "liberal" and was most definitely anti-war, he wasn't "politically correct" and never used his classroom as a soapbox for preaching idealistic notions regarding human history.
Dr. Pois, who studied under George Mosse at the University of Wisconsin, was an expert on Nazi Germany and the Weimar period. He had written a -- now out of print -- book called; "National Socialism and the Religion of Nature." It was a rare and insightful look into the psychology of Nazism and it's preoccupation with romantic ideals and "nature." Greens and other assorted socialists would not have liked the observations made in Dr. Pois's book.
Nazism, as most strains of socialism, was driven by intellectual, romantic idealism. It was certainly no coincidence that Jews, and their association with urban culture, modernity, and capitalism, were the target of bitter hatred by the Nazis -- as they are today by a host of assorted leftist totalitarians.
I am reminded of Dr. Pois's appraisals and style whenever I read works by Ian Buruma, particularly in his overview of, "The Origins of Occidentalism."
"...Calculation -- the accounting of money, interests, scientific evidence, and so on -- is regarded as soulless. Authenticity lies in poetry, intuition, and blind faith. The Occidentalist view of the West is of a bourgeois society, addicted to creature comforts, animal lusts, self-interest, and security. It is by definition a society of cowards, who prize life above death. As a Taliban fighter once put it during the war in Afghanistan, the Americans would never win, because they love Pepsi-Cola, whereas the holy warriors love death. This was also the language of Spanish fascists during the civil war, and of Nazi ideologues, and Japanese kamikaze pilots..."
"...The worship of false gods is the worst religious sin in Islam as well as in ancient Judaism. The West, as conceived by Islamists, worships the false gods of money, sex, and other animal lusts. In this barbarous world the thoughts and laws and desires of Man have replaced the kingdom of God. The word for this state of affairs is jahiliyya, which can mean idolatry, religious ignorance, or barbarism. Applied to the pre-Islamic Arabs, it means ignorance: People worshiped other gods because they did not know better. But the new jahiliyya, in the sense of barbarism, is everywhere, from Las Vegas and Wall Street to the palaces of Riyadh. To an Islamist, anything that is not pure, that does not belong to the kingdom of God, is by definition barbarous and must be destroyed.
Just as the main enemies of Russian Slavophiles were Russian Westernizers, the most immediate targets of Islamists are the liberals, reformists, and secular rulers in their own societies. They are the savage stains that have to be cleansed with blood. But the source of the barbarism that has seduced Saudi princes and Algerian intellectuals as much as the whores and pimps of New York (and in a sense all infidels are whores and pimps) is the West. And that is why holy war has been declared against the West..."
As with National socialism, communism, and a host of other radical isms, the contemporary Islamic Jihad is just another branch of Romantic Idealism. A dreaming child -- with a gun. Their gripe is ultimately not with sin, excess, or imperialism, it is with modernity itself.
Anyone who truly understands the mind of the romantic idealist can appreciate their "work" on canvas, in prose, or in music -- but shudder in fear at their purpose and actions in the practical world of politics.
The "cowboy fool" from Texas has more insight than most when he compares the current "war on terror" (which we should now admit is a war with radical Islam) with previous conflicts with other strains of totalitarianism.
Modernity, capitalism, and a diverse world of free people are what bugs the romantic totalitarian. If you haven't yet "taken a side" in the current conflict you'll no doubt soon have to. Many already have, as in past conflicts, taken the side of authoritarian statism, which in itself is just another fervent religion. If they can't see where that path ultimately leads they're utter fools -- but dangerous fools none the less.
