food / ferment for thought "Beyond Djihad and McWorld"
The end of american isolationism: why in the post-09/11 Politics the defenders of democracy and human rights need to be the new realists / by Benjamin R. Barber
"...The new democratic realist however will grasp that neither the human spirit nor the liberty can flourish, if the only alternatives available are the Mullahs and the supermarket, the hegemony of a religious absolutism opposing the hegemony of the market determinism. So we must allow ourselves a paradoxical question: If we see the religion colonizing every other area of life, we call it " Theocracy" and turn the nose up smelling dictatorship; and if we see politics encroaching on every aspect of our lives, call we it to " absolutism " and tremble with the prospect of totalitarism: however, when market relations and commercial consumer attitude are colonizing one aspect of our lives after another, we celebrate it as a victory of "freedom". How is that possible? There's too many John Walkers, who start their ways by seeking a refuge from the aggressive sacularistic materialism of their suburban existence, and who end up enmeshed with some dark conspiracy, that wants to cleanse the world from materialistic unbelievers. And when on top of that these people are poor and hopeless, they constitute ideal recruits for the Dschihad."
I just translated what I would assume is a highlight of the whole essay - would be fun to find out what english-german-english shuttle did to the original. Im pretty sure US readers will find the complete essay somewhere (New Yorker? Atlantic?)
Of course the author's paradigm of Djihad vs McWorld is not exactly new. A refresher, however, is, lets say,refreshing |
