Limtex, OT...
Although I haven't read Abel (or for that matter, read or heard about him, unlike Clausewitz, of course), he doesn't sound all that interesting to me. The passages you quoted strike me as all quite commonplace. The extreme emphasis of the Nazi movement on group identification, and its extreme lack of respect for individual values is hardly unknown. Perhaps it was in the US in 1934, but certainly not now, among the educated. And it is also hardly a unique notion that modern Western society (ex the fascist movements) place extreme emphasis on individual values, as compared to other societies.
As for your discussion of the roots of Islamic hatred of Western values and achievements -- it seems a bit simplistic, frankly.
Islamic culture, building upon the precursor middle eastern and Hellenistic cultures to be sure, was in a world leading position (at least ex China) in mathematics, science, art, probably philosophy and material wealth, as well as the arts of war, from say 900 AD through perhaps 1300. Areas of Europe which developed early leads in the arts and sciences tended to be areas most in contact with Islamic Middle Eastern culture, including Venice and hence Italy, and Toledo in Spain. Jews were very often agents of cultural transmission from Islam to Europe, as well as key individual contributors.
It is not so much a puzzle to me why Islamic culture degenerated so much from its early heights. Cultures rise and fall. But it is a puzzle why it seems generally, as a culture, to have so hard a time regenerating and reinvigorating itself in the modern global world. Unlike Japanese or Chinese cultures, for example, when faced with the challenge of Western achievements, knowledge, and attitudes.
Don't get me wrong. I'm unabashedly proud of Western Culture. I don't think all cultures are equally impressive by any means. (Although I think many have something to offer and can be very interesting.) I could go on and on about the twin pillars of Western Culture -- The Hellenistic belief in the individual and inclination to increasingly believe in the rational (as opposed to magical/religious) causation of natural phenomena. And the Judeo/Christian (with the emphasis on the former) belief in morality and equity as the core of religion.
The really interesting thing in your note, to my mind was this:
From the Atlantic ocean to the Indian ocean and beyond hundreds of millions of [Islamic, I take it] people live in a society where the main educational system is religion based.
That hardly seems to explain, at first blush, all of the regions of the third world which are slow to develop after global exposure to Western Culture. Africa? India? China, until about 15 years ago? For that matter, the declines in Russia?
But it is an interesting kernel of an explanation. Japan was a relatively high culture that had perhaps somewhat stalled when it opened up, finally, to Western Culture. Then exploded. It did not have a religious ideology which disallowed Western scientific rationalism. Perhaps Islam does, these days, in important part?
Doug
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