The first few paragraphs of Hanson's piece was extremely well-written and I found myself wanting to hold it up as the best definition of the differences that I've seen.
However, he did not know when to quit, it seemed.
With his first potshot at Berkeley and Cambridge (imo, intellectual arrogance and unreality exists throughout academe, left, right & middle), he signalled a willingness to let his essay get weakened by partisanship, at least.
Sure enough, we next heard about "Jimmy Carter’s busy house-building or Bill Clinton’s self-absorbed angst" with no mention of a retiring Republican (I should think Reagan's expensive speeches in Japan indicate a bit of self-absorption).
From there, he begins leaping beyond his original argument with absurdities like "the nature of Western success, which springs neither from luck nor resources, genes nor geography". At this point, I had to get out the neatsfoot oil, because I sensed there were some bootstraps riding tall in the saddle about to appear....
I stopped to review what the publication was about then, gaining confirmation that its outlook was likely right of center.
Fortunately, he then veered back on topic to state:
Government spokesmen in the Middle East should ignore the nonsense of the cultural relativists and discredited Marxists and have the courage to say that they are poor because their populations are nearly half illiterate, that their governments are not free, that their economies are not open, and that their fundamentalists impede scientific inquiry, unpopular expression, and cultural exchange. <SNIP>
and
There is an abyss between such rhetoric and the world we actually live in, an abyss called power. Out of politeness, we needn’t crow over the relative military capability of 1 billion Muslims and 300 million Americans; but we should remember that the lethal, 2,500-year Western way of war is the reflection of very different ideas about personal freedom, civic militarism, individuality on the battlefield, military technology, logistics, decisive battle, group discipline, civilian audit, and the dissemination and proliferation of knowledge.<SNIP>
and his next few paragraphs about history, the cultures underlying the militarily successful nations, and media.
Turning his attention to Israel/Palestine, he says:
Clearly, the anger derives not from the tragic tally of the fallen but from Islamic rage that Israelis have defeated Muslims on the battlefield repeatedly, decisively, at will, and without modesty.
If Israel were not so successful, free, and haughty—if it were beleaguered and tottering on the verge of ruin—perhaps it would be tolerated. But in a sea of totalitarianism and government-induced poverty, a relatively successful economy and a stable culture arising out of scrub and desert clearly irks its less successful neighbors. Envy, as the historian Thucydides reminds us, is a powerful emotion and has caused not a few wars.
If Israel did not exist, the Arab world, in its current fit of denial, would have to invent something like it to vent its frustrations.
... and I can't quarrel with a word of it. And when he states:
The Muslim world suffers from political amnesia, we now have learned, and so has forgotten not only Arafat’s resurrection but also American help to beleaguered Afghanis, terrified Kuwaitis, helpless Kurds and Shiites, starving Somalis, and defenseless Bosnians—direct intervention that has cost the United States much more treasure and lives than mere economic aid for Israel ever did. They forget; but we remember the Palestinians cheering in Nablus hours after thousands of our innocents were incinerated in New York, the hagiographic posters of a mass murderer in the streets of Muslim capitals, and the smug remonstrations of Saudi prince Alwaleed to Mayor Giuliani at Ground Zero.
... he gets it right again, with a minor exception. The cheering Palestinian idiots I quickly forgot. I still remember the words of dozens of nations and tens of thousands around the globe... and the pictures of US embassies adorned with flowers, even in some repressive areas of the world. Which made me realize that many more have positive thoughts about Americans than the number of our detractors. It was so incredibly unexpected that it moved me to tears... but now I'm digressing, aren't I?
By the end of his essay, I found myself in agreement with 99%. The minor partisan points proved to be mere lapses rather than a polemic, and I'd subtract no points for that.
The sole statement that he tossed off which I remain in disagreement about is the one about Western success not springing "from luck nor resources, genes nor geography" which I believe played a role. But the rest of his essay remains one of the best I've seen, if not the best, on the difference between Islamic cultures and Western ones.
Thanks for passing that on CB. |
