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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: frankw1900 who wrote (40824)	4/25/2004 1:34:55 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 793731

There are more issues that just modern vs. non-modern, or even how the non-modern evolve in response to the pressures of modernism. There are also issues of high-trust vs. low-trust societies (Arab societies tend to be very low-trust, meaning that you can only really trust your own family members, and not always those either), and whether politics is conceived of as a game of winner-take-all or assembling compromises. I put it to you that if you had examined the society of 9th cen. Anglia, you would have found a quite primitive society, but one which already had trust levels running beyond the family (that's part of the genius of feudalism) and one which had digested the notion of law courts and compromise solutions.

To: frankw1900 who wrote (40824)	4/25/2004 1:42:11 PM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793731

Thanks Frank for your thoughtful piece to the Peters article. It is absolutely necessary, if the more modern citizens of Fallujah can't deliver the terrorists, and if the mainstream Shiite clergy can't deliver Sadr, that the coalition take them. Centuries of murder, robbery and terror leave their mark, and if the murderers, robbers and terrorists are not seen to be destroyed, then they will be perceived as winning - because they always have won - no matter how few their numbers, how little their real power, or how great the hatred against them. If their BELIEF system in murder, robbery and terror can't be changed, we can't win. And neither can they.

To: frankw1900 who wrote (40824)	4/25/2004 11:51:30 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 793731

Arab "degeneration" is based on a myth, that medieval Arab culture was advanced compared to European culture, due to a creative flowering. Not to take away from Arab accomplishments, but when you take the time to look at the specifics, the story doesn't hold water. Take, for example, the oft-repeated allegation that Arabs invented distillation. Wrong. Old stone alembics and other distillation equipment have been found in Mohenjo-Daro and other sites important to the Indus river culture, about 5000 years old. The Chinese practiced distillation, as did the Egyptians. Pretty much everything that the Arabs claim as their own inventions were something they got from somewhere else. Using zero and decimal places comes from east of India. Astronomy, ditto. Using paper and clay as a placemarker for specie, ditto. What did they teach in their fine universities? Stuff they learned from the Greeks, and the Egyptians, and the Indians, and cultures further east. Nothing wrong with adopting things other people invented. You could say the same thing about every culture. Nothing wrong with recognizing something of value, and adopting it, and dissemimating it. That's intelligent. But it's even more intelligent to come up with your own variations, and even more intelligent to come up with something entirely new. Intelligence isn't really the word I am looking for here. Whatever it is, it's the difference between being merely good at what you do, and being great. Genius.