From: Steve Davies (Steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Wed Sep 03 2003 - 14:13:55 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 4:05 PM
Subject: Re: tribal violence (was: RE: would you vote for this man?)
>
> On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Amara Graps wrote:
>
> > >A Reformation is the last thing Islam needs right now -
> > >fundamentalists are very similar in their rhetoric and analysis to
> > >people such as Luther and Calvin. [snip]
> >
> > Thank you for pointing out my mistake, Steve. I had thought that
> > the Christian Reformation did the opposite of this, that is, cause
> > a reanalysis and subsequent mellowing of the more extreme elements
> > of the religion. I have to study a little more religious history,
> > obviously !
>
> Amara, I would *not* be so fast to back off on this. There has
> been a recent PBS special in the U.S. running on Luther I think.
> It points out how dogmatic the Catholic church had become (IMO
> it still is). At least one analysis I've seen regarding the
> issue of priests and marriage suggests the restriction that priests
> must be celibate had nothing to do with anything in the Bible but
> had primarily to do with having priests leave their wealth to the
> church rather than their heirs. Pure self-interest at work.
> The consequence, in part, being the current molestation scandals.
Umm, I'm afraid I'll have to stand my ground here. The programme you mention
was basically giving the modern 'liberal protestant' view of Luther and the
reformers as critical opponents of dogma and superstition. Total rubbish I'm
afraid. Luther, Calvin et al all thought that the Catholic Church had become
infected by pagan corruptions (such as philosophy) partly through relying
too much on human reason and the answer was to go back to the original
pristine tradition of the early church and junk all that scholasticism in
favour of faith. It's well known that clerical celibacy is not scriptural -
it was started in the 12th century by Gregory VII for the kind of secular
reasons you mention, which is why it isn't a dogma (i.e. something you have
to believe on pain of anathema)
>
> Now, why the reformation may have promoted individual self-interpretation
> of the text of the Bible -- it seems to have given way to
"fundamentalism".
> I am not sure when and why this took place. I suspect it has something
> to do with the power of leaders to convince people to interpret things
> in a specific way. Spike has pointed out to me several times that
> the Bible can probably be used to justify almost anything. I suspect
> that the same is true of the Koran.
The Reformers argue that the Bible is the ultimate authority (rather than
the Pope or tradition). Their problem of course is to determine which
reading is correct but only a few wild eyed radicals wanted each individual
to be able to interpret it as they saw fit. The general answer is that the
'magistrate' (the civil power) had to decide what it was, on the advice of
'the learned and godly' and woe betide anyone who tried to insist on their
own view. That's why John Locke kept his heterodox religious views to
himself - he'd have ended up imrpisoned or dead at the hands his Protestant
fellow Englishmen if he'd been too open. The idea that each beliver can
interpret scripture as they chose really only gets going after the later
eighteenth century. A critical thing is what I mentioned, the 'higher
criticism' started by German scholars, which unravelled the traditional
understanding of the date and authorship of the scriptures. Before then
virtually all Christians believed in the inerrancy of scripture (though they
weren't literalists). Fundamentalism in both Chritianity and Islam is a
response by (some) believers to the challenge of modern science and critical
analysis of holy texts. The problem with Islam is it has never really been
exposed to the 'higher criticism', the overwhelming majority of Muslims are
scriptural literalists who believe that the text of the Koran is eternal.
They have the same problem as the Reformers, made worse by the fact that
there's no 'church' as such. Their answer is exactly the same, that the
civil power should enforce a particular interpretation (just like in
Calvin's Geneva).
>
> So the problem is *not* a 'reformation' per se but the fact that some
> people abuse the 'reformation' process to convince people to interpret
> the text in a certain specific way -- rather than allow people to
> interpret it in their own way. Such behavior is a power grab and
> is rooted in basic survival instincts. One can see this between
> both the people who have religious power in Iran and the young
> college students there as well as the old and young shiites in Iraq.
This is true, but I think it's the inevitable outcome of a process that
calls on a body of believers to reject the historic, partly reason based
intellectual tradition of their faith in favour of a return to a
(fantastical) pure original state, on the basis of one text.
> Friedman has an interesting observation with respect to "tribes"
> in the NY Times today [1]...
>
> { Technology, though, still can't trump two huge impedients to Arab
> democracy. One is the lack of institutions to ensure a peaceful rotation
> of power. "In too many countries there is still a tradition of rule or die
> - either my group or tribe is in power or it's exposed to great danger, so
> you must never give up power," noted Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The
> Ideas That Conquered the World."
True but why is this so? I think the key factor is the familial structure of
the Arab world, above all the fact that the huge majority of marriages are
to first cousins. This means a society where you belong to one of a number
of very large extended kin groups. Broadly speaking you trust your relatives
and treat them well bu don't trust anyone else. This makes it very difficult
to sustain modern bureaucratic forms of administration in either the public
or private sector. Government is basically a system whereby one extended kin
group screws everyone else. They know that if they lose out, they're toast.
The key factor is 'asibiya', which means something like 'group
loyalty/solidarity/team spirit', if you don't have that you're knackered.
It's worth looking at a map of the world showing the degree to which
marriages in countries are consanguineous, you'll see some very interesting
correlations. I think this family structure also explains the proclivity of
people in certain parts of the world to suicide based
terrorism/assassination. It isn't so much the lure of paradise as the
knowledge that you're bringing honour and status to your family, which
you've been told from birth you must subordinate and sacrifice youself for.
>
> The other is that so many Arab economies are dominated by state oil
> revenues and state companies, with private enterprise very weak.
> Therefore, holding onto or being close to power are the only pathways to
> wealth. Control power, control wealth. "It will be very hard to install
> lasting democracy in this region," Mr. Mandelbaum added, "without
> institutions and economic reforms that guarantee that there is life after
> power and wealth without power." }
This is clearly true but not enough by itself imo.
>
Steve Davies
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