Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category
Al Qaeda and what it means to be modern
Read this book a few weeks back by John Gray (of the Straw Dogs fame) and have been meaning to write a post on it since. The title of the book gives you a pretty good idea of what its supposed to be about and the back cover blurb gives a fairly detailed description;
”… as we become modern, we will become more reasonable. Nothing could be further from the truth… Al Qaeda is a product of modernity and of globalisation and it will not be the last group to use the products of the modern world in its own monstrous way.”
It’s a pity the book fails to live up to its own title and idea however. It does have many positives; its short (119 pages, 145 if you count the references and index), its easy enough to read because the chapters are fairly short and Gray’s writing style isn’t that bad, if perhaps a bit too academic.
But what exactly does he talk about? While the title and blurb would indicate that this would be a discussion on how Al Qaeda uses modern technology and media to both spread its message and commit attacks and how this is descended from similar groups like the Anarchists of the early 1900’s who did the same thing thats not the case. Yes, these things are studied, but Gray spends the bulk of the book on a philosophical discussion on what the word ‘modern’ actually means.
Which isn’t all bad in fairness. The opening chapter (and probably the best) ‘what Al Qaeda destroyed’ talks about how 9/11 was a blow against the idea that as the world develops we’ll all become more alike (’more modern’ in the parlance of the book) and how the idea that Al Qaeda is ‘medieval’ is a complete misnomer - having nothing to do with the facts and trying to diminish the links Al Qaeda has with the like of the Anarchists or Enlightenment thinkers. He draws very good links between the like of the positivist thinkers - who believed that you can ‘make’ the world the way you want it and Al Qaeda’s desire to make the world a ‘Muslim one’.
The problem is that shortly after this in the book, the author moves away from this talk to an extent. Instead he focuses on philosophical arguments about ‘where’ exactly these thinkers connect. While parts of this are interesting - the idea that Al Qaeda is a ‘Christian world’ creation based on the observation that only Abrahamic religions believe there is a purpose to history driving events and how similar behavior can be ascribed to modern Muslim fanatics being a good example.
There are many elements of Gray’s arguments that I just find hard to believe - mainly because he seems to be somewhat of a relativist. I’m not too sure why I get this feeling - going back on the book I can’t find a passage where he identifies himself as such but he seems to rubbish all ideas of ‘how the world should be’ - economic, scientific and religious. Now given that they are the main ways that the world has been organised, what else is there?
But again, the main flaw in the book has to be its focus on people who even in their own time were ignored - he spends nearly a chapter on a group of French Positivists from the 1850’s to whom he seems to attribute the Holocaust, Nazism and a number of other horrors.
However, despite these flaws, there are some great insights - his argument as to why the United States cannot continue as a global power is interesting - (basically, their economy is dependent on foreign investment, this allows their military might, once the foreign investors lose faith in the US a power they will pull out their money and voila! No more US ability to wage war)…
Towards the end of the book he does come back to the main idea of terrorism - and his basic idea is that Al Qaeda cannot be defeated. It is not an army and it has no center (despite the literal meaning of the name). Essentially, it will die once the majority of its number lose faith or join other causes. In many ways it is a phantom and no more substantial for that.
Anyway, for its size and if you are interested in this topic this is not a bad place to begin. Just don’t pay too much attention to the back cover blurb.
A view from the other side of the table..
This is a really interesting article covering Iranian recent history but explaining it as if Iran was the U.S. and vice-versa. Good stuff.
A really really good argument for assuming global warming is real…
Have to admit - I don’t see any major weaknesses in his argument - yes it oversimplifies for conveniences sake but….
So…
….I was added by someone setting up a bebo site for Madeleine McCann yesterday. For once in my life I choose not to accept the invite. But I’m still not sure why. See, I suppose that on one hand I can appreciate that there are many people who genuinely are touched by this girl and her families plight. Yet on the other hand, it nearly strikes me as being tremendously wrong to even set up such a site.
Twenty Major has hit part of it talking here and here about how ‘wrong’ it can strike you that this family are getting so much money that they don’t really need from the whole incident, but that’s only part of it. My housemate when I was talking to him about it said that the family might not be able to pull enough cash together at the moment (or may not be able to pull themselves together enough), they might need the money for the therapy that Madeleine could need (assuming she’s still alive, which to be honest I kind of doubt) or that they may simply just donate the money to some charity or fund after she’s found alive and well (and to be honest, considering that most people don’t really know where the money they give to charities go to anyway, it’s not like those who have given money can complain).
What disturbs me more in the way that its been dealt with I guess… I mean, there’s the blatant element of ’she’s a pretty blonde white girl from England and her parents are rich so she’s more important’ going on in this story. I mean,how many people have donated money to ‘help’ who simply ignore the ‘Trocaire’ ads or their equivalent? There’s also the fact that the parents don’t need that money, the fact that there are big businessmen and corporations donating ‘rewards’ and incentives to find her. And who here doesn’t believe that at some point there wasn’t a conversation that went ”the money we offer is half what we’ll get back in free advertising!”
But what also disturbs me about it is the ‘pretending to care’ element. I mean, lets be honest, most of the newscasters, pundits, businessmen etc. don’t care less about this girl. She’s just another person that has gone missing /died that you’ll never meet. Boris Johnson talked about this a bit in his ‘have I got views for you’ book when Ken Bigley came up. As he pointed out, in some ways when that murder happened there was this tremendous public grief of a sort yet he also noticed an element of people rebelling at it (he uses the example of a minutes silence at a football game being interrupted by a crowd who were more interested in the game than in some guy they never met and didn’t care about).
Yes, there is something to be said of the benefits of having her face on the news. The odds are that the more people are aware of the story the more likely that if she is still alive that she may be seen by somebody somewhere and found. But, this public gnashing of teeth disturbs me when its not like most people (if they’re honest) really give a damn.
I know this post has been a bit pointless and rambly, but I still feel that ‘a bebo page for Madeleine’ is wrong and there is something wrong that it would even happen to exist.
The myth of American exceptionalism
Howard Zinn speaking in MIT. Very interesting stuff, if somewhat ‘heard it all before’. It’s basically an hour long lecture but good to see stuff like this around….
Post #362 appearently… Violence in America - some numbers
As part of my exams I’m reading for American government. This is somewhat tangential but interesting;
I forgot to title this the first time around. Ooops.
The ‘clash of civilisations’
Been reading this (in)famous essay by Samuel P. Huntington as part of my course on U.S foreign Policy. It’s interesting stuff, the edition I have is this little blue book only sixty-seven pages long holding within its pages Huntington’s original essay, several of the responses to it and Huntington’s response to the responses.
It makes for interesting reading becuase in many ways the ideas discussed in the articles have become somewhat of a fait accompli - I doubt that most of you reading this will not have already heard the phrase ‘clash of civilisations’ before and the rhetoric he used in the essays are now being used by many of the current member’s of the U.S administration. But are the ideas he presents really accurate or usable?
Personally, I have to agree with the general consensus given by most academics and well-read people on the topic; Not really. His ideas are vaguely racist (’possible‘ African civilisation being the worst) and reductionist - he maintains that the Vietnamese and Chinese will coalesce into a single civilisation despite the fact that they’ve been fighting on and off for, oh a thousand or so years.
He also seems to have no real appreciation for the fact that many of these ‘civilisations’ have massive internal divisions - he dismisses this by saying that ‘when push comes to shove these people (whoever they are) will join with their ‘brothers’ and identify with them’, meaning I suppose that I will ‘naturally’ feel more connection with American/European/English-speaking/White tragedies in the world than I will with Pakistani/Indian/Buddhist/Chinese/Non-white/Etc. tragedies. Which is somewhat true - but thats mostly owing to shared lifestyles/beliefs/history and global proximity than ‘civilisation’ I suspect. He makes no real attempt to explain how the majority of the world’s conflict is intra-civilisational rather than between groups on borders of civilisations.
The dangerous thing about Huntington’s argument is that reading my last paragraph I have agreed with him somewhat, and that when one looks at the current conflict between the ‘West’ and ‘Islamism’ its hard not to think that he is somewhat correct. And thats the problem. Huntington’s argument is at its most reduced correct. The forces of the ‘West’ - broadly speaking democracy, free markets and human rights are in conflict with the forces of ‘Islamism’ - broadly speaking Allah, Muhammad and Sharia Law. But as that sentence shows you that means nothing. Are Russia, America and India - who are all democracies, the same with democracy, free markets and human rights? Of course not. The same applies to the ‘Islamist’s’ - the only way you can describe them is by using extremely vague terms - becuase most of the groups that make up Al-Qaeda are not even in agreement with each other!
In the end, it is worth reading the articles (the ISBN for the old edition is 0-87609-164-8) simply for the fact that it deals with many issues of relevance today - but it is definitely a shame and a problem that the best defense for Huntington’s arguments is one he came up with himself ‘If not civilisations, What?’. The fact that he has been able to develop a simplistic, reductionist theory that appeals to the worst in many is not something to be proud of but is the case at the moment becuase the alternative explanations are ‘too complex’ and don’t make for easy soundbytes on TV for many people…
The Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster
While I may not be wearing a pirate hat (the FSM forgives all) Here is a link explaining his Spaghetti Goodness and a video that explains everything very well
The Trinity IV
So, over the weekend I attended the Trinity College Dublin Debating Intervarsities.
It was a fun weekend, if a bit chaotic.
71 teams of 2 people each, along with judges and assorted hangers-on as well as the Trinity people themselves who obviously can’t compete at their own event. The end result was a lot of people, mostly drunk, having a laugh. Good times.
It wasn’t all good though, frankly the organisation of the weekend left a bit to be desired, the Trinity people seemed to forget that many of us had never been to the college and so didn’t have anything resembling a guide system to get people to the rooms they were debating at.
This was especially glaring as they had the rooms all over the campus - which meant that you could spend half of the 15 minutes that you had to prepare for the debate just getting to the debate.
Also, their arts building is incredibly confusing and on one occasion that I was there for (though I know it happened more often) a team I was debating with walked in just as the debate was starting - it having taken them 15minutes precisely to find where they were supposed to be.
Also, the food on offer wasn’t great and again, the occasional disorganisation went into this too - I doubt half the people there Saturday morning got the breakfast that Trintiy were giving out - and once again, this was down to poor organisation I felt.
I’m also a bit disappointed with my results at the competition, though I’m still trying to decide what all the results I was given mean. For example, prior to the quaters (I’m guessing that the tab, as it’s called, was printed up just before the quaters) myself and my partner came 51st out of 71teams. I assume that we stayed in that position as the only thing that should have changed after the tab was printed was the positions of the top 16 teams.
Yet despite our poor showing that that would seem to indicate (though we did beat half the UCC teams there - 11th out of 22 teams UCC sent), we seem to have better team speaker points than many of the teams that came above us in the tab. An example - we got 689 points (the top team got 795) yet the teams at 43rd,44th,45th and 46th all got lower than us. In fact, 46th had a speaker points of 580! So looking at this I’m choosing to take the ‘moral victory’ route - we were a better team, just against harder players.
My own tab came in at 73rd out of 142 speakers. Not too bad, though the numbers are a bit screwy as for example I’m one of 4 speakers at 73 and there no 142nd place, but there is two 141sts.. It’s a bit of a better an indication though, as this tab runs directly on how your speaker points came. I’m happy enough with my place UCC wise on this too - 16th of the 22 sent. Yet given that this was my first IV and that 10 of UCC’s speakers (all in that 16 I just mentioned) made it to the quaterfinals, I think i did ok.