Economics Without The B.S.**: Loosing Our Heads
[** Double entendre intended.]
Loosing Our Heads
The recent beheadings
from the Middle East over the past several weeks only serve to illuminate the
vast differences in our “civilized” world for expressing dissenting opinions
versus theirs. It reminds me of a point
Jacob Bronowski made in his televised series from the 1970’s ‘The Ascent Of Man’,
that we humans were not just lower than angels but also just one step above animal
behavior. However, we are, he notes, the
one animal that use our brain, we reason, use our emotional being, to not accept
things as they are, but to change.
Unlike animals, we humans have evolved not just biologically, but have
shaped our cultural evolution and thus his title to the series, The Ascent Of Man.
When President Kennedy spoke at
Houston, Texas in 1962 to explain why we are going to the Moon, he addressed
the human quest for progress that was coupled to our thirst for knowledge. As an example he boiled down human existence
to a fifty year period to explain how progress and knowledge were linked and
that most of that change had occurred quite recently giving the appearance of
rapid change.
I believe the conflict we have with the
extreme Islamic fundamentalists is basic to that rapid change of pace brought
on by technological advancement forcing change in societies not adapted to
cultural change. I do not think religion
has that much to do with it. I think the
extremists have identified Western cultures with pushing the technological
advancement and in reaction to that oppose anything “Western”. And to the extent they can use religion as a
tool for resistance they do. But I think
it is more of an Arab and Middle East problem that just Islam. After all there are plenty of Islamic people in
Asia that fit right in with the “modernized” world as well as those from the
Middle East region that have settled in the United States and live side-by-side
with others from different cultural backgrounds. And the democratic process for resolving conflict
in society does not seem to be a natural fit for an Arab culture that remains
too bound to tribal ties. And this in
spite of the wealth that has been produced in many of the Middle East states
and advanced education received by the elite and some of the middle class in
those societies.
While the beheading of Westerners
receives a great deal of attention in the Western press, there are public
beheadings by our friends the Saudis on a weekly basis. Of course when sanctioned by the State, such
an affair receives all the formality one would expect for such a ceremonial spectacle. And, unlike the recent execution of
Westerners, you can view these exhibitions on the Web – they are not removed
from viewing for their grotesqueness.
Also on the Web are video of Islamic terrorists beheading “infidels” in
less formal arrangements and with less proficient technique. But there is still a crowd gathered just like
an old time hanging in America in the 19th or 20th
Century. There is even one video of a
child being given the “honor” to do in the “infidel” and with results not
anywhere as efficient as a Saudi executioner.
One of the points that Jacob Bronowski
makes is that technological advance, inquiry, is part of the human spirit and
that intolerance is a betrayal of that basic human spirit. The arrogance that comes with dogma promotes
ignorance. In the program, Bronowski
stood at Auschwitz, where he lost members of his family, and said we have to
temper ourselves by reaching out to others – “We have to touch people.”
We have had relations with the Saudis
for many, many decades – militarily and commercially. And I am aware it is a complicated
relationship – as was testified to by several of our diplomats during the 9-11
Commission hearings. I like to think of
myself as a pragmatic ‘Realist’ rather than an ‘Idealist’ or ‘NeoCon’ when
discussing foreign policy; but, I have to think that something has failed in
the long relationship we have had with the Saudis. And I think they have been the prime
instigator in promoting extremists in Islam because of their brand of
Wahhabism, the relationship of the religious leaders with the political
leadership, and the distribution of wealth and economic opportunity within the
country. I have no idea what it would
take to bring the country into the “modern” world; but, just looking at our
part, I would think we could put more pressure on the ruling family by economic
means – and that’s keeping in mind that they initiated the Oil Embargo of 1973
which not only affected our economy but also our military readiness at that
time and they have been somewhat cooperative in our intelligence networks and
behind the scenes dealing with Israel.
It took Southern Italy a long time to
come into the “modern” world – aspects of feudalism existed right into the 20th
Century, even today. If the paganism of
Southern Italy could get enwrapped into Christianity and the Church-State relationship get realigned maybe there is a lesson
for Saudi Arabia. Let’s hope it doesn’t
take as long.
The fact that this barbarity still goes
on today reminds me of a book by Victor Davis Hanson, ‘A War Like No Other’. Hanson is a classical scholar who wrote about
the Peloponnesian War of the 5th Century B.C. between the democratic
and “civilized” Athens and the autocratic and regimented Sparta. He describes how after thirty years of
constant war, the “civilized” Athens descended into barbaric acts just as crude
as Sparta. And Hanson asks what is the
nature of man? That “civilized” man was shielded from animalistic instincts by a thin veil
that could be pierced with so little provocation.
So, when do we touch one another and
put our heads together, like at the end of the movie Rain Man, and advance
the human spirit?
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