And now for something completely different. Matthew Maly writes in with a fascinating and challenging essay about Islam, civil society, Iraq, Western Civilisation, American politics, Jennifer Lopez, the fixed quantity of wealth fallacy, strange Shiite self-flagellation, tribesman with no clothes… well, about all those things and much, much more. Whether you agree with the general thrust of it or not, it is very interesting stuff
Having bombed some mosques, George W. Bush has built a Protestant mosque at Abu-Ghraib prison. Here, the Iraqi Moslems are taught that pork may be good for them and that the teachings of the Holy Koran are supposed to be subordinated to the teachings of Democracy, as represented by handpicked Iraqi exiles protected by American armor.
As many people before him with a gleam in their eye and fervor in their speeches, George W. Bush wanted to do good. As many revolutionaries before him he fell victim to technology, too awesome to reveal its implications.
Technology as the main cause of revolutions
Martin Luther, George W. Bush’s intellectual predecessor, correctly sensed that thanks to improved manufacturing processes, people were becoming economically independent. They no longer wished to be led blindly, to be told to behave “just so” without being given a reason that they could intellectually accept. People were becoming literate, able to read the Bible by themselves, and to think about their lives in a more rational way. The Germans, British, and Dutch did not speak a Romance language, and now they wanted church services in their own language since they simply did not understand Latin. Suddenly, they had become mature enough to want their Mass to be more meaningful, that is, understandable, to them. And when the language of the Mass became an issue, there were other matters to discuss. The Catholic Church failed to account for the social change that manufacturing brought about, and Germanic peoples turned Protestant as a result. The French, Italians, Spanish, and Portuguese remained Catholic, since a Latin Mass was understandable to them. Thus the Protestant revolution reflected the fact that manufacturing technology had made people more self-sufficient, able to read and to think for themselves. The twentieth century saw several totalitarian revolutions, precipitated by an incorrect understanding of industrial technology. God of the Bible created everything to be unique: a Man, a Woman, the Sun, and the Earth. Ford created a Model T, and these cars were leaving the factory gates all exactly the same, 60 an hour, all painted black. The only inefficient and unpredictable part of the assembly line was the human.
Russia and Germany lost WWI, and thus had a reason to believe that the God of the Bible had failed them. But there was a new god: the Machine Tool. This new god created everything that constituted the world of a twentieth century European. A modern man no longer sees a starry sky: he sees the roof of his car, as he is completely surrounded by Machine Tool products. Shoes and shirts, tanks and bombs – everything is produced by the Machine Tool, and the shared virtues of all of these products are sameness and predictability. Moreover, these products are all inanimate. A Machine Tool, great and miraculous as it is, does not create cats. But if the world produced by the Machine Tool is inanimate, where does it leave humans?
If you worship the Machine Tool, it is logical to see humans as woefully imperfect, a product that needs to be recalled and recast, but to do that to all people is impractical. Thus, some types of people need to be proclaimed as being better than others, imperfect, but closer to the ideal. Hitler thought that the Aryans were the best, and there was a very convincing reason: some of them were proclaimed to have a ‘proportional’ skull, clearly a step in the right direction, especially if you think like a primitive, early 20th century machine tool. Since a curved nose was harder to manufacture, a good human had to have a straight nose; and the rest of his head was covered best by a steel helmet. Non-Aryan humans, thought Hitler, were only good to make soap or lampshades out of. Stalin was of a slightly different opinion. He thought that workers were best because they served the Holy Machine Tool, and capitalists were worst because they clamed to own It, blasphemously putting themselves above the Holy Mechanical Creator.
Hitler’s idea was, let us just say ‘purely theoretical’ because there were no Aryans and skull proportions had nothing to do with anything. Hitler himself certainly was not an ‘Aryan’ type. Stalin’s idea was purely theoretical as well. While claiming that workers were valuable and had advanced knowledge in the form of a revolutionary theory, Stalin very much liked to clean minefields by making thousands of workers run over them.
What we have here is technology incorrectly understood. Yes, a Machine Tool can make products fast and efficiently, but it is not God the Creator. God is a Spiritual Being, and since every Human has a soul, each Human is infinitely valuable.
Hitler and Stalin thought that they were on the forefront of progress, that their actions were dictated by modern scientific and technical knowledge, and yet, the reality was exactly the opposite: they were guilty of unprecedented barbarity. And in their barbarity, they were indeed helped by technology, as Auschwitz was much more efficient in killing than a medieval three-day rampage in a sacked city.
Millions of people whose lives were touched by industrial technology followed the teachings of Hitler or Stalin and saw them as progressive simply because these people also misunderstood the implications of industrial technology.
Thus, we should always keep in mind that technology may have its dangers. If you see Iraq on TV a few times and suddenly feel that you understand the Iraqis, technology has let you down. And this does not mean that a TV in itself is bad: it simply means that it has not been given a proper place in your decision-making process and in your worldview.
Technology comes into our lives as a neat plaything, and then has a tendency to surreptitiously cause major negative results in unexpected places. A Machine Tool is much better in producing household goods than a medieval manufacturer. But that does not mean that people need to be ‘recast’ (to use a communist expression) or sent to Auschwitz.
When television was invented, it was not immediately clear that the entire nation would grow obese and stupid glued to the 24 hour sports channel and that the President would decide to invade a very distant and a very dissimilar country after having seen it on TV. When airplanes were not available we had much more respect for distant places, but now we can unwrap a piece of chewing gum, push a launch button, and a missile will obliterate a city while the gum is still sweet in our mouth. That’s too fast.
But it was not the TV that caused our President to make a hasty decision. The technology that misled him is far more basic and far more powerful: it is the social technology of win/win, a supreme and uniquely American invention.
Win/win vs. lose/lose
People have always thought that resources are scarce, and that therefore there is a need to fight over them. Every transaction had a winner and a loser, and there were such prohibitive transaction costs that, in the long term, both sides of the transaction were losers. If we determine, after a bloody fight, who is the slave and who is the master, we see that a slave loses because he does not get a fair payment for his labor, while the master loses in terms of productivity and personal security in comparison with the situation when a hired laborer gets compensated fairly.
America was built on a win/win principle of liberty and justice for all, and slowly but surely incorporated under this principle those groups that had been placed outside win/win. And it was done not out of the goodness of anyone’s heart, but because win/win really is what it claims to be, i.e. profitable for all. America is a country where everybody could come and become a citizen, where everyone could own land, where every race and every creed was eventually incorporated – and this is the source of America’s great strength.
By comparison, today 10% of French citizens are Muslim, and yet no national politician and not one Mayor is Muslim. Since Rwanda is populated by two major tribes, it is natural for Rwandans to think that this is one tribe too many, an idea that caused a million deaths during a period of three months. The world is moving towards win/win, but it is not there yet.
The problem with George W. Bush’s policy in Iraq is that he assumed that the idea of win/win has been accepted everywhere and that people strive to build a win/win society. But it is not true. Yanomami people, hunters-gatherers who live in the Amazon rain forest, wear no clothes, and yet, it does not mean that they want a Brooks Brothers suit. This is not to say, I hasten to clarify, that a Brooks Brothers suit is bad, it simply means that the Yanomami do not want it. And it is wrong to assume that the word ‘Yanomami’ stands for “have not got a credit card”, “nudist” or “I’d rather dress casually”, as it actually means human being. An important lesson here: no suit, and yet people still consider themselves human beings, with a clear idea as to how they should live and what to wear. It is likely that Yanomami will offer strong resistance to the idea of wearing a suit, no matter how good it is.
Does it mean that America should abandon the rest of the world to its own devices? No, it does not mean that. But American intervention should be gradual, respectful, cooperative, and clearly beneficial.
The last condition is the most important one, because the win/win system that we are trying to impose is very threatening and disruptive. Look, since there are no losers under a win/win interaction, it follows that there are no winners as well (a winner being someone who won over someone else); and if there are no winners it follows that all participants in a win/win interaction are losers. So, by offering a win/win system we are in fact offering to turn everyone into a loser, and people do not want that! Since I know I may have caused your head to spin, let me try again. Who is the winner in a win/win interaction? One party of the interaction has improved his situation over what it was before, that is, he is a winner over himself as he was prior to the interaction. And so are the other participants: they used to be worse off, now they are better off, so they are winners.
But this is not how the world defines a win! For a winner to be declared there needs to be a bloodied loser, or else it is not a win. A winner is defined as someone who defeated some other person.
America says, “Today you ran a hundred meter dash faster than yesterday, so you are a winner. You combated your inner resistance and won over yourself”. The rest of the world says. “You are not a winner unless you run faster than others. Tie their legs, steal their running shoes, poison them, scare them so that they won’t run!”
Win/win thus is a great challenge. There is nothing harder than to overcome yourself, and if you fail, you have nobody else to blame. Also, there is nobody to lord over and nobody’s suffering to see; here the question is, “If so, from what do you derive pleasure?” Win/win is a dictatorship of opportunity (which is limitless) over ability (which is limited, if not severely limited). Win/win is a cruel society that recognizes talent, and thus exists for the benefit of (a few) talented people, causing great suffering to the rest of us, should (and this is very important) we choose to become envious.
Take Jennifer Lopez as an example. She poses in a bikini, she sings, she has a thriving career and earns millions. What an affront to those who cannot pose in a bikini and can’t sing! Jennifer should wear a long black robe that hides the forms, cover her face, she should not talk unless spoken to, and spend her days serving tea to her husband. Now, that would be a boon to the millions of women whose bodies are not that shapely, so lose/lose has a point here.
Lose/lose gives the people the right they cherish most: the right to blame others for their own failure, and people are willing to fight and die for this right. Take the profession of composing music. There once was a Mozart, and now the challenge is to write something that Mozart would approve of. Shostakovich is one of very few composers who accomplished that. It is the same with poetry. There once was a Shakespeare, so now you need Anne Sexton or Robert Frost. But who could rise to such heights? Very few people. Lose/lose offers a solution. Get a set of drums, find a rhyme to the word “motherfucka” – and a rapper is born. Why take the profession of musician away from the masses?
We see that win/win is actually a dictatorship of those who can over those who cannot. Scarier still, it is a dictatorship of who I should be over who I am. When you are on a tennis court with Venus Williams, you know you have no chance of winning. But lose/lose is a democracy: when you wrap women head to toe, all of them are equally attractive.
Now, what does America try to impose on the Iraqis? Does America want to grant the Iraqis new opportunities (that they may not be ready to take advantage of) or does America want to take away their cherished excuse for failing to succeed?
It is a beautiful day in Iraq, and Shiites are gathering to honor their Prophet. They march down the street beating themselves with bunches of bicycle chains, pounding their chests, screaming. And then an American soldier comes up to them saying, “Why are you flagellating yourselves? Look, your backs are black and blue, you are bleeding. How will you go to work tomorrow? Let’s go watch some baseball, listen to music, try to meet girls in a bar.” There is a huge miscommunication here.
Americans live their lives hoping that things will get better, but people in the Third World live their lives hoping things will not get worse. America has good intentions, but for the Iraqis it would take a total change in perception to recognize them as such.
George W. Bush’s America is too good for the world, but unfortunately we cannot live elsewhere, so the situation calls for some tactical display of modesty, or else the world will conclude that Americans are too stupid to see the rest of the world for what it is.
Interesting analysis, but over-simplistic & dualistic (suggesting the US has a monopoly on the win-win mentality, & that everywhere else is predominantly lose/lose; both blatant falsehoods), & he annoyed me by portraying rap music as a product of lose/lose; it’s easy to dismiss artforms you clearly know little about, & it makes his reasoning suspect in my eyes, as it taints the whole article with a “I will define what is win/win and what is lose/lose according to what i like and dislike”.
Agreed, it makes far more sense to criticize rap for its misogonystic, defeatist violent lyrics than to dismiss it out of hand as a ‘failed art form’…
Have to agree w/ his basic point, tho – for “democracy” to “take hold” and “work” in many 2nd and most 2rd world states requires a thourough paradigm shift.
Not that there aren’t plenty of people in THIS country that are addicted to thier excuses for failure, and others who have made a life work of suporting them in failure, and keeping them in failure.
WTF?
Thank you for sharing your discovery of Matthew Maly with us, but would you please add a link to the article itself? Otherwise we would have to take your word for it. The strength of blogs is their links (and sometimes their comments;=))
Paco that line got me too. I notice he didn’t bother to mention that these Mosques were being used by terrorists to shoot at American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
His win/win analogy is flawed since he seems to believe that only the US believes in it. It also would have helped if he was clear about what type of rap he was refering to. He clearly believes all rap is gangsta and its ilk, forgetting the likes of De La Soul and similar trip-hop groups.
How can he prove that tribesman would not want a suit? When mentioning Hitler he seems to forget that the NAZI movement grew out of the “back to nature” movement in Germany and Austria.
And to further hurt this piece’s credibility he mentions J Lo.
Overall its not well written and its basic points don’t make much sense.
I agree with Paco – the first sentence of the main body of the post pretty much killed my interest. The US has gone far, far out of its way to AVOID bombing mosques that have been converted to military use. Abu Ghraib as a Protestant mosque? I dunno about you, but what went on there one day last November has nothing to do with the flavors of Baptist and Lutheran with which I am acquainted. Pork at Abu Ghraib? WTF? This reads like typical BUSHITLER LIED propaganda.
The stuff on win/win v. win/lose – thus far, the entire social experiment of capitalism and free societies is based on the win/win concept. It has proven successful in head-to-head competition with win/lose thinking. The fact that there are slow learners in the world, as well as those invested in their current, inferior societal setups, shouldn’t shock.
OT but related: US internet retailer now largest employer in Afghanistan:
Capitalism Saves Afghan Women
I’m glad you have quashed that whole optimistim thing you had going on Friday!
I lost it with the Arian/Aryan typo. The Arian Heresy and the Nazi “Aryan” mythology were quite different.
Editors note: Ah, the joy of spell checkers… duly corrected
“It also would have helped if he was clear about what type of rap he was refering to. He clearly believes all rap is gangsta and its ilk, forgetting the likes of De La Soul and similar trip-hop groups.”
Glad some people are onside on that one, though I’d argue that moral “good” has little to do with artistic talent or merit. Sounds very much like the early ’90s NME view, which led me to buy a number of otherwise-terrible-but-worthy records, before I remembered the Devil has (most of) the best tunes.
If morality did impart quality, Cliff Richard would automatically be better than the Rolling Stones. Much ‘gangsta’ rap is rubbish; negative to the core, & with no redeeming virtue, but the same could be said of many gangster movies. Does the fact that bad gangster movies exist mean that the Godfather films are no longer worthwhile? Does the fact that some artistically worthwhile movies paint a distinctly amoral or appealing portrait of crime or misogyny mean that they are now worthless? (on the rap front, listen to Notorious B.I.G. for example, for distinctly amoral, but artistically utterly astounding rhyming… others worth mentioning: (early) NWA, Wu Tang, Mobb Deep).
Also, far from being Lose/Lose in it’s mentality, much of even the worst rap is very much win/win; tales of starting from poverty, deciding to win no matter what the cost and celebrating the fruits of winning. Much of the bitching about today’s hiphop from the old school concentrated on the ‘bling’ aspect; the celebration of material success & individualistic entrepreneurship above more traditional social values.
ah, andrew dodge being his usual graceless oafish self i see (as seen in ‘dodge sucks, version 2’). i thought the article was interesting and i had no problem following the arguments, most of which make perfect sense.
anonymous coward: There is no link to an article, he just e-mailed what he wrote to us as you see it.
I would like to thank everyone who posted a comment about my piece. Many comments are very critical: people find my writing to be unbalanced. And they are right: it is unbalanced, and there are two reasons for that.
First, disclaimers and qualifiers make it much harder to say anything worth thinking about. This helps those who have nothing much to say to publish lots of stuff. As a result, we are bogged down in “niceties” and cannot solve anything. Declaration of Independence was very unbalanced; it greatly offended the British King.
Many people came to the defense of rap. I treat rap with respect, as I define it as last cries of people who are being exterminated, exterminated before our very eyes, while we pretend not to notice. Since “balanced” writing often succeeds in covering up the reality, I tend to view it as criminal, not actually nice at all. It is easy to claim that you love “African-American culture” if you do not live in a ghetto.
Also, I view my readers as emotionally strong and highly intelligent. If I say something stupid, they would reject it, and no damage will be done. I do not need to chew your food before putting it in your mouth: I love extra-spicy Thai food and so should you. If that offends you, copy this e-mail address info@matthew-maly.ru and put this as your message: “Matthew Maly, what a moron you are! Hate your guts!” And I will treat it as a great compliment, because all I want is to make you take a position.
Second reason why I am unbalanced is a personal one. I complained to the US Department of State that a US-financed program to covert Soviet producers of weapons of mass destruction was being plagued by gross mismanagement. I was immediately blacklisted. I forced them to conduct an Audit; they made IRS freeze my accounts for seven months “because 68 is greater than 72”. I forced them to conduct another Audit that finally proved my allegations; by that time I was described by a newspaper as “homeless” and “penniless” and photographed in front of all my stuff stored in cardboard boxes. The program I complained about is now closed, having lost its entire $67M grant and having converted nothing. I have two small children; why am I being assassinated by this Administration for having told the truth, for trying to save the program when there was still time to do so? Weapons of mass destruction are supposed to be important: we are at war with people who try to get their hands on them. You may read all about it here http://nunn-lugar.com/def/ So, yes, I am unbalanced by this episode, and since I am trying to write from the heart, it shows. My piece was written by someone who is in pain, and I apologize to those who were made uncomfortable by that. I simply tried to save your families from a threat of weapons of mass destruction.
Matthew Maly
http://matthew-maly.ru
http://nunn-lugar.com/def/
“Look, since there are no losers under a win/win interaction, it follows that there are no winners as well (a winner being someone who won over someone else); and if there are no winners it follows that all participants in a win/win interaction are losers. So, by offering a win/win system we are in fact offering to turn everyone into a loser, and people do not want that! ”
I managed, with great difficulty and effort, to read about half way through, up to this sentence, but this sentence broke me. A person who writes such sentences cannot have anything valuable or coherent to say.
So the only puzzle is why the editors of this august blog dedicated so much space to these ramblings.
Because Matthew makes some interesting points and I wanted something, well, different. As anyone who has read a fair number of my articles will know, I certainly do not agree with many of Matthew’s views but agreement with me is not the criterion for us publishing something… and anyway, I think some of his arguments are spot on. I found it interesting, so I put it up. No regrets.
“I managed, with great difficulty and effort, to read about half way through, up to this sentence, but this sentence broke me. A person who writes such sentences cannot have anything valuable or coherent to say.”
It is a valuable point: Envy, or “Justice”, or whatever you choose to call it is a powerful force in human nature. Humans compete, and in competition, unlike cooperation, there can only be winners if there are also losers.
Bits and pieces of insight, glued together with poor logic and — as the author comments above — a huge emotional issue with the US government on another topic.
There may indeed have been some naivete at work in the last few years, but on the whole I think the Bush administration is pretty hard-headed about the short-term resistance it faces. In the longer term, well … as Geo. Bernard Shaw pointed out, it is the demands and aspirations of the unreasonable person on which hinges all real progress.
I have a little first hand experience in the Middle East and, as a woman doing business there, understand the depth of cultural difference. I think it’s important that the US indeed stand up and push for serious change, for the well-being both of us and of the people there.
Re: bombing mosques, give me a break.
Perry,
That Iraqis have a different culture and mentality compared to, say, Americans – that goes without saying, that is a trivial point.
That therefore Iraqis enjoy beeing tortured and murdered en masse by a maniac tyrant and his sons – that does not follow from the first statement.
As to the win-win babble: who is trying to impose a “win-win” whatever on Iraqis ? As far as I understand – a regime in Iraq that doesn’t attack it’s neighbours (that’s a lose-lose thing or what?) and doesn’t murder its own citizens (that is, not by the thousands) will make everyone, most of all Bush, very happy. Nobody’s trying to impose any culture change.
“America has good intentions, but for the Iraqis it would take a total change in perception to recognize them as such.”
A great majority of Iraqis aren’t as dumb as they are depicted here. They know what they were saved from, and by whom. This writer is totally incoherent.
It is rather the Western Left for whom “it would take a total change in perception to recognize [the American good intentions] as such.”
Thought provoking. Well done for putting it up Perry, it may be wrong-headed in parts but it was also good in other parts. I’m all for new thinking- it’s how we learn.
“Look, since there are no losers under a win/win interaction, it follows that there are no winners as well (a winner being someone who won over someone else); and if there are no winners it follows that all participants in a win/win interaction are losers.”
I would like to comment on that because this is a key point. There are two ways of looking at things. There is a win/win way, as when a willing buyer gets something at a fair price. Both the seller and the buyer benefit; end of story. Some oriental sellers are willing to greatly decrease their volumes of sales in exchange for great pleasure of selling something for five times the price, once a week. “Here goes an idiot who overpaid!”, now that’s the pleasure. A boxing match also has a goal of causing maximum suffering, even though it seems that a mutual pain minimization pact is in order.
Please understand that there are people who have not learned to derive any pleasure (or benefit they care about) from win/win interaction, but are accustomed to derive pleasure from someone else’s suffering and pain.
Look, the system we are trying to impose on Iraq is a system of justice and fairness!! Please understand how enormously threatening this is! If I cannot discriminate against Carl Lewis it means he is going to run a 100 meter dash much faster than I will, and I will be the loser!
I started my article by saying “having bombing some mosques…” My mistake. Bush has “bombed” them all, because they used to justify injustice, and now they can’t. What do you mean by “women’s equality”? Do you mean women will be allowed to see me for what I am, barely educated bazaar seller? I cannot afford that, because I am not a Harvard grad.
Or let me try another tack. You may feel that people strive to improve themselves, and yet you may smoke, overeat, watch too much baseball, etc., even though you know that this is bad for you. Bad, but comfortable. And would you want 82nd airborne to invade your home to make you quit smoking cold turkey? No, you would not want that.
All I said is the following: “You cannot assume that everyone would immediately enthusiastically embrace win/win. It took Europeans centuries to more or less do so. Look, only 60 years ago today Hitler was still alive and Auschwitz was working around the clock! By invading Iraq the US undertook a historic mission that is much harder to accomplish than Bush thinks or represents. People see fair competition as threatening unless they are equipped to compete.” And that brings us back to the title of the article, which was “George W. Bush: Martin Luther for the Islamic world”
Matthew Maly
http://matthew-maly.ru
“Look, the system we are trying to impose on Iraq is a system of justice and fairness!! ”
That’s nonesense.
What we are trying to impose on them is not atacking neighbors, not starting wars that cuase a million deaths, not to gas Kurds and Iranians, not to feed people into shredders, not to snatch brides wrom their wedding and rape them and murder them.
Do you thing that brutal murder and atrocities are such a fundamental part of their culture that banning it is too strong a medicine ? What nonesense!
Having such a lunatic as Saddam as leaders is what these people desire and are content with ?
Saddam was a mad anomaly, just like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin. He was not part of a “culture”.
Getting rid of such madmen is not a culture clash, not a historical reform.
This win-win lose-lose talk holds no water, is vacuous, and empty.
In a free society nobody is compelled to compete. He who wants, does. Everybody is completely free to do whatever he likes.
I must disagree Jacob. This is really just Matthew’s idiosyncratic way of describing what is one of the most pernicious fallacies of all… the fixed quantity of wealth fallacy. Collectivism of all sorts collapses intellectually when people understand that economies actually create wealth rather than just moving around a fixed amount of it. And in fact, this fallacy is replicated on so many levels that it would be no exaggeration to describe there as being a ‘fixed quantity of happiness’ fallacy with all the ghastly social implications that brings. On that issue, what Matthew is saying is far from empty.
Perry,
“one of the most pernicious fallacies of all… the fixed quantity of wealth fallacy. ”
This is indeed a very common fallacy, by I think Matthew knows better. He says : “…win/win really is what it claims to be, i.e. profitable for all. …”
So what is this “win/win lose/lose” idea ?
I think it refers to another fallacy – the equalitarian fallacy, the notion that all men are equal, or should be equal, or will revolt if face of inequality. He seems to say that since win/win situations create inequality, with some people doing better than others – some people and some cultures prefer an equalitarian outcome even if it menas equal poverty for all. (burkas).
See this sentence: “. When you are on a tennis court with Venus Williams, you know you have no chance of winning. But lose/lose is a democracy: when you wrap women head to toe, all of them are equally attractive.”
Equalitarianism is a powerful theory with many adherents, but it surely is not unique to Arab or Muslim cultures. In fact, I don’t think they are equalitarian at all, that is, this notion is as alien to them as the win/win (capitalism) notion. Even more so, if you consider that Arabs are a nation of astute traders, not only shepherds, so many of them know something about capitalism.
Mtthew’s analysis isn’t correct.
ah, andrew dodge being his usual graceless oafish self i see (as seen in ‘dodge sucks, version 2’). i thought the article was interesting and i had no problem following the arguments, most of which make perfect sense.
Posted by snide
Graceless and oafish eh? How very droll.
Snide hiding behind a nickname is very brave of you. At least I have the courage to put my real name to what I write. When you have written a book that gets praised by Madsen Pirie and Ted Nugent, amoungst others, then we can talk. Until then, crawl back into whatever cravass you emerged from and fester.
I had no problem following the arguments; its just most of them weren’t very good.
Furthermore,
Saying that the lose/lose equalitarian ideology is at the heard of Arab muslim culture is outright risible, given all the Sheikdoms and princes and royalty which are abundant in the region.
Sorry Jacob but that remark means exactly nothing unless you explain what you mean. That a self-perpetuating elite dominates a region proves what exactly?
That “lose/lose”, or forced equalitarianism, isn’t part of the distinct culture of the Arab world.
Matthew’s thesis was that Bush is trying to impose on them a “win/win” culture which breeds inequality, as some acheive more than others, while the Arab culture prefers ‘lose/lose” – equality, imposed by force (all to wear burkas).
That’s not true. Equality (by force) is the mantra of Western Leftists, it’s not part of Arab culture. There is no equality in Arab lands.
“That a self-perpetuating elite dominates a region proves what exactly?”
That arabs are a docile people, traditionally respectful of authority, respectful of tribal structures, not independent minded.
Mtthew’s analysis is not relevant to Iraq.
President Bush said that Iraqi regime was terrible and that Saddam was a butcher.
I agree.
Bush removed Saddam from power.
I am very glad about that; I fear that it is not an end of story, but I am happy to see the killers dead or brought to justice.
Bush said that democracy, rule of law, and free enterprise are good.
I could not agree more.
Bush said that since democracy, rule of law, and free enterprise are good, Iraqis have got to love them, and will enthusiastically embrace them.
I disagree. And here is my reason: people choose what’s good for them and for others, when they are ready to succeed. But when people are not ready to succeed, they actively wish others to fail (so that their lack of success will be seen as “success” in comparison) and they actively seek excuses for their own failure.
Let me give this example. Oxford University is very good. It is prestigious, increases one’s earnings, and promises an interesting job. Suppose that as of today every high school graduate can go to Oxford for free. Will they? No, they won’t. There are several reasons for that:
Some are morons and they know that.
Some do not have a mental image of them as successful.
Some resent “success”, because they see it as unattainable for themselves.
Some have a different definition of success, and hope to act in pornographic films.
In a word, I say to Bush, “Just because it is good, it does not mean that people want it; in fact, people are known to resolutely reject what is good in favor of whatever is bad, and defend this bad with all their might. Look, in Britain you can learn Chinese cooking, or recite poetry, find true love, or help the children do homework. But what do people actually do? They drink as much beer as they can hold, and then watch football.
What helps them in this horrendous failure? A theory that the bad is actually good. We hear that alcohol makes people “friendlier”, and that there is nothing as important as football. Iraqis also have elaborate theories why their bad is good, and these theories happen to be the foundation of their lives.
Now, making people choose the good is a very noble undertaking, but it is very difficult and very intrusive. If you disagree with me, just list your bad habits and stop them today.
Now, the idea that just because Mr. Bush thinks that someone is bad, he has a license to make him good is a very far-reaching and disruptive idea. First, turning bad into good is not that easy. Secondly, I do not trust Mr. Bush’s judgment, or do not see him as good.
The coalition is now in charge of Iraq, and needs to transform it into a “better Iraq”. All that I was trying to say was that it would be a very difficult task, and Bush is wrong when he dismisses this aspect of the situation, blaming violence and resistance on “outsiders”. Going to bed now would be good for my five year old daughter, but she is violently opposing this idea nonetheless.
Matthew Maly
http://matthew-maly.ru
“All that I was trying to say was that it would be a very difficult task, and Bush is wrong when he dismisses this aspect of the situation, blaming violence and resistance on “outsiders”. ”
Absolutely correct, like the rest of this comment. I don’t think the problem in Iraq is mainly with outsiders, though neighboring regimes (Iran and Syria) surely are very active in supporting the terrorist gangs.
Did Bush think that once Saddam was out of the way – liberal democracy will instantly bloom in Iraq ? If he thought that he is wrong, but I don’t think he did.
Does Bush want to install in Iraq a liberal-democratic regime ? He says so in every speech, even today in Istambul. That’s nice rhetoric, but in life you make compromises. I think he would settle for a regime that is tolerably decent, i.e. not too oppressive, not rabidly anti American, and not aggressive, and not suportive of terrorism. For example – Egypt. Far from ideal, but if Iraq had a regime like Egypt’s there would not have been an invasion.
You can criticize Bush’s rhetoric, but even if liberal democracy will not be possible in Iraq, the main reasons for the invasion: to remove a menace, and to liberate the Iraqis, stand.
You say: Iraqis don’t want democracy – we know it’s good for them, but they don’t want it. Maybe. Some want, some don’t. It’s a struggle whose outcome is unclear. But it doesn’t follow that they want a militant, aggressive, terror supporting regime or that the choice is either US style democracy or mad mullah stile terror mongering.
The aim of the invasion was mainly to induce Arab rulers to behave, by showing them that some activities will cause their downfall. But talking about bringing freedom and democracy to the ME makes nice rhetoric.
Nice rhetoric is not the same as lying. Rhetoric and appearences are important. Promoting the idea of democracy is worth doing even if it’s difficult to acheive soon.
If you criticize Bush for having unrealistic and unacheivable goals, and not understanding the difficulties in Iraq, you misunderestimate him.
There are very few who understand the nature of the Iraq enterprise…It’s hard for most who simply can’t break out of the psychosis that America is there to win (or possibly lose).
Not the case, in my opinion. As in Viet Nam, this is an event that shifts economic and social balances…. Neither for any one country’s populace or another…but for entities working the system. The sovereignty aspect no longer matters to those on the world’s “grid”.
Bush declared, “Mission accomplished” on a carrier a while ago when the destabilization occurred. That WAS a victory for his interests but not understood by many. People keep looking for the old films. He had cut the power supplies.
It’s a lot like the casino business in which I’ve had experience. There are the outward goals of entertainment which are satisfied by the adrenaline rush, the colors, sounds, other customers, alcohol, music…they give a value while the house shaves all over the place on their costs. Your modern casino keeps inventing new games that enhance the illusion of victory. We ignore the obvious. It’s a game we all play with ourselves just to have a good time. The reality is this: 67 dollars per customer on average (1999 Atlantic City numbers).
In war, the reality either intoxicates or disgusts those who live it first hand because we are human beings. It makes warriors or pacifists out of all of us, and we are all traumatized…thus vulnerable. You are either with us or against us is powerful hypnosis. It’s like the old saying, “There are two sides to every issue”. But even a coin has three sides (surfaces).
Never believe that the Bush enclave is dumb. This is the modern extension of Leo Strauss. “The bitch that gave birth to Hitler is still in heat”, someone once said.