Laird wrote:
What then do you think that life is about if not trying to cultivate love for one another based on a view that everyone has an equally respectable potential?
OK this is a good question. I'll see where an attempt to respond leads.
Ok, unlike the QRS, I do believe happiness is the only worthwhile goal for humans. I don't pay much attention to the idea of promoting "love". I tend to generalise love into the domain of happiness, so, to me, what you are referring to is that it would be ideal if everyone had fairly equal opportunities for happiness. When I refer to happiness I'm talking about the long term contentedness that comes from: having freedom; intelligence; confidence; a lack of fear of others; feeling useful; having direction; earned skills; comfort and support when really needed; relaxed competition; occasional excitement; control over desires and so on.
Few of these things will come about without effort, and none will come about without having the freedom to pursue the type of effort required to obtain these "good states".
The Western world allows people the freedom to pursue contentment. It is of course still in its infancy with regard "control over desires" - and Muslims have a quite legitimate complaint or fear in this regard - but this is a problem I think we homo sapiens must "evolve through". Parts of Europe show us that contended societies that do not take actions to harm others, because they are content within themselves in the global world, are achievable.
Through technological advances very few parts of the world are isolated from other parts. At present we are just going through the pains of Old verus New for the first time as a whole-of-globe situation.
For me it is the strict subservience to traditions that causes the most group based or organised harm. Subservience to tradition can prevent whole groups from evolving in any significant way. At the individual level adherence to tradition prevents us from evolving an understanding of reality, which may eventually be essential for the long term survival of the human race.
Western technology is breeding desires for material things virtually everywhere, and this will cause increased interaction between the old and the new. Short of a Armageddon-like event, it is unstoppable. For evolutionary change to occur, the New must significantly replace the Old, it must gain power over the old. The New is not just materialism, though that is its major outcome, it is also increased freedom of speech and a wider range of generally acceptable "ways of living".
Increased freedom of speech and a wider range of generally acceptable "ways of living" are not commensurate with the Muslim religion, or for fundamentalists of any religion. While in a segregated world, individual Muslims may be able to find contentment, to obtain that good state of contentedness, that is no longer possible because it is no longer practical due to the increased level of interaction between different peoples.
When nations begin to introduce Sharia law, I fear for the human race. At present this trend to fundamentalism appears to be mainly a defence mechanism. Those in power desire to retain their power over others, so they are promoting fear and anger in their easily led sheep (the Muslim religion makes people more stupid than they should be, and stupid folk are easily led, and of course the same applies to the military breeding grounds of the southern USA). While this trend to increased fundamentalism may not last long, due to the effect of technology on peoples desires and desires are "tradition killers", it may last a lifetime or two. Still, it may cause massive wars with huge losses of life. It will certainly cause lesser wars. Importantly though it will continue the US versus THEM mentality, that causes every day pain like anger and stress, it is not just those physically harmed by conflict.
The problem with Sharia law, in an evolutionary sense, rather than my personal disgust for it, is that it codifies tradition in manner that makes it far too difficult and dangerous to question, the result being that traditions more commensurate with the middle ages, will prevail for two or three times longer than they would otherwise need to, as it will not adapt to the now globalized times. "The judgment against those who harm Allah and His Prophet is more severe -- the death penalty".
The Western world dominates the global world. Both China and India are trending to westernisation. They are becoming part of the western world by copying not just the technology but also by slowly opening up personal freedoms, differences in ideology are slowly becoming less pronounced. They are adapting, thus evolving, rather than regressing. I foresee countries under Sharia law regressing relative to the dominant western world.
In power terms, the western world is dominant by a huge factor, say 50:1. There is no question that future Muslim decendants will become westernised, it is just a question of how long it will take for each nation. The longer they take to become so, then the more pain and unnecessary harm will occur.
If I had any power, my goal would be to make Muslims westernised ASAP. There are two general ways to go about such a goal.
1. Your Method: Try and cooperate, make compromises to bring forth peace.
2. My Method: Don't make any compromises. Don’t cooperate, unless signs are in place that they are willing to cooperate by accepting secular ideologies, unless they are more open to adapt to Western ideologies.
The problem with the cooperating/compromising position in my view is that it gives legitimacy to their views, and as a result they will seek power and try and spread their religion. We see this occurring in some European countries with high levels of new Muslim populations.
To me, this method is more likely than mine to cause future lonmg term problems. For instance, if I wanted to be anti-jew for a moment, I could easily say that much of the present state of the Middle East is because the US cooperated and comprised with Jews. It did not take enough measures to force the Jews who immigrated to the US to become less Jewish, and allowed their group to slowly obtain more and more power.
I'm not anti-jew however because I admire their intelligence, adaptability and inventiveness.
Another example is the present abysmal state of aboriginal lives in Australia, which I blame on misdirected tolerance to wrongdoing by them over the last few decades. If back then we were not so tolerant, in order to appear to be non-racist and "'fair", then this current generation would be a little better off, life would be a little less painful for many of them, and as a result following generations would be even better off.
I prefer my non-compromise method, a more confrontational approach, because it forces them to adapt or die out. Of course confrontation has a lot of problems and will initially be more difficult. While I judge it is a higher risk approach for the here and now, I think it is a better approach for the longer term. This approach really just applies to Islamic nations showing signs of imperialism or regression to fundamentalism, which is quite a few, for others say like Turkey and Dubai a more cooperative style is warranted.
I am well aware that confrontation results in a hardening of resolve, particularly for the underdog. This is where the risk factor in the short term comes in. We don't want Muslim groups to become like the IRA, which under the confrontational approach is a possibility. Trouble is they already are in relation to Israel, and the spread of attacks across the globe, including verbal diarrhea from certain leaders like the Iranian president, indicates the same mentality already exists. It is true Israel has been using the confrontational approach in relation to Lebanon for some time and it doesn’t yet appear to be working. Don’t forget though that they have already tried the compromise method, and IMO that is why they have eventually been forced to retry the confrontation approach in recent years. What they did compromise with wasn't enough, no less than the eradication of the state of Israel and Jews period, would suffice. A clearly untenable sistuation for any country, let alone such an organised, capable country with a worldwide influence.
All I can say is that we must be fair and reward those who adapt their traditional ways to allow more freedom, for they will soon enough adapt to change from confrontation to cooperation. Englands reaction to the newly-cooperative IRA is a good example of being fair to a cooperative entity.
My approach would certainly lead to more frequent racist attacks and terrorism, but to me this is the price of change. It is a price I feel is justified because of the future of technology - I want the Muslim religion beaten down to a point from which it can take a new path, before WMD technology becomes readily obtainable by them. I want the world to get to a point where all Muslim countries actively desire to weed out those fanaticals capable of sponsoring WMD terrorism.
I just believe confrontation provides the circumstances where more people will be caused to face facts, their irrationality comes out into the open for public examination and discussion. Some will get worse, more hardened in their attitudes, that’s for sure, but I suspect more will get better, after all most people don't want conflict in their lives. The ones that get better, more tolerant themsleves of western ways with all its failings, then they are the one's that will influence others. In too many muslim countries such people just don't have a say.
With tolerance and compromise by the dominant group, most people will just keep doing what they have always done. They don't change at the core, as can be seen by sponsorship of terrorism from Muslims in western countries. That the weaker must submit to the stronger is just a law of nature to me. The weaker can only damage or beat the stronger, if the weaker finds a method to damage vital points by catching the stronger unawares, or in purely physical terms a weaker force must have a causal pattern that disrupts the weak links in the dominant internal balances of the stronger entity. In my book, the weak link in my country is those who take tolerance and equality to be some sort of gospel that must be followed. It is those I am really attacking when I express my disgust for those desiring tolerance of the Muslims, as thats about all I can influence.
