The Death Rattle Gets Louder

Culture, Civilization and Modernity

The noise in the Middle East continues to get louder. Faced with continued instability in Iraq, a scary and intransigent Iran, and now an aggressive Hezbollah, it is tempting to lose confidence in our mission. Or even to forget what that mission is.

Many people – especially those lacking imagination – hear the noise and think it represents the ruckus of a growing and confident power. It isn’t. It is the death rattle of the last remaining medieval civilization.

That is what we are dealing with right now. It is wrong to speak of the enemy as Islamo-fascism. Fascism is a product of modern times and modern thinking. The Islamists themselves never use such words to describe their cause. No, they speak of former – medieval – glories lost. Glories to be regained through jihad. They speak in terms of crusades and caliphates and emirs and ayatollahs.

At some level all civilizations are resistant to change. Even those based on an underlying vision of change and progress – such as European Christianity – do not fare particularly well when dealing with large magnitude paradigm shifts . The religious wars of the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as the revolutionary mayhem of the 19th Century were reflections of western culture struggling to adapt to change. Despite these rough times, modernity won out, and the modern world is pretty much defined by the accomplishments and worldview of western Judeo-Christian civilization.

Some other civilization, such as Buddhist and Hindu-oriented Asian cultures tend to be more circular in focus. They tend to be very adaptable to new conditions, and eagerly seek out and apply new knowledge. But without a hard-wired sense of progress they tend to not be terribly good at creating paradigmatic change. These civilizations we have seen adopt to modernity with gusto after some initial resistance (e.g. Japan’s East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere prior to WWII).

There are other cultures never quite got to the point of being coherent civilizations at all. For a variety of historical and geographical reasons they rarely managed to organize themselves beyond the tribal level, and never were able to convert norms and customs to widespread or lasting institutions. When faced with modernity these cultures do not fare well. The best example today is sub-Saharan Africa. Successful adaptation to modernity requires that you be more than tribal. Most of Africa isn’t, and the result is a bunch of largely dysfunctional and internally disrupted nations. Ironically, European imperialism lent many of these nations a starter civilization that they could have used to bridge to modernity, but in the rush to dispose of imperialistic leftovers many of Africa’s tinpot wannabe dictators gladly cut their only link. While the result is sad and often tragic, at least Africans aren’t responding to this sad state by flying airplanes into buildings or sending suicide bombers into other nation’s markets.

But the Islamists do. Because they had a robust civilization of their own. Islam was founded as a tribal religion. But perhaps its greatest material success was to provide a tool for knitting together a true civilization out of disparate tribal cultures. It conquered largely by the sword, but then it fused its adherents into a defined and distinct medieval culture. At the time of its ascendancy it was perhaps the most robust and vigorous civilization in the world.

The problem was that it had no internal toolkit for change. It did not have the circular neutrality of the Orient. It did not have the eschatological progressivism of the occident. It was pretty much hard-wired for a specific time and place. As world culture (driven by western civilization) began to outpace that time and place, Islamic civilization began to look more and more backward, dysfunctional and ill at ease. Because it had no organic institutional ability to reconcile with modernity, it faced two choices: surrender or fight back. Most of the world’s Muslims are in the progress of surrendering. They are learning how to gracefully coexist with modernity, and are slowly synthesizing their cultural institutions with western civilizational norms (treatment of women being an excellent example).

But a sizable minority of Muslims is not willing to let go of their civilization – which is usually represented by their religion. These are the Islamists. They glory in reinforcing those parts of their civilization that are antithetical to modernity. Like cornered badgers they snarl and lunge and draw blood and have the potential to kill. The more cornered they get the louder they snarl and the more vicious they become. One does not treated a cornered badger lightly. One does treat him firmly, and with patience and resolve.

And that is what we must do. We must remember that we represent the forces of civilization, of progress, of modernity. Clearly and unequivocally we are the good guys. Then we must figure out the best tactical approach to dealing with this beast. Do we pull out our gun and charge, knowing that if we miss him he will be at our throat? Or do we keep slowly backing him into the corner until he collapses under his own stress? Those are the questions that deserve a robust debate. But we must realize that we cannot make him what he is not.

The Islamists have chosen their path. They will not change. They cannot win.

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