Empire and Martyrdom: There, do I have your attention? In a slight shift from my more recent scifi-oriented posts, I'd like to share with you some books I'm reading now or have just read.
I've just finished "The History of Rome," something of a pastiche of historian Theodor Mommsen's study of the late Republic. A Christmas gift from Boudicca (now revealed as the "future Mrs. Tacitean" in her updated profile here), it focuses on the corruption of the Senatorial aristocracy that led by necessity to the rise of the "people's dictatorships" of the Gracchi and Marius and ultimately the new monarchy under Julius Caesar.
Perhaps influenced by the "great man" theory current in the late 1800s, Mommsen takes the side of Caesar and the new monarchists. Let me reprint a particularly favorable passage:
"The most remarkable peculiarity of his action as a statesman was its perfect harmony. In reality, all the conditions for this most difficult of human functions were united in Caesar... his talent for organization was marvelous. No statesman ever completed alliances, no general ever collected an army, out of such unyielding and refractory elements, and kept them together with the firmness that Caesar displayed in cementing his coalitions and his legions."
Regular readers of this blog (a veritable baker's dozen by now!) know I share the view that our own 'aristocracy 'has become corrupted. My calls for reform - term limits, redistricting, restrained spending, alternate energy development, land use reform - are in that sense conservative reforms to strengthen our Republic against any would-be Caesar by envigoring the blood of our upper reaches of government. The stranglehold of incumbents on our own representative institutions is a sign of weakness, not of strength, of our country. Caesars are always waiting in the wings.
Another book that's captured my attention right now is "Infidels" by Andrew Wheatcroft. It details the ongoing relationship and conflict between Christendom and Islam, using Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus, if you prefer), the Balkans, and the Holy Land as flashpoints along the line.
I'm really fascinated by the Andalusian chapters, because the role reversal to today could not be more striking. What to make, for example, of this passage about Christian suicides?
"But among those who deliberately sought martyrdom their denunciations of Islam were now carefully and deliberately contrived to be unpardonable. Christians desiring martyrdom now made a point of coming to the capital [Cordoba] to denounce Islam and achieve salvation. The next was a monk, Isaac, from a wealthy family, and a scholar in Arabic who had been appointed as a government secretary."
My first thought is of Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the World Trade Center attacks. Like Isaac, he was educated, of moderate means, and educated in the milieu of the dominant culture. The important point, I think, is that the dominant culture in both cases was not the culture of Isaac or Atta.
More interesting is that the dominant culture was to a large degree not fanatical. The Caliphate of Cordoba was remarkably tolerant for its day and interested more in providing good government than enforcing belief. The same could be said of modern Western culture with its emphasis on individual rights and religious liberty and a generally capitalist culture. But both societies produced the same violent reactions from outsiders.
Why? Oppression? Surely other regimes throghout history were far more oppressive, but these regimes were not met with suicides but with armed resistance. Yet the story is familiar throughout history: a multicultural and generally tolerant society creates and confronts suicidal members of "the faithful" bent on their own salvation and the society's destruction.
As opposed to my thoughts on Rome, I'm less sure when it comes to the problem of religious, suicide terrorism where the cause and effect are. What does the group think? Are multiculturalism and large, powerful nations the solution or the very problem? I realize this is a long post, but the issues here fascinate me. Thoughts?
I've just finished "The History of Rome," something of a pastiche of historian Theodor Mommsen's study of the late Republic. A Christmas gift from Boudicca (now revealed as the "future Mrs. Tacitean" in her updated profile here), it focuses on the corruption of the Senatorial aristocracy that led by necessity to the rise of the "people's dictatorships" of the Gracchi and Marius and ultimately the new monarchy under Julius Caesar.
Perhaps influenced by the "great man" theory current in the late 1800s, Mommsen takes the side of Caesar and the new monarchists. Let me reprint a particularly favorable passage:
"The most remarkable peculiarity of his action as a statesman was its perfect harmony. In reality, all the conditions for this most difficult of human functions were united in Caesar... his talent for organization was marvelous. No statesman ever completed alliances, no general ever collected an army, out of such unyielding and refractory elements, and kept them together with the firmness that Caesar displayed in cementing his coalitions and his legions."
Regular readers of this blog (a veritable baker's dozen by now!) know I share the view that our own 'aristocracy 'has become corrupted. My calls for reform - term limits, redistricting, restrained spending, alternate energy development, land use reform - are in that sense conservative reforms to strengthen our Republic against any would-be Caesar by envigoring the blood of our upper reaches of government. The stranglehold of incumbents on our own representative institutions is a sign of weakness, not of strength, of our country. Caesars are always waiting in the wings.
Another book that's captured my attention right now is "Infidels" by Andrew Wheatcroft. It details the ongoing relationship and conflict between Christendom and Islam, using Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus, if you prefer), the Balkans, and the Holy Land as flashpoints along the line.
I'm really fascinated by the Andalusian chapters, because the role reversal to today could not be more striking. What to make, for example, of this passage about Christian suicides?
"But among those who deliberately sought martyrdom their denunciations of Islam were now carefully and deliberately contrived to be unpardonable. Christians desiring martyrdom now made a point of coming to the capital [Cordoba] to denounce Islam and achieve salvation. The next was a monk, Isaac, from a wealthy family, and a scholar in Arabic who had been appointed as a government secretary."
My first thought is of Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the World Trade Center attacks. Like Isaac, he was educated, of moderate means, and educated in the milieu of the dominant culture. The important point, I think, is that the dominant culture in both cases was not the culture of Isaac or Atta.
More interesting is that the dominant culture was to a large degree not fanatical. The Caliphate of Cordoba was remarkably tolerant for its day and interested more in providing good government than enforcing belief. The same could be said of modern Western culture with its emphasis on individual rights and religious liberty and a generally capitalist culture. But both societies produced the same violent reactions from outsiders.
Why? Oppression? Surely other regimes throghout history were far more oppressive, but these regimes were not met with suicides but with armed resistance. Yet the story is familiar throughout history: a multicultural and generally tolerant society creates and confronts suicidal members of "the faithful" bent on their own salvation and the society's destruction.
As opposed to my thoughts on Rome, I'm less sure when it comes to the problem of religious, suicide terrorism where the cause and effect are. What does the group think? Are multiculturalism and large, powerful nations the solution or the very problem? I realize this is a long post, but the issues here fascinate me. Thoughts?
posted by Joshua @ 5:50 PM
1 Comments:
Kantian, you've come close to my own questions, such as they are: is "tolerant, multicultural" society an inherent contradiction and self-destructive hypocrisy?
This society is based on the remnant of a dominant ethic but more so on something of a lowest common denominator and live-and-let-live mindset that, if taken to the logical conclusion, can be hostile to anything that looks remotely like a positive statement of value or ethic.
This in itself becomes a value, with the ironic result that its practicioners don't realize it.
What happens then to those who imbibe in the minority of this dominant culture that is only strong in numbers and not in philosophy? They feel its weakness. They long for something stronger. Something radical.
How can they not feel as the wits in the Big Lebowski?
"Say what you will about the tenants of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos,"
I think our Cordoban Christians and Islamic Radicals felt much the same way and drank from the same well.
I am not against the confluence of cultures, nor do I think there is but one path to truth. I fear the "-ism" of multiculturalism precisely because it's so glib and avoids the difficult work of building a true framework for a such a society. The necessary result of its glibness is radicalism.
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