Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:39:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Gary E Davis <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: HAB: Peace & Evolution This is a response to Ken, "Re: HAB: Sept. 11 and the... Habermasian project 2": Ken, I agree with your "aggressive" stance, to some degree. But I find this compatible with the tolerant stance I associate with modernity's *developmental* sense of understanding. A well-meaning sense of the world that is unacceptable by others relative to one region of its belief/norm complex of development may be acceptable in another region (epistemically unacceptable, but morally acceptable). One might respect a culture's *right* of self-determination, relative to the *developing existence* of all its various belief/norm complexes, some more acceptable to advanced perspectives than are other regions or complexes. A hallmark of progressive liberalism in the best sense is its tolerance of abstract rights (such as freedom of speech) independently of non-violent beliefs expressed rightfully. --- Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca> wrote: > At 12:52 PM 9/19/01 -0700, Gary wrote: > > >It seems clear to me that modern society has no problem letting > >Islamic fundamentalism go its own way, as long as the > fundamentalists > >don't kidnap Americans (Iran, 1979) or commit crimes against > others. > > If we consider a feminist critique of religion/patriarchy... then > 'modernity,' as Habermas presents it, is likely *fundamentally > incompatible > with nearly all religious institutions, especially those > institutions which > forbid women a position in the public sphere. Doesn't a social evolutionary approach to understanding and interpretation include religious worldviews? Of course. Forbiding women a position in public life is unacceptable, but you can't force people to grow. It's like forcing children to grow up; that's bad parenting. Growth happens, under conducive conditions, but across generations. I don't believe that the conditions of life for women under theocracy is basically a religious issue (See Martha Nussbaum, _Women & Human Development_, Cambridge UP, 2000). > A fundamentalist regime of > such quality cannot 'peacefully' coexist without 'secular' or 'modern' > interference on a continual and ongoing basis. I would tentatively > propose that the fundamentalism *cannot simply go its own way. I agree, but this "cannot" is not a matter of overtly preventing fundamentalism from following its path of development. Ironically, in social evolution, *freedom* undermines backwardness. It's like letting teenagers learn truths of life in their own time; try to control them too much, and they willfully hold to immature attitudes; give them supervised freedom, and they grow up. The "cannot" arises from the co-existence of fundamentalism IN modern life. Fundamentalism is destined to become untenable, in my view, but I'm not in support of great missionary campaigns to convince fundamentalist Muslims of this. The social evolutionary conflict of theocratic and modern aspects of life on this tiny planet is inevitable. > > >If one can be an "enemy" non-violently, then this accords with the > >humanistic ethical roots that both Islam and modernity > (Greco-Judaic > >civilization) share. > > This is highly interpretive though. I agree. > Are the 'roots' humanistic? It seems to > me this is wide open for debate, with a majority not siding with > humanism. What "majority"? All of the major religions have a humanistic ethic. But I readily grant that wide open debate applies here. Generally, I live what I'll call a hermeneutics of enkindering, rather than a hermeneutics of suspicion (suspician is a derived mode of the interest in disclosing and fostering shared belonging in a common Time of Life.) > Rome did line the streets and highways with hanging bodies after all. I referred to a "Greco-Judaic" root shared by modernity and Islam. Roman transgression is not important to a context in which Islam didn't yet exist; and Christianity was not born from a Roman ethic. Christians and Muslims are all children of Abrahamic Time in Mesopotamia, which discovered the enoblement of humanness in divine mystery (which *can* be understood postmetaphysically, as part of a shared cultural evolution). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is inclusive. Muslims who don't appreciate this yet have a happy advent awaiting them. > > >[G] They want to be left alone... > > Errr... Christianity and Islam are proselytizing traditions, are > they not? In part, I suppose. Proselytizing is part of most traditions, but not constitutive of those traditions. Isn't it the case that what's constitutive for both Christianity and Islam is one's relationship to God / Allah, not one's evangelism (which serves God among *many ways* to serve God)? Self-determination "under" God/Allah is primordial. Freedom here, relative to secular modernity (the context our shared interest in this email medium), is basically *away* from this secularity--to be "left alone" in this kind of sense, relative to secular modernity. Left to its ownmost destiny, I would say. > > I think my position is probably more 'aggressive' than Gary's. A > critical theory is intervention,... Isn't intervention supplementary to *fostering*. Again (recalling the past of *our* exchanges), emancipation serves development. Before and after emergent needs for intervention, there is the primordial desire to grow or develop. > a critique of traditions, like fundamentalist > tradition, as incompatible with the tenets of modernity. But this incompatibility is *evolutionary* in background and evolutionary in potential. The "incompatibility" of (1) preconventional and (2) postconventional understanding is inevitable-- between (1) generalized childhood (narcissism and, say, tribal society) and (2) generalized adulthood (idealized mutuality and, say, progressive organizations). > I agree that some radically different traditions can co-exist, > but this usually implicates toleration of some degree of domination. Or / And some degree of unstable immaturity (relatively speaking, always--but not relativistically! Evolution is a non-relativistic relativity, like the cosmos itself). Peace & Evolution, Gary __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? 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