Books reviews, current events, and other musings

Texas Republicans are looking into hiring bounty hunters to return the Democratic senators to Texas (from Talking Point Memo). In response,

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson vowed that state police here would arrest and charge with attempted kidnapping anyone who tried to remove the Senate refugees.

And he also indicated that authorities here might consider filing conspiracy to kidnap charges against those who might send the bounty hunters here, according to several of the legislators who spoke with Richardson, a Democrat.

Politics is getting worse and worse in this country. I wonder why the public isn't more pissed at the Republican unscrupulous behavior.

posted by Julian at 11:00 PM

In The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat, British philosopher Roger Scruton explores the foundations of Western and Muslim societies. After establishing that framework, he examines the effects of internationalization on both, in an attempt to comprehend the 9/11 attacks.

Scruton starts by elucidating the social contract that underlies the Western nation-state. He reviews how Hobbes, Rousseau, and Rawls portray the social contract, but Scruton focuses on one particular aspect: the importance of individuals viewing themselves as members of the larger nation. In the West citizenship and identity are based upon national membership, while in the Arab world religious beliefs are far more significant.

This analysis has certain shortcomings. The practical benefits of a national government – generally accepted rules of law and a solid societal infrastructure – strike me as more relevant than a sense of membership. In other words, Scruton emphasizes “We the people,” while I consider the rest of the preamble to be at least as important. More noticeably, he totally neglects the harsh side of nationalism, such as wars and genocide.

Next comes a description of the greatest problem facing Western society: that a “culture of repudiation” is supplanting the experience of membership. The culture of repudiation consists of the destructive forces of multiculturalism, feminism, and relativism. At this point, I stopped taking the book seriously, and not just because of its conservative vantage point. If Scruton can’t see beyond the halls of academia, where those ‘isms have much more influence, how could he possibly understand the mindset in the Arab world?

The following chapter describes the Muslim world: the dominant role of Islam, the weak loyalty to secular authority, and the rise of fundamentalist movements. Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples provides a richer, more nuanced account of Arab society, while Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for God better portrays how Western encroachment on the Muslim world gave rise to fundamentalism. Scruton gives an excellent example of that encroachment: the way that Western-style buildings disrupt traditional Arab architecture, which ties into the architecture background of 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta.

The book ends with a condemnation of globalization. Scruton’s main objection is that international organizations, in any form, disrupt the sentiments of national membership, which form the basis of Western society. His overly simplistic viewpoint treats national structures as intrinsically good and international structures as intrinsically bad. In addition, globalization sets the stage for Muslim terrorism by providing finance, technology, and cultural disruption. This claim is true and rather obvious, though other factors that Scruton dismisses, such as American support of Israel and troops in Saudi Arabia, are also relevant.

The West and the Rest brings up some important questions, but its answers aren’t very satisfying. You could probably find a better treatment elsewhere.

posted by Julian at 10:35 PM