Could it be that “terrorism” manifests the bad conscience, the [necessary] blind spot of the combination of liberal democracy and market capitalism? I’m just ruminating here — but it seems, in certain regards, as though terrorism is what you get when you solemnly assure people that they’e the ones in charge, as long as they don’t violate the social compromise that puts them in charge.
That’s still not clear. Liberal democracy and market capitalism derive their admirable qualities and their overwhelming political prominence to their offer of freedom and choice — all to the good. But freedom and choice don’t simply subsist in an unentangled way. In the modern [North and] West, the experience of generations of religious warfare convinced law-givers that freedom could effectively be obtained by setting apart some topics on which constituents could agree to disagree, “religion” being one of them. After the Wars of Religion, the English Civil War, and various groups’ emigrations to North America, the dominant population determined that most people’s faiths were congruent with one another to the point that they would exchange the option of establishing binding norms of religious observance for the general welfare that came with defining these religious as a matter of indifference for civil purposes.
That trade-off has worked spectacularly in most areas of the modern [North and] West, with a notable exception in Ireland; that trade-off doesn’t apply in Israel’s situation, inasmuch as religious difference is one of the constituting rationales for Israel’s existence as a nation. That trade-off has run into a number of dire problems when the North-West has tried to apply its solution to areas where (for instance) religious observance simply isn’t up for grabs as a matter of indifference. The North-West may collectively say, “Ah, but they ought to adopt our way of looking at religion, in order to enjoy the benefits of freedom and choice” — but that overlooks, in fact it simply can’t account for the possibility, that some cultures will regard their religious identity as more important than the supposed benefits of freedom. And those people, when liberal market democracy is forced upon them, will respond by violent resistance. That’s not because they hate freedom; it’s because they don’t want freedom if it costs them their souls.
I don’propound this as a news flash to people who might never have thought it before, but as a possible reminder that forcing people to be free (on our terms) might be a self-defeating, destructive gesture — again, not because people oughtn’t be free, or because they might hate freedom, but because “freedom” comes with hidden assumptions about what counts as freedom and what doesn’t, and the experience of the global North-West might not fit all national cultures in the same way, if at all.
Posted by AKMA at November 2, 2003 02:16 PM | TrackBackYou seem to be saying (obliquely) that the terrorists in Iraq are the whole culture, or should have veto rights over others' freedom.
I'm sure you don't really mean that, but the notion of a unified culture is the unstated assumption here.
That’s an excellent point, Kevin. I’m just exploring here, and you help me see some of the limits of the exploration.
At the same time, sometimes the Northern/Western democracies (and I don't mean to leave out Japan or Australia, they just don’t fit as tidily in geographical lumps) seem to assume that their brand of political structure is intrinsically the best — and even if that’s true, it doeesn’t mean that every self-determining political entity will recognize that. If the preopnderance of the citizens of Cretinia want to be governed by an autocrat (as seems, in fact, to be the case in some Northern/Western democracies), by what principle does one force upon them general elections, etc.?
In such cases, armed popular resistance to liberal democracy would look a lot like “terrorism.” But you’ right, I agree, that the existence of armed resistance doesn’t imply widespread popular support.
Posted by: AKMA at November 2, 2003 07:46 PMThe trade off, I think, is more like freedom of religious belief in exchange for leaving out the religious basis of your political beliefs in public discussion. That's what we have in the West. There are degrees of this in each country. I think in Australia (and probably Canada, England and all of Europe) a prime minister can say he or she is an agnostic or atheist without serious detriment to their career - although I doubt this would be the case in the USA.
But AKMA's key point remains - forcing freedom in our terms is bound to bring resistance because they want to make different sorts of sacrifices/compromises, and probably in a different order to what we think should be.
Posted by: Vergil Iliescu at November 3, 2003 07:06 AMThank you, AKMA.
Your post answers many thoughts left unsaid on my reading of so many pieces on freedom / religion / terrorism, etc. It could be said that, to many, 'freedom's just another word for nothin' left to do', i.e. it is little more than a brand name for an American export, commodified, freeze dried and pre-packaged at Fort Benning.
Susan Sontag's recent piece, wherein she writes on Americans' (a generalization) fascination with the 'idea' of religion, rather than religion itself, is symptomatic of the fog in which many U.S. citizens debasing thought and language find themselves. The 'idea' of liberalism and the notion of democracy is well entrenched in the North American psyche. Would that the substance of these things were as well grounded.
As a practising Catholic (my blog reflects it, surely :)), I find it extremely difficult, not having Sontag's clarity of thought, to engage in discussion on mass-media interpretations of such matters. I'm left to shake my head and grow more despondent about 'those crazy Yankees'.
Religion, democracy, liberalism and every other facet of our natures have substance and enjoy great currency elsewhere. They're far more than media-friendly catchphrases. They have roots running so deep that arguing against a perceived 'brute' ignorance leaves one feeling somewhat hopeless.
The divide in debates on religion and governance have widened to such an extent that, for me at least, superficial analyses of church and state or conservatism and liberalism fail to evince any reaction. I'm often left feeling 'Americans' just don't have a clue.
You know I'm generalizing and you know I have the deepest respect for those of different faiths who contribute to your site or host their own. It's a generalization and I apologize for it, but I believe that until we come to an understanding of how essential to our or others' natures different religions and cultural practices are, we'll get nowhere.
We need, in the face of our overwhelming deluge of information, to get to know one another a hell of a lot better. It cuts both ways, I know. I'm still trying :).
Our next line looks familiar, except it starts with an asterisk. Again, we're using the star operator, and noting that this variable we're working with is a pointer. If we didn't, the computer would try to put the results of the right hand side of this statement (which evaluates to 6) into the pointer, overriding the value we need in the pointer, which is an address. This way, the computer knows to put the data not in the pointer, but into the place the pointer points to, which is in the Heap. So after this line, our int is living happily in the Heap, storing a value of 6, and our pointer tells us where that data is living.
Posted by: Pompey at January 13, 2004 04:20 AMEach Stack Frame represents a function. The bottom frame is always the main function, and the frames above it are the other functions that main calls. At any given time, the stack can show you the path your code has taken to get to where it is. The top frame represents the function the code is currently executing, and the frame below it is the function that called the current function, and the frame below that represents the function that called the function that called the current function, and so on all the way down to main, which is the starting point of any C program.
Posted by: Roman at January 13, 2004 04:20 AMBut variables get one benefit people do not
Posted by: Paul at January 13, 2004 04:21 AMWhen a variable is finished with it's work, it does not go into retirement, and it is never mentioned again. Variables simply cease to exist, and the thirty-two bits of data that they held is released, so that some other variable may later use them.
Posted by: Morgan at January 13, 2004 09:36 AMWhen a variable is finished with it's work, it does not go into retirement, and it is never mentioned again. Variables simply cease to exist, and the thirty-two bits of data that they held is released, so that some other variable may later use them.
Posted by: Basil at January 13, 2004 09:37 AMBeing able to understand that basic idea opens up a vast amount of power that can be used and abused, and we're going to look at a few of the better ways to deal with it in this article.
Posted by: Dudley at January 13, 2004 09:37 AM