Here's more smart conversation, following up o­n a previous post which we might call, “Jake Levich takes o­n Milton Viorst,” in Conversation about “IRAQ: WHY THEY DON'T WANT DEMOCRACY”

From: LGenutis@aol.com [LGenutis@aol.com]

Wow! Great responses o­n this article — thanks for sending them — great read!

From: Wade Frazier  [public.email2@verizon.net]

I think Jake has the goods o­n Viorst's work. Anybody who writes for The New Yorker has to be a little suspect. : – )

Viorst writes from many lib left presumptions which are not very helpful to the folks living in the Islamic world o­n that Renaissance issue — the classic Greek works appeared in Western Europe because Islamic scholars preserved and studied them, and their translations, which deeply influenced Thomas Aquinas, among others, began coming to Europe during the 13th century. Aquinas has often been called Catholicism's greatest thinker, and he tried reconciling Aristotle's works with Christian theory. In Western Europe, the Catholic Church had long since eradicated all the classic Greek writings it could because they were “pagan.” Western Europe owed a great debt to Islamic culture when it began pursuing humanism and science.

Jake hits it o­n the head when observing the underlying arrogance of our position, as if we can bring those folks “freedom.” We are losing our own more quickly than ever. As Palden observed, the West has been o­ne of the greatest influences in undermining freedom in that part of the world for the past two centuries. Thinking that we can bring them freedom through the barrel of a gun is about as ludicrous as it gets, which is no news to you, I am sure. : – )

From: Walter Starck  [ggoldend@bigpond.net.au]

Both Viorst and Levich raise points worth considering, but matters of such complexity can always be reasonably presented from any number of different perspectives and in the final analysis even the most learned and reasonable are still o­nly guessing. Perhaps the most useful lesson from history is that most of us most of the time are wrong, and even the best are o­nly right sometimes. It behooves us not to be too adamant and give consideration to all possibilities.

Levich espouses an ideological position, but that does not mean he is wrong. He attacks Viorst most strongly for not having what he considers proper credentials, though this has nothing to do with the validity of Viorst's ideas. Truth has no particular regard for authority. The key point of Viorst's, that Iraq is not ready for democracy, is o­ne that should not be dismissed. It is naive to assume that all the world is just waiting for o­ne-man o­ne-vote liberal secular democracy. This o­nly barely works in societies tolerant of diverse opinion, with an educated electorate informed by a diversity of independent media. Trying to implement it in an uneducated, ill-informed society riven by religious and tribal divisions is highly problematic.

Across the entire Muslim world, from West Africa to Indonesia, there is not o­ne example of a liberal democracy. o­nly o­ne country, Malaysia, has achieved a successful modern economy, and even there most of the economy is dominated by a non-Muslim minority. Trying to attribute this situation to coincidence, colonialism, or U.S. imperialism is irrational and unhelpful. The causes are surely rooted in the nature of the societies themselves. The success of various non-Muslim East Asian nations is in distinct contrast. Despite being subject to similar or even worse colonialism and imperialism, they have rapidly developed modern economies and are making good progress toward increasing degrees of democracy. Also, they have done so without having undergone a renaissance.

The idea of science as having originated in the Islamic world and been imported to the West is also simplistic. Science has drawn upon a multitude of cultural threads. The Islamic contributions, chiefly in algebra and chemistry, are o­nly two of many. Whatever weight o­ne wishes to place o­n the Islamic contribution, the fact remains that despite such a head start they have made little progress in the past 500 years. Their problems are their own and in the end o­nly they can solve them. Trying to blame them o­n others at best o­nly helps perpetuate them. At worst, it encourages more terrorism and ever more devastating retaliation.

Suzanne to Walter:

Thanks for broadening this exchange to add nuances that take it beyond where it has had black an white aspects of right and wrong to it. You have such a wonderful capacity to see the big picture. That's a gift of yours. You would have been an inspired judge. I am so grateful to be hooked up with you, and know that you will bring invaluable smarts to whatever else we do, beyond the interchange we are having that provides the Featured Conversation o­n my website.

From: Madeleine Schwab [madeleineschwab@yahoo.com]

So good…. That this broad and thoughtful conversation is even taking place is truly heartwarming. Walter comes across really well in his writing. Allen Branson's quote of Chomsky was just what Chomsky said o­n KPFK this morning. Wow…impressive…mind-bending.

From: Allen Branson [allen@theconversation.org]

Walter said pretty much what I would have said. I'll say, “Ditto.”

My o­nly addition would be to respond to Jake's statement, “Of course they want democracy.” Jake says he is “not aware of anyone, anywhere, who wants to be dominated and tyrannized by dictators or unrepresentative ruling elites.” This both presupposes that any form of government other than democracy is necessarily tyrannical and that democracies are necessarily not tyrannical (and are representative). Those who might not consider democracy the best form of government are those who feel attacked or oppressed from the outside. During war people feel the need for a strong leader, not for consensus building. I'd offer as evidence how even here in the U.S. we willingly toss aside our liberties when we feel danger from the outside — there are those who felt, after 9/11, that they wished they could give both George Bush and Rudy Giuliani lifetime appointments to office. I think the point Viorst was trying to make in terms of the Enlightenment is that democracy is not (or has not been) a natural form of government for human beings to tend toward. We are a species that finds hierarchical social groupings more natural. We tend to play follow the leader. The Enlightenment was so named for the new thought it produced, including new thought (for Europeans, anyway) o­n the place of people in the world and so the rights of people within culture. This is why legends, such as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, carry so much psychic weight. They speak of an egalitarian social/political order that is beyond “human nature.”

From: Jacob Levich [jlevich@earthlink.net]

At 12:26 PM 5/29/2003 -0700, you wrote: [Anybody know the rules of formal logic? Jake — this has a name. Because Italy didn't do democracy, despite having a renaissance, doesn't prove that a renaissance isn't a necessary precondition of democracy….Suzanne]

It's called the conditional fallacy in informal (not formal) logic, and you're quite right — the way I hastily phrased it, it reads that way. What I should have said was something like this:

Viorst implies that the readiness of a culture or nation to embrace democracy is linked to its experience of “a renaissance.” It's not clear whether he means that a renaissance is a necessary, or a sufficient, condition for democracy. Either way, he's wrong. It can't be a sufficient condition, since there are numerous instances of nations embracing fascism or other forms of dictatorship despite having had a renaissance — including Italy, the historical center of the European Renaissance. But it can't be a necessary condition because there are numerous instances of nations embracing forms of democracy without having had a renaissance: e.g., India or South Africa.

I stand by my words: “Of course they want democracy.” Democracy, strictly defined, is government by the people. I'm not aware of anyone, anywhere, who wants to be dominated and tyrannized by dictators or unrepresentative ruling elites. o­n the contrary, people universally want to determine their own future, although they disagree o­n how that is best to be accomplished.

If you and Viorst mean to say that the people of the Middle East don't want “democracy” as experienced by Third World nations under imperial or neo-colonialist domination, then of course they don't. Why would they? That sort of “democracy” is just a front for US-backed ruling elites looting national wealth, gangsters of the kind who are currently destroying Kosovo, Peru, Lebanon, the FSU, Afghanistan, etc. — and now, of course, Iraq.

Thanks for the praise, by the way — and you're to be congratulated for opening up your list to dissenting views. In the same week I requested retraction of a shameful error in another newsletter — o­ne whose editors call themselves “sentries of truth” — and discovered that the sentries were not exactly o­n duty!

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