I was going to go through your list of points, Elendil, but I won't. You have your opinion, I have mine. It doesn't seem worth the time it would take to hash them out here.
However, I'm intrigued by the disparity between your first post, when you invited opinions about the Weigel article, and your subsequent posts, which seem designed more to shoot down the people criticizing Weigel than to address the issues being raised. You have neatly sidestepped my questioning of the flaws (as I see them) in this publication; I am left with the feeling that you personally feel attacked by my response. If so, I apologise; although I do stand by my questioning of Weigel's approach to the topic at hand.
Deirdre
OT: Europe's Problem--And Ours
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Tom Dowling
- Posts: 511
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- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: Well, I've been a contributor and visitor to this site since 2001. At one time or another, one of my photographs was the opening page photograph. My teacher was Bill Ochs. I play the Penny Whistle. Not a lot else to say.
- Location: Brooklyn, N.Y.
I apologize in advance to all posters whose input to this thread I have not yet read. I have read only the first post in this thread and the article cited in it. I wanted to get my thoughts down about the article while they were fresh, and I mean no disrespect to anyone who has contributed so far. I look forward to reading and learning from what you have written.
I actually started this reply last night, and then abandoned it. I was finding it difficult to resist a bit of ribbing in response to Elendil’s opening sentence:
“Apologies to all for slowing my pace of OT threads, but I've been back at work after a lengthy holiday hiatus.”
My thinking was: Hey, no apology needed!! I was in the process of getting over the pain attendant upon the absence of those lengthy threads that, in addition to sparking the sometimes lively and occasionally heart-felt exchange of ideas, seem to also inadvertently give rise now and then to forays into sophistry, dilettantism, scorn, derision, red-baiting, revisionism and reductionism—not to mention ruffled feathers!! During the ‘Great Cultural/OT Drought of Early 2004’ I had even resorted to reading threads about the pennywhistle and Irish traditional music. So you need not be so hard on yourself. With a little help from Dr. Phil, the healing process was proceeding apace.
On a slightly--but not excessively--more serious note, there is something hinky about the article itself. I cannot help but feel that some sort of shell game has been played on me. It rests on the ultimately false dichotomy between the ‘moral and cultural’ components of a culture, on the one hand, and the (apparently doomed, flawed and limited) ‘economic and political’ components of that same culture, on the other. The use of the words 'culture' and 'cultural' is slippery in itself, since social scientists generally use the term ‘culture’ to refer to the totality of the material and ideal/ideological components of the entity whose ‘culture’ they are looking at. This dichotomy denies the dialectical nature of those very components—the fact that they inform and shape each other. To me, this is akin to what is, arguably, the conceptual shell game played (to wide acclaim) by Max Weber in his ‘groundbreaking’ work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Yes, no doubt there were features of the ‘Protestant Ethic’ that were conducive to the growth of capitalism AND VICE VERSA!!. This is the same device that gives the article its legs—and it does have legs once you buy in to the device.
Once you buy in to the false dichotomy of Europe’s ‘cultural and moral’ self on the one hand and the mean old ‘political and economic’ self on the other, you have available to you a convenient theoretical device for understanding some things about Europe. I am not certain that the events that gave rise to the two World Wars, the conduct of those wars, or their aftermath are sufficient grounds upon which to deny the possibility that humans can live in accord in the context of a secular view of reality. The jury is out on that one.
Some of the passages, if extracted and looked at as plain old sentences in the English language, are either self-evident tautologies or nonsense—or both. Here are a few that jumped out at me:
“My proposal is that, at its most fundamental level, this “European problem” is best understood in moral and cultural terms. “ Well, I’d say the chances are that any problem that Europe may have can probably be understood in moral and cultural terms. Sounds right to me. I'd be surprised if any analysis of an entity as large as Europe--I think it takes up the best past of a whole continent--could be considered complete without including an understanding of her moral and cultural components.
“The common thread running through these disparate thinkers is the conviction that the deepest currents of history are spiritual and cultural, rather than political and economic.” Ah yes, what is the ocean and what is the wave, for surely, they are different things. If they were not two different things, we would not give them different names!
“Yet Kagan insists that these stereotypes disclose important truths.” And, like the article itself, it's fairly likely that they obscure important truths as well.
The article conjures up in my mind a sort of Manichean battle between good and evil. Certainly the author and the Manicheans posit, require and are driven by the need for underlying dualism. It makes sense on the mythological level and it makes sense on the level of cultural journalism.
Another recurring duality is the distinction that he makes between democracy, on the one hand, and bureaucracy on the other. (“Why is Europe retreating from democracy and binding itself ever tighter with the cords of bureaucracy?”
I was laboring under the misapprehension that over there in Europe they had one or more countries in which folks have the right to vote, just like in the good old USA! And, the folks they vote into office are supposed to pass laws, which get carried out, administered and adjudicated by other folks, many of whom we call civil servants, judges, firefighters, sanitation workers, teachers, and so on. Interestingly enough, folks who live there have agreed (generally) to stop at red lights, not throw their garbage out the window and a host of other civilities that would surprise even a Bostonian! I believe that civil government over there, with greater and lesser degrees of succes--sort of like here--does what it can to carry out that highly distilled and no doubt imperfect version of the ‘popular will’ we know of as the rule of law. Now, if you can tell me exactly where the ‘democracy’ leaves off and the ‘bureaucracy’ begins, you have a keener eye than this old geezer (I’m not really an old geezer, I’m just saying that for stylistic effect. Pretty clever, huh?)
Now, I will go back and read the postings that followed the first one. itself!
Be well,
Tom D.
I actually started this reply last night, and then abandoned it. I was finding it difficult to resist a bit of ribbing in response to Elendil’s opening sentence:
“Apologies to all for slowing my pace of OT threads, but I've been back at work after a lengthy holiday hiatus.”
My thinking was: Hey, no apology needed!! I was in the process of getting over the pain attendant upon the absence of those lengthy threads that, in addition to sparking the sometimes lively and occasionally heart-felt exchange of ideas, seem to also inadvertently give rise now and then to forays into sophistry, dilettantism, scorn, derision, red-baiting, revisionism and reductionism—not to mention ruffled feathers!! During the ‘Great Cultural/OT Drought of Early 2004’ I had even resorted to reading threads about the pennywhistle and Irish traditional music. So you need not be so hard on yourself. With a little help from Dr. Phil, the healing process was proceeding apace.
On a slightly--but not excessively--more serious note, there is something hinky about the article itself. I cannot help but feel that some sort of shell game has been played on me. It rests on the ultimately false dichotomy between the ‘moral and cultural’ components of a culture, on the one hand, and the (apparently doomed, flawed and limited) ‘economic and political’ components of that same culture, on the other. The use of the words 'culture' and 'cultural' is slippery in itself, since social scientists generally use the term ‘culture’ to refer to the totality of the material and ideal/ideological components of the entity whose ‘culture’ they are looking at. This dichotomy denies the dialectical nature of those very components—the fact that they inform and shape each other. To me, this is akin to what is, arguably, the conceptual shell game played (to wide acclaim) by Max Weber in his ‘groundbreaking’ work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Yes, no doubt there were features of the ‘Protestant Ethic’ that were conducive to the growth of capitalism AND VICE VERSA!!. This is the same device that gives the article its legs—and it does have legs once you buy in to the device.
Once you buy in to the false dichotomy of Europe’s ‘cultural and moral’ self on the one hand and the mean old ‘political and economic’ self on the other, you have available to you a convenient theoretical device for understanding some things about Europe. I am not certain that the events that gave rise to the two World Wars, the conduct of those wars, or their aftermath are sufficient grounds upon which to deny the possibility that humans can live in accord in the context of a secular view of reality. The jury is out on that one.
Some of the passages, if extracted and looked at as plain old sentences in the English language, are either self-evident tautologies or nonsense—or both. Here are a few that jumped out at me:
“My proposal is that, at its most fundamental level, this “European problem” is best understood in moral and cultural terms. “ Well, I’d say the chances are that any problem that Europe may have can probably be understood in moral and cultural terms. Sounds right to me. I'd be surprised if any analysis of an entity as large as Europe--I think it takes up the best past of a whole continent--could be considered complete without including an understanding of her moral and cultural components.
“The common thread running through these disparate thinkers is the conviction that the deepest currents of history are spiritual and cultural, rather than political and economic.” Ah yes, what is the ocean and what is the wave, for surely, they are different things. If they were not two different things, we would not give them different names!
“Yet Kagan insists that these stereotypes disclose important truths.” And, like the article itself, it's fairly likely that they obscure important truths as well.
The article conjures up in my mind a sort of Manichean battle between good and evil. Certainly the author and the Manicheans posit, require and are driven by the need for underlying dualism. It makes sense on the mythological level and it makes sense on the level of cultural journalism.
Another recurring duality is the distinction that he makes between democracy, on the one hand, and bureaucracy on the other. (“Why is Europe retreating from democracy and binding itself ever tighter with the cords of bureaucracy?”
I was laboring under the misapprehension that over there in Europe they had one or more countries in which folks have the right to vote, just like in the good old USA! And, the folks they vote into office are supposed to pass laws, which get carried out, administered and adjudicated by other folks, many of whom we call civil servants, judges, firefighters, sanitation workers, teachers, and so on. Interestingly enough, folks who live there have agreed (generally) to stop at red lights, not throw their garbage out the window and a host of other civilities that would surprise even a Bostonian! I believe that civil government over there, with greater and lesser degrees of succes--sort of like here--does what it can to carry out that highly distilled and no doubt imperfect version of the ‘popular will’ we know of as the rule of law. Now, if you can tell me exactly where the ‘democracy’ leaves off and the ‘bureaucracy’ begins, you have a keener eye than this old geezer (I’m not really an old geezer, I’m just saying that for stylistic effect. Pretty clever, huh?)
Now, I will go back and read the postings that followed the first one. itself!
Be well,
Tom D.
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GaryKelly
- Posts: 3090
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I must say I find Elendil' posts even more confusing than ever. Though his Weigel-like use of high-brow references do, I suppose, lend a touch of plausibility.
Oh and I found the link to that John-Rhys Davies interview I mentioned in my previous post. The one where the Welsh actor starts spouting Weigel's racist propaganda. And oh look, it was Elendil who posted it.... suddenly I don't think I'm confused about Elendil's posts any more.
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=16755
Actually, comparing commonalities is a positive and unifying activity, whereas comparing differences is the favourite tool of the propagandist: it is divisive and foments Nationalism. Weigel's really good at that.elendil wrote: There doesn't seem to be much point in comparing commonalities, but why not compare differences? That might be an interesting and useful exercise.
Well done, Elendil, you've stated the obvious brilliantly (If history was different, the world today would be a rather different place!) while at the same time successfully emulating Weigel with obscure and pointless references to add an air of 'academic' superiority to your post. And what a very nice parenthetical aside, neatly linking France with Islam, Weigel will be proud of you m'boy.elendil wrote: A cursory reading of history would suggest that the reason "we" have not been overrun is actually due to superior force of arms. Were it not for Poland's famed Winged Hussars at Vienna under Sobieski (when the French, characteristically, were allied with the Turks) and the Grand Coalition under Don Juan at Lepanto the history of Europe would undoubtedly be rather different. And history would also suggest that you oughtn't to be quite so sure.
Because it's so blindingly obvious that Weigel's nasty piece of cleverly disguised anti-Muslim propaganda has clearly impressed you and you've obviously missed that fundamental point. Worse, you seem to be propagating it.elendil wrote: Why you or Gary should choose to extrapolate from this article and speculate as to the likely reception that religious fundamentalists might receive upon disembarking in America is anybody's guess.
Well that's very open-minded.elendil wrote:I certainly can't figure that. However, having read Joyce's "Ulysses," I'm quite sure I wouldn't like Ireland at all.
Oh and I found the link to that John-Rhys Davies interview I mentioned in my previous post. The one where the Welsh actor starts spouting Weigel's racist propaganda. And oh look, it was Elendil who posted it.... suddenly I don't think I'm confused about Elendil's posts any more.
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=16755
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin MilnerFrench Fume Over Proposed Ban on Beards
[AP]
Wed Jan 21, 4:33 PM ET
<http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/my/my16.gif> Add World - AP to My Yahoo!
By JOCELYN GECKER, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - France's fight to keep religion out of schools has entered new ? and some say absurd ? territory. Teachers and some religious leaders fumed Wednesday over a government minister's call to ban beards and bandannas from classrooms along with Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses.
[Photo]
AP Photo
Muslim leaders were divided, with some denouncing a curb on facial hair as "total delirium." Others said street protests against the planned law had rattled the government and provoked a crackdown.
Le Monde newspaper devoted its front-page cartoon to the subject, showing a teacher inspecting a student's beard with a magnifying glass, as veiled women with big smiles looked on.
The latest twist in France's controversial plan to ban religious symbols from classrooms came Tuesday, when Education Minister Luc Ferry said the planned ban on religious symbols could also cover facial hair and bandannas, sometimes worn as a discreet alternative to the traditional Muslim head scarf.
Ferry made the comments during a parliamentary debate, where lawmakers questioned whether the wording of the bill was tough enough. They asked if the ban should cover "visible" religious symbols, rather than "conspicuous" symbols, as the draft law states.
Ferry said the existing wording would allow for a broader interpretation of the law.
And so, "if a beard is transformed into a religious sign it will fall under the law," Ferry said. Likewise, a bandanna "will be banned, if young girls present it as a religious sign."
This came as a shock to many in France, particularly to teachers who will be at the front line of policing the new law, expected to be in place for the next school year in September. Lawmakers begin debating the bill Feb. 3.
"Beards? Bandannas?" asked Daniel Robin, national secretary of France's largest union for high school teachers. "What next?"
"This exercise has become absurd. Totally absurd," he said in a telephone interview.
How will teachers identify religious facial hair? Would they reprimand a "religious" bandanna but allow it as a fashion statement?
"I don't know how to respond to these questions," said Robin, who added that boys too lazy to shave never were punished in the past. "Beards were never a problem before. Let's not create new problems."
The Education Ministry did not respond to calls asking for clarification of Ferry's remarks.
Ferry declined to speak to reporters as he left a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope spoke on his behalf, saying only that the new law would be applied "with discretion."
President Jacques Chirac says the law's goal is to protect France's secular underpinnings. However, it also is seen as a way to hold back Islamic fundamentalism in the nation's Muslim community, at an estimated 5 million the largest in Western Europe.
Last weekend, up to 10,000 people ? mostly Muslim women in head scarves ? marched in Paris to protest the planned law.
The march was organized by the Party of Muslims of France, a small group known for its radical views. The group's president, Mohamed Latreche, called banning of facial hair "total delirium."
"This law has become a farce," he said by telephone. "It's not up to the government to tell us if we can grow beards.
"It proves what we've been saying all along ? that this law is anti-Muslim," Latreche said.
Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French council of the Muslim religion, had discouraged Muslims from attending the protest, saying the rally would exacerbate the anti-Muslim climate.
"Now, you see the repercussions," Boubakeur said, adding that a ban on bandannas or beards showed "the government was toughening its position."
"I told people not to demonstrate. I told them they'd scare French people ? and this fear would result in France closing the door."
[AP]
Wed Jan 21, 4:33 PM ET
<http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/my/my16.gif> Add World - AP to My Yahoo!
By JOCELYN GECKER, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - France's fight to keep religion out of schools has entered new ? and some say absurd ? territory. Teachers and some religious leaders fumed Wednesday over a government minister's call to ban beards and bandannas from classrooms along with Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses.
[Photo]
AP Photo
Muslim leaders were divided, with some denouncing a curb on facial hair as "total delirium." Others said street protests against the planned law had rattled the government and provoked a crackdown.
Le Monde newspaper devoted its front-page cartoon to the subject, showing a teacher inspecting a student's beard with a magnifying glass, as veiled women with big smiles looked on.
The latest twist in France's controversial plan to ban religious symbols from classrooms came Tuesday, when Education Minister Luc Ferry said the planned ban on religious symbols could also cover facial hair and bandannas, sometimes worn as a discreet alternative to the traditional Muslim head scarf.
Ferry made the comments during a parliamentary debate, where lawmakers questioned whether the wording of the bill was tough enough. They asked if the ban should cover "visible" religious symbols, rather than "conspicuous" symbols, as the draft law states.
Ferry said the existing wording would allow for a broader interpretation of the law.
And so, "if a beard is transformed into a religious sign it will fall under the law," Ferry said. Likewise, a bandanna "will be banned, if young girls present it as a religious sign."
This came as a shock to many in France, particularly to teachers who will be at the front line of policing the new law, expected to be in place for the next school year in September. Lawmakers begin debating the bill Feb. 3.
"Beards? Bandannas?" asked Daniel Robin, national secretary of France's largest union for high school teachers. "What next?"
"This exercise has become absurd. Totally absurd," he said in a telephone interview.
How will teachers identify religious facial hair? Would they reprimand a "religious" bandanna but allow it as a fashion statement?
"I don't know how to respond to these questions," said Robin, who added that boys too lazy to shave never were punished in the past. "Beards were never a problem before. Let's not create new problems."
The Education Ministry did not respond to calls asking for clarification of Ferry's remarks.
Ferry declined to speak to reporters as he left a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope spoke on his behalf, saying only that the new law would be applied "with discretion."
President Jacques Chirac says the law's goal is to protect France's secular underpinnings. However, it also is seen as a way to hold back Islamic fundamentalism in the nation's Muslim community, at an estimated 5 million the largest in Western Europe.
Last weekend, up to 10,000 people ? mostly Muslim women in head scarves ? marched in Paris to protest the planned law.
The march was organized by the Party of Muslims of France, a small group known for its radical views. The group's president, Mohamed Latreche, called banning of facial hair "total delirium."
"This law has become a farce," he said by telephone. "It's not up to the government to tell us if we can grow beards.
"It proves what we've been saying all along ? that this law is anti-Muslim," Latreche said.
Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French council of the Muslim religion, had discouraged Muslims from attending the protest, saying the rally would exacerbate the anti-Muslim climate.
"Now, you see the repercussions," Boubakeur said, adding that a ban on bandannas or beards showed "the government was toughening its position."
"I told people not to demonstrate. I told them they'd scare French people ? and this fear would result in France closing the door."
-
GaryKelly
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If you have 30 seconds and the bandwidth Jim:
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/view/03_large.shtml
It may not be as farcical as Beards and Bandanas though. This is interesting too... fancy, teaching creationism in US schools? I thought Spencer Tracy put paid to that in 1960?
http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/sep01/lau.html
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/view/03_large.shtml
It may not be as farcical as Beards and Bandanas though. This is interesting too... fancy, teaching creationism in US schools? I thought Spencer Tracy put paid to that in 1960?
http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/sep01/lau.html
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin MilnerHi Tom,
Good to see ya back. Actually, your post was the kind of thing I was hoping to see--some questioning of basic issues. I happen to agree with your puzzlement over the dichotomy between democracy and bureaucracy. I thought initially that he (Weigel) might be talking about a bureaucratic approach to life, as if all problems could be solved that way, but I now think that isn't what he means. One key, perhaps, to what he's getting at is that I suspect (although I don't know for sure) that Weigel has some neo-con tendencies. Those folks tend, in my view, to set democracy up as almost a spiritual ideal of some sort.
I assume you'll arrive at this post after reading all the others, so you'll have noticed that I've complained a good deal about people assuming they know that my views are essentially the same as Weigel's, even identical. So it seems fair that I should indicate why I posted the link to this article. I do agree with Weigel that a society's failure to reproduce itself is indicative of a spiritual malaise. Given the contributions that Europe has made to the world, I think it's worth spending some time trying to understand what might be the root causes of that malaise. I'm rather a fan of Christopher Dawson and agree with Weigel to this extent: I think that lack of belief in a transcendent purpose to life will probably lead to some of the symptoms that Weigel lists. As I said, these were some of the issues I had hoped to see hashed out, but unfortunately it got hijacked over the whole Euro-US antagonism. So, thanks for steering it more in the direction I had hoped it might take. For the record, I don't see the US as that different in this regard; not fundamentally, anyway. As I've tried to point out, the differences are due to what you might call (in an Aristotelean sense) "accidentals".
Tom wrote:
, I sometimes enjoy it in others. But now maybe you'll re-read the article.
Good to see ya back. Actually, your post was the kind of thing I was hoping to see--some questioning of basic issues. I happen to agree with your puzzlement over the dichotomy between democracy and bureaucracy. I thought initially that he (Weigel) might be talking about a bureaucratic approach to life, as if all problems could be solved that way, but I now think that isn't what he means. One key, perhaps, to what he's getting at is that I suspect (although I don't know for sure) that Weigel has some neo-con tendencies. Those folks tend, in my view, to set democracy up as almost a spiritual ideal of some sort.
I assume you'll arrive at this post after reading all the others, so you'll have noticed that I've complained a good deal about people assuming they know that my views are essentially the same as Weigel's, even identical. So it seems fair that I should indicate why I posted the link to this article. I do agree with Weigel that a society's failure to reproduce itself is indicative of a spiritual malaise. Given the contributions that Europe has made to the world, I think it's worth spending some time trying to understand what might be the root causes of that malaise. I'm rather a fan of Christopher Dawson and agree with Weigel to this extent: I think that lack of belief in a transcendent purpose to life will probably lead to some of the symptoms that Weigel lists. As I said, these were some of the issues I had hoped to see hashed out, but unfortunately it got hijacked over the whole Euro-US antagonism. So, thanks for steering it more in the direction I had hoped it might take. For the record, I don't see the US as that different in this regard; not fundamentally, anyway. As I've tried to point out, the differences are due to what you might call (in an Aristotelean sense) "accidentals".
Tom wrote:
Go ahead. While I wouldn't personally be caught dead doing anything for stylistic effect, like those critics whom Belloc says see style as powerI?m just saying that for stylistic effect.
, I sometimes enjoy it in others. But now maybe you'll re-read the article.elendil
Sorry, don't seem to have the ability to get the first.GaryKelly wrote:If you have 30 seconds and the bandwidth Jim:
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/view/03_large.shtml
It may not be as farcical as Beards and Bandanas though. This is interesting too... fancy, teaching creationism in US schools? I thought Spencer Tracy put paid to that in 1960?
http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/sep01/lau.html
The play and the movie, Inherit the Wind, was a fabrication, almost
entirely, as the authors said. The law didn't forbid teaching
evolution, only teaching it as fact. As nobody was doing that,
it made little difference, except for being idiotic. The trial
happened principally because business people in Tennessee
wanted a trial that would bring business to the state.
The problem was that nobody had broken the law.
Finally they found Scopes, a football coach and a substitute
teacher, who was willing to say that he had taught
evolution as fact while substituting for a biology prof
the year before--though he admitted that he couldn't
remember doing so. No matter, a trial was needed.
William Jennings Bryan, portrayed
in the movie as a right wing religious fanatic looney,
was opposed to the Tennessee
law, in fact, had no special gripe about evolution,
and offered to pay the small fine that Scopes
was punished with.
I'm not sure I see what would be so terrible
about teaching creationism in pubic schools, frankly.
I've engaged it enough to believe it isn't silly,
and I'm aware that many scientists have
real doubts about the theory of evolution.
Would make for a good discussion, get people
thinking, better education. I've covered creationism
when teaching philosophy of religion, in fact. Best
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pthouron
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Gary,GaryKelly wrote:If you have 30 seconds and the bandwidth Jim:
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/view/03_large.shtml
I think this ad is dead on target, myself. But come on! Surely, you must have heard that all it is is undocumented, unpatriotic liberal babble.
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pthouron
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A couple of things: one, I am not comparing Clinton to Bush or saying one is/was better than the other. I am addressing Bush right now, and bringing Clinton up every time someone criticizes Bush is only smokescreens. We can debate what Clinton did in history class. He is no longer President: Bush is.DCrom wrote:BTW - Clinton in 1998 stated that "unquestionably" Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. UN reports a year or so after that 1999-2000 made the same claim. Maybe Hussain had fooled all of them. Maybe he had destroyed them all. Maybe - given the several months of delay imposted by UN shilly-shallyiing - he was able to destroy, bury, or send them from the country. But it was only after the war that people dared to started claiming Bush made it all up.
Lots of "maybes" in your post. Sorry: I don't think going to war on "maybes" is cause enough.
How could people have claimed before the war that Bush made it all up??? How??? When all they had was the evidence Bush claimed existed and later proved to have been bogus?
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pthouron
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I've always wanted to visit Lake Tahoe. I have to admit, though, that the avatar is rather intimidating.... You'd have to take that mask off if we wanted to knock back a few beers, right?MurphyStout wrote:Wow, this one is too late to jump into but I will make a few rude statements here.
Me and pthouron should hang out sometime.
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GaryKelly
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I don't understand how anyone can agree with Weigel's completely specious progression: Population falling=>European extinction+rise in Islamic immigration=Threat to the USA and the free world.elendil wrote:I do agree with Weigel that a society's failure to reproduce itself is indicative of a spiritual malaise. Given the contributions that Europe has made to the world, I think it's worth spending some time trying to understand what might be the root causes of that malaise.
What does Weigel want Europe to do? Keep reproducing until Soylent Green is on the menu and we're standing room only (or falling into the Atlantic)? Come on.
There are any number of environmentalists, ecologists, economists, biologists and a host of other -ists who would welcome a fall in population globally as well as locally, hopefully to the point where nations can support themselves with the resources they themselves can produce without having to rely on the surplus from countries with lower population densities (like the USA and Canada, for example). A population drop of a few millions here and there is to be welcomed. It doesn't mean that white anglo-saxon European christians will be extinct in 50 years.
Weigel (and others) keep going on about a "problem", or a "malaise", and then shoe-horning their own religious piety into the equation to make the wholly imagined "problem" or "malaise" a spiritual as well as an allegedly cultural one. Throw in a liberal dose of high-falutin' claptrap to whitewash the nonsense with academic plausibility, point a nasty, grubby finger at a popular 'enemy', and suddenly propaganda becomes a credible obsession.
A decline in birth-rate (if the trend suggested by Weigel is *fact*) hardly equates to extinction. Rather than run around screaming that the sky is falling (and that Muslims are taking over the world) try considering for one moment the socio-economic changes in the western Europe since the 60's, and in the last decade.
Believe it or not, European women are emancipated. They are free to choose to pursue a career before, during, and after marriage. If they so wish. Or indeed instead of marriage, if they so wish. Free to choose when to have a family. Thanks to medical science, it's no longer necessary for a woman to produce a cricket team in the fervent hope that one of the 11 kids will survive to adulthood. We're living longer (thanks again, medicine), so obviously the population is getting older. It's now no longer as 'dangerous' for a woman to bear a child later in life as it once was. Indeed, it's now longer as dangerous for a woman of any age to bear a child as it was 50 years ago.
Then there's AIDS and HIV. Responsible adults (and yes, that includes Spanish catholics, much as that may surprise Weigel) practice safe sex. Instead of pretending not to notice the once-burgeoning problem of teenage single parenthood as they did in the hope that it would go away, Governments in Europe (and Britain specifically) accepted its reality and began massive campaigns to make contraception socially acceptable. To the point where the condom is now an essential accessory (or so I'm told by those far younger than I).
Result? Well d'uh. A decline in birth-rate. Note: a decline. Not a complete absence. Not racial or cultural "suicide" as Weigel so carefully and emotively suggests (and others clearly believe).
Yes, there are French and Dutch citizens of "Islamic" descent. And that's a result of their colonial history. There'd be an awful lot more Hong Kong Chinese in the UK today if Maggie Thatcher hadn't double-crossed them in the run-up to 1997, snatched their passports and right of abode to which they were once entitled. She did the same to St Helenians, by the way.
Yes, there are a lot of 'Islamic' refugees in Europe. And elsewhere. Could that possibly be because they're fleeing for their lives, or their homes have just had the cr*p bombed out of them by a coalition of Western forces, I wonder?
And big surprise: As citizens of those European countries, they'd like to have a say in how their country is run. I think it's called democracy.
There is no problem or malaise, creeping or otherwise, as suggested by Weigel. It's pure propaganda, of the same variety that got the UK's National Front a by-election success recently. Sad to say it appears to be working.
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin Milner-
GaryKelly
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I guess now that it's on the internet that it's undocumented, unpatriotic liberal babble, it must be true!! For did not Reg (English philosopher and international observer) write as much in the Book of Cyril?pthouron wrote: Gary,
I think this ad is dead on target, myself. But come on! Surely, you must have heard that all it is is undocumented, unpatriotic liberal babble.
Some of the other ads on that site are pretty good too. I'm saying that from a videographer's perspective only.
Obviously the entire point of that site is anti-Bush, and so are all the ads there. I'll post the link here for those who might be interested...
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/finalists.shtml
Jim, there's a low-bandwidth version on the link, just in case you were interested.
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin Milner-
GaryKelly
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Ah but it was great drama, and good film... I think I was about 8 when I first saw it, sitting by a crackling log fire, a bleak English winter without, and was sure I could feel the Tennessee heat coming from the TV screenjim stone wrote: Sorry, don't seem to have the ability to get the first.
The play and the movie, Inherit the Wind, was a fabrication, almost
entirely, as the authors said.
Actually I probably could, all those valves glowing...At home, I have an ancient Geology text-book, dating back to 18-something, can't remember off the top of my head. Post-Darwin, and written at a time when the science of Geology was in its infancy. What's really fascinating about it is the obligatory foreword by the author which attempts to quell any Victorian religious objections to the work he doubtless knew would arise from its publication. Not much more than a century ago, really. If you're at all interested, I'll see if I can dig it out and scan it for you (the foreword, that is, not the whole tome!).
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin Milner-
Bloomfield
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I agree that elendil is being too glib here. If that is going to your tone, don't start OT threads, I'd say.fluter_d wrote:I was going to go through your list of points, Elendil, but I won't. You have your opinion, I have mine. It doesn't seem worth the time it would take to hash them out here.
However, I'm intrigued by the disparity between your first post, when you invited opinions about the Weigel article, and your subsequent posts, which seem designed more to shoot down the people criticizing Weigel than to address the issues being raised. You have neatly sidestepped my questioning of the flaws (as I see them) in this publication;
/Bloomfield
Gary, replacement level for birth rate is usually given as 1.8. Current European levels have been at 1.3 for many years, even lower in countries like Spain and Italy. It's silly to dispute facts of that sort.
I'm perfectly open to the idea that lower population levels may be desirable, that current levels have come about as a result of not forseeing results of advances in basic health practices, etc. However, just as population can increase exponentially, declines are very diificult to manage--they lead to a snowball effect. This is not something to lightly enter into. Moreover, declines of that sort are very socially disruptive, because they lead to enormous burdens on the young workers. Because the young are relatively far fewer in number than previously, they carry a disproportionate responsibility for the elder generation. Weigel's references to bureaucratization may point to the European style welfare state's typical drag on productivity. In Netherlands, one of the most economically vibrant countries in Europe, up to 20% of eligible workers are on permanent--that's permanent--disability.
Furthermore, I think you have to analyze causes and motivation a little further. It's one thing to be in favor of a lower absolute population level. It's also true that drastically lower birthrates will get you there--but they will also take you far beyond what you may have desired due to the snowballing effect. But it's more difficult to argue that people who are engaged in a certain type of behavior that will lead to a (theoretically) desired effect are doing so in order to bring that effect about. They may be engaged in that behavior for totally unrelated reasons. And I'm quite convinced that that is the case here. I strongly doubt that lower birth rates correlate in any way with individuals' belief in the desirability of a lower absolute population level. People don't behave that way unless compelled to by totalitarian governments. What remains is the possibility that they may be engaged in that behavior for unhealthy reasons, rather than for farsighted, wise reasons.
Bloomie, your own recent post is too glib by half. The assertion that I have avoided issues is simply not true. I do seek a discussion of the article, however I don't want it to be sidetracked into a Euro-US p***ing contest.
I'm perfectly open to the idea that lower population levels may be desirable, that current levels have come about as a result of not forseeing results of advances in basic health practices, etc. However, just as population can increase exponentially, declines are very diificult to manage--they lead to a snowball effect. This is not something to lightly enter into. Moreover, declines of that sort are very socially disruptive, because they lead to enormous burdens on the young workers. Because the young are relatively far fewer in number than previously, they carry a disproportionate responsibility for the elder generation. Weigel's references to bureaucratization may point to the European style welfare state's typical drag on productivity. In Netherlands, one of the most economically vibrant countries in Europe, up to 20% of eligible workers are on permanent--that's permanent--disability.
Furthermore, I think you have to analyze causes and motivation a little further. It's one thing to be in favor of a lower absolute population level. It's also true that drastically lower birthrates will get you there--but they will also take you far beyond what you may have desired due to the snowballing effect. But it's more difficult to argue that people who are engaged in a certain type of behavior that will lead to a (theoretically) desired effect are doing so in order to bring that effect about. They may be engaged in that behavior for totally unrelated reasons. And I'm quite convinced that that is the case here. I strongly doubt that lower birth rates correlate in any way with individuals' belief in the desirability of a lower absolute population level. People don't behave that way unless compelled to by totalitarian governments. What remains is the possibility that they may be engaged in that behavior for unhealthy reasons, rather than for farsighted, wise reasons.
Bloomie, your own recent post is too glib by half. The assertion that I have avoided issues is simply not true. I do seek a discussion of the article, however I don't want it to be sidetracked into a Euro-US p***ing contest.
elendil