Karen, That was a useful item you pointed us to (see below). However, I would like to generalise in a short note following a chain of thought that was started in considering Ray Harrel's latest message (under "America in Decline").
I rather think that fundamentalism is a very significant symptom of a civilization in decline. I mentioned a few days ago Bernard Lewis's opinion (after a lifetime of studying Islam) that the principal motivation that drives the imams and clerics in several pockets of Islam (Saudi Arabia being an outstanding example) was not so much a fear (hatred) of other religions or philosophies (or even America-the-nation one might infer) but of western technology itself. (In Lewis' book, he mentions an instance when, after a naval battle sometime in the 1500/1600s, an Islamic victory yielded the capture of a western ship, and all sorts of advanced innovations in its construction and armaments were discovered. Such was the state of Islam at the time [that is, already declining as a powerful civilisation] that there was considerable debate among the clerics whether such innovations could be copied by themselves for their own warships. They decided that in the interests of self-protection it was allowable to copy these innovations, but already Islam was in a state of mind by which any ordinary innovation of western nations was strongly resisted.) The religious programme on the radio this morning reminds us that in western countries, religious belief is generally still declining. Formal religions have hardly any place in most young people's minds today. The great controversies of the 19th century in western countries between science and Christianity have long since died away with, apparently, a clear victory for rationalism and humanistic thought. Yet, in the last decade or so, in the most advanced country in the world, America, Christian fundamentalism has been growing apace (and also now happening in England), even trying to impose its anti-evolution agenda on State school curricula (and largely succeeding, I understand, in one or two States). This is very worrying because it is blunting the minds of large numbers of young people (even intelligent individuals, as you gave an example yersterday). But it's not just Christian fundamentalism. There is a wider secular body of resistance to scientific development -- for example, blanket opposition to genetically-modified food. (And one African country followed western oppositionism yesterday by refusing the importation of GM grain from America even though millions of its people are dying from starvation.) I don't want to get into discussion of GM food because biogenetics certainly needs a great deal of careful investigation, but it is the nature of the instant, automatic opposition to many developments produced by science that's worrying many observers. I am not so worried myself. I don't think the new western fundamentalism will become powerful enough to stop scientific development (which I believe will be absolutely essential if we are to survive in reasonable condition in the next century or two) because man's curiosity is too great. But, in the way that it is invading and subverting the educational system, it is certainly doing a lot of damage. In fact, I think it is another symptom of the decline of America as the leading power in the world. (Another symptom being corruption and ethical fragility at the highest levels of the American [and English] administration.) Keith Hudson At 10:17 17/08/02 -0700, you wrote: >George Will joins the debate promoting strategy that attacking Iraq to >activate domino theory political change is in everybody's interest, >especially Europe's - while using Friedman's sociopolitical economics for >support. In answer to Brad's question about what is a modernist, in this >context, it is users of birth control, a "novelty" item I would certainly >include in Hudson Economics affecting poverty and the rise of the middle >class globally. >Vive la difference. - Karen >A Mideast Specter: Modernity >By George F. Will @ >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19837-2002Aug14.html> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
