Multiculturalism has failed.

[DNking]

Wa i was gone for a 3 day trip and this thread just took off.

Anyway here's a nice book on the subject that I'm currently reading: "the death of the west"

[MinDonner]

This one? :stunned:

"Historians may one day call `the pill' the suicide tablet of the West," writes former presidential candidate Buchanan in this cri de coeur regarding the perils that await Western civilization. And he is correct in his assessment that the advent of artificial contraception brought about huge changes in the ways American and European cultures dealt with sex, children and family. Buchanan, a staunch Roman Catholic and a conservative, feels that these changes were socially and politically disastrous. Worried about the declining birth rate of European-Americans and increased immigration from nonwhite countries, Buchanan predicts that people who are now celebrating diversity "will spend their golden years in a Third World America." Along with shifting racial demographics, Buchanan also frets about the changes in morality "rampant promiscuity and wholesale divorce and tax-payer funding of abortion." Buchanan is equally upfront about his position on homosexuality: "had the killers of Matthew Shepard chosen a sixteen-year-old girl rather than a twenty-one-year-old gay man, her rape-murder would have been to me an even greater evil." Fearful that American is being "de-Christianized," Buchanan argues that "while the prognosis is not good," America must reevaluate itself and reclaim its white, Christian origins; despite the current "coarseness of her manners, the decadence of her culture, or the sickness in her soul," the nation is worth saving. Buchanan's passionately expressed ideology will be too extreme for most readers, and its proud bigotry is unlikely to play well even among most conservatives.

Sounds like just our kind of thing!

[DNking]

Yep that one.

You know this change in society in all most the western countries isn't being seen so lightly by everyone so speak for you're self.

I mean I don't agree with everything in the book, some of its theories seem more/less realistic then others but still its a good book

[Guest Raidne]

I sometimes feel it is too easy to hide behind discussions of spin or (like Raids and Flord) have a mock discussion of who really-really meant what three pages ago.

Strictly speaking, I think we've actually been steadfastly bashing our heads against the proverbial wall on the issue of what particular sort of anti-Muslim fearmongering Merkel was trying to get at - the sort that thinks all Muslims are terrorists, or the sort that thinks immigrants from poorer counties, who happen in this case to be Muslim, are disproportionately eating up social welfare funds (but act like their real concern is the preservation of culture).

Then let's reframe the debate: I'm not familiar with this Sarrazin guy (it's a nickname, right?), so it would be nice to define:

1. What it means to assimilate
   
2. What an assimilation failure actually means (and how it exactly reflects reality. I imagine that like always, politics make bogeymen out of mouses)
   
3. Why assimilation is necessary/What are (should be) the politicians goals (why)
   
4. What solutions can be realistically envisaged to reach the proposed goal
   

So everyone talks of the same thing.

Ent I were kind of getting at this earlier, I thought, but we got sidetracked when he flipped out on me mid-thread.

I don't think anyone knows what assimilation/integration really means. Everyone means something different, and so it screws up the debate. I can support it if it means actively promoting and/or insisting on adoption of the essential aspects of the culture. For instance, the notion that Mohammed should never be pictured, even in a satirical cartoon, clashes deeply with our cherished beliefs about the importance of a free speech. However, if people want to speak a different language at home, or throughout an entire neighborhood, I don't care.

An assimilation failure means that so many people come into the country that do not share the essential features of the culture that the "overlapping consensus" shatters. There are no longer a few key traditions that all people hold to, making it impossible to have productive political discourse in a democratic government.

(We are nearly at this point in America anyway - see, e.g. the example of that "death of the west" garbage that MinDonner was nice enough to call out in all its appalling glory upthread. I share almost no core principles with the author of that trash.)

Assimilation of essential cultural components is necessary to hold the political entity together.

I have no idea what you do about a sizable population of people living in your country that do not hold to the same core principles. I suppose you can not grant them to the right to vote, and have this second-class citizen problem. It's distasteful, but if they are not participating in the government, you avoid the most serious problems of an assimilation failure.

Any reasonable American, I'm sure, can go on at length about destructive it is to a democractic society to have to contest political ideas about we should be governed based on appeals to faith and religion.

(I just want to clarify that when I say "people who do not hold to the same core principles" that is NOT shorthand for "Muslims" or "Turks," but rather refers to the subset of the immigrant population who would not, say, at a citizenship hearing swear to uphold free speech, religious neutrality, etc., and yes I going to phrase those issues differently or pick different issues than a German would, because I am not German, so if someone would like to clarify for me what the core propositions or beliefs that make up the essential culture in Germany are, I'd be grateful.)

Interesting that you are so keen on names of scholars…

This was a really disappointing for me to read. Many of the issues you raise have been addressed. I'll add one other example: my law review did an issue entirely on Islamic law. I had to track down all the source material to check the references, etc., read the articles for style and grammar, etc., and those authors started with - yes - principles in the religious texts - and not at all just the Qu'ran - mostly commentaries from, it seemed like, the 12th and 13th centuries, etc. and then spin out these enormous, complex legal arguments from that basis. It hurt my freaking head.

What you are telling Coco and I is, basically, "Well, hey, I haven't read any of this stuff, but this guy says he did and that you guys are wrong. So there." Yeah, okay great, why don't you call up that guy and have him argue it out with us then, because at least he has some basis for whatever it is he's saying, however wrong his conclusions.

I will give you this, though, as I asked Coco earlier, I really do not know if philosophical skepticism ever took hold in the Arab world, and in my personal opinion, that would make a huge difference. I suspect not, because a lot of what goes on in Islamic scholarship is like if you cut out the whole skepticism/empiricism thing and imagined where we'd be with Aristotelian logic by now if we'd kept at it for another half a milennia. And neither of those things, IMHO, is an inherently superior approach to the other, although empiricism has the advantage of spurring technological progress.

[Jaerv]

This was a really disappointing for me to read. Many of the issues you raise have been addressed. I'll add one other example: my law review did an issue entirely on Islamic law. I had to track down all the source material to check the references, etc., read the articles for style and grammar, etc., and those authors started with - yes - principles in the religious texts - and not at all just the Qu'ran - mostly commentaries from, it seemed like, the 12th and 13th centuries, etc. and then spin out these enormous, complex legal arguments from that basis. It hurt my freaking head.

What you are telling Coco and I is, basically, "Well, hey, I haven't read any of this stuff, but this guy says he did and that you guys are wrong. So there." Yeah, okay great, why don't you call up that guy and have him argue it out with us then, because at least he has some basis for whatever it is he's saying, however wrong his conclusions.

I will give you this, though, as I asked Coco earlier, I really do not know if philosophical skepticism ever took hold in the Arab world, and in my personal opinion, that would make a huge difference. I suspect not, because a lot of what goes on in Islamic scholarship is like if you cut out the whole skepticism/empiricism thing and imagined where we'd be with Aristotelian logic by now if we'd kept at it for another half a milennia. And neither of those things, IMHO, is an inherently superior approach to the other, although empiricism has the advantage of spurring technological progress.

I made two historical points, one psychological point, and one theological-psychological point. Your answer is, basically, that I am not entitled to talk about any of these as long as I do not have a PhD in philosophy. Interesting logic...

[Guest Raidne]

Nobody here, as far as I know, has a philosophy PhD. But I do think a conversation about primary sources, and our interpretation of them, is more interesting than a "my source says" kind of argument, which focuses on our interpretation of secondary sources. Anyway, I hate doing this, and I think it promotes a poor quality of discussion, but since you didn't think I addressed what you wrote:

Here is a guy who states that there was an intellectual stagnation in the Islamic world after the defeats against the Mongols and the end of the Abbasid caliphate....

I mean, you're saying that because one scholar notes a period of intellectual stagnation (because Europe never had a period of intellectual stagnation?), what, Islam is less conducive to intellectual progress?

This guy here cites Islamic sources claiming that the Muslims in Muhammad’s time were so deeply impressed by the Qu’ran that many gave up writing poetry because they thought it was pointless to try to compete with the Qu’ran...

(I give you the guys, not the works, because they are writing in German. If you insist I give you exact works and pages.)

Actually the wiki pages were in German too. :) See, the thing with secondary sources is that I don't trust your soundbite. No offense - it's not personal to you, it's just I don't believe it's possible to interpret a statement without context. I want to see the person's whole argument. Whereas if you just quoted the primary source it wouldn't be arguable, you know, the people who said they gave up writing poetry. Also, were these the notable poets of the day? Was it a signigicant effect? Or are we talking about personal letters found from one guy?

Even Wiki knows that the Golden Age of Islamic philosophy and science has ended long ago....

I think that has more to do with the character of the history of ideas, possibly with regard to the transmission of empiricism/philosophical skepticism. I don't think it has anything to do with Islam vs. Christianity.

Concerning the question of the sources of Islamic philosophy and science: I didn’t mean Christian philosophy, I meant the role of the Christians in the southern and eastern Mediterranean as preservers of the ancient texts. The Arabs, when they started to conquer large parts of the world in the early 7th century had only recently developed their own script. So from where do you think did they get their knowledge about antiquity? Obviously from the newly conquered regions in the Mediterranean, filled with Christians at this time, and from Persia.

Islam owes its secular philosophical tradition to the Persians, which the Arabs conquered in the 7th century. And also Syria and Egypt, which were Byzantine. Most Greek translation into arabic was done in the 9th century (although it is contended that there was a push for translation earlier during the Umayyad period as well). And Persians were not Christian (although there were some Christian groups, frequently persecuted, in Persia).

I am not an expert on this, and I'm sure many things were recovered in Coptic Egypt and Syria. But for the most part, transmission seems to be Greek --> Persian ---> Arab. The Arabs were also influenced by Indian thought, too, unlike the West, unless you believe that stuff about the missing years of Jesus.

Furthermore, while I have named several problems that were extremely difficult to solve for Christian theologians and stimulated middle-aged scholastic thinking, you have not named even one single aspect of Islam that could be described as an example of an internal contradiction or a severe problem pertaining to the very core of the religion and that could thus have stimulated critical thinking. For example, I don’t know anything in the Islamic creed that is as absurd, as disturbing (for a believer) and thus as thought-provoking as the idea that your almighty God has died. If there is, please explain it to me.

I did. To list some more: the characterization of the role of women vs. Mohammed's first wife Kadijah, the entire edition of the law review I referred to, the basis for the Sunni/Sh'ite split (abu Bakr or Ali, the 12th imam, etc.)

Also, in history of religion, Gods die (and are resurrected) so frequently that it's practically cliche. Osiris. Odin. Etc.

In other words, one reason why Al-Gahzali could give up rationality and turn to revelation as main source of knowledge more easily than Christian scholars...

This a gross mischaracterization of scholarship in Christendom. First, google "Fideism." Second, scholarship was only permitted when it was consistent with the revealed truth. The Qu'ran, on the other hand, actually promotes the pursuit of science.

What do you have to offer in order to explain the “Closing the doors”-phenomenon?

The very existence of the edition of the law review I mentioned seems to dispute the idea that any doors are really closed. This is not an area that I know very much about though - would you care to elaborate on what you mean by this?

ETA: But Jaerv, what bothers me, is that initially you presented this as a "some people say" kind of thing, and now all of a sudden you are a proponent of these ideas. Is that true? Or are you just doing your best to put forth the other side of the arugment, even though you don't personally believe it?

I think we actually sort of agree about the end result, but I think you should look to the transmission of philosophical skepticism, and not Christianity. Skepticism, and the empiricism that resulted, is what led to the development of the scientific method. Surely that is pretty key.

[Ckrisz]

I've already shown you that you were wrong in defending this opinion, for many reasons. In fact, you seem to be implying the Muslim empire fell because they weren't reading anything else. The Eastern Muslim empire fell to the Huns, and the Western end to the Christians.

Whoa, dude. The Huns?

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Strictly speaking, I think we've actually been steadfastly bashing our heads against the proverbial wall on the issue of what particular sort of anti-Muslim fearmongering Merkel was trying to get at - the sort that thinks all Muslims are terrorists,

Talk about head-bashing....who here has ever claimed that "all Muslims are terrorists?", or has claimed that's what Merkel believes?

[Guest Raidne]

Talk about head-bashing....who here has ever claimed that "all Muslims are terrorists?", or has claimed that's what Merkel believes?

Nobody. Strictly speaking, hypothetical anti-muslim fear-mongerers. But only one kind.

[shadowbinding shoe]

Coco - do you have any current central imams that you support and believe will elevate Islam?

Raidne - Class distinctions and social standing are important but surely you don't believe that culture has nothing to do with how people behave? Do you believe immigrants from different cultures but of similar economic standing are indistinguishable from each other (say, Hindu Indians and Muslim Pakistani in Britain)?

[Guest Raidne]

Raidne - Class distinctions and social standing are important but surely you don't believe that culture has nothing to do with how people behave? Do you believe immigrants from different cultures but of similar economic standing are indistinguishable from each other (say, Hindu Indians and Muslim Pakistani in Britain)?

Absolutely not. Sorry if I gave you that impression. What I mean is that the financial well-being of a country or a particular perosn in that country should not be confused with its culture, although it will certainly have an effect on its culture. I mean that there are things besides culture that will determine how people behave (socioeconomic status, personality) but culture is certainly an important factor.

[Jaerv]

ETA: But Jaerv, what bothers me, is that initially you presented this as a "some people say" kind of thing, and now all of a sudden you are a proponent of these ideas. Is that true? Or are you just doing your best to put forth the other side of the arugment, even though you don't personally believe it?

I think we actually sort of agree about the end result, but I think you should look to the transmission of philosophical skepticism, and not Christianity. Skepticism, and the empiricism that resulted, is what led to the development of the scientific method. Surely that is pretty key.

Raidne you are correct, I suddenly find myself defending some thoughts that I found mildly interesting, nothing more, in a thread that was filled with lots of mildly interesting thoughts until you two started your little philosophy war game…

To be more specific: The basic question, why has there never been an Islamic renaissance and a scientific revolution, I find very interesting. I have repeated two ideas I once read pertaining to that question, ideas that are probably not able to explain large parts of the phenomenon, if any parts at all. But honestly, your answers are also not satisfying. “Not enough skepticism” is not an answer, it is simply a reformulation of the problem. And Coco cites guys who, in the 12th century, did exactly not succeed in instigating a renaissance. He appears to attribute this to bad luck, e.g. the Mongols, which is a bit too simply for my taste, since later on, under the Ottomans, Islamic thinkers had a long time of stability again in which they could have produced a scientific revolution. But they did not. Why? There must be other answers than bad luck and wordplay…

Btw: thanks for the examples of theological problems and contradictions in Islam you (and Coco) finally gave me, they are very interesting, though I am not sure yet how much they pertain to the core of the religion. But I will think about it.

[Alexia]

I was just reading an entirely unrelated news article and suddenly had a question: am I correct in my understanding that most Muslim countries do not have sharia law as the law of the land? I know some do, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and others but I always thought most didn't. Thanks! :)

[Guest Raidne]

“Not enough skepticism” is not an answer, it is simply a reformulation of the problem.

Sorry I didn't mean to sound superficial about it - I posted at tedious, monotonous length about it earlier in the thread and didn't want to regurgitate the whole again.

So, no, I have to seriously disagree with that. I will assume you missed my earlier post and try to summarize: The rediscovery of Sextus Empiricus showed everyone that it is, you know, turtles all the way down. To say something is true is to say you have a criterion for "truth" and that it is "true" that it should be the criterion for truth, etc., etc. That's pretty important. One you get to that point, you just can't deal with everything by writing out syllogisms. You have to do something else. Like go out there and test stuff. It's the difference between the person who will say that it's not a "truth" that the sun rises every morning in the east because the only way we know that it will is because it always has, so far (I'm ripping this right out of David Hume, who was explicitly heavily influenced by reading Sextus Empiricus) vs. the person who says it's probably certain enough that we can go ahead and count on it for purposes of developing solar energy.

The reason we ever came around to the latter is that, because of skepticism, a certain degree of uncertainty became acceptable. We decided to be concerned with what things do - what works - and not the essence, substance, or universal truth of things.

Now we just let the physicists screw around with that stuff. ;) And, from what I understand, some physicists are finding the empirical approach to philosophy to be a little lacking. After all, they're stuck with a lot of mathematics are empirically untestable things, and reasoning out what equations look like in reality is something we are, possibly, not as good at as we used to be.

And skepticism comes directly from Greek philosophy - not Christianity. I don't know why things didn't come across the same way in Islam. Maybe because they had Plato and in Plato the skeptic interlocutor is always an imbecile or an asshole.

[Shryke]

True to an extent, yeah. "Sharia" is a bit of a demonized word, but in the Muslim world actually just represents any and all Islamic law.

In a place like Morocco, you have a monarchy that is partially "westernized", but that still bans the sale and consumption of alcohol (at least consumption, maybe not sale).

Or, you have a place like Tunisia, where you can't tell if you're on Tatoonie or not.

Tunisia has Pod Races?

[Datepalm]

Anyone know if any muslim-majority country has a ban on polygamy? Turkey maybe?

(Its not a total tangent - i'm trying to think if anywhere extends non-sharia law that far into the personal sphere.)

[Alexia]

True to an extent, yeah. "Sharia" is a bit of a demonized word, but in the Muslim world actually just represents any and all Islamic law.

Am I wrong in my belief that there is a specific set of laws/rules that comprise "Sharia law"? And that certain countries, like Somalia, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, attempt to enact this set of laws in its entirety as they interpret them? Whereas other countries (like Morrocco) have a civil law that is informed by Islamic tradition (with the banning of alcohol)?

To put in context, I was reading an article about the tea partiers, one of whom said he didn't want the U.S. to end up under Sharia law. I raised an eyebrow at this since I didn't think that most Muslim countries have Sharia as he's thinking of it (and I assume he's thinking of stonings and women's testimony counting less than male, etc.).

[ljkeane]

Anyone know if any muslim-majority country has a ban on polygamy? Turkey maybe?

Turkey, Tunisia, Azerbaijan and Bosnia apparently, some of the others seem to have laws that would make it difficult.

[Ckrisz]

He appears to attribute this to bad luck, e.g. the Mongols, which is a bit too simply for my taste, since later on, under the Ottomans, Islamic thinkers had a long time of stability again in which they could have produced a scientific revolution. But they did not. Why? There must be other answers than bad luck and wordplay…

Scientific revolution? That pretty much occurred only in one place - Northwest Europe, specifically, and was the product of many more things than simply the right philosophies matching up. Many things, including remarkable luck (see Pomeranz on the critical importance of abundant, cheap, geographically close coal deposits to fueling the coal/steam-engine revolution in England) led to the Industrial Revolution, not just an empirical mode of thought.

[Jon AS]

In a place like Morocco, you have a monarchy that is partially "westernized", but that still bans the sale and consumption of alcohol (at least consumption, maybe not sale).

Definitely not sale. Or, if it's banned, it's not very well enforced.

Anyone know if any muslim-majority country has a ban on polygamy? Turkey maybe?

Turkey abolished Sharia law in the 1920s.