Awareness
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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
It seems that the commonest argument against this is that Islam never had the same hostility between reason and faith. 'Reason was placed within a larger context of being and thinking, which gave meaning to man's life and the universe of which he is a part. It functioned in unison with knowledge, wisdom, prudence and virtue.' If this is true, it would account for why so much of various aspects of classical knowledge survived in Islam. I think that latter is pretty much wrapped up: however they did it, 'Enlightenment' in the western sense of that word or no, Islam held onto that learning. That presupposes that an outright proscription on reason and the pursuit of knowledge would be necessary to ensure that Islamic theocracy remained the supreme authority in the Islamic world. However the pursuit of knowledge could obviously take place within the constraints of Islamic doctrine. The proverbial fly in the ointment would occur whenever that pursuit conflicted with the teachings of the Quran or - depending upon your sect - one group of hadith or another.
In large part, up until the Reformation, the Christian world had mostly peaceful doctrinal disagreements among its various denominations, resulting in effect in the dominance of Catholicism. This had its own problems, but there wasn't the spectre of two large, highly martial intra-faith groups arguing over religious doctrine. There was simply a single imperialist religion grasping for power in quasi-competition with feudal Kings of the time. (The actual relationships were complex.)
Added to this, Christianity was never a wholly theocratic power. Indeed, the founding principles of Christianity include humility, love and servitude and while human beings could parlay doctrine into power, it's very difficult to argue convincingly that Christianity's mission is to dominate the world.
Then we get Martin Luther who advanced the idea that secular rulers and religious faith are, in effect, two separate aspects of God's rule in two separate arenas of life. The secular rulers in the affairs of law; faith in Christ in affairs of the spirit. A philosophical outcome of considering Jesus' command, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's".
While you could argue that this leaves scope for interpretation, it's a clear indication of how the central figure of the Christian religion is very clearly not stoking rebellion against secular rule. Martin Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms - which further articulates the separation of Church and State - is a direct callback to that quote and further weakens any attempts at doctrinal justification for Christians attempting religious conquest.
To sum up: The significant difference is that Islamic law essentially supersedes reason and Islam lacks the fundamental separation of Church and State which is almost baked into the founding ideas of Christianity. In a doctrinal sense, Islam is about conquest, whereas Christianity is about conquering the darkness within our hearts.
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ORIGINAL: Awareness
Sen's primary argument appears to be that Huntington's concept of civilisations lacks granularity and that Western democracy is largely a historical accident, rather than a result of an intrinsic ideological commitment to freedom. That's possibly correct (notwithstanding my Islamic/Christian comparison above), although largely irrelevant to the central thesis that what we actually have to deal with in our present world is a bunch of cultures attempting to dominate each other. And while scarcity exists, we're always going to see human beings compete for resources, at multiple levels, but primarily at the level of cultural competition, because culture binds the largest groups of people and thus the largest expressions of their will.
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I wouldn't say this is Sen's primary argument re Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations. I think most would draw from him his critique of Huntington's ideas of culture and identity: ""The same person can be, without any contradiction, an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a vegetarian, a long-distance runner, a historian, a schoolteacher, a novelist, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theater lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician," etc. One's civilizational identity is not one's destiny, Sen observes, and civilizational "partitioning" -- seeing the planet culture by culture -- does not capture the messiness of the world. This Earth of ours, he says, is made more "flammable" by warring definitions of human identity, rather than an embrace of the many different facets that make us human."" I see this as a pointless foray into identity politics, resembling some people's insistence on being treated as a special snowflake. There are three fundamental problems with this idea if he's trying to undo Huntington's thesis.
Firstly, the cross-section of descriptors being used to describe a human being is irrelevant. Conflict is a product of what people believe about themselves and others. The appellations have no bearing on this. Conflict occurs because an individual's underlying beliefs result in a desire to take action which conflicts with the desire to take action of another. The desire to take action is based upon your perception of reality filtered by your fundamental beliefs. Therefore we can see that all conflict is inherently a conflict of belief.
Second, Sen's idea that people's individuality somehow makes them inured to culture is batshit-crazy nonsense. I know the point he's making, it's just that the point he's making is wildly fucking irrelevant and flies in the face of what we know about group psychology. Let's consider the influences in an individual's life as they grow and mature:
1) Family: As a child grows and learns, the values and beliefs it incorporates into its own identity will be heavily influenced by the beliefs of the parents. Those beliefs will be influenced to an enormous degree by the cultural allegiance of the parents.
2) Peers: As a child matures into a teenager, it often becomes a virtual clone of its peers with teenage individuality being a relative rarity. Teenagers soak up culture like sponges, which is why so much marketing is pitched directly at them.
3) Society: As a mature adult, the individual swims in a society of complex social codes and signals. Individuals constantly engage in signalling with the world around them. Social mores, signals and frames of reference are almost explicitly cultural. This doesn't define the totality of who they are, but it heavily influences their fundamental beliefs. (And remember: beliefs cause conflict.
4) Social group: The culture of a social group will inevitably be defined by the collective culture they have absorbed from their own societies. There'll be variations of course, but the only variations which matter are those which are significant enough to cause a difference in action. A group of socialists who get together in coffee houses and talk about how capitalism sucks, but then go away to their jobs every morning and never take action in accordance with their beliefs are essentially capitalists in all the ways that matter.
All of these groups are heavily influenced by culture and if you read Robert Cialdini's book "Influence", you'll also note the astonishing influence of Social Proof on the behaviour of individuals. In short, the notion that we're all individual and free is a comfortable delusion. Most people are in the vice-like grip of culture, social influence and their own psychology. Variation is the exception, not the rule.
Third, the large scale conflicts of humanity are inherently cultural, and even if they weren't, Islamic doctrine explicitly makes it so. Islam's fundamental approach to the world is: "If you're not for us, you're against us". There are only two sides: Islam and infidels. Even if you don't agree with Huntington's definition of the major cultures in the world, there's no doubt that Islamic culture is distinctly different - and in many ways diametrically opposed - to Western culture.
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I don't argue with the view that in certain countries of the world, Islam has a stronger grip on its peoples than does Christianity in mainly-Christian countries. However, there's clearly a difference *between* those countries where Islam is the predominant religion. Many countries where Islam is either a major religion, or even predominates - particularly in Africa and Asia - are at the same time mainly secular
An interesting thesis, however I took a look at those countries where Sharia law does not hold sway, and this is what I found:
Benin - Majority Christian
Burkina Faso - Majority Islam but practiced in tandem with pre-existing indigenous religion
Cameroon - Majority Christian
Chad - Majority Islam with legal system based on French law.
Cote d'Ivoire - Very slight majority Islam with Christianity behind by a few percentage points
Gabon - Majority Christian
Guinea-Bissau - Majority Islam although fucking dirt-poor and heavily influenced by animism
Guinea - Majority Islam practiced in parallel with existing indigenous religion.
Mali - Majority Islam and a model of tolerance until the introduction of Sharia in the northern parts of the country in 2012, after which it became number 7 in the Christian persecution index.
Mozambique - Majority Christian
Niger - Majority Islam with, surprisingly, separation of Church and State guaranteed by the 2010 constitution, although the judicial tradition is descended from French colonial law which might go some way to explaining it.
Senegal - Majority Islam, former French colony (official language is French), jurisprudence probably heavily influenced by French colonial law
Sierra Leone - Majority Islam with influential Christian minority, regarded as one of the most religiously tolerant nations in the world with religious violence being extremely rare.
Togo - Majority indigneous belief with Christianity second
Tunisia - Majority Islam with judicial system based on French civil law.
Guyana - Majority Christian
Suriname - Majority Christian with Hindu second
Azerbaijan - Majority Islam, former Soviet Republic
Turkey - Majority Islam but a really interesting case. The founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk completely ripped Turkey away from its Islamic roots and realigned it with Europe. He changed everything: Dress codes, language, alphabet, everything. And he was able to do so after the country was devastated and beaten after World War 1.
Interestingly the current President is attempting to give it back to Islam. I suggest watching Turkey carefully as Sharia law is probably on the way back in, at which point the stoning of gays will probably resume.
Bosnia/Herzegovina - Slim Muslim majority with religious freedom enshrined in the Constitutions although the country was an ethnic-cleansing horror show and much of the country's current legal system is no doubt heavily influenced by international law.
Kosovo - Almost totally Islamic with religious freedom granted by a constitution which is based on international law.
Northern Cyprus - Almost totally Islamic with laws from Turkey.
Stats: 22 nations, 6 majority Christian, 4 majority Islam with judicial tradition descended from French colonial law, 1 former Soviet Republic, 1 Majority indigenous belief, 2 majority Islam with constitutions defined by international law, 2 majority Islam with Islamic influence explicitly removed (Turkey and Northern Cyprus), 2 very slim majority Islam with Christianity close behind, 3 majority Islam with heavily influential indigenous beliefs, 1 majority Islam with high degree of religious tolerance (although currently degrading)
Many of these nations have constitutions guaranteeing religious freedom and many of them explicitly separate church and state. The pattern I see here - and no doubt you will disagree - is that when Islam is influenced by a Christian majority (or near-parity), a colonial legal tradition, an indigenous belief, international law, or the deliberate elimination of Islamic influence, that nation turns secular and in the vast majority of cases, separates Church and State.
That would appear to support my contention that Islam's failure to separate Church and State - the lack of its own Enlightenment - is at the heart of its tendency toward Sharia-mandated murder. In other words, the countries you cite as being exceptions are precisely those countries where Islam's grip is the weakest.
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What is it that makes that difference? There are many, many arguments, of course. But at bottom, I think it must depend largely on the central idea - that Sen and others articulate - that we're not - and cannot be - just the products of our religion or a culture that's itself largely the product of religion. It's as though Huntington had pounced on religion and culture as the main variables and, especially after 9/11, these became flavour of the day. Nation-against-nation; rich against poor ... with Huntington's new thesis those ideas were stale old hat. Religion was the new divide and the new cause of conflict. This doesn't match the empirical evidence. It's one of the causes, but it has to get thrown in with the mixture of other causes. No. As my quick analysis above shows, it's very clearly a weakening of Islamic influence. The real world - at least in this instance - would appear to back Huntington up on this one.
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I have to say that I think this notion of 'white guilt' and its perniciousness is highly overstated. It smacks to me too much of right wing propaganda and straw-manning. I don't think so. It's the very foundation of the ongoing calls for "diversity" in various public arenas. There's an ongoing refrain of "white, cis, male and heterosexual is bad so we need more of anything else". This is artificial. Cultural expression is a reflection of cultural influence, not quota-setting.
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It's not because of some PC view of us westerners being gits that makes me want to tread carefully with Islam, it's because I think that it's imprudent. It isn't a good policy to try to take on the entire world of Islam firstly, because it's too big and, if at all possible, I'd want to avoid another world war. The problem with that is that it presumes good faith or reason on the other side, whereas there's considerable evidence to show the opposite. In contrast it seems that the most prudent approach is to attack Islam's theocratic core in some way so as to render it more inherently secular. That's a strategy which can only come from within, which is why it's critical for Muslims to undertake their own Reformation. This is the message of Muslim reformers such as Majid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
What is astonishing is the left's refusal to listen to actual Muslims about the flaws of their own culture which they know from the inside out: http://observer.com/2016/04/why-ayaan-hirsi-alis-criticism-of-islam-angers-western-liberals/
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It seems a lot more effective employ the political equivalent of military 'surgical strikes'. That is you attack those who you are clearly your enemies, but *only* those who are clearly your enemies. (And yes, I'm aware that the practice of such surgical strikes doesn't always live up to the much-vaunted theory of them. As a political strategy we have to be very, very careful about 'collateral damage'.) you might even want to call this 'divide and rule' - a historically-successful strategy - except that we don't need to do too much of the 'dividing' part of that - Islam is already very divided. The enemy of the West is the non-secular doctrinal heart of Islam expressed in the Quran and the various hadith, not a particular group of people. I hope I've given you reason to consider that the secular nature of Western society is at least partially due to Christian theological tradition. If you accept that idea, then it becomes clear that the inherently non-secular nature of Islam is what prevents it from truly becoming a religion of peace. Finding accommodation with Islam absolutely depends on Islam examining its own dark heart. Because it is inherently incompatible with the secular nature of the West.
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In general, I don't propose 'redressing the balance' so much as 'enlightened self interest' - being as 'kind' as it takes for one's own survival. On the world stage we need to arrange it such that, say, conflict over resources is limited to the sort of fight that the market takes care of. There'll still be winners and losers, and many people who are unhappy at being the latter - but it doesn't *have* to turn into war.
That will not stop until we become a post-scarcity society. It's a game theory equation and while human beings don't behave rationally, they're very good at operating from fear and greed. As long as there's a perception that war will bring advantage, war will continue.
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RE: New Front in the Battle for Religious Freedom - 
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