[Dean's World] Dean: "...on the one hand, they wax poetic about freedom, on the other, they condemn people who don't have any for failing to act as if they do"

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Posted by Dean:
"...on the one hand, they wax poetic about freedom, on the other, they condemn people who don't have any for failing to act as if they do"
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1173028551.shtml


   [1]G. Willow Wilson (Who Is A Girl) and I recently had an interesting
   Google chat. --Dean

   Willow: hey, how you doing?

   me: Willow!
   How are ya?
   I'm reading Ali's latest to Spencer. I'm amazed at his fortitude.

   Willow: me too
   i don't have the stamina for conversations like that
   i think you have to have kind of a disregard for your own sanity to
   participate in them. [smile] fortunately ali does

   me: Hahahaha.

   Willow: how are you coping with the Dean's World shakeup? you get my
   email?

   me: I'm coping splendidly well actually.
   Honestly, I'm enjoying blogging again.
   I'd stopped for a while there just because this topic was making me
   spiritually sick.
   I've gotten condemnation on other sites, but less than I expected.

   Willow: i'm glad you're enjoying blogging again

   me: It is a very weird head space to have many thousands of readers
   and hundreds of commenters when this is only something I do as a
   hobby.

   Willow: i bet! that's the power of new media
   i think it's great
   hey
   out of the blogging world
   what is the atmosphere over there? in terms of this islamophobia
   debate?
   i only get the press
   i don't see what people are saying on the street

   me: Hmm.
   That's an interesting question.
   I think that casual bigotry about Muslims is common, but that rarely
   translates into action that I see. If that makes sense.

   Willow: it does
   "damn towelheads" vs. "let's go kill the towelheads"

   me: Yeah more or less.
   There was some stupid political nonsense over a Muslim who was elected
   to Congress, for example.

   Willow: yeah the keith ellison thing
   well
   they said the same stuff about kennedy
   for being catholic

   me: Graffiti now and then.
   Rude commentary when the subject comes up.
   I do fear what will happen if there is another significant terrorist
   attack though. I always have. It's one reason why I've always been
   pretty hawkish. There is a simply marvelous essay on something called
   the [2]Jacksonian tradition in America that explains what I fear on
   that score.

   Willow: i am very worried about what will happen if there is another
   terrorist attack. i wouldn't be surprised if there started to be
   demands for loyalty oaths and whatnot

   me: Yep.

   Willow: i wouldn't have any problem taking one, funnily enough--I
   really don't see where pride should come into it--but it's depressing
   and sad on a human level to be singled out. esp when you're one of the
   people trying (in your own tiny capacity) to fix things

   me: That's pretty much how I feel about it.

   Willow: things are interesting here...there is a great deal of
   animosity toward the wahhabi-influenced fundamentalism, but it's a
   resigned animosity. The problem is that the regimes are so repressive.
   The fundies are the only ones crazy enough to act out and advertise
   themselves because they don't value their own lives. Ordinary people
   don't want to expose themselves to the wrath of a state that punishes
   any act of protest, whether it's pro-fundie or anti-fundie

   me: That has long been obvious to me what's been going on. The real
   problem is the lack of freedom.

   Willow: oh yeah
   ultra liberals will pish and pshaw about the necessity of freedom, but
   man, are you screwed if you don't have any
   your hands are literally tied, literally.
   it creates a situation in which only nutcases will rise to the top

   me: I know. I've been watching closely for years now. Even though I've
   never been there, it's entirely obvious to me that this is exactly
   what is happening. Repressive regimes are all alike.

   Willow: they really are. they create the same circumstances over and
   over again. that's what frustrates me so much about the western
   right...on the one hand, they wax poetic about freedom, on the other,
   they condemn people who don't have any for failing to act as if they
   do

   me: I've studied a lot about how communist and classic fascist regimes
   work. It was always the same.

   Willow: it must be built into human psychology, oppression and the
   response to oppression

   me: Well, [3]Bernard Lewis has had some amazingly insightful things to
   say about that. Amongst other things he notes that prior to the 20th
   century such regimes simply could not exist. Technology made that
   level of repression possible.
   Modern technology also can be an amazingly subversive tool toward
   undermining such regimes, however.

   Willow: Which is absolutely true, I think. Poor Bernard Lewis. The old
   school Edward Said-ites are kicking themselves now; the new breed of
   'orientalist' makes the old one look like enlightened social reformers

   me: They should be kicking themselves.

   Willow: Yeah they missed the boat. I think if Said were still alive he
   would have steered the course of the post-colonial discussion into
   more realistic waters, but he's dead
   [4]Devji might save it. i don't know.

   me: I'm quite a bit more negative on Said than you are, but, in any
   case, you're right that it's moot.

   Willow: he had some good ideas, but i think his anger colored a lot of
   their expression. he's too anti-spiritual at the end of the day. There
   are links between the eastern and western canon that he ignores as a
   result

   me: His anti-Western, anti-Israeli stuff completely colors my opinion
   of him.

   Willow: you should read [5]power politics and culture. it clarifies a
   lot of that stuff. his criticism was easy to de-contextualize but it
   wasn't mad hatred. he did get too close to apologetics for
   unapologizable things though
   the way i see it
   if someone asks you "as a muslim, do you condemn terrorism?"
   the answer is YES
   not "Why should i be asked that as a muslim?"
   he wasn't a muslim
   but same idea

   me: Well it is... I don't know what the word is, I was going to say
   "astounding" but it's not astounding... it is frustrating, I guess,
   how the terms of the debate are always about Muslims.

   Willow: oh yeah
   i'm sick of it

   me: For example, I have noted to my astonishment that Yasser Arafat is
   now routinely referred to as an "Islamic Terrorist."
   Which is like, "Whaaaah?"
   It would be like calling Hitler a Christian Dictator because he was,
   after all, baptized a Roman Catholic.

   Willow: right, exactly. karen armstrong (who i know a lot of people
   are not a fan of, but who says some intelligent things) said once that
   while she was growing up catholic in london at a time when the IRA was
   bombing the tube on a weekly basis, no one talked about 'catholic
   terrorism'

   me: I've tried making that same point to some of my friends but it
   flies right past them. Even the Catholic ones.
   Could I publish this conversation?

   Willow: sure, yeah
   anything for posterity [smile]

   me: Sweet.
   ????
   That's a joke, right?

   Willow: oh yeah
   i was pretending to be a pretentious historian

   Willow: like my words are so great they must be preserved

   me: Heh. Cool.

References

   1. http://www.gwillowwilson.com/
   2. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_1999_Winter/ai_58381618
   3. http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1158768967.shtml
   4. http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/devji.html
   5. http://www.amazon.com/Power-Politics-Culture-Edward-Said/dp/0747574693/ref=sr_1_1/103-1553019-7391814?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173029371&sr=1-1/deansworld01-20