[lit-ideas] Re: Ideology vs Experience

Perhaps we could discuss my view that

>>>>>>>>
 Because of the war on Iraq, some Muslims
are being attracted to extremist versions of militant
Islam.
<<<<<<<<<

as that is, it seems, happening in the UK.


EY> If all you mean is that the war in Iraq has caused more 
> Muslims to join the fight against the West, what's the 
> problem? 

good point; the War could not decently have been opposed
on those grounds alone (WWII is not a good
general example, though).   But is it not the case that
Bush says he is making the US safer by waging these wars?

Also Simon and I are both arguing, in our different ways,
against an over-emphasis on Qutb.

Judy Evans, Cardiff


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric Yost" <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 6:37 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Ideology vs Experience


> Simon: Do you accept that the war in Iraq has created more 
> fundamentlists than there were before?
> 
> How are fundamentalists "created"? To call someone a 
> fundamentalist is to say that the person in question 
> believes that the interpretation of every word of a sacred 
> text is a literal truth.
> 
> Usually, or so it seems, the intellectual development of 
> people goes from a literal understanding to a figurative 
> understanding, and not the other way, from metaphorical 
> understanding back to literal understanding.
> 
> So "creating fundamentalists" implies that an event can 
> cause people to shed complex and nuanced views of religion, 
> devolving into an obedient and unquestioning acceptance of 
> literal statements. Seems unlikely.
> 
> If all you mean is that the war in Iraq has caused more 
> Muslims to join the fight against the West, what's the 
> problem? Intensification of ground war in World War 2 caused 
> more Nazis to join the fight against the Allies. Trying to 
> dispose of a hornet's nest always makes the hornets swarm.
> 
> 
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