[lit-ideas] Defending the West
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 08:19:59 -0800
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/13212/sec_id/13212
This is a review (sent me by a lurker) by Rebecca Bynum of Ibn Warraq's
Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism. I read a
review some time ago and was tempted to get the book but I spent so much
time on Said a few years ago that I couldn't bring myself to revisit that
subject. What interests me about this review is that Bynum seems to present
a Marcel Gauchet description of the development of the West when she writes:
"Western culture was created a result of the synthesis of two great strains
in the history of thought, Hellenism and Hebraism, as Matthew Arnold noted
long ago. On one side are the ancient Greeks, who thought very deeply about
sociology, politics, science and philosophy, but neglected religion, and on
the other side are the Hebrews who thought deeply about the nature of God
and morality and took religion very seriously. The record of their
reflections created the most advanced body of religious thought the world
has ever known.
"When this religious thought, further enlarged by the last of the Hebrew
prophets, Jesus, was subsequently Hellenized, the resulting synthesis
created a body of thought that one might regard as a new social order, one
intensely focused on individualism - individual salvation and individual
self-realization. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, as part of the
process of individual self-actualization is taken for granted in western
society and yet this most basic aspect of western civilization is
continually miscomprehended by the Muslim world because the goal of Muslim
society is in diametric opposition to individualism. It focuses instead on
the communal perfecting, defending and enlarging the system of Islam, which
seems to have no other purpose than its own self-perpetuation. . . ."
I read Marcel Gauchet's The Disenchantment of the World, A Political History
of Religion back in 2003 and since then have been considering his thesis
from time to time. It seems incontrovertible and I've seen many others
write articles consistent with his thesis. Gauchet takes Weber's idea that
the West lost its religion and became "disenchanted" (assuming religion an
enchantment), and considers the role of Christianity in the development of
the West. It could not develop as it did, he argues (although an atheist
and no advocate) without Christianity. He also argues something vaguely
Marxian when he writes that Christianity is no longer necessary and can
wither away as far as he is concerned. Which leaves him vaguely in the same
place as Francis Fukuyama (it seems to me) assuming that Liberal Democracy
may very well be the end of History.
Bynum isn't arguing this point, the point that interests me, she merely
assumes it and criticizes Said for not knowing it. Perhaps Said should have
known it. It seems that Osama bin Laden and other Islamists know enough
about it to reject it. They wouldn't necessarily disagree with Bynum's
point that Islam "focuses . . . on the communal perfecting, defending and
enlarging the system of Islam, which . . . [has] no other purpose than its
own self-perpetuation." Islam, they argue, is perfect; so progress and
individualism are evils of the West and ought to be rejected.
Lawrence
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