[lit-ideas] Re: discussion or the same old slugfest?
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 18:34:44 -0700 (PDT)
--- Scribe1865@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Omar, I was seeking to engage people on the value of
> the ancient near eastern
> influence on Western cultures. In doing so, we could
> be discussing attitudes
> toward authority, approaches to learning, etc.,
> styles of government,
> paradigms of our relation to the natural world, the
> impact of Greek thought on the
> ancient near east after 323 BC, etc.
*I am afraid that the proposed topic is simply too
broad to result in a productive discussion, even if we
had the time, resources etc. There is little in
Western cultures that could not be traced back to
near-Eastern influences. The Greek philosophy
originally borrowed heavily from the Egyptians, the
Persians etc. It was later re-introduced in the West
through the Arabs.
> Instead you and Mike Chase (who both should know
> better) immediately engage
> in name calling, racist stereotyping, and ad
> hominems, as if I were some Bubba
> trying to say them thar Ay-rabs were baaaad.
*I think that both Mike Chase and I were responding
with a mild sense of humour.
(snip)
> As for your Jesus reference and my Sufi reference,
> why not add G. Bruno and
> others to reinforce the point that orthodoxies tend
> to persecute individual
> thinking everywhere?
*Surely most listmembers will have some awareness of
the activities of Catholic Inquisition, the wars of
Reformation etc. Islam has its own history of
persecuting religious dissent, but it is not nearly on
such a massive scale and in such a systematic manner.
Sufism became a tolerated and even respectable form of
Islam within 100 years from Al-Hallaj's death.
Otherwise you are merely making
> a covert political point
> about Jews killing Jesus and I am countering with a
> political point about Moslems
> killing Sufi mystics.
*I was originally making a point about what seemed to
me to be a politically motivated misrepresentation of
the Kuranic view on the murder of Jesus ('The Kuran
says that Crucifixion never happened'), and some
covert suggestion that the Arabs or Muslims are
apparently not fit to even watch a film that deals
with this issue. It wasn't my intention to turn that
into an all-out assault on the Jews as you interpreted
it, and it wasn't necessary to activate the
pseudo-Nietzschean American Superman on me.
O.K.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway
http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
