----- Original Message ----- From: "Russell Chapman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 10:26 PM Subject: Re: SCOUTED: Why We Fight
> John D. Giorgis wrote: > > > Some academics have written a rather interesting 10-page piece on the > > foundations of Western Civilization and why we are fighting this War. > > Initial Thoughts: > 1. They initially claim "All human beings are born free and equal in > dignity and rights" as a self-evident truth. They later concede that > this is in fact their collective personal opinion. While it happens to > be my personal opinion as well, it is not the opinion of the majority of > the world's population - the people of Asia, Central Asia, the > sub-continent, the Middle East, most of Africa and a good percentage of > South America treat females and males differently from cradle to grave. > That alone suggests it is not a self-evident truth, and in terms of > making a statement to middle-eastern people, smacks of the very > arrogance they deplore. Well, I think there are a lot of things to be said about that, but I'll try to keep this under 50k. :-) First, if one considers the People of the Book, (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) one sees a fundamental equality in the eyes of God in the sacred scriptures of those works. One may not think of that in terms of the Islamic culture, but I have been told by teachers in classes on Islam that the restrictions on women are not inherently derived from the Koran, but a matter of cultural patterns. Further, since Islam and Christianity share the belief that Genesis as scripture, the understanding of all humans as being made in the image and likeness of God goes far to support this "self-evident truth." It is true that practices in many cultures are inconsistent with this understanding. However, one can look to the history of the West to see self-professed Christians acting in a similar manner. The Southerners who thought that blacks were made inherently inferior to whites are a prime example of this. Indeed, it is special irony that the man who wrote "all men are created equal" owned other humans as property and had a number of children by his wife's half sister, who was his property...as were his children by her. I'm not as familiar with Hinduism or Buddhism, but I have studied them some. Gautam would be a much better resource on Hinduism than I would be, but I don't recall anything in the 'Gita that would indicate women being inherently lower than men. While it is true that Hinduism has the caste system, the local Hindu priest, who was at my church for a post 9-11 forum on different American faiths talked about all people being equal. I read the comment on "all being created equal" as a "self evident truth" as harking back to the Declaration of Independence. I read that their comments were that the tie to Christianity was not fundamental; but historical. That is to say, one could point to other eras where the Moors fostered a multicultural environment in Spain, and then the Christians held the Inquisition once they reconquered Spain. As I mentioned before, I see "self evident truths" as a universal faith statements. It harkens back to Paul's comment that the Gentiles should have know morality simply from their observation of the world. It also refers to the may embodiments of "the Golden Rule" in the world. As far as I can tell, the alternative to the acceptance of truths, of morality that is not simply a byproduct of culture, is a denial of the existence of universals. Is the idea of the right of people to life an liberty simply a Western conceit? Is the concept of Native Americans and blacks as sub-humans with no rights equally valid as considering them as people with equal rights as the Europeans who came to the New World? (I'm trying to use examples of evil done by the US, but there are clearly evil practices all over the world.) What is terribly ironic is that, in the Middle Eastern culture, this sort of moral relativism is far more repugnant than Christianity. Christianity is considered an inferior religion but friends of mine who are devout Christians and who have lived in the Middle East for many years have said that they have been told many times "but at least you are religious." > 2. The statement "we are by far the western world's most religious > society" is probably of dubious value in places like Turkey (yes I know > it is barely Western, but they are on "our" side of the divide), I'd be curious to see figures on this. My memory is that weekly attendance at the mosques is not that common, but that's a weak memory. >Israel, Is mostly atheistic. A Jewish friend of mine said he was pulled off the street to read kiddush (sp) because there were so few Jewish people in Israel who were at all religious. > Greece, I'm pretty sure that Greece is like Italy, with old women and children being the primary church goers. >and a considerable number of countries in Central and South > America. I know this is _definitely_ not true. My uncle had a parish of 100,000 in Maracay, Venezuela, and he was lucky to get a total Sunday attendance in the hundreds. They are "Muy Catolico, but no fanatico" (very Catholic but no fanatic), which is the response when asked 1) Are they Catholic? 2) Will they go to church? People in the US go to church far more frequently than people in Latin America. Its more than an order of magnitude difference. So, if we include Russia, Europe, North and South America as the West, and have Turkey sorta on the border, we see this as an accurate statement. The only possible exception I can see to that is Ireland, and church attendance there is falling rapidly. I think that, with this general understanding, it is hard to consider that statement as anything more than an empirical fact. (At least as long as one accepts church attendance as a measure of the level of religion in a culture.) >Again, it smacks of arrogance. Why, if allow If they really mean the most > religious in North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and > South Africa then say that. If you're going to include all those > countries with western values and systems in the term "the western > world" when you want to show how many and how widespread we are, then > you can't redefine it in another paragraph. > 3. "The principles of just war teach us that wars of aggression and > aggrandizement are never acceptable" > While they continue to define and opine at some length, I think they > miss the point that some wars are just (eg Kuwait) and while we see war > x as just, other cultures will see war y or war z as just. So, is right and wrong simply a byproduct of culture? If the South had won the Civil War, would that have made slavery right? > 4. "One day, this war will end. When it does - and in some respects even > before it ends - the great task of conciliation awaits us" > It is my opinion that the war on terror will never end, and has raged > since the dawn of time. We know it existed in biblical times, we know it > existed in the dark ages (those castles were built for a reason) and we > know it continues today, but even more fervently I believe that > conciliation is a fundamental part of that war, not the next step after > the war has been won. > > I'm still amazed that many of those people could agree enough to write > it down... > > Russell Chapman > Brisbane Australia >
