Random Thoughts
The West and Islam
The tragedy of Marxism, as a philosophy is that its tenet of from each according to his ability and to each according to his need, however noble, conflicts with the fundamentals of human nature. The success of capitalism is based on its congruency with the evolved psyche of human beings. Its tragic fault lies in its failure to understand, that the natural outcome of liberty must be tempered by the annealing fire of fraternity and an immersing into the waters of at least a modicum of equality, to emerge as the strong steel of democracy. The problem of Islam is that while the appeals of medievalism to an uneducated populace with a short life span and pandering to the libido of the aggressive male half of the species, was a phenomenally successful intoxicant in an era of relative ignorance, it is a disastrous philosophy for current success.
The triumph of the West is in compromising its principles and religion for pragmatic goals. The treaties of Augsburg and Westphalia gave the choice of state religion to the ruler and then liberated the common people from the constraints of religion, to help the development of the nation state and realign the interests of the Volk, to economics and politics. The Thirty Year war in spite of its devastation of Germany was a watershed, that taught a fundamental everlasting lesson to the West. It allowed them to divorce their behavior from the moralist tenets of religion and pursue their economic self-interest, while still deluding the bulk of their populace, that what they were doing was for the salvation of unbelieving heathens and not for their economic interests. The tragedy of loyalty to false and inconsequential beliefs still persists in the futile dance of death, in Ireland and South Asia where ethnic, social and linguistic factions, who share everything but religion, fight one another to death and annihilation for a false philosophy.
It is the short-term policy of controlling the Middle Eastern oil and the promoting of Moslem rage that fans the flames of terrorist Islam and unfortunately keeps this destined for extinction dinosaur alive. With time this atavistic foolishness of a medieval religion by a pervert prophet cannot stand the sunshine of time, because the force and openness of a secular humanistic gale will blow away the chaff of this trash and scatter it to deserved obscurity, as women realize its oppressive and misogynistic qualities and educated men perceive its inequity and lack of justice.
A combined policy of gradual change with incentives as well as pressure rather than a military adventurism are required. A thoughtful approach and more balanced, long-term thinking like Washington, Adams, Jefferson and even Monroe and Jackson, is sorely necessary and not the flawed fancies of the current government. To take a leaf out of the American advertising agencies which have more intelligence and possibly more foresight than the American administration, be careful about what you wish for, lest you are transformed into the irrelevant energizer bunny or a lapdog, for your foolish desire to be unfailingly immortal or perpetually loved. Instant gratification dictated by current hubris, carries the long-range possibility of being destined for the dustbin of history and the graveyard of irrelevancy and constant unprincipled bullying is like sowing the wind to ensure reaping the whirlwind and thus accelerates and anticipates the outcome of disastrous destruction and demise, as evolutionary genetics teaches us about anticipation effects of deleterious inherited traits.
23-Feb-2003
More by :
Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Top | Random Thoughts
