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Changing Islam: is it a question of culture versus nature?
Following my exchange with Barbara Gilbert about Islam and female genital mutilation, S.T. (Sam) Karnick at the Reform Club website posted a critique of it, and more broadly, of my view (and Spencer Warren’s view) of President Bush’s Muslim democratization program. He then sent the article to an e-mail list and the following discussion ensued between us. It may seem like slow going at first, especially in my long opening e-mail, where I’m trying to figure out what Mr. Karnick is saying, but the issue gets clarified as the discussion proceeds. (Also, the discussion has been extended since I posted it last night.) Basically Mr. Karnick thinks that reforming Islam is a matter of nature vs. nurture. The Muslims’ culture represents a distortion of human nature and it is therefore antithetical to a democratic liberal society founded on natural rights. But, he continues, if Muslims’ circumstances were changed, their culture would change. I argue that such an analysis is irrelevant to the case at hand. To know whether it’s possible for Muslim societies to become liberal democracies, we must understand what Islam itself is. Abstract ideas about nature versus nurture do not help us do that. And (to speak of the particular nature that really matters here) Islam by its very nature is and will always be incompatible with democracy. Here’s the discussion: Lawrence Auster: While I appreciate Sam’s thoughtful critique of my views about Islam and democratization (though I am not on the anti-war right, as he labels me), I must say I find his arguments overcomplicated and bewildering. He believes in common human nature, and in cultural differences, and he says my anti-democratist argument (which I base on Muslims’ differences from us) is ineffective because I don’t place enough emphasis on the common human nature (!), but then he explains this is terms of common human nature plus cultural differences. (Are you confused enough yet?) To try to clarify this confusing situation, I’ll quote Sam’s last three paragraphs where he sums up his critique:
In arguing, from conservative premises, against Western projects of nation-building in the “developing world,” conservatives such as Auster and Warren (and Buchanan, etc.) face a huge dilemma: their belief in a common human nature (though one that certainly permits a wide variety of human customs and organizing beliefs) is a strong argument against radicalism of the left, but it is not useful in refuting the logic of projects based on a belief in a common human nature, as Bush’s nation-building action in Iraq most certainly is. From a classical liberal point of view (which is one that accepts the belief in human nature), it appears that antiwar conservatives would make much more headway by two means:So, Sam is saying that President Bush and I have the same assumptions about a common human nature. Therefore I’m on weak ground in disagreeing with Bush’s democratism. The first problem is the abstractness with which Sam approaches the issue, which ends by missing the actual contents of these respective points of view. Bush’s supposed appeal to classic natural rights is actually a perversion of it. A classic view of human nature would say that people can potentially fulfill their nature, in democracy for example, but they have to do it. They have to make it happen. Others can’t make it happen for them. Bush has turned this around by saying that all human beings “deserve” freedom and democracy. He has turned natural rights into a global welfare state in which he bestows the means of achieving democracy on other peoples. Of course, no one deserves democracy and freedom, any more than they deserve their own jet plane; they have to create the complex set of conditions, an entire civilization, in fact, that can carry democracy. Do the dwellers in a shanty town in West Africa “deserve” democracy? No, they simply aren’t at a civilizational level for that. And it’s not just a matter of “level” but of type of consciousness. As Voegelin said, a key condition of democracy is that the individual be seen as a potential knower of truth. But Muslims don’t believe that, they believe the individual must be submitted to Allah and not think. Shi’ite Iraqis are a clan people. They do what their imam tells them. That’s their religion and their culture. The individual with his individual conscience is not the core of their culture, as with the West; the mosque, the clan, the tribe is the core of the Muslims’ culture. This makes democracy, or even civil society itself, out of the question. Next there is the inferior place of women: polygamy, female genital mutiliation. Cultures that treat half the human race as inferiors in this way obviously cannot be democratic. Then there is sharia, which sacralizes the inferiority of non-Muslims. Again, democracy is out of the question. Now, do Muslims, as Sam says, have the potential to live democratically? Maybe, but only if they renounce Islam. But they’re not going to renounce Islam, and we can’t make them do it, short of some totalitarian crushing of an entire people. Therefore the whole question of their becoming democratic is ridiculous, absurd, not a matter of serious discussion. And therefore using human nature as the basis of this discussion doesn’t help at all. The point that matters is the actual ways, beliefs, religion, habits of the Muslims. But then, in his last paragraph, Sam turns around and makes my argument for me, saying that democratization “conflicts with human nature, specifically the persistence of cultural notions that, however perversely, accomplish certain things necessary to human existence.” So after all this, Sam’s position is practically identical to mine! He also believes that Muslims are too different from us, and that their differences are too deeply ingrained, for them to become liberals or democrats. But that’s what I’ve been saying all along. So what is the point of Sam’s tortured excursion into natural rights theory? And what is the basis of his criticism that my argument must remain ineffectual so long as I don’t acknowledge the similarity of my views to those of Bush? What it comes down to is, Sam seems to be saying that my argument would be more effective if I said something like this: “There is a common human nature which is the basis of human rights. This human nature requires humans to form themselves into discrete cultures and societies in order to organize life and give it order and meaning. These cultures and societies are going to be different from each other, in some cases, radically, incompatably different. Therefore, the fact of a common human nature leads to actual differences between different peoples that have profound significance politically, since some cultures will not be amenable to our culture and will not be able to create or maintain liberal democratic polities based on natural rights. Their culture prevents the true fulfillment of their nature.” That, I gather, is what Sam wants me to say. But again, other than sticking in the point about a common human nature, which is immediately counteracted by the assertion of mutually incompatible cultural differences, how is he adding to or improving my argument? Sam Karnick: What you would need to add, Larry, is the possibility that some cultures are perversely antithetical to certain crucial aspects of human nature. Certainly you agree with that. And then, as a consequence of that belief (and the obvious fact that cultures are at least somewhat mutable), you must entertain the possibility—not the inevitability by any means, but simply the possibility—that by changing the circumstances in which people live, the culture in which they live will change significantly, given time. (Certainly history demonstrates that to be true, as in the changes in Germany, Japan, Korea, etc., since World War II. And that type of leadership-effect on a nation’s culture is the crux of your argument against the changes in America that have occurred since World War II: they have changed the culture in many ways you correctly see as deleterious.) Then, once we accept that social and political conditions can change culture, the matter in any particular case becomes a question of whether the changes instituted are such as will ultimately result in a significant change in the culture. Regarding Iraq, you say no, and Bush says yes. I see no reason to think that either position is either a logical necessity or a logical impossibility. The deficiency I see in your argument is this: you see human nature as being real (with which I strongly agree) but believe that cultural factors thoroughly overcome human nature in every individual. The deficiency I see in Bush’s argument is the same thing but with the terms “cultural factors” and “human nature” reversed. It’s analogous to the old “nature versus nurture” argument, with you giving overwhelming predominance to nurture and Bush giving overwhelming predominance to nature. I don’t find either position convincing, Larry. Best w’s, Sam LA: Ok, then I have understood you and we’re on the same page if not in agreement. Here is where I think you go wrong. You write:
The deficiency I see in your argument is this: you see human nature as being real (with which I strongly agree) but believe that cultural factors thoroughly overcome human nature in every individual. The deficiency I see in Bush’s argument is the same thing but with the terms “cultural factors” and “human nature” reversed. It’s analogous to the old “nature versus nurture” argument, with you giving overwhelming predominance to nurture and Bush giving overwhelming predominance to nature. I don’t find either position convincing, Larry.You’re treating this matter as though it were to be resolved on the basis of some general idea about the relative importance of nature and nurture. That is totally irrelevant to this case. To resolve this question, what we must understand is ISLAM. The particular doctrinal and historical facts about Islam, especially having to do with jihad and dhimmitude and sharia: that’s what matters. And I respectfully suggest that don’t sufficiently grasp these matters, otherwise you wouldn’t be approaching the issue from the point of view of some general proposition about human nature and human culture. Such ideas can’t help you here. You need to know about Islam. And the bottom line is that, as long as people are Muslims, they are not going to be amenable to democracy. Approaching this topic from any other point of view than the concrete nature of Islam is an escape from reality, an ivory tower game. As a final point, let me quote a recent blog entry where I quote a remarkable article from 1935 dealing with Britain’s earlier efforts to do in Islam what we’re trying to do. And note that the constitution that British helped create in the 1930s was MORE advanced and liberal than ours, as it was not a sharia-based constitution. SK: Thanks, Larry, for the follow-up. Actually, I do recognize the unhappy truths about Islam, but I also recognize that there are variations within that faith. Your claim that NO Muslim can truly accept principles of representative government and limitations on government action is simply not true. Many do, all around the world, and many of these live in the most repressive Muslim nations, as you are well aware. You may say that these individuals are not good Muslims, but then you would only be agreeing with the jihadists. As to the British case, the fact that the British society at home became demoralized and abandoned its empire is a more obvious cause of the failure of Western principles to take root in Iraq. Giving up was not a good strategy then, and it is an interesting matter for debate as to whether it is a good strategy now. That is, one could quite reasoanbly take the very opposite lesson from the case you cite. Hence, I remain agnostic on the matter. Best w’s, Sam LA: You write: “Your claim that NO Muslim can truly accept principles of representative government and limitations on government action is simply not true. Many do, all around the world, and many of these live in the most repressive Muslim nations, as you are well aware.” This misses the point. The issue is not individual Muslims. The issue is Islam. There can be moderate Muslims. There cannot be moderate Islam. Islam by its nature is a totalitarian political faith seeking totalitarian power over the whole world. That is what it is. People can be indifferent or ignorant Muslims. But to the extent that they are devout Muslims, the Koran is their authority, Allah is their God, Jihad is their path, sharia over the whole earth is their goal. If they don’t have the power to wage jihad, they won’t wage it. The Muslim world stagnated for centuries. But as soon as they have the power to wage it, they will wage it. The fact that you would center the argument around individual Muslims and their feelings evidences a common misunderstanding of Islam. Westerners tend to think of Islam as just a “religion,” something that people can practice in private, or not practice, something that doesn’t have public significance. They assume that when Muslims come to the West, they’ll drop the religion or moderate it so that it becomes relatively unimportant, as happened with many Christians and Jews. But this is incorrect. Islam is not only a religion. Islam is also a political/military crusade for world dominance. That is what it was under Muhammad and the Caliphs, and that is what it is today. Again, there are weaker Muslims, indifferent Muslims, non-believing Muslims, less consistent Muslims. But a consistent Muslim must be a jihadist seeking to impose sharia on the world. That’s what God commands. There’s another fallacy connected with this notion that it’s a matter of what individual Muslims “feel” and “believe.” The idea is that, if they assimilate, they’ll drop their “extreme” feelings and their “hate” and become “like us.” This is totally wrong. Muslims don’t have these views because of some personal “hate” that they carry. They have these views because that is what their religion commands. As long as the religion exists this will be the case. And that is why, as I’ve said before, the only way to live in the world with Islam and maintain our own liberty is to weaken, contain and isolate Islam so that it can have no influence or power over us. SK: Larry, Islam as a crusade has no effectiveness whatever without the loyalty of millions of individuals. Hence, changing the culture that breeds such persons makes sense even if we cannot be certain that it will transform those societies fully. It’s certainly much better than punting altogether. The other alternative, a Holy War of the West to destroy Islam, is simply not going to happen. LA: You’ve just conceded my main point. You say the answer is to change their culture so as to remove the loyalty of a billion Muslims to Islam. But if you remove their loyalty to Islam, they’re no longer Muslims. Now I agree that making Muslims to be no longer Muslims would solve the problem of Islam. This is what is said in the school of apostates, represented by Ibn Warraq, who says Islam can’t be reformed, the only solution is for people to leave Islam. But getting a billion Muslims to renounce their faith would be the greatest social engineering project in history, dwarfing Ataturk, dwarfing Soviet Communism. In fact it would require a world war since devout Muslims and jihadists would see that what they have feared all along has come true: that America is seeking to destroy them. Ironically, you say that my approach leads to a “Holy War of the West to destroy Islam,” when in fact you’re the one proposing such a war to destroy Islam, while I only seek to contain and isolate Islam, leaving it free in its own lands so long as it doesn’t threaten us. Meanwhile, your ameliorative scheme will fail, after years of effort, and in the interim we would have poured our national life blood into that doomed “cultural peace process,” at home. SK: Larry, Leaving Islam free in its own lands does threaten us, as it cannot be contained there. Yes, Western multiculturalism is partly to blame for the infection coming to our shores, but even without it, the jihadists would come after us. In addition, I don’t accept the premise that a Muslim must be a jihadist in order to be a true Muslim: that’s exactly like saying that a person has to give up all his possessions in order to be a true Christian, and equally untrue. The existence of Islamic moderates proves that such a position is possible. Finally, I don’t argue that we have to remove the loyalty of Muslims to Islam, just to jihadism. Strengthening moderate strains of Islam, which I know you deny exist, is therefore a plausible way to reduce the effectiveness of jihadists. We know for a fact that there are plenty of Islamic moderates around and about, and a policy intended to increase their number is therefore by no means intrinsically unjustifiable. Sam LA: Ok, you don’t seek to turn them into non-Muslims, you seek to turn them into moderate Muslims. That is still the most ambitious social engineering scheme in history. You believe that that scheme is readily possible, but you don’t believe that containing Islam is possible. It would be possible, if the non-Muslim countries recognized the common threat they face and took consistent action to forestall it. That’s not impossible at all, it simply means an increase and systematization of what already is done, namely, not allowing immigrants of certain classes to enter. Also, deportations and expulsions of peoples have been done throughout history, so that is not a pie in the sky proposal either. Transforming the whole nature of Islam, is. As for your rejection of the idea that a Muslim must be a jihadist in order to be a true Muslim, all I can say is that you have yet to confront the basic facts about Islam. For starters, see my article, “The Centrality of Jihad in Islam,” where I discuss how all 55 Muslim countries signed the Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which subordinates all notions of human rights to sharia. I find this a definitive expression of the Muslim world because it is the official statement of all the Muslim countries acting together (including the “moderate” Turkey—and this was in 1990, over a decade before an Islamist party was elected in Turkey). You could not find a more authoritative expression of Islam as Islam than this. This is the way the world of Islam represents itself to itself, that it is under sharia. It has no other way of representing itself. And jihad is commanded by sharia. In fact, sharia is a stage of jihad, in which non-Muslims, having been defeated by jihad war, are placed in permanent inferior status under sharia law. Sharia and jihad are the eternal “default” positions of Muslims. They may be indifferent to or uninvolved in their faith for a long time, but when they become lost and look for guidance, when they return to the fold, there is this one unchanging law. And because the only authoritative sources in Islam command this, the moderates will ultimately lose any debate with the radicals, because it’s the radicals who are basing themselves on the authoritative texts, while the moderates are basing themselves on nothing but their own wishes. Why do you think that no terrorists have been declared apostates? Why have their been no fatwas against bin Laden? It’s because the terrorists are good Muslims. As long as a person is a good Muslim he cannot be expelled. This is why it’s fatuous to say, “The existence of Islamic moderates proves that such a position is possible.” You do not even respond to my earlier point, that the existence of moderate Muslims does not prove the existence of moderate Islam. You just keep pointing to some individual moderates. But the moderates are powerless individuals who have no authority in Islam. I would not trust the advice of persons who are not aware of these fundamental realities of Islam, any more than I would, say, trust someone during the Cold War who told me that “Marxism is caused by poverty. Get rid of poverty, and Marxism will go away.” Such a person did not understand the nature of Marxism, and he could not be trusted to lead us against Marxism. In the same way, someone who says that you can remove Muslims’ belief in jihad while not disturbing their belief in Islam, simply does not understand the nature of Islam. I see no sign that you have taken in the important writings on jihad and dhimmitude by people such as Bat Ye’or, Robert Spencer, Raphael Israeli, and Andrew Bostom. Furthermore, as I show in my article, “The Search for Moderate Islam, Part I,” even Daniel Pipes, the best known proponent of the moderate Islam idea that you are presenting here, admits throughout his writings that such moderate Islam has never existed, and that the doctrinal and historic nature of Islam has been jihadism. In that article, I referred solely to Pipes’s own articles. I showed how he himself inadvertently admits that his hopes for a moderate Islam are not based in any religious or historical reality, but just on his hopes that it be so.
If you had shown some sign of at least having wrestled with these arguments prior to or during this discussion, I might take your position more seriously. But as it is, it seems that the ultimate source for your position is the nurture versus nature argument, which, as I said, does not help us understand the actual realities of Islam. Email entry |