h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You can rationalise a lot; we all do. Doesn't alter the fact that huge chunks of our personal philosophy don't meet up seamlessly, though.

The thing that troubles me most came up again this week. I deplore intolerance. Does that make me intolerant?

I know a lot of Muslims. A couple I've got close enough to count as friends. In both cases (one past, one present) it was/is a limited friendship because we count(ed) very different things as recreation. Close enough for curiosity and confidences, though. Close enough to discuss sensitive issues without offence.

With the present friend, we got onto terrorism this week. He told me that 9/11 saddened him (his verb), but that he understood the underlying resentment well enough to sympathise with the perpetrators too. I was torn as a listener. One part of me acknowledged the articulate expression of an intelligent opinion. The other part was horrified by the implacable anger of a citizen in our midst.

It occurred to me that the past friend was like that too. Then I began to assess acquaintances and began to get the uncomfortable feeling that the most Westernised were also the most disenchanted. As a guy said in the pub once (and I hated him for it), the hotheads all have perfect local accents. Now I find myself wondering if he was onto something.

But most of all, I'm confused about what I should think. I don't think I've ever learned the true difference between decency and denial when it comes to civilsed morality.

Pin, imho problems arise in two areas. The first is when we start viewing issues of ethics and morality in absolute terms, using only one frame of reference. And the second is when we make the leap from the hypothetical and begin to act upon our desires.

Since you brought up Muslims, I will admit to having a great deal of sympathy for the Palestinians. The fact that I can understand why they choose tactics such as suicide bombers on civilian buses doesn't mean I approve of them. Quite the opposite. Nor do I feel any disconnect between the two opinions. It is possible to be tolerant in general terms concerning an issue but intolerant when it comes to the specifics. Understanding motivation and sympathizing with it is quite different than adopting an end justifies the means stance.

The fact that your friend feels comfortable enough with you to express his opinions about 911 indicates that you are indeed tolerant and sympathetic and not like the loud-mouthed bigots and hate mongers found in every local watering hole worldwide.

We're all in denial about some things. We don't personally have the life experience to be otherwise. So we find black and white interpretations that limit our understanding - because it's easier, and because it gives us doors to close and hide behind.

You are one wise lady, Hyp

Something close to that viewpoint has got me into trouble before, though. I used to hold an opinion that organised religion (pick whichever one you like) was a form of denial, just a way to avoid having to weigh up difficult choices by calling on a predefined set of prescriptive one-size-fits-all rules. The corollary was that people who profess a religious faith (like all your Presidents and all our Prime Ministers for a start) are unfit to lead, because they've already copped out on the real decisions.

I stopped saying it because it got people mad, including people I wanted to like me.

When I said I used to hold that opinion, I guess that's wrong. I still do hold it. Maybe with a bit less certainty, but the biggest difference is I now keep quiet about it.

Except on hootoo, of course. What a good confessional this place is.

Again, imho, religious fanaticism is a form of mental illness. And general religious belief is a product of conditioning. So I'm in your corner on this one. It is much easier to let someone else do your thinking for you. I do think it serves a social function for many people. Awk! Don't get me started!

In the US, a person couldn't get elected to high office expressing those opinions. I suspect it is the same in the UK. I've often wondered how much is heartfelt and how much is expedience. On the local level, it is much better for business to be a church member rather than not and I know business owners who will admit to not believing at all but going through the motions because it puts money in their bank accounts.

I think it depends on what someone means by "understand". It can mean simply to try and comprehend or it can be a coded way of saying "sympathize with". The former is both laudable and necessary because it can mean attempting to identify the disease rather than simply fighting the symptom whilst, in the case of terrorism, the latter is unacceptable even if the cause the terrorist is fighting *for* is a sympathetic one (not the case for Al-Quaida, at least for me anyway).

I think it also depends on whether your friend actually realises what Al-Quaida want. A lot of people in the West have tried to attach their own issues to Al-Quaida and islamism generally so they are "actually" angry about Palestinian issues or "capitalism" or "inequality" when, in fact, the organisation's raison d'etre is to rebuild the old Islamic capliphate and run it under a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Anything else (bin Laden's recent bandwagon-jumping on all sorts of issues, for example) that wasn't an issue ten years ago almost certainly isn't an issue now and wasn't why those men flew those planes into those two buildings.

Well, here is my worth. Colour and Race, like beauty, are only skin deep. We on this planet are all human beings. We have the same colour blood, the same internal organs, the same passions, thoughts and ideals. The only thing that sets us apart are cultural differences, and these are shaped by many things. Unfortunately, religious beliefs are at the forefront of this shaping, instead of being in the background. And the one human failing in my view, is this fervent desire for power. And the desire for power has, and will always be, a cause of divisiveness. It is a desire which is not confined to any cultural group, but is common wherever we go. Is there a cure for this? I don't know, and I doubt if anyone else does. So we are left with this quandary of passion over power, and vice-versa. In democracies, we can hopefully remove from office those seeking and wishing to yield absolute power. But not every nation, nor every cultural group, has a sense of what we know as democracy.

>Well, here is my worth. Colour and Race, like beauty, are only skin deep. We on this planet are all human beings. We have the same colour blood, the same internal organs, the same passions, thoughts and ideals.

Sorry to say I think this is New Ageish claptrap. That we all have the same internal workings is self-evident but that we all share "the same passions, thoughts and ideals." is completely untrue. Would you say Karl Marx and Ayn Rand had the same "thought and ideals"? People love doing different things and often have extraordinarily different worldviews to the extent that the opinions of others can seem to them extraordinary. This is simply fact.

>The only thing that sets us apart are cultural differences, and these are shaped by many things. Unfortunately, religious beliefs are at the forefront of this shaping, instead of being in the background.

I'm not sure they are. For example, the Western world (despite the twittering of Christians) is the way it is (largely free, politically and culturally egalitarian and sexually tolerant) largely thanks to dismissing religion to the sidelines where it belongs. It stands in stark contrast to the actual "Christian Europe" of the middle ages which was governed by the strict application of Romano-Christian doctrine and by tyrants claiming God-given right. The West has been shaped not by Christianity but by the Enlightenment.

>And the one human failing in my view, is this fervent desire for power. And the desire for power has, and will always be, a cause of divisiveness. It is a desire which is not confined to any cultural group, but is common wherever we go. Is there a cure for this? I don't know, and I doubt if anyone else does.

I think the "desire for power" is far from our single failing but I agree it's something seen in any and all cultural groups. As for a "cure", there isn't one other than trying to divest us of our basic humanity (it was an attempt to do this on a grand scale that utterly scuppered Communism and will attempt to scupper any future attempts at the same) which I would say is entirely undesirable. The best we can do is what the liberal democracies have achieved which is to suitably regulate power so that its use for tyranny is self-defeating if not impossible.

>But not every nation, nor every cultural group, has a sense of what we know as democracy.

As I've argued dozens of times before (necessarily now that the idea that some "cultural groups" are not capable of democracy has moved from the racist fringe into acceptable mainstream opinion thanks to the war in Iraq) *everyone* has a "sense" of democracy because democracy is simply the will of the majority. It is inconceivable that any cultural group or race is incapable of having an opinion and expressing it. What *is* true is that the values that go along with liberal democracy - tolerance of other's political opinions, debate rather than violence, adherence to the rule of law - are not universal. A tribesman in a fictional country, for example, is perfectly capable of having an opinion and voting for a candidate but he might not be willing to concede defeat if his candidate doesn't win and might not be willing to discuss the issues in a civilised manner. It is *these* cultural differences that exist, although they are not insurmountable.

OK Zagreb, here is something for you to ponder upon, and is a proven fact. Take a group of young children, under the age of 4, from all nationalities and what will they do? Why, they will play together happily and joyfully, and will see no difference between each other. It is adults who then shape their beliefs as they grow. No child on earth has ever been born with an inherent set of values, ideals and opinions. And this is no New Age talk. It is a proven fact, and well understood by child psychologists world wide.
When you pass by someone in the street, do you give a nod, a smile and a simple hello, regardless of their so called ethnicity? Try it one day and you wil be amazed at the response you may get. After all, we are all fellow human beings. In Australia we have almost every nationality on earth. Do you ever hear of any acts of terrorism and extremism from Australia? No, you dont, do you, because in general we are a highly tolerant nation. Come and visit and see for yourself.

>OK Zagreb, here is something for you to ponder upon, and is a proven fact. Take a group of young children, under the age of 4, from all nationalities and what will they do? Why, they will play together happily and joyfully, and will see no difference between each other. It is adults who then shape their beliefs as they grow. No child on earth has ever been born with an inherent set of values, ideals and opinions. And this is no New Age talk. It is a proven fact, and well understood by child psychologists world wide.

Yes, because they're children and their personalities are unformed. Of course no children of any specific group are born with "inherent" values or characteristics (it is for this reason that racism, which assumes this, is such utter nonsense) but they will develop them as they grow up and, despite what you claim, it is not just adults who shape their beliefs. Personal experiences and their part within their peer-group all have their part to play. You can't simply dismiss differing values and personalities as some sort of construct deliberately created by the adult world. The communists based much of their ideology on this assumption to rather regrettable (to use an understatement) results. I'd also be wary of idealising children and childhood as somehow innocent and uncorrupted and "good". Children can be extremely selfish and unpleasant precisely because they haven't developed in the way they would as adults.

>When you pass by someone in the street, do you give a nod, a smile and a simple hello, regardless of their so called ethnicity? Try it one day and you wil be amazed at the response you may get. After all, we are all fellow human beings. In Australia we have almost every nationality on earth. Do you ever hear of any acts of terrorism and extremism from Australia? No, you dont, do you, because in general we are a highly tolerant nation. Come and visit and see for yourself.

I think, based on that, that you might have the wrong impression of me. I think we *should* be generally more pleasant towards our fellow human beings and I'm intensely-suspicious if not outright opposed to attempts by the increasinly-mainstream tendency to declare differences insurmountable and absolute (the sort of anti-muslim rhetoric that was the preserve of the militas in 1990s Yugoslavia, for example, has now become acceptable in some mainstream conservative media over here). However, I am also opposed to the notion that no differences exist and that we can all get along simply with a smile and a handshake. Both history and experience teaches us this is nonsense because it assumes good faith which is not always the case.

Zagreb..I misread your posting and took it the wrong way. Would a handshake and a glass of slivovice make up for my misinterpretation... I guessed from your name that you are of Croatian background. Here in Australia, we for many years assumed that people from Yugoslavia were all the same, and had never heard of Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia,etc, yet could never work out why they would have their newspapers in different languages...
There are probably hundreds of thousands of people here in Australia of "Yugoslavian" descent, and I have worked with many of them, and enjoyed the company and pleasure both at work and outside of work.. I started work in the steel industry here in 1968, and I was taught many words..later on I discovered most of them were unprintable here..

I would not be surprised to know that you have family here, unless you are here yourself. Have you ever been here?

No, I'm not of Croatian background, I'm Scottish with Anglo-Welsh ancestry. I get that a lot for obvious reasons but I'm stuck with the internet name now.

Some interesting thoughts here, for which thanks. It's striking how sure you seem, Zagreb. I don't feel sure of anything in this territory.

I did ask my Muslim friend whether he would like to see Britain become an Islamic state. He said that he would, but he also acknowledged that people make their own choices and that Muslims living as a minority in this country have no right to impose it. He makes an exactly similar case about Iraq, Palestine and the rest of the Islamic world - in that case the West has no right to impose its political and religious systems. He added that every country has a right to exist and to live the way its people choose (specifically including Israel) and that no country has the right to mistreat groups who hold different views (again specifically including Israel). He also insisted that these ideas are fundamental to Islam. I pointed out that they are also fundamental to Western democracy, and he asked why, in that case, was Britain aiding the occupation of Iraq.

The power point intrigues me. I don't think my friend is angry because he wants power. In fact he said that he's angry about an abuse of power by others. I also think he would be incensed by Zagreb's view that Christianity has been improved by moderation through the Enlightenment. He sees Islam as pure and incorruptable, while Christianity is once-noble but now-corrupted faith used to justify oppression by power-hungry imperialists.

What really strikes me, though, is how angry he is about it all. I asked him why. He was contemptuous that I could preach calm when people from both cultures were dying and suffering and while evil men fed the bloodshed to consolidate their power.

I don't know what to think about this. I find myself wondering whether there's a revolution just below the surface of Western society, and that we haven't seen anything yet.

>Here in Australia, we for many years assumed that people from Yugoslavia were all the same, and had never heard of Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia,etc, yet could never work out why they would have their newspapers in different languages...

I think that was the asumption of most people for a long time. The various nations of Yugoslavia were only revealed to a lot of people during the civil war(s) there and looking at the history it's clear that these were the original nations that were passed back and forth between various empires before being absorbed by a national-construct called "Yugoslavia" (which, iirc, essentially mean "Southern Slav Land") that only seemed to have endured because the Tito dictatorship held it together. Once Milosevich (officially a communist and therefore anti-racist at the time) indicated support for Kosovan Serbs being victimised by Kosovan Albanians (a situation which was to be brutally-reversed a decade later) in 1987 it was indicative of what tore the country apart.

Too true, Zagreb. Tito maintained some sort of order, although at what cost only history wiil tell. After his death, old rivalries and tensions were released and the results were there for all to see. A similar situation in Iraq I suppose. Saddam sort of kept everyone apart, and his brutality is well known. But look at the state of Iraq today, Sunnis, Kurds, and Shiites at each others throats, with Good Old Uncle Sam nicely sucking the oil wells dry...

>He makes an exactly similar case about Iraq, Palestine and the rest of the Islamic world - in that case the West has no right to impose its political and religious systems. He added that every country has a right to exist and to live the way its people choose (specifically including Israel) and that no country has the right to mistreat groups who hold different views (again specifically including Israel). He also insisted that these ideas are fundamental to Islam. I pointed out that they are also fundamental to Western democracy, and he asked why, in that case, was Britain aiding the occupation of Iraq.

The thing is what the Coalition has done in Iraq is not impose but create (or at least attempt to, it hasn't worked very well since there's no proper rule of law) a democracy which, as I've pointed out, is about consent. It isn't about saying to the Iraqis "you will be governed this way!" but "How do you want to be governed?". I'm willing to listen to all sorts of arguments about Iraq but one I have no time for is the notion that democracy was "imposed" since such a thing is not possible by definition. I think your friend is trying to square his own belief in consent with his (I suspect) instinctive opposition to the Iraq war by deciding that the government it created is an imposition on the Iraqi people (ie a foreign-backed dictatorship). As I've said, it's not. In answer to his final question I'd say "Because we're trying to created a govenment of consent in Iraq and the people we're fighting over there are trying to destroy it and create a government of imposition which is exactly what you've argued against. My question would be "regardless of your feelings about the war and the people who drove it, why are you unwilling to support an Iraqi government which was elected by the Iraqi people?".

>Too true, Zagreb. Tito maintained some sort of order, although at what cost only history wiil tell. After his death, old rivalries and tensions were released and the results were there for all to see. A similar situation in Iraq I suppose. Saddam sort of kept everyone apart, and his brutality is well known. But look at the state of Iraq today, Sunnis, Kurds, and Shiites at each others throats, with Good Old Uncle Sam nicely sucking the oil wells dry..

I agree with the situation in Iraq being comparable to the situation in Yugoslavia post-Tito but I can't agree with your claim that the US is "sucking the oil wells dry". The country is currently a mess and barely-capable of sustaining consistent soverignty and rule of law let alone having a working oil industry.

What I find strangest of all is how can Bush impose a democracy on a nation which has never had and never will have a sense of democracy Western Style? By thwe way, I am of Ukranian-English descent. Dad was from The Ukraine, Mum was English, I live in Aussieland, so I suppose I am now a UKUKAUSSIE....

>What I find strangest of all is how can Bush impose a democracy on a nation which has never had and never will have a sense of democracy Western Style?

First, as I've pointed-out you can't impose democracy by its very definition. Secondly, I agree that Iraq doesn't have a notion of democracy "Western style" (ie liberal democracy) and won't have for decades (if ever) and so we must accept how they will do it (ie with a great deal of partisanship, religous rather than ideological-loyalties, vicious arguments etc). All of this I think we should grin and bear (as soon as we start to impose anything against the majority will we're doomed and the whole thing is, morally, basically Vietnam all over again) but what we should not do is allow a well-armed minority to threaten, coerce or actively stop the democratic process. As soon as that happens then it's basically Saddam all over again with a different face. Unfortunately, in large areas of Iraq, this is exactly what has been happening.

I also don't agree that Iraq will *never* achieve liberal democracy. I think the current political and social climate in, for example, Italy was unthinkable 400 years ago. Cultures change.

Unfortunately, I think the Muslim world in general is in dire need of it's own version of the Enlightenment. When and where that's going to come from I don't know but I *do* think it's likely to have to come from within. That's something that you mustn't impose.

A vast majority of the worlds troubles and ills are due to one group of people attempting to impose their will on another group of people. Naturally people will resist this attempt at imposition, and depending on whose side people are on, the resistors will be called Terrorists, Freedom Fighters, Guerillas or whatever. But my goodness, the armaments industry thrives, and drives, these sorts of conflicts for the sake of the almighty Dollar. Humanity will always take second place to greed in the eyes of certain so called World Leaders...

The comparison of Islam and western democracy is interesting. In both cases it is the perceptions that cause the problem. Remember those old word association tests? Say Islam and many/most Americans will think terrorism/twin towers/suicide bombers/enslaved women/evil/danger. Say democracy to an Arab and he is likely to think Yankee imperialism/invader/greed/infidel/evil/danger.

It doesn't matter that Al-Quaida is not repesentative of the spirit of pure Islam any more than opportunistic politicians like Bush are representative of the spirit of pure democracy. This is a world in which we have to deal with the consequences of what people perceive us to be.

Pin, I imagine your friend is so angry because he feels frustrated and helpless in the face of so much anti-Islamic rhetoric, just like we in the west are frustrated by the automatic portrayal of ourselves as devils by the radical Muslims. How do you reason with people who cling to their hatreds and prejudices like life rafts?

A Muslim Enlightment? Yes, and that needs to begin with moderates saying "Enough, you're making all of us look bad and misrepresenting our ideals." And like stephen points out, the West needs a serious readjustment of priorities.

By the way, Stephen, one of my grandfathers was born in Ukraine and the other one in England. We must be long lost cousins.