Comments by Fanusi Khiyal

Comment #247215 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 6:22 am

Surprise, surprise: no quote was forthcoming. Not so easy is it, when you have to actually prove what you're saying?

Here's my response, decius which is a reiteration of what I wrote in Comment #246972, #247091, #247130 etc. etc. :

I do not advocate the Hobbesian state, I think it is a terrible, awful way to live. I also understand that this terrible state where there is:

no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.

I understand that this state is the norm, the natural state of our species, and that such escape as we have achieved is profoundly ariticial, and like all man-made constructs it is capable of crumbling. It is precisely for that reason we should understand the state of nature and its laws, so that we may escape from it as best we can.

Has this, finally, become clear to you?

602. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247207 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 5:51 am

Honestly, this is like arguing with creationists:

take responsibility for your advocacy of tyranny

Find me a quote where I have advocated tyranny. Go on, just try it. Come on. Let's see the statement where I advocate tyranny.

Understanding the extremely delicate nature of what Huxley calls the Ethical Process, and how difficult it is to maintain is not an advocacy of tyranny. What, exactly, is so difficult about understanding that?

I don't really need to refute wacky ideas such as the Hobbesian state

Meaning you can't. You have exactly no arguments.

603. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247191 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 5:09 am

Oh, I just noticed that this was Diacanu posting. Of course he won't answer.

604. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247188 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 5:07 am

I have no idea what that even means. I'll repeat my point about group-feeling: if one society has cultivated strong group-feeling that allows it to call on its members to fight, then all must do the same, or risk defeat in conflict.

Are you, or are you not, going to answer that basic point?

605. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247184 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 5:01 am

In fact, let me broaden this: whenever I discuss such matters, there is a helter-skelter rush to hide behind descriptions, not of the facts, but of my statements, as though calling them 'conservative' or whatever made a damn bit of difference as to whether or not they're right. As in, factually accurate

I have yet to hear any factual, rational refutation of those points that you find so distasteful. "Dishonesty" hardly covers these tactics.

606. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247182 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 4:58 am

Correct, decius - that is a description of what is fundamentally necessary for all societies, in all times. Including our own, of course. Understand? It's a general case.

Now, do you have an argument that goes against that basic fact? Or don't you? Because if we're going to talk about dishonesty, then I don't find the argument 'the conclusions are so horrible, therefore the premises are wrong' very honest, either.

607. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247173 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 4:39 am

Decius: Read. Think. Understand. Then coment.

How can you seriously suggest that we take into considerations political outlooks that might have worked at the time of the Italian principalities or of the English civil war?

So that we don't have to live by them. What is so difficult about this? Precisely because we don't want to live in that state, we need to understand it.

"My brand of extreme conservatism" - given that I have made realtively few perscriptions but have limited myself to how in fact societies function and survive in this struggle, apparently "extreme conservatism" means "knowing what you're talking about".

You seem to imply that it's just me and my views that are the cause of mankinds continuous wars. Well, sorry, that isn't so.

608. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247162 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 4:07 am

Which is why the strong should encourage non-violent alternatives, especially since they won't always be the strong regardless of their resolve.

You're missing the point. In the Hobbesian state, the strong are the strong precisely because of their ability and willingness to use violence. That is why the state of our species was what it was for so long.

But, again, violent action should be a last resort once all other available options have been exhausted.

Therein lies the paradox though. I agree that we shouldn't fight unless we gotta, but it is precisely that attitude that leaves us blind to when we gotta. Again, a little more aggressiveness before WWII and that nightmare conflagration would have been averted.

609. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247156 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 3:51 am

*hands Nairb a piece of paper and a pencil* Here, write down the arguments that you'd like to put in my mouth and then enjoy yourself refuting them. Please feel free to add secret societies, militias, the Illuminati and whatever else you'd like, just do it in private.

Now, for anyone who is honestly trying to discuss the point, it isn't about "do unto others, before they do unto you", it's about the basic paradox at the heart of our civilization: that, the more the spirit of reason and commerce replaces that of war, the greater the incentive for those who are willing to use war and aggression to get what they want, because there is an ever greater chance of their getting away with it.

I have trouble seeing how on earth the second world war does anything but prove that point.

That's point one. Now onward to the more general point of group-feeling. If you are going to protect your society when push comes to shove, you need to be sure that there will be many who will fight and die in order to protect your society. You need that basic, visceral loyalty. If your society doens't have that, be prepared to loose against those who do have that. It's really straightforward: those societies capable of mobilizing large numbers of their own people in a time of war, will win.

This isn't rocket science.

Now, on to point three, which is to do with the concept of honour. A code of honour is the only thing that can effectively prevent soldiers from becoming tyrants. Military dictatorship of one form or another has been the norm for most of human history. I'll requote from Harris:

Such ahs been the lot of most of mankind: a choice between the gangsters who come across the river to steal and the gangsters on this side of he river who do not need to steal because they have their own peasants to exploit. How else could it be? Given what we know of human nature, how could we expect there to be a government that wasn't, in the final analysis, simply a protection racket that could make laws?

Yet this is not how Kurosawa's movie ends. The samurai do not set themselves up as village warlords but instead move on, taking only the wages due them for their services. How was this possible? It was possible only because the samurai lived by a code of honor.

Codes of honor do not come cheap, and they cannot be created out thin air upon demand. The fact that you need samurai and not gangsters is no guarantee that you will get them; indeed, you will almost certainly not get them when you need them unless you had them with you all along.

A code of honor, to be effective when it is needed, requires a tradition that is blindly accepted by the men and women who are expected to live by this code. To work when it must, a code of honor must be the unspoken and unquestioned law governing a community; a law written not in law books but in the heart â€" something like an instinct.

A code of honor cannot be chosen by us; it can only be chosen for us. For if we look on it as one option among many, then we may opt out of it at will. I which case, the community will never be quite sure of us when the chips are down.

Precisely. A code of honour is the only effective way in which you can domesticate your warriors - those that are capable of unleashing ruthlessness on the enemy.

610. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247145 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 3:06 am

Ah. Sorry, twp, I haven't been following this thread too closely...

611. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247130 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:35 am

SPS, I get the feeling that you are almost willfully misreading what I write. THe point I was emphasizing is that in a state of nature you have a situation where the strong do as they will.

That isn't an advocacy of such a state; in fact if you actually read what I wrote, you'll see that I specifically said we need to get away from that. It's merely that I recognise just how difficult that process is.

How about, oh I don't know, actually answering some of my questions? Such as, how are you going to defend those tiny islands of civilization when an Enemy actually exists?

That's the flaw in these arguments. You talk about my "seeking out enemies" - now is Islam, or is it not, a capital-e Enemy? And even more broadly, can you address the point that there always is an enemy, for the simple reason that there is always someone willing to use war and violence to get what they want?

612. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247126 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 2:25 am

I can agree sortof, twp. It's much easier to die than to live.

Unfortunately, the point's moot. They're willing to die for what they want and to kill. That's what gives them a hideous strength.

613. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #247099 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 12:58 am

mark, couldn't agree more. What these apologists simply sweep under the carpet are the millions of blacks murdered in Africa by Islam, the millions of Asians etc. They just have to think it's all about them.

614. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #247091 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 14, 2008 at 12:33 am

*sighs*

Wrong. What you're espousing is the same ignorant, bronze age, backward, inhuman, territorialist knuckle-headedness that got us here in the first place

Laurie, do you think that merely saying something makes it so? Are you really that distanced from reality?

Tell me, what allowed the defeat of Hitler? What ended Japanese Imperialism? What ended Milosevic's reign? What allowed the destruction of the Taliban?

Well, come to think of it, it was aggressive young people, capable of going out there and unleashing merry hell.

Honestly, I am so tired of people thinking that a high handed moral pronouncement is a substitute for understanding the facts and knowing reality. In fact, it isn't moral in the slightest - the foundation stone of morality is honesty, and the foundation of honesty is a serious desire to know reality.

*reads further and groans* GB, do you understand my irritation here? Throughout history there have been those minds who have looked hard and carefully at the human species and have all come to similar conclusions: Hobbes, Machiavelli, Sun-Tzu, Homer, Thucydides, Heraclitus, Churchill and so on, and along comes Laurie on a chatboard who, without a shred of proof, says 'no, no they're all wrong, there's no such thing as the human condition, as long as the ruling class changes its mind, we'll all be hunky dory'.

The problem, Laurie, that you haven't addressed is: What are you going to do when, in striving for a non-tribal, non-group feeling society, what are you going to do when you come face to face with an Enemy who doesn't give a damn for your protestations, who sees your way of thinking as weakness, and who is quite, quite prepared to make use of those old methods to get what he wants? What are you going to do then?

-------------------------------

SPS,

I'm going to make a stab at understanding what you've written here:

If there comes a time when we are the disadvantaged 'them' in the 'us vs. them', let's hope our enemy doesn't think the same.

I don't know whether or not you have noticed, but we have that Enemy. How do you think Islam views all kaffirs? Now what are you going to do about that?

If such attitudes prevail for the survival of a civilization, they seem well equipped to also bring an end to all civilization

Of course it is a threat to civilization - but those attitudes exist. How do you propose to defend civilization without being able to use similar tools? If you can't call on large numbers of young men who are willing to fight and die to protect your society, what chance do you have of preserving it against those who can call on such resources?

You can argue until you're blue in the face about the moral superiority of your way of life, but in fact, in reality, such a situation would be the very lousy one described by Thucydides, where "the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must".

Lee Harris, again:

Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe....They forget that in time of danger, in the face of the enemy, they must trust and confide in each other, or perish....They forget, in short, that there has ever been a category of human experience called the enemy.

Forgetfulness overcomes every successful civilization. That forgetfulness is this: in each era, just when trade and peace and reason and moderation seem most likely to prevail, the opportunity for the zealots to succeed through ruthlessness is at its greatest.

"The result is an unsettling paradox: the more the spirit of commerce triumphs, the closer mankind comes to dispensing with war, the nearer we approach the end of history, the greater are the rewards to those who decide to return to the path of war, and the easier it will be for them to conquer. There is nothing that can be done to change this fact; it is built into the structure of our world."

T.H. Huxely, Darwin's Bulldog, drew a distinction between what he called the Cosmic Process and the Ethical Process. The Cosmic Process is the indifferent engine of the Universe, which grinds inevitably on. The strong crush the weak, and all are prey to chance. The ethical process is a distinctly human invention, which sets itself against the Cosmic. It's by that means we have carved a tiny island in space an time isolated from its ravages.

I'm all for the ethical process. I also understand that the surest way to have that process fail is to forget just how artificial it is, and just how difficult it is to maintaint it, or to fall prey to the many illusions that come with forgetfulness. The most damaging of these, I think, is the idea that a moral principle can stand on it's own. It can't, it needs an entire social structure to maintain it, and lacking that, it will perish.

615. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #246974 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Oh, for...

The reason they hate us is that we are kafirs. Okay? Infidels. Unbelievers. The most hated of creatures. Islam mandates eternal division between the House of Submission and the House of War, between the Muslim and the Infidel. That is their reason, the beginning and the end of it.

It isn't Bush or Britney, it isn't Israel or Grozny. It's the doctrine of Islam itself. Period.

616. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246972 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 3:40 pm

Laurie, find a quote of mine that substantiates that. When I discuss the necessity of group-feeling to sustain civilization, I'm talking about a fundamental requirement of all human societies throughout history, even those I find utterly repellent.

Titania,

Fanusi, I think we have a lot of common ground. I do not want to misinterpret what you are saying.

Then don't call me a Nazi, a Fascist & the rest of it. It's not that I find those terms incredibly insulting (though I do, which is one more reason that I find it irritating that you complain I call BS what she is), it's that they're such damn meaningless terms.

Fanusi, I would like to sit down and drink some Guinness with you and go into it all.

Anytime, my treat. But I have to respond to a few points here:

I was sickened by 9/11. I was also sickened when we bombed Afghanistan.

And I am sickened by any suggestion that those two were equivalent; that a deliberate attempt to slaughter as many civilians as possible, out of the blue and unprovoked, is the same as a response to that attack that attempts to minimize civilian casualties as much as is humanly possible.

Now, as regards effectiveness, if you want to discuss neoconservative nation building vs. the "Rubble doesn't cause trouble" school of dealing with threats, by all means let's have it out.

I am sick sick sick of testosterone fueled blind and indiscriminately violent responses to problems and differences where innocent people die and civilization is set by decades, if not centuries.

Sorry, but that's the way things are. First of all, as I pointed out, there was nothing indiscriminate about the Afghan campaign (unlike, say, the strikes at my own fatherland). But the point is more basic:

If you want to live in peace, if you want to live without being frightened that your childrend will be seized and sold as slaves, if you don't want to be raped by whatever pacing gang of young thugs takes a fancy - then you need a collection of rough, high-testosterone, honour-bound young people who will go out there and unleash merry hell on the enemies of your tribe, your city, your nation, your civilization. Ones who are willing to shoot the enemy in the head, or immolate entire neighbourhoods in phosphosphorus, or drop nuclear weapons. Orwell summarized it brilliantly: "We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us."

This isn't about whether or not you like it, or whether or not I like it, or whether or not it's right by the standards of this or that ethical code - it's the way things are. That's the point I've been harping on.

Why can't we work harder to avoid this?

That's the paradox I've mentioned: the more people strive for peace, peace at any price, the greater the incentive for a gang to use violence is, and the higher their likelihood of success is. If the US and Britain and France had been a bit more comfortable with unleashing war, on sending men to fight and die, the whole ghastly mess of WWII would have been avoided. Hitler woul have been stopped before his war machine was complete.

This isn't an ignoble sentiment, this deisre to be done with war. It's merely a naive one. War is the human condition, for the reasons I've outlined.

Believe me, I'd love for you to be right, for there to be some way to avoid the eternal conflict. Unfortunately, there isn't, and believing that such a way exists only makes the inevitable conflict more terrible.

A good maxim is the following:

"Doves think that the choice is between fighting and not fighting. Hawk's think tha the choice is between fighting now and fighting later".

Economics is the key. That is how we ultimately prevailed over Japan and Nazi Germany. (I know I know we bombed the hell out of them first.

Where I would agree with you is that when you have free-market societies trading with each other, the chances of a fanatic gang taking over are starkly reduced. But not eliinated.

As regards Japan and Germany, I would simply maintain that without flattening those societies, without destroying them utterly, you'd never have had peace.

BTW I hope you really only think of me as a meme-cleanser and not a nasty one

I don't think in those terms; I was just riled with you calling me fascist and nazi and so on. I get very irritated by that.

Again, I am more than happy to discuss these points with you or anyone - if its in terms of reason and facts and what actually is, not these endless insults thrown at me, or the idea that because some of my views are unpleasant, therefore they are incorrect.

617. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246948 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 2:55 pm

Titania,

I understand that you dislike Brandy's lifestyle, but why do you have to call her names?

Actually, it's mainly that I hate her personally; she's a dishonest, ignorant, evasive whore. Point one. I also get called all sorts of names here and I don't see anyone complaining about that. Point two.

Now, as regards menstruation & so forth, this is why I said my earlier comments were an aside. There is a reason I didn't want to get into it in too much depth. I'm fairly straightlaced about such matters; I really dislike what you might call the sexualization of pre-teens. I'm sure that we could get into a much more deailed discussion of this and work out the details, but I am not interested at this point. I was interested in the discussion of civilization, how we get it, how it's defended. I stressed that a basic level of group-feeling was essential to civilization, if you don't want to get steamrolled by another group. Now I'm sure you're going to call this "facist! Nazi! Thing-that-goes-bump-in-the-night!", or whatever, but that is the conversation I'm interested in having.

EDIT:

I suppose that it's rather uncontroversial that heinous acts such as the fire-bombing of Dresden and the nuking of Nagasaki weren't necessary and still overshadow the allied effort.

It's debatable now, after the event. It's a very different thing when you're actually in that conflict.

This is the paradox I've been homing in on: regardles of whether or not those hideous tactics were justified, it is the kind of mind that was capable of employing them that made the survival of civilization possible.

618. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246942 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Which anti-science views you degenerate?

----------

Anyway, decius:

Bind the nations together economically and it becomes unthinkably difficult (though not impossible).
In perhaps 200 years in the future the existing nations will have formed themselves into far larger interdependant regional groups who will be as likely to go to war as east and west massachussets.

Perhaps and maybe. The trouble is the unbelievable havoc that even a small group of determined fanatics can wreak. Even so, right now we've got alot of problems.

Mind you, I do know where you're coming form. I used to think very much the way you did.

619. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #246932 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 2:35 pm

Layla, Laurie, not wishing to put to fine a point on it, but these maniacs are killing people in Iraq and India and the Sudan and Algeria and Afghanistan and New York and Pakistan and Israel and Russia and Chechnya and the Philippines and Indonesia and Nigeria and England and Thailand and Spain and Egypt and Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia and Ingushetia and Dagestan and Turkey and Morocco and Yemen and Lebanon and France and Uzbekistan and Gaza and Tunisia and Kosovo and Bosnia and Mauritania and Kenya and Eritrea and Syria and Somalia and California and Kuwait and Virginia and Ethiopia and Iran and Jordan and United Arab Emirates and Louisiana and Texas and Tanzania and Germany and Australia and Pennsylvania and Belgium and Denmark and East Timor and Qatar and Maryland and Tajikistan and the Netherlands and Scotland and Chad and Canada and China and Nepal and the Maldives and Argentina and Angola and...

And so on and so forth. You can do no right by Islam. Don't even try. This isn't about you; it's about Islam's quest to dominate the world. Pure and simple.

620. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246927 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Not wishing to burst your bubble, Radesq, but BS herself said it was so. Now, admittedly she could be lying, but there was some, ahem, corroborating evidence you'll find if you scroll back through this thread.

decius,

I see absolutely no need to use a pejorative term while addressing a sex worker.

I do, or at least I do for this particular one. However, can we get this argument back on track?

621. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #246922 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 2:29 pm

Mark Steyn line on this subject:

"There's a wonderful screed floating around the Internet called 'We're more nuts than you and it should scare you sh*tless', which works up to a grand assurance to al-Qa'eda that, even after we've killed them, our school children still won't have a clue who they are, where they're from or what was bugging them in the first place."

622. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #246919 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 2:20 pm

Laurie, props on your performance. Congrats on succeeding.

I never doubted the power of satire, I just think, on it's own, it isn't enough.

623. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246915 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 2:15 pm

decius,

Who said or implied any such thing?

Well, Titania did, as a matter of fact:

we do not think force is required or justified.

Direct quote.

But it hasnt fallen in our lap. So the question is will we continue to go in circles forever or is there a strong upward trend (with bumps)

The answer is there is continuous upwards progress.

I don't disagree; if you recall, I said as much the first time you mentioned this. Where we differ, I think, is the idea that this trend is automatic, and inevitable (forgive me if I'm getting your point-of-view wrong here).

I think that war is forever, and will be with us as long as we remain humans. That being so, I think there are ways to fight it as little as possible and as decently possible. And one of the ways to achieve that I think is to never allow ourselves to fall into the trap of thinking we have escaped this eternal threat.

The Iraq War is actually a very hopeful sign in that respect, since, regardless of what your view of it is, it's unquestionable that this isn't the bloodbath of the Great War's trenches.

EDIT:

Sorry about the misspelling of Titania's name. Typo.

BS has said that she's a porn star, i.e. accepts money for sex. Hence "whore".

624. Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists?

Comment #246907 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 2:04 pm

Oh, these guys are laughable to be sure. It's odd; we need someone to do a "Great Dictator", except with some lunatic Mullah or whatever.

EDIT: Laurie, you may, possibly, recall that I have called for a program of cultural imperialism against Islam. But I am not damn fool enough to think that that's going to be enough on it's own.

Doubt me? Here, do some stand up about Muhammad in the middle of London. We'll find out from your next-of-kin how it went.

625. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246904 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 1:59 pm

GoatBoy, thank you. That's exactly what I've been aiming at.

The nasty fact is that there's only one alernative to controlled ruthlessness, and that's uncontrolled ruthlessness. There is no option three.

626. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246903 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 1:58 pm

Whore, the idea that you could lecture anyone about answering questions is laughable.

What I have said was as an aside that I did not think it appropriate to teach children about human sexuality before twelve. I noted that this is thanks in no small part to my straightlaced African childhood. I have no interest in discussing that here, especially not with something like you.

I am hoping that, despite these interruptions, root will have no problem continuing the conversation we were having.

627. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246890 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Brandy, please don't make Fanusi fight two fronts at once. It's especially unfair to bring up his Victorian sexual mores when we are discussing his crusade against Muslims. Oh wait, maybe they are connected. Did not Hitchens and Sam Harris make the point that jihadism is fueled by sexual repression?

*last shred of patience finally snaps*

Oh, I don't know. Maybe there is a connection between having a basic level of self-respect and decorum and being able to face unpleasant facts and reason accurately?

Which may be why you have offered precisely zero constructive suggestions yourself, while all the time whinging about mine.

628. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246885 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Titania,

Fanusi, you appear to be advocating the use of force against people based on their religion and on what they think.

Titania, if I may be so bold, how about reading this thread and finding such an advocacy?

The most I have ever advocated is the expulsion of those who agitate for Shariah. Now given that this means incitement to rape, murder, theft & paedophilia, I still don't see how it "makes me like the Nazis". Leaving that aside, the discussion here, before Steve & yourself sidetracked it in order to show off your self-proclaimed moral superiority, was about how societies surivive, what does and what does not work, the role of group-feeling etc. This was quite an interesting discussion. Now, do you have any factual points to make about that?

Sorry if my tone gets so short, but I have tried, time and again, to explain, in the clearest terms, what I'm talking about, and I am tired of people ignoring facts by virtue of bieng 'more tolerant than thou'. Take this:

you are using meme characteristics to assert your superiority

Right, so meme-characteristics aren't a sign of superiority. So, why are you arguing with me then? Why do you bother then to resist any idea, ideology or cause? Hey, I want a society that contains equal rights for women, personal liberty and science, whereas the Jihadis want one of slavery, women's subordination and faith. So, are you saying that my meme-characteristics aren't superior?

We want to create a secular society free from Islamism and religion, but we do not think force is required or justified.

Okay, first of all there is no such thing as "Islamism" - there is only Islam, pure and simple. Secondly, no force required or justified? Really? So, no police then? No army? And if that's the case, what the hell will you do against those willing to kill and die to get what they want?

Why don't you tell us what you would do to eradicate the threat of radical Islam if you were elected President of the United States or Prime Minister of the UK or President of France?

Oh, a huge list of terribly, terribly Nazi-like policies, such as assigning funds to end the practice of slavery, offering asylum to religious minorities fleeing the persecution of Islam, protectin apostates etc. You'll find the entire list as part of a discussion between myself and twp elsewhere here on this site; I'm sure you'll find it all terribly, terribly naziesque.

None of which was under discussion here. I have no interest in helping various people's "I'm so tolerant/I'm so superior" role play. I am interested in the discussion I was having with root, about how societies exist and defend themselves. Now, have you anything factual to add to that?

---------------------------

Sure there are some things that are bad. But no one would switch russia back 20 years would they? Who would turn India back 20 years. Or China? Look at the progress of Turkey the UAE, Morocco and Tunisia in the last 20 years.

Nairb, unfortunately there's a serpent in this Edenic vision. Turkey is re-Islamizing, with Kemalism under attack. Russia is certainly regressing, resurrecting the old banners of faith and mother russia.

The reason I'm so damn gloomy is that I know that this was exactly the kind of thing going around at the dawn of the twentieth century. Victor Hugo wrote "As the nineteenth century is heroic, so shall the twentieth be peaceful". They were so certain that the reasons for going to war were over, that mankind would settle down into perpetual progress. Now we know where that went.

Who would believe him if he said there was nukes in Iran.

Oh, I don't know - the Iranian mullahs, perhaps?

629. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246860 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 12:13 pm

BS, Lee Harris has written no article with that title. Second, my cherrypicking is thanks to a wee invention called "Google". You may have heard of it.

630. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246859 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 12:10 pm

Nairb, I am not playing provocateur, I merely get extremely irritated when I go to some length to explain what I'm talking about, and then get a one or two-line response that doesn't even try to address what I write.

Now onward to this:

It is FEAR that is the Enemy. It is fear that is manipulated by the would be despots.

Today people just switch to the next channel.

Except that, while this sounds reasonable, the facts don't agree. It doesn't explain the fanaticism that is sweeping once more through the dar al-Islam, nor why this isn't confined to the poverty and tyrranny stricken middle east but is found in London and Toronto just as easily, nor why telecomunications are aiding that change. It doesn't explain the return of cannibalism in Africa, or the rise of Putin in Russia, or...

Material prosperity and free markets makes the chances of a regression less likely, but not impossible. Not impossible by a long shot.

631. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246851 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 11:46 am

As long as I'm being attacked by BS I can be certain that I'm doing something right.

For the record, the FR was the first site that I could get an excerpt of Lee Harris's book from. Now, I'd suggest you try and find some evidence and counterarguments, but that would be far, far beyond your ilk.

632. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246843 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 11:35 am

When you find some BS and when you are able to actually formulate a response, please inform me. So far I have seen only one comment where you have said that I want an honour-bound society in lieu of one of law (which is not what I said n.b.), and that this would inevitably mean total moral degeneration (which I responded to in post 2370). Now do you have any actual point to make?

My tone gets short when not even an attempt is made to engage in terms of reason and logic. Though I suspect that rather proves my point...

633. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246839 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 11:29 am

Out of pure interest, do you have a point based on facts and reason to make decius, or do you want me to make a perscription so that you are excused the necessity of using facts and reason in favour of being able to get onto a moral high horse, regardless of whether or not that horse contacts reality at any point?

634. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246832 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 11:03 am

As a matter of fact, decius yes, because what I am discussing is a basic problem, that is, a general fact. If you see parallels and implications for the present time, how about either accepting them or coming up with some argument against the general theory?

635. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246830 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 11:00 am

SPS you hit on a facet of this damn paradox perfectly:

In the scenario you present it appears to me that the priority for the preservation of life becomes instead the priority for the preservation of the 'code' to the exception of life

That's it exactly. If you are actually willing to die for your way of life, you are less likely to have to do so, as your enemies will know that you 'mean business'. It's the same with being willing to take drastic measures. It's very hard to argue with the idea "ever measure needs to be tried before the drastic ones are used" - yet the horrible problem is that the more willing you are to use those drastic measures, the less likely you will have to do so. The example par excellence is the Second World War. It was precisely because everything short of war was first tried that that conflagration became inevitable. We know that if Hitler had been stopped at, say, Czechoslovakia, that would have been it.

Of course, these leaves the question unanswered: "If being willing to unleash ruthlessness is the best way of protecting ourselves, how do we preven ourselves from falling into the state of our enemies?" The only answer I can give is that we somehow manage it. during WWII the allies decided to burn alive hundres of thousands of women and children with phosphorus, and after the war was over, civilization could continue.

I have some hypotheses about why this is possible, but the only definitive thing I can say is that it is possible.

636. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246828 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 10:47 am

decius, two requests:

1) Stick to what I actually write, rather than placing words in my mouth.
2) Quit this endless accusative tone when I'm discussing facts, rather than being perscriptive, which is what I am doing here.

Goes for others too.

Now to answer your question - no, the ghost of a serious point that's there - yes, alot of the ideas and forces that come to the fore, even in just wars, tend to be ones that cause alot of people to wince, because they have more than passing similarity with the enemies of civilization. Take Churchill, for example. Early in his career he praised Hitler, and throughout his life he was full of invocations of race and nation and blood, which most modern intellectuals of all stripes would disdain.

My conclusion from this is that, when there is a capital-e Enemy facing civilization, one that seriously poses a threat to civilizational survival, people pull some old hoary monster like Churchill out of the past, someone who is capable of using and playing by and winning by those atavistic rules. When the threat's over, you can - if you're lucky - push the thing back into the past or domesticate or humanize it. Yet when the threat is there, you need it. Because, as much as we deplore it, these methods work. They are incredibly effective, regardless of how repellant they are.

That is what I mean about the paradox at the heart of civilization.

637. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246823 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 10:29 am

Hellene, you'd have to ask Lee Harris about that. Now, was there a point to that posts?

638. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246821 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 10:21 am

A further addendum about these idiotic accusations: Would they mean diddly squat to an actual Nazi or Jihadist? No. So the probable motive is to make an obviously false claim with the hope of shaming an innocent with a falsehood. Or, in other words, they know it's bullshit, but they think it's rhetorically effective. Rather sordid, when you get right down to it.

639. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246817 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 10:03 am

root, I think we may have a point of agreement here:

Also, you state "ideas such as patriotism, or at least a visceral civilizational loyalty". Now the civilizational loyalty bit is something I have no issue with!

Ironically enough, that applies to me too. Since I have been constantly travelling since my birth, I am something of a rootless cosmopolitan. But my basic point still stands: either you are willing to make use of the 'us vs. them' mentality, the ability to appeal to group loyalty, or you will be wiped out by those who are willing to make use of that mentality. It's a discomforting truth, but it is a truth.

Lee Harris opens his masterpiece, The Enemies of Civilization with the following:

This was the plight faced by the peasants in Kurosawa's masterpiece, The Seven Samurai and by the dirt farmers in the American remake, The Magnificent Seven. Men and women who knew nothing of battle, the impoverished peasants of a remote village found themselves at the mercy of a gang of ruthless bandits who each year came at harvest to steal what the peasants had managed to eke from the soil. In their desperation, the farmers turned to the seven samurai, all of whom had fallen on hard times. But then, once the samurai had defeated the bandits, the question immediately arose in the peasants' minds: "Now how do we rid ourselves of he samurai?"

Such ahs been the lot of most of mankind: a choice between the gangsters who come across the river to steal and the gangsters on this side of he river who do not need to steal because they have their own peasants to exploit. How else could it be? Given what we know of human nature, how could we expect there to be a government that wasn't, in the final analysis, simply a protection racket that could make laws?

Yet this is not how Kurosawa's movie ends. The samurai do not set themselves up as village warlords but instead move on, taking only the wages due them for their services. How was this possible? It was possible only because the samurai lived by a code of honor.

Codes of honor do not come cheap, and they cannot be created out thin air upon demand. The fact that you need samurai and not gangsters is no guarantee that you will get them; indeed, you will almost certainly not get them when you need them unless you had them with you all along.

A code of honor, to be effective when it is needed, requires a tradition that is blindly accepted by the men and women who are expected to live by this code. To work when it must, a code of honor must be the unspoken and unquestioned law governing a community; a law written not in law books but in the heart �" something like an instinct.

A code of honor cannot be chosen by us; it can only be chosen for us. For if we look on it as one option among many, then we may opt out of it at will. I which case, the community will never be quite sure of us when the chips are down.

All of which explains why those who subscribe to the values of the Enlightenment find the existence of eh enemy so distressing.

The enemy challenges the Enlightenment's insistence on the supremacy of pure reason by forcing us to respect those codes of honor whose foundation is far more visceral than rational, a fact that explains the modern intellectual's hatred for such codes in whatever guise they lurk. The enemy requires the continued existence of large groups of men and women who refuse to question authority and who are happy to take on blind faith the traditions that have been passed down to them. The enemy necessitates the careful cultivation of such high-testosterone values as brute physical courage and unthinking loyalty to a leader. The enemy demands instinctual patriotism and what Ibn Khaldun calls "group feeling," that is, the sense of identification with one's own people. The enemy propels into positions of command men who are accustomed to taking risks and who are willing to gamble with the lives of others, and shuns aside those who prefer the leisure of contemplation to the urgency of action. Lastly, the enemy shatters the Enlightenment's visions of utopia, of Kant's epoch of perpetual peace and of the end of history. And this is why so many European and American intellectuals refuse to acknowledge today even the possibility of the enemy's existence, concocting theories to explain the actions of Al-Qaeda as something other than what they were.

You can find a larger excerpt here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1260214/posts

As unpleasant - no, as troubling as I find these conclusions, I have trouble disagreeing with them. Reason has severe limits in terms of what it can achieve as a way of human interaction. If you want proof just take a look at the truly hysterical posts by Steve, Titania and others, likening me to the Nazis or the Mullahs or the Jihadists. I confess that these days I feel little more than a bored amusement and/or contempt when I read stuff like this, but that's not the point. The fundamental point is this: if these kinds of cries are useless to persuade me, who is a proud Westerner, what good will they do against the real fanatics? What chance will these bleatings have against the Jihadists - or the neo-fascists? What hope do they have of swaying them from their course?

None, obviously. Which proves my point: in a conflict such as this, it isn't a matter of persuasion, but of victory. One side will crush the other and erase it from existence. But in such a Darwinian or Hobbesian struggle, the question becomes "What is effective?"

IIRC The Economist quoted one recently which showed that 50% of children born in the UK to two believing Muslim parents end up apostate. It is exactly the same percentage for children born to two believing Christian parents.

Again, could I get the source for that, Roger? In any case, root & I were engaged in a very interesting debate about the hows and wherefores of civilizational survival. So, with your permission, I'll stick to my previous answer: Those that are necessary.

Titania,

How are your proposals any different than the Nazis

Oh, I have a better idea: tell me how my views are similar to the Nazis and I'll bother to respond. You say some guff about "gene pool vs. meme pool", the two being equivalent. Dunno what you're doing on a site that's dedicated to the destruction of religion. Doesn't that make you a meme-cleanser, no different than the Nazis? For that matter, how can you even retroactively support the destruction of the Nazis - nasty little meme-cleanser, aren't you? They had their memes and you have yours - isn't this against your avowed principles?

640. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246755 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 3:45 am

Roger that 10% (got a source btw?) is excellent news. The question is how many of this lot are loyal to Britain instead of seeing themselves as first and foremost members of the Muslim nation, the Ummah?

Who do you propose we kill?

Whomever we need to. And it's "whom do you suggest".

More seriously, this is one of problems with allowing millions of Muslims to settle in the dar al-Harb.

641. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246743 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 13, 2008 at 2:14 am

root,

Your comments about the human species not changing and war are also very debatable. There is no doubt we have become a lot more civilized. From tribes, we moved up to states, and from states we've moved up to nations. So why not take the next step as well? I think western civilization can handle losing the crutch that is patriotism.

While it is true that we are spilling far less blood than we did when we were living in tribes, you are missing the significance of the twentieth century. It is always possible for a dedicated group to revive the ancient ideas of blood and soil and so seize what they want.

I think it's morally wrong to blindly align yourself with a country for right and wrong. As an example, a German soldier in WWII would be a better person if he helped the allies and "betrayed" his country

But of course. The fact, though, is that so many didn't, that it was necessary for there to be many, many who were willing to fight for King and Country, and give their lives to put a stop to Hitler's ambitions.

That's the deadly paradox that lurks at the heart of our civilization - all civilization. Whenever we get close to the point of the End of History, where trade and discourse have replaced war and theft, it is at that moment that the incentive for someone to revive the old ways is at its highest.

Right now the long war against Islam has heated up again. That means ideas such as patriotism, or at least a visceral civilizational loyalty, will be desperately necessary.

642. Saudi OKs Killing 'Immoral' TV Execs

Comment #246504 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 12, 2008 at 11:49 am

Quetz,

Oh I agree! America should have never let the Saudis nationalize - steal - the oil installations they built, and the sooner they seize them and the oil fields the better we'll be.

643. Saudi OKs Killing 'Immoral' TV Execs

Comment #246500 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 12, 2008 at 11:40 am

I am just dying to hear someone try and blame this on American foreign policy.

644. Saudi OKs Killing 'Immoral' TV Execs

Comment #246497 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 12, 2008 at 11:37 am

Vaal,

Wise man say: "Let's nuke it. It's the only way to be sure."

645. Saudi OKs Killing 'Immoral' TV Execs

Comment #246494 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 12, 2008 at 11:32 am

But, but... Islam is a religion of PEACE! And TOLERANCE! What about al-andalus? What are you, some sort of Islamophobes?

The sooner people awake to the nature and scale of this evil, the safer we'll be.

646. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #246277 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 12, 2008 at 4:36 am

root, again, all of this is largely good and reasonable, and I wish I could agree.

What is more motivational than fear of death and/or destruction of your society? This is a rational motivator that arguably would trump any kind of fanaticism. Your comment would be true only if you were the agressor.

The trouble is that this is refuted by the facts. We are seeing such a widespread capitulation by our cultural institutions in the face of Islam's attack. That's the 'tragedy of the commons' problem: from a rational actor's point of view, it makes just that bit more sense to wait for the other guy to stick his neck out first. Go back and read the first leaflet o the White Rose in Nazi Germany. You'll see exactly the same thing. That is why rational self-interest - as it's commonly understood - can't be a substitute for a code of ethics or a code of honor.

Now, onward to this:

Right. However, in a good society, there will naturally be people who are willing to contribute to the good of the society. They will be motivated by the real good things associated with the military. You will not need patriotism in this case. In a bad society, you would need it. That is a problem, because these patriotic men will now overlook the problems in their society, because it is "great".

Once again, I see where you're coming from. But if you look at most of the nations of 'the West', few have any military to speak of. The US is the mega-exception, of course, but what kind of a military does France have? Germany? Sweden? Peanuts compared with, say, Turkey.

Turkey is actually a very good example of this in action. Attaturk, broke the power of Islam in that country by building up a counter-ideology, that of the Turk, and by rooting that in a powerful and aggressively secular military. It's the reason that Turkey is such an exception in the Islamic world.

The human species has changed a lot. We are no longer the barbarians we were once. We have a lot less wars going on than before. Perhaps because we're intelligent enough to know that wars are not good for our survival.

I'm afraid it really hasn't. Our species hasn't changed that much, which is why we can read Thucydides and recognize ourselves. At the dawn of the twentieth century many too thought that it was the end of history, and that man had outgrown war. We know how that went: two of the bloodiest conflicts the species has ever seen within fifty years. The Cold War was anything but cold Korea and Afghanistan and Vietnam. Then there was Milosevic and Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, and now, of course, we have 9/11 and Afghanistan and Iraq. Meanwhile there's been the usual spate of wars between Ethiopia and Somalia (I maintain that we should back Ethiopia to the hilt on this one). Not to mention Putin's antics. Etc. etc.

Societies do not engage in Darwinian struggle, because humans are intelligent enough to know that our survival does not need the destruction of other societies/countries

I'm extremely dubious about the second part of that statement, but I know that the first is flat-out false. What do you think the Cold War was, other than a struggle to see which society would survive and shape the future? Now in the current war against Islam we are facing a similar struggle: either we crush Islam and stamp it out, or it will crush and stamp us out. Either one will take a long time.

Cycle back through history, and you see the same pattern, time and time again. Japanese Imperialism, which was rooted deeply in the culture of Japan was wiped out, and if it hadn't been, it would have wiped many other cultures.

None of this is nice or pleasant or enjoyable. It is merely the way things are. War is the human condition, and it will continue as long as there are those who want something and are willing to use the ancient tools of fanaticism and group-solidarity to get it.

Oh, I'd just backtrack to a point you made earlier:

I'm not sure I would call it a debt. It would certainly be a morally good and admirable thing to think that way i.e of contributing back to society and such. I never said we shouldn't be altruistic though. However, I fail to see why I should be proud to be born in a society that is good. I should be grateful (to whom?), but not proud, because it's purely by accident that I was born in a particular society, or country.

That's a confusion about the nature of Pride. If you read Aristotle on the subject, he writes that the virtue of pride is essentially a demanding one: the desire to live up to something. So I'd say that its a combination feeling honored to be part of your society alongside a desire to live up to its standards.

647. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #245937 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 11, 2008 at 2:47 pm

tgt, sorry, but I am through even trying to use the language of reason to deal with this creature.

dorky,

Fanusi, there are some (myself included) who would argue that a young child, even as young as 3 or 4, should be warned that when an adult tries to touch them in certain areas, it is wrong, and that the child should tell their parent immediately if anybody does so.

As did mine. That's why I said, it is perfectly possible to explain this to a kid without actually having to go into why it's so bad. I'll refer you to Richard Dawkins's post about the girl who was far more traumatised by the descriptions of hell than by being felt up by a priest.

As I said, teaching kids to know that that kind of touching is wrong isn't the same thing as teaching them about sex at that age.

648. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #245916 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 11, 2008 at 2:25 pm

BS, yes, they should, no it doesn't, as it is perfectly possible to teach a kid not to get in a stranger's car without telling them of the danger.

Now please sod off and die.

649. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #245911 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 11, 2008 at 2:19 pm

Roach,

You're wrong. Period.

650. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #245906 by Fanusi Khiyal on September 11, 2008 at 2:11 pm

Oh, FOR ...!

Most people on Rd.net don't believe there is a "Darwinian fight between societies".

Then they are all absolutely and completely wrong. Or haven't you noticed the long and bloodsoaked history of our species, with one country and society warring with the next and one defeating the other and supplanting it?