I saw a picture at one of the demonstrations in Spain today. A kid holding up a sign which said, in Spanish, “We were all on that train.”
I feel that way today with the people of Spain. I felt that way when the massacre happened in Bali.
We do not know yet who committed this atrocity in Spain. It is not for me to speculate.
But in terms of the larger picture – I am with Samuel Huntington, in some respects – and I agree with his theory that what we are seeing now is a “clash of civilizations”. World wars will never be the same, where one clear-cut country wages war against another clear-cut country. This is an entire civilization attacking another civilization. Because of its IDEAS. It is much more amorphous, harder to pin down. The “root causes” float about, sticking together, coming apart, like mercury. Nobody can even agree on what the hell is going on.
I talked with my friend David about this the other night.
Change, adapt, or die out. A civilization that cannot adapt will not survive.
Western civilization has had its ups and downs. It has not been an ever-increasing road uphill, to greater and greater heights of glory and perfection. There is no such thing as a Utopia. The journey has been a mess. Chaotic. Only with the long perspective of centuries can you look back on it and figure out what happened, how certain things came to be, how certain movements or certain pamphlets or certain philosophers helped shape our world. The Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason transformed our civilization. Separation of church and state, rendering Caesar’s stuff to Caesar and God’s stuff to God – This is a new concept. It is RADICAL. Revolutionary.
It took us a long time to get there, and we still (obviously), (in this country and in others), struggle with what exactly that means. Separation of church and state. Separation of powers. Power-sharing. Bloodless transfers of power. This shit continues to blow my mind, when I look at the bloody chaos of so much of the rest of the world.
It has taken centuries of philosphers, theologians, writers, poets to formulate these ideas, to fight things out, hash things out, to argue, debate, find the checks, find the balances, learn the value of giving UP some of your individual power for the good of the GROUP …
This shit is hard stuff. It requires vigilance, restraint, and debate.
I don’t care who you are in the world, or what nation you belong to. If you also feel that you were on that train in Spain – if you also feel that the values of this civilization (liberty, equality, freedom of religion, separate the Caesar from God) – then you are my kin.
We are the same. We were all on that train.
Elegant and concise. Very nicely done.
My hangover prevents me from further lucid comment.
The fact that you used the word “lucid” in your hungover state is very impressive.
I’m a literate hedonist.
It is damn fine post though. You have a knack of communicating ‘big’ thoughts in very clear terms.
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Sheila O’Malley: But in terms of the larger picture – I am with Samuel Huntington, in some respects – and I agree with his theory that what we are seeing now is a “clash of civilizations”. World wars will never…
I think it’s not so much a clash of civilizations (though that element definitely does exist) as it is a clash between those who pin their hopes on the future and those who worship the past. Those who hate and fear the modern world are not entirely unjustified in their feelings – it is possible that we may end up killing ourselves off as a species through our inability to wisely control dangerous new technologies.
However, the golden ages of the past are a myth. Can we turn our back on modernity and embrace our horrific past – one of Crusades and pogroms and bloody mayhem of every variety? The answer is clearly no. We cannot in good conscience turn back the clock to those imaginary golden times for which radicals on all sides long so fervently.
We have no choice but to stare down the terrorists at the same time we strive to control exponentially progressing technologies. We must do our best to bring basic human rights and freedoms to all those who do not currently enjoy them.
We are all on the same train, red, and we fail to recognize that fact at our great peril.
I can definitely see what you are saying, Mike R. This was one of the things my friend David and I talked about last night. Adaptation. Can you accept modernization? Can you, as a society, basically, CHANGE?
Or – more specifically – can radical Islam adapt, and change itself?
There will always be wackos. Like the fundamentalist Christians who kill abortion doctors. Etc. But the entire religion (as far as I can tell) is not overwhelmed by a desire to kill and plunder as it was in the past.
It took centuries for that to occur.
Huntington’s views are, sometimes, a bit too radical for me – but damn, if anyone had really been paying attention to his writings before September 11 (anyone besides academics I mean) – they would have seen that he was predicting a violent showdown between east and west for years.
Red, the issue of change is the critical issue of the century that lies ahead of us. Societies do change, but throughout human history they have had a strong tendency to change over very long periods of time, i.e. centuries. Technology now has the capacity to create revolutionary change over a matter of years and even months, and its advance continues to accelerate exponentially. I don’t think we can or should try to turn back the clock, but I do believe that finding innovative new ways to manage technological change will be crucial for our long-term survival.
Up to this point there has been a tacit assumption in our culture that technological change is inherently a good thing. That assumption is a luxury we can no longer afford. At this moment, an inventor has actually patented an idea to create monstrous advertisements in space using orbiting satellites. Can you imagine, the night sky that humans have gazed upon for millions of years being cluttered with ads for Gatorade and Nike? That’s just one small example of what is happening to us. We see accounts of steroid-enhanced athletes everywhere, and you know that gene-manipulation is coming fast down the pike. And my parents cannot even operate the new DVD player I got them for Christmas.
If all this has the capacity to scare me, I can only imagine how it makes uneducated, impoverished people around the world feel. I don’t claim to know all the answers, but as a species we had better start taking the questions more seriously than we have to date.
Very eloquent Red. I pretty much always feel uplifted when I read what you have to say.
I agree with the Huntington’s clash of civilizations, but I also think we are having the “fourth turning” and experiencing “fourth generation war” (i guess i just like meta-fours).
This means we will see a period of protracted crisis, turmoil, and conflict for about the next 15 years or so, and the conflict will be almost purely unconventional, non-linear, and non-nation-state based.
It also means this may be the sunset of the nation-state as the primary instrument of social power, and that existing institutions are in peril.
As I have said before, it looks like scary times ahead.