tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29566846.post613568254303126586..comments2023-11-05T01:45:58.784-07:00Comments on The Hesperado: New Terms in the Islamological Lexicon: Essentialist and PhenomenologicalHesperadohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10394374828751466705noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29566846.post-14588829619581496232008-11-28T23:59:00.000-08:002008-11-28T23:59:00.000-08:00Erich, I think your terms make sense. This is all...Erich, I think your terms make sense. This is all very new to me and it will take a few passes to get it right, I think. I am certainly no hard holist but I too think we may need to err on the side of caution. Anyway, you have a ton of new posts to read so I'll do that.B322https://www.blogger.com/profile/18257802768718375656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29566846.post-91393185536445754962008-11-24T14:27:00.000-08:002008-11-24T14:27:00.000-08:00Anonymous,Quoting me:I believe that we cannot know...Anonymous,<BR/><BR/>Quoting me:<BR/><BR/><I>I believe that we cannot know the actual nature of Islam, but that for purposes of self-defense, we must err on the side of assuming it has the most dangerous nature.</I><BR/><BR/>"May I ask Erich what he means by his statement that "we cannot know the actual nature of Islam"?"<BR/><BR/>I was a bit imprecise. By "actual nature of Islam" I meant Islam qua Muslims putting Islam into action. The evil, unjust and dangerous nature of Islam qua Islam is sufficiently knowable; however, knowability of how many Muslims actually follow that nature, or do not currently but will do so in the future, and all the sociological, psychological and cultural complexity this entails, is not knowable to the extent that it could be proved. However, it is my position that we should assume that <I>Islam qua all Muslims</I> is sufficientlly dangerous to warrant treating it as a vast movement of hostile enemies.<BR/><BR/>My distinction of two Islams depends upon the distinction between a religion in its essence, and a religion as concretized. I have long held the conviction that a religion is what its members do. With the history of Christianity, for example, if we apply my conviction to it, we would have to conclude that Christianity has a tendency to be ambiguous: it has been simultaneously violent & intolerant, and a promoter of peace, order, social progress and wisdom. At the same time, however, we have seen Christianity manifest an extraordinary ability to evolve and adapt and acquiesce often willingly and enthusiastically in its relatively docile domestication under the aegis of modern secularism.<BR/><BR/>Whether or not one would care to argue that Islam is subject to the same ambiguity or not is, unfortunately and grimly, irrelevant to the increasingly alarming danger it poses to the world -- a danger no other religion (indeed, no other sociopolitical movement) poses; a danger that presents sufficient indication that Islam is not capable of the same evolution as Christianity. Note: I would reject the contention that Islam is subject to the same ambiguity insofar as Islam's essence is not ambiguous in this regard, and the behaviors & expressions of Muslims that have reflected an ambiguity are not evincing the same paradox that Christians have evinced. The Christian paradox was conducive to its eventual evolution and domestication; the Islamic ambiguity has differed diametrically: I.e., when Christians have been bad, they were straying from the essence of Christianity; when Muslims have been <I>good</I>, they were straying from the essence of Islam. Thus, the essential nature of Islam reinforces the mechanism that tips the balance of Islamic ambiguity toward evil; while the essential nature of Christianity has reinforced the mechanism that tips the balance of Christian ambiguity toward the good of an open-minded (though of course not perfect) evolution toward maturity and tolerance.Hesperadohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10394374828751466705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29566846.post-77130428837127699272008-11-24T10:12:00.000-08:002008-11-24T10:12:00.000-08:00[...] I believe that we cannot know the actual nat...<I>[...] I believe that we cannot know the actual nature of Islam, but that for purposes of self-defense, we must err on the side of assuming it has the most dangerous nature.</I><BR/><BR/>May I ask Erich what he means by his statement that "we cannot know the actual nature of Islam"? Does he perhaps mean that we cannot know specifically how Islam will <I>manifest itself</I> through the actions of its adherents, or does he mean that we cannot know what constitutes the "essence" of Islam? Or maybe something else?<BR/><BR/>After all, isn't the conclusion that "for purposes of self-defense, we must err on the side of assuming [Islam] has the most dangerous nature" a result of a recognition of malign aspects of Islam that are inherent in its actual nature? Or am I wrong?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03076780315288867714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29566846.post-41984229039178858902008-11-24T00:45:00.000-08:002008-11-24T00:45:00.000-08:00blode,I may not have been sufficiently clear in my...blode,<BR/><BR/>I may not have been sufficiently clear in my essay, but let me clarify:<BR/><BR/>An asymptotic can be either essentialist or phenomenological.<BR/><BR/>A holist can also be either essentialist or phenomenological.<BR/><BR/>The line between essentialist and phenomenological may be rather fuzzy sometimes, which could make readers think it's not a very useful distinction, and I'm not entirely sure they would be wrong.<BR/><BR/>Basically, an essentialist is more committed than the phenomenologist -- though the most famous phenomenologist, Spencer, is stubborn as a mule about it, comporting himself philosophically almost like Derrida in terms of slinking out of any pronouncements of "reality".<BR/><BR/>Perhaps I should scrap the terms, since in a sense my holist position which I termed "de facto holism" to distinguish it from hard holism might as well be phenomenological itself -- since I believe that we cannot know the actual nature of Islam, but that for purposes of self-defense, we must err on the side of assuming it has the most dangerous nature.Hesperadohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10394374828751466705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29566846.post-64371904076414370732008-11-23T17:39:00.000-08:002008-11-23T17:39:00.000-08:00So how do you tell which views someone holds? Is ...So how do you tell which views someone holds? Is it by evaluating what he or she says in describing Islam, or by evaluating the policies he or she advocates as a response? Or something else entirely?<BR/><BR/>I mean, what if someone describes things in holistic terms (e.g. "Islam is a fascist ideology") but has asymptotic prescriptions (innocent until proven guilty, etc.)? I ask mainly because I'll wager a lot of people combine holistic (and essentialist) thinking with asymptotic and phenomenological policies.B322https://www.blogger.com/profile/18257802768718375656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29566846.post-20474056796595666132008-11-20T22:46:00.000-08:002008-11-20T22:46:00.000-08:00An intriguing side-thought on this is what directi...An intriguing side-thought on this is what direction an asymptotic phenomenologist would tend towards - the conclusion that Islam is fine and dandy, or the ultimate holistic essentialist position.<BR/><BR/>Incidentally, please don't add any more variables, or my ability to plot that on a graph would be destroyed ;-)Nobodyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15936731686633423188noreply@blogger.com