Sherry Chandler » Globalizing the Culture Wars
Globalizing the Culture Wars
Josh Marshall has some must-read thoughts on why we have riots over political cartoons:
An open society, a secular society can’t exist if mob violence is the cost of giving offense. And that does seem like what’s on offer here. That’s the crux of this issue — that the response is threatened violence and more practical demands that such outrages must end. It’s back to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the Satanic Verses (which, if you’re only familiar with it as a ‘controversy’ is a marvelously good book) — if on a less literary and more amorphous level.
The price of blasphemy is death. And among many in the Muslim world it is not sufficient that those rules apply in their countries. They should apply everywhere. Perhaps something so drastic isn’t called for — at least in the calmer moments or settled counsels. But at least European governments are supposed to clamp down on their presses to heal the breach.
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I don’t want to imply this is only a Muslims versus modernity issue. I know not all Muslims embrace these views. More to the point, it’s not only Muslims who do. You see it among the haredim in Israel. And I see it with an increasing frequency here in the US.
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Much, probably most of what gets talked about as the ‘war on terror’ in politics today is a crock — a stalking horse for political power grabs, a masquerade of rage and revanchism, a running excuse for why we’ve made so many stupid decisions over the last five years. In some cases, on a more refined plain, it’s rooted in intellectual or existential boredom. But beyond all the mumbojumbo about how we’re helping ourselves but permanently occupying Iraq and running the country’s finances into the ground, there is a conflict. There is a basic rupture in the world.
Recently, I’ve been reading a book called Who Murdered Chaucer (Thomas Dunne Books, 2004), written in large part by Terry Jones. Yes, Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. The roles of historian and comedian do not always rest easy together but, by and large, I’ve found this book fascinating. Not least for its parallels with today’s social situation.
In the late 14th century, in England under Richard II, life was pretty liberal. John Wyclif was up in Oxford questioning the excesses of the church, the Bible was being translated into English so that it did not have to be interpreted by clerics, Chaucer was writing his satires of priests and pardoners. Then, in 1399, Henry IV stages his coup, Wyclif ’s followers are declared heretics, heretics are burned alive (which they were not under Richard), and Chaucer dies mysteriously. Things clamp down. Hard.
Henry, a usurper, can’t afford dissent. Archbishop Thomas Arundel, who had been exiled under Richard, wants to regain his power and his riches.
This is the story Jones and his co-authors tell. It’s not the one we’re used to, in which good King Henry comes riding in to popular acclaim to replace bad King Richard. But, you see, the victors write the histories — and there is some evidence that Henry IV did some re-writing of histories. Evidence is hard to hide when you’re dealing with parchment texts.
History repeats itself. It seems to me that all over the world, people are retreating from liberal ideas at a dazzling pace – as it must have seemed to Chaucer 600 years ago. The very tools that seemed destined, at the end of the 20th century, to spread liberal ideas – the internet, satellite communications – are now being turned to use by authoritarians.
The war we’re fighting is not one of nation and nation, but as Josh Marshall says, one of liberalism and authoritarianism, modernity and theocracy. Perhaps it’s the same war we’ve been fighting for the last 600 years. Or more. It seems so obviously one we’re not going to win with bombs and armies.
My son, who sometimes astonishes me with his wisdom, is wont to say we’re headed into a new dark ages.
I hope he’s wrong.
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