> From: Stephen D. Williams [mailto:sdw@lig.net]
> Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 7:42 PM
> >1. Which religion and how it is currently being expressed matters.
> >
> A)  Which religion is it that can claim no foul actions in its past?
>  Certainly not Christianity, Islam, etc.
Hence the qualifier 'current'.
> B) "How it is currently being expressed" amounts to a tacit
> acknowledgement that the sophistication of the society involved and
> people's self-limiting reasonableness are important to avoid primitive
> expression.  This leads to the point that religion and less
> sophisticated societies are a dangerous mix.  It also tends to invoke
> the image of extremes that might occur without diligent maintenance of
> society.
The tacit acknowledgement and self-limiting you speak of is not a given
or a function of 'sophistication' but is primarily a feature of
(current) Western Civilization.  Of course, 'sophisticated' and 'Western
Civilization' are essentially equivalent IMHO.  But it need not be so.
> D) The Northern Ireland Protestant vs. Catholic feud, recently more or
> less concluded, is not completely unlike this kind of friction
generated
> by splitting society too much along religious lines.  One Post article
> pointed out that the problem basically stemmed from the vertical
> integration of areas along religious lines all the way to schools,
> government, political party, etc.  (Of course both cases have a
heritage
> of British conquest, but who doesn't?)
And sometimes the religious component is a façade for an equally
dangerous ethnic affiliation.  Hindu extremism isn't about the Hindu
religious theology as far as I can see.  It is a peg to hang an ethnic
identity and identity politics on.
Muslim extremism appears to have a far greater connection to theology.
> 'Northern Ireland is a British province of green valleys and
> cloud-covered hills whose 1.6 million people are politically and
> religiously divided. About 54 percent of the population is Protestant,
> and most Protestants are unionists who want the province to remain
part
> of Britain. The Roman Catholic minority is predominantly republican,
or
> nationalist; they want to merge with the Republic of Ireland to the
south.
Yep, all because the Scots ate oats and starved their Irish out long
ago, while the English preferred wheat and that doesn't grow so well in
Ireland.  That and the introduction of potatoes saved the Irish as
Irish.
> That's fine, as it would be an inappropriate concentration.  It would
be
> difficult to address the issues raised here in a clean way.  I'd be
> happy with an acknowledgement that the connection is there.
Oh, I think we are in a war with wide aspects of the Muslim religion.  I
know it is there, but it just might not be appropriate to admit it
publicly.
> >3. US Leadership remains reflexively multi-cultural.
> >
> This is ok to a point, as long as it doesn't shy away from logical,
> objective analysis of when a society could be seriously improved in
> certain ways.
I didn't say this was a *good* thing.  With the exception of ethnic
restaurants, I can generally be counted on to oppose anything labeled
'multi-cultural'.
> >I didn't say burning the train was a good thing.  I said I understood
it
> >wasn't a spontaneous attack on people who had done no wrong.
> >
>
> True, although I don't think you were as clear originally.  :-)
I'm sure I wasn't.