Global Warming Readings

In reading through the article, one of the most compelling things I found out about global warming was that studies of fluctuations in oceanic currents and glacial opaqueness showed a feed-back loop is created that exacerbates the effect anthropogenic global warming.

I really don't understand how people can reject the idea of man-made global, which has the "scientific consensus," when they readily accept other scientific ideas that also have the blessing of the "scientific consensus." These people make themselves hypocrites and attack the scientific community with faulty logic and find radical "scientists" (who they claim are mavericks) to back up their ideas with poorly done research.

I am always inclined to believe it comes down to either an economic or a religious argument. Either these people are using positions of power to cast doubt on science for profit and more power over the masses, or they are doing it because they feel dealing with global warming is a moot point if the world is going to end soon (I guess the logic is to screw it up while there's still time?). In fact, I argue both these motives ultimately come down to self-gain in the vast majority of cases.

One More Islam Post

I really found the contrast between the Bhutto and Qutb readings quite shocking. Where Bhutto used history, logic, and the Qur'an itself to try to prove extremist views wrong, Qutb seemed openly and unabashedly against any interpretation that would "weaken" Islam.

Qutb writes, "This group of thinkers, who are a product of the sorry state of the present Muslim generation, have nothing but the label of Islam and have laid down their spiritual and rational arms in defeat. They say, 'Islam has prescribed only defensive war'! and think that they have done some good for their religion by depriving it of its method, which is to abolish all injustice from the earth, to bring people to the worship of God alone, and to bring them out of servitude to others into the servants of the Lord."

By contrast, Bhutto writes, "I know that some authors have speculated that women in Islamic countries can never achieve self-actualization or a degree of assertiveness unless they look at this [their situation] from a non-Islamic point of view. I don't agree with that at all. I believe that Islam within it provides justice and equality for women, and I think that those aspects of Islam which have been highlighted by by the mullas [religious scholars] do not do a service to our religion."

Only enough, they both try to blame thinkers and scholar for the prevalence of the opposing view.

Another Islam Post

Rein mentioned in class that Tariq Ramadan has written quite a bit on the Muslim minority in non-Muslim countries.

Ramadan argues that the only way to end the current cultural/political/military conflict between the West and Islam is for both sides to embrace a more reasonable approach that respects the sensitivities of each party.

Ramadan writes, "The fracture is not between the West and Islam but between those who, in both universes, are able to assert who they are and what they stand for with measure in the name of a faith and/or a rational reason and those drive by exclusive certainties, bind passions, reductive perspectives of the other, and hasty conclusions."

I believe that this sums up much of Ramadan's belief about what causes strife between these two societies and what can be done about it.

First Post in a while

Sorry I haven't kept up with posting. I had a chem test this week, and we only met once this week (today). There really wasn't much to talk about, but I'll try to stretch what we did talk about to three posts over the next few days.

Today in class, we talked about the reading by Tariq Ramada. Actually, we really didn't talk about it per se. We just talked about how perceptions of religion vary with culture. Western culture has come to place more emphasis on internal rather than external expressions of religion, something that is relatively unique when considered in the broad scheme of other cultures.

Middle Eastern/Islamic culture, from what we gathered from the reading, is basically the opposite, placing more emphasis on external rather than internal expressions of faith.

In class I talked about why that might be. In the West, culture has developed a sense of tolerance in response to religious pluralism. Events such as the Reformation and periods such as the Enlightenment made tolerance a necessity if society where people hold different things to be indisputably true is to remain stable.

This is not true of Islamic culture which, while not homogeneous, has responded differently to the challenge of religious diversity.

Islam Readings

For today we read 3 readings on Islam (2 by Tariq Ramadan and 1 by Ali Shari'ati).

I didn't really like the reading by Shariati because it seemed to blame the situation of third world countries and the Middle East solely on Western capitalism and culture it carries with it.

I contend that this is a dramatic oversimplification of the reality of events. While those in power may have misused Western ideas and forced them upon the inhabitants in many situations, I argue that many Western ideas can improve the quality of life and not damage pre-existing cultures.

I am also critical of his characterization of Western culture as a homogeneous entity. There is more variation and flexibility than he seems to acknowledge.

Sorry I couldn't cover everything we read in this post. I'll try to cover more on Saturday or Monday.

The Drowned and the Saved (Continued) Again!

In class today, we didn't talk about the new reading we had to do for today. Instead, we continued talking about The Drowned and the Saved.

We talked about the meaning of the Holocaust and whether anything could be learned from it.

I argued that learning about the Holocaust may help prevent future atrocities of the type from occurring in the future.

Even if, as Levi seems to argue, there is really no way to prevent people from falling into the raw hatred encouraged by totalitarian regimes (a point I personally contest), one can still watch for the warning signs and work to prevent the rise of governments that use atrocious acts to condition their people into a "violent submission."

The Drowned and the Saved (Continued)

Now that I've gotten in the routine of posting two times a week, I am going to try for three times a week starting today.

I there isn't much time left in the year, but I hope this will help make up for the three weeks when I didn't post at all.

Rein's comment in class today connecting Locke's arguments about power to the situation in the concentration camps as described in The Drowned and the Saved.

I think it is interesting the extent to which the Nazis when to dehumanize prisoners in the concentration camps, especially Jews.

In my mind, it must have required a combination true sadism on the part of the orchestrators of this plan for genocide and an insane lust for maintaining power by any means.

The latter, in my view, helps to explain why they would encourage such sadism among soldiers. People are not naturally sadists. It is an "acquired taste."

In essence, the drugs Nazi leaders chose to control both their population and soldiers were raw hatred and sadism.

Indeed, this is short-sighted if your goal is to keep yourself in power. No stable society has ever been founded on such principles. If left unchecked, eventually "the magician loses control of his spells," and all this hatred turns upon the leadership.

Not to mention, such a society can only exist as long as their are places to conquer and people to torment.

Even in theory, such a society is unsustainable.

This is why the choices Nazi leaders made baffle me, in on a pragmatic level.

The Drowned and the Saved

Again sorry for the late posting this week.

For Monday we had to read The Drowned and the Saved, chapters 2 and 5.

Much of chapter 2 had to do with how one can judge people in the "gray zone," those who in some ways collaborated with the Nazis in perpetrating the Holocaust yet who were also victims of the Nazis.

The author explains that the both the desire to survive and the desire for power motivated Nazi victims to do things they would never think of doing in a more stable environment.

As one example, he discusses the role of the "Special Squad," the group of prisoners in the concentration camps given the task of running the crematorium and other parts of the extermination process.

He argues that for two primary reasons these people should be considered victims rather than perpetrators: 1st, With the help of the extra rations they would receive, they could better preserve the memory of the atrocities committed if they were liberated or found a way to escape. 2nd, They took this job to avoid being immediately killed. No one is really fit to judge them, as we do not really know for sure what we ourselves would do in the same circumstances.

In chapter 5, the discussion shifted to the "uselessness" of Nazi violence. In contrast to the author, I believe there had to be an element of sadism involved in what the Nazis did. It couldn't have all been conditioning. It boils down to the innate human ability to enjoy another human beings suffering if all the inhibitions have been removed and this behavior is encouraged (these are, in fact, two sides of the same coin).

As much as human beings are social creatures and our an innate drive to work with others for a common goal keeps us from hurting others, there is still sadism in the human equation.

It is mindboggling how much evil humans are capable of working.

I thought both of these sections were interesting, especially since they discussed the morality and philosophy behind the events of the Holocaust.

Mein Kampf and other readings

Sorry for posting late in the week. I've had quite a bit going on. I'll give a follow up post tomorrow.

For today, we read Hitler's Mein Kampf and some other documents on Social Darwinism.

The general class consensus was that the whole idea of "master races" and innately "inferior" and "superior" people was utterly ridiculous.

We discussed the conditions of Germany and its people when Hitler came to power and that gave us more context through which we could understand how the German people came to follow Hitler and accept his ideas.

I think it is important to understand how downtrodden the German people felt after WWI, and that, in turn, made them more receptive to ideas we today would consider inhuman and overall detrimental to the stability of greater human society.

Ending of The River Between

I really didn't like the ending of The River Between.

It left the reader hanging and didn't resolve the fundamental conflicts in the story.

We never find out what ultimately happens to the village, Waiyaki personally, or the relationship between Waiyaki and Nyambura.

I told somebody in class Friday (while waiting to see if Rein could make it) that I almost wanted to rewrite the ending and provide some real answers to the cliffhangers.

I also wish there had been more development of some of the characters (Joshua in particular). Some of the characters (especially the "bad" characters, e.g., Joshua, Kabonyi, Kamau, etc.) were laughably "cookie-cutter."

If I ever wrote a fuller ending to this book, I would take the time to develop these characters far more than Ngugi does.

On The River Between

For class today, we read the first half of The River Between.

From just what we read, thought the book was mediocre (a B- as I told someone in class).

In class we talked about initiation rituals as they pertain to circumcision in the story.

The children of the tribe become adults through this ritual, and it is deeply meaningful for them, so much so that one girl undergoes it over her father's opposition and dies from it content that she will die a woman.

The initiation rituals in the story physically mark new members, but not all initiation rituals do so. In fact, modern initiation rituals are far more psychological or tests of will and stamina.

More after Friday's class!