From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Thu 06 Mar 2003 - 14:54:35 GMT
Hi Joe,
Thanks for posting the article by Mark Steyn.
A little bit one- sided for my taste, but I suppose that was the writers intention !?
The description of the behavior of the Muslims is only an one- way coded
version of a far more greater debate.
But yes, indeed, those folks seem to have problems with the notion of
multiculturalism, and like A. Appiach writes, " why should I who resist,
[ here tranferred to the Muslim-commity ( my doing)] the white ( Western)
norms, the average American conventions, the racism ( and perhaps
materialism and individualism also) of the ' white ' society/ culture, search
for acknowledgement by those white folks !? "
( Multiculturalism/ Charles Taylor)
The problem, like I see it, is not, although they connect it to it, of politics
and ideology, but about people and more specific of how they look at
themselves, how they relate to what makes up their identity and how
they can be authentic.
In our society, identity and the ways by which we can be authentic are
due to the ways we can develop our Self.
The Self we became is not only made by dialogue ( like Taylor indi-
cates) but is also formed by ideas and practices hand over by the
society and culture of which I am part.
What Muslims ( and others) impute us is that within our communities
there is never a fundamental bias where upon they can built their own
identity and can be authentic in the process of doing so.
But how can that be if none of our conventions is part of the set of
building blocks needed for their identity to take shape !?
How on earth can they make choises if they do not stipulate the
conditions to make a choise from !?
I understand perfectly that 1_ some fundamentalists use this to
get more than a foot between our doors, and 2_ that you see this
as a lack of respect for our values and wishes, and that thus can
be the reason why they attack ( or will attack) us, but this is a
far more greater problem than the both of us can comprehend.
Don 't get me wrong, I do see that within both parties forces of
historical/ religious and philosophical origin are at work, but in
both cases those ideas work individualistic thru'.
Collective arguments are just equal as those presented by the
individuals, but the difference lays within what is seen as " indi-
vidualistic" and what it means to be " collective ".
In my mind two things must we remerber, 1_ that IMO, the
fundamentalists are just a phase we must get through, a
deadly one I am sure, but nevertheless one of history, one
of education too. As long politics and religion are NOT two
seperate identities, the social reproduction of education will
result in collective ( religiously) goals_ one is indeed fun-
damentalism.
Of course, politics has still more than one piece of the pie
in how a society/ community and culture is run and how
kids learn about these things, but where I see that the
' religious ' element is somewhat on the side in our society
( although I am not so damn sure about it) I see more of
the stuff in the Muslim- community. Religion in part of the
way they live and is thus a part of how they form their
identity and is thus part of how they can/ will be authentic.
2_ There is IMO a major difference in ' memetic reproduction '_
Freedom, democracy and equality are those blocks which
are part of our identity- forming process, and those are co-
herent with the norms we handle within our society.
So would not only gender be of importance, but also na-
tionality and ethnic origin. The problem however is that
some ' minorities ' are treated as such ( blacks, homo-
sexuals, katholics, Muslims, women,...) and because
part of our identity is getting formed by dialogue those
people feel miscontent,... they lack a part of the acknow-
ledgement of their identity.
The other half is the part they are born with ( Muslim-
sided) but this can 't compete the subject- directed
individualistic bias of our society if WE all stand blind
on the corner.
We need to talk !
Regards,
Kenneth
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu 06 Mar 2003 - 15:07:51 GMT