Finally. I feel very dragged out by this whole thing. What is most dissappointing is that I was really hoping for a resonable book. What is really frightening is that it is in places very reasonable- which more on later.
The upshot: It would serve well as a companion volume to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion- this time construed as The Protocols of the Bombers of Islam. It's a complex screed filled with half-truths (or, half-presented facts) interspersed with really otherwise useful things.
The conflation of Islam with Qutbism (for lack of a better term) does no one any good- it paints Islam with a broad ugly brush, it engenders fear and it calls for retaliatory- or even pre-emptive violence. Hmm. There could not possibly be an agenda here.
Let me state for the record here: I am a socialist. As such I do not believe that religin is a force for good- though I cannot deny that it has been used as a force. I think it demands a disregard for science, fact, and critical thinking and that it has been used, as Marx pointed out, as an opiate of the people. Except that I would update it to be more along the lines of crack cocaine. Few opium addicts have the gumption to blow things up. This goes for suicide bombers as well as invading forces.
That said- I entered into this book in search of something usefull- not expecting a gentle denunciation of faiths here, but something rational and an offer- maybe, just maybe- of a replacement in the form of reason. This is not to be found here.
Harris' methods are dangerous- meant to appeal to the more liberal element, it offers an excuse- founded on a twisted and selective history- to be afraid of and angry with Islam in particular. Though he goes through an almost perfunctory history of the uses of religion to oppress, he mis-identifies the oppressor as Religion Itself. He breezez through the Holocaust, the witch hunts and etc. At one, brief, point he says that a lot of the land seized by the Inquisition made it into the hands of the Church. And, yes, that is bad. It's also a bit familiar these days, with people being denounced as terrorists and their property or rewards being given to the denouncers whether the person is proved a terrorist or not.
It would not be so alarming if he did not, after the chapter "The Problem with Islam", continue to point out Islamic examples of violence and etc at every turn to the exclusion of the horrors of other faiths.
The Afterward should really be an Introduction, as it is only here that we see he started the book on Sept 12, 2001. Obviously, this colours things. It is unfortunate that Harris never quite pulled out of the trauma this inflicted on him - though he claims to have returned to reasonableness and that some of the more extreme parts were edited out. I hope never to stumble across those writings, if this is his moderate side.
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2 comments:
Very interesting post.
I'm also a socialist and materialist. I don't have a religious bone in my body.
Now you have people like Michelle Malkin advocting the right to criticize religion, without violent retribution. The catch is that it applies to Islam. What about Christianity and Judaism?
Ah, no, you see, *that* would be racist and closed-minded.
That said, I doubt any religion would stand to a critical view. Which is why adherents are largely advised not to apply logic to "the ways of God". Indeed, logic does not apply.
I *do* have religious bones in my body, though it's something which I regard more and more as a thing against which to struggle. I am "un-converting", if you will.
While many religions offer some beautiful history- way more often they are the vehicles for or to oppression. They play into identity politics and tend to obscure the total connectedness of workers everywhere. It's a form of mental provincialism (religion).
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