Keep Quiet And Listen!

I'm not the biggest Victor Davis Hanson fan out there - his revisionist triumphalism irritates me greatly for not acknowledging that the West wasn't always best, nor has Christianity been the benign force in history he makes it out to be - but for once there's a piece by him with which I am very much in agreement, as it makes a very simple point which many Westerners simply refuse to hear: it's time we stopped projecting our hopes and frustrations onto the Islamists in the name of "root causes" [sic], and actually started listening to what they say motivates them, even if it doesn't happen to be socialism, environmentalism, poverty-reduction, the election Bush supposedly "stole" or whatever pet cause most warms our hearts.

On a related note, I've just come across an interesting paper on NBER by Alberto Abadie on the relationship between poverty and terrorism: as it turns out, there apparently isn't one, though there is one between political freedom and terror. Poverty reduction is worthwhile for its own sake, and we don't need to drag "terror prevention" in as a rationale for trying to bring it about.

PS: Gary Becker and Richard Posner have both already commented on the paper, as well as on another one by Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova which also discounts the notion that poverty is a "root cause" of Islamic terror. Maleckova even makes the exact same point Hanson makes (and I myself have made before): "In some cases, [we need] just to take the other side seriously."

Comments

[razib]

there are multiple papers out there that point to the same finding decoupling poverty from terror.

p.s. where does hanson laud christianity? i don't read his columns much, but i have read his books, and he seems a 1950s style historical liberal, emphasizing the classical greek roots of the west and not putting much emphasis on the roman, german or hebrew-christian roots. very will durantesque.

[Abiola Lapite]

"where does hanson laud christianity?"

He doesn't so much laud it as gloss over its horrible history. To give but one example, the following is from a review of his "Carnage and Culture: "

http://www.mindef.gov.sg/safti/pointer/back/journals/2005/Vol31_1/8.htm

["Equally problematic from a theoretical standpoint is Hanson’s somewhat self-serving definition of Western culture as that of classical Greece and Rome . Hanson’s fellow classicist (though of a very different temperament), the philosopher Leo Strauss, defined Western culture as a dialectic between “ Athens and Jerusalem ,” the former standing for reason, the latter for spirituality. The tensions between them, argues Strauss, are responsible for much of Western civilisation’s greatness: its art, its science, its freedom. Hanson mentions Christianity in his analysis, but seems to gloss over its transformative impact on Western culture in general and Western military values in particular, presenting it as largely a neutral force that did little to hinder the development of capitalism and the spread of classical values. In this sense, his narrative comes across as somewhat simplistic at times. 2,500 years of history are compressed into a single, continuous narrative."]

Then of course there's all his talk of "Judeo-Christian" this and that, as if there were any single such thing, rather than a 1,600-year tradition of Christians persecuting Jews when they weren't busy hunting out "heretics", waging crusades or fighting against each other. To hear VDH go on and on about "Western civilization" and its glorious Christian heritage, one wouldn't realize that the reason why the Byzantine Empire's hold on the Middle East was so easily swept away was because even life as a jizya-paying dhimmi under Islam was a tremendous improvement compared to Byzantine serfdom and intolerance for religious dissent.

[Russell L. Carter]

VDH seems to feel this circa 1998 root cause testimonial worthy enough to cite, in 2005, when the data is no longer operative:

“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip.”

He's a closet Papest, I guess.

I realize that the insane don't bend to easy compartmentalization, however, following your pedogogical notion of listening to this quote implies the notion that "infidel" occupation of "believer's" holy shrines might be something pissing them off.

This statement is true whether or not I agree that it is a practical guide for policy. I again think that illiterate and pernicious religious literalism is at base the problem here, and as you allude, this is a problem for Christianity as well. We must of course add that Christians don't do suicide bombings[1].

[1] They've got more sense, witness McVeigh and our very own Cormac McCarthy envisioned mountain man turned antisportsglobalization terrorist.

[razib]

We must of course add that Christians don't do suicide bombings

well

1) i have heard that some of the tamil tiger suicide bombers were from christian backgrounds (something 20% of sri lankan tamils are christian).

2) mcveigh was an atheist from what i've read.

[Abiola Lapite]

"VDH seems to feel this circa 1998 root cause testimonial worthy enough to cite, in 2005, when the data is no longer operative"

Is it? Al-Aqsa mosque is still in Israel, last I heard, and as such by definition is still under "occupation" as far as very many Muslims are concerned: the very existence of a Jewish state on the Islamic waqf of the "Land of the Two Holy Places" is considered an "occupation."

[Russell L. Carter]

"Al-Aqsa mosque is still in Israel, last I heard, and as such by definition is still under "occupation" as far as very many Muslims are concerned: the very existence of a Jewish state on the Islamic waqf of the "Land of the Two Holy Places" is considered an "occupation.""

Duly noted, I thank you.

[dsquared]

you could do a similar analysis of the backgrounds of Castro, Lenin, Trotsky etc and conclude that class tensions had nothing to do with Communism.

[Abiola Lapite]

Except the funny thing is, all of the Heroes of Socialism you mention explicitly made class struggle central to the ideology they espoused! Funny thing that, actually being able to glean the centrality of an idea from the place given it in people's statements ...