The 21st Century Kultur Kampf: Fundamentalist
Islam Against Occidental Culture
Shlomo Giora Shoham
"I thank God that my sons Oudai and Koussai and my grandson Moustafa have
sacrificed themselves for this country".
—Sadam Husein in a recorded message to the Iraqi people.
Before September 11th, the scourge of fundamentalist Islam was mostly felt by the
Israelis, the victims of the Taliban in Afghanistan reflected symbolically by the
toppling down of the giant Buddha statues; the suppressed students in Iran and by the
slaughtered villagers in Algeria. After September 11th, the political hierarchies in the
U.S.A., Britain, and some other countries realized that a war was going on – fought
with different weapons, but awesome frightening and quite effective – between
fundamentalist Islam and western culture. How did it happen? Why has it been over
looked and what may be expected to happen? We must, however, clarify some
preliminary questions: what were the socio-cultural processes, which preceded these
outbursts of war, which most observers prefer to denote as terrorism? What is the
conceptual infra-structure with which this war may be analyzed and finally can this
war be dealt with, with conventional methods or novel tactics and strategies have to
be devised to cope with it. Since we hold the present war to be a sequel to a harsh
cultural conflict which raged throughout the ages between the Islamic more Tantalic
social characters and the occidental largely Sisyphean social characters we have to
deliberate on the concepts of Tantalic and Sisyphean social characters. These are
related to our personality theory which we have developed in extenso elsewhere1.
This theory identifies two opposing personality types: the 'participant' and the
'separant'. 'Participation' means the identification of the ego with people, objects or
symbols outside the self, and the desire to lose one's separate identity in fusion with
1
S. G. Shoham: The Myth of Tantalus; S. Lucia 1979; The University of Queensland Press.
2
these externals. 'Separation', of course, implies the opposite. These two character
types define the poles or extremes of a continuum of personality types.
Our personality theory also posits out three main developmental phases. The
first is the process of birth. The second is the crystallization of an individual ego by
the molding of the "ego boundary." The third phase is a corollary of socialization, the
achievement of an "ego identity." The strain to overcome the separating and dividing
pressures never leaves the human individual. The striving to partake in an allencompassing whole is ever-present and takes many forms. If one avenue towards its
realization is blocked, it seeks out another. Total participation or fusion is, by
definition, unattainable. In addition to the objective impossibility of participation, the
separant trait acts as a countering force, both on the instinctive and interactive levels.
At any given moment of our lives, there will be a disjuncture, a gap, between our
desire for participation and our subjectively-defined distance from our participatory
aims. We call this gap the "Tantalus Ratio," that is, the relationship between the
longed-for participatory goal and the distance from it, as perceived by the ego.2
Another basic premise of the theory concerns the fixating of separant and
participant personality types. This is related to the stage of development, at later
orality, when a separate self crystallizes out of the earlier undifferentiated whole.
There is an ontological base-line by which the self is defined by the non-self - the
outside object. The coagulation of the self marks the starting point for the most basic
developmental dichotomy.
Two separate developmental phases can be distinguished: the first, from birth
and early orality until the point at which the ego boundary is formed around the
emerging individual separatum; and the second, from later orality onwards. In the
first phase, any fixation that might occur, and thereby imprint some character traits on
the developing personality, is not registered by a separate self capable of discerning
between the objects, which are the sources of the fixation-causing trauma, and itself
as recipient. The entity which experiences the trauma is a non-differentiated whole.
However, if the traumatizing fixation occurs at the later oral phase, the self may well
be in a position to attribute the cause of pain and deprivation to its proper source: the
2
S.G. Shoham, Rebellion, Creativity and Revelation (Science Reviews Ltd. Middlesex, 1984), Chapter
X.
3
objects. We therefore propose a personality typology which is anchored on this
developmental dichotomy of pre- and post-differentiation of the self.3
The process of molding the separate individual determines the nature and
severity of the fixation, which in turn determines the placement of a given individual
on the personality type continuum. However, the types themselves are fixed at
different stages in the developmental chronology; the participant at pre-differentiated
early orality and the separant after the formation of the separant self. The participant
factor operates, with a different degree of potency, on both these personality types,
but the quest for congruity manifests itself differently with each polar personality
type. The participant aims to achieve congruity by effacing and annihilating himself,
by melting back into the object and regaining the togetherness and non-differentiation
of early orality. The separant type aims to achieve congruity by overpowering, or
"swallowing", the object.
Social Character
When our core personality continuum is applied to the characteristics of
groups or cultures, it relates to a social character. The family and other socializing
agencies transmit the norms and values of the group, which the individual then
internalizes. It is important to note at the outset, however, that a social character as
the composite portrait of a culture is never pure. It portrays only essentials, not
peripheral traits. One culture may absorb the social character of its conquerors. This
social character may thence be classified along a continuum similar to our personality
core continuum. The separant pole can be denoted as Sisyphean, after the Greek
stone-manipulating Titan; we denote participant as Tantalic, after the stationary,
inner-directed and abstract demi-god.
Thus the social-character constitutes the
cultural dimension of the personality continuum.
Patterns of Culture and Social Character
To Fromm, a social character does not consist of those peculiarities which
differentiate people, but of "that part of their character structure that is common to
3
Ibid.
4
most members of the group."4 The social character is, therefore, a common attribute
of individuals, ingrained in them by socializing agents, which display the
characteristics of a culture. Riesman, who uses mutatis mutandis, Fromm's definition
of social character, relies for the sources and genesis of this social character on
Erikson who claims that "Systems of child training ... represent unconscious attempts
at creating out of human raw material that configuration of attitudes which is the
optimum under the tribes' particular natural conditions and economic-historic
necessities."5 Erikson's mesh of social Darwinism with Marxist material dialectics is
too concrete and harsh in our view as an explanation for the volatile concept of social
character. We prefer to see the social character as a "collective representation" in the
sense used by Levy-Bruhl,6 of acts, symbols, and transitions from the concrete to the
abstract displayed by groups in their interaction with the individuals which comprise
them, or with other groups. This involves the transmission of the social character
from the group to its young, and from generation to generation by a process of
learning and socialization, and not by heredity, as postulated by Jung. 7 The social
character is the psychological type of a character as displayed by a collectivity, and
not by the individuals comprising it. Yet, when this social character is implanted in
the individual by the group, it provides the necessary link between the phylogenetic
and otogenic bases of the personality structure.
Our five polar characteristics of social characters are summarized in figure 1.
These patterns are by no means exhaustive, but rather illustrative. They point out the
highlights of a given social character, but do not constitute a precise definition
Figure 1. Polar patterns of social character
Separant
Object-manipulation
4
Participant
Self-manipulation
Reason
Intuition
Flux
Constancy
Plurality
Unity
Action
Resignation
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942), p.277.
Cited in Riesman et al., Lonely Crowd, p.19.
6
See L. Levy-Bruhl, How Natives Think (New York: Washington Square Press, 1966), pp.3-5.
7
See Jung's definition of the "collective subconscious" in C.G. Jung, Psychological Types (London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1944), p.616.
5
5
Our use of a continuum to describe social characters means that no culture
may be tagged by one definitive label. Consequently, in every participant social
character there are separant patterns, and vice versa.
At the separant extreme, we may place the north-western European societies
imbued with the Protestant ethic which burst forth in the full-blown flames of the
"American Dream." On the participant pole we find cultures dominated by the
Hinayana Buddhist doctrines of quietist self-annihilation.
The social characters like the personality types may be arranged along a
continuum with the extreme Sisyphean and Tantalic social characters at its two poles.
The social characters which embraced during the last millennium and a half the
Moslem creed's ethics and way of life tend more or less towards the Tantalic pole of
our social character continuum whereas the occidental cultures tend to move towards
its Sisyphean pole. Other concepts which are related to our theoretical approach also
developed in extenso elsewhere8 are dialogue, structure and mythoempiricism. Being
existentialists of the Kierkegardean, Shestovean and Bubersean brand we believe not
only that existence was and is prior to essence but also that ontologically relationship
and dialogue are the Dings - an - Sich. The "things–in–themselves" as sought by
Kant. Hence our interactions both with individuals and with groups may move from
an I-thou dialogue within which meanings may be generated to a mutually petrifying
I-it relations.
The relationship between the self and its human and objective environment is,
therefore, conceived within the context of a Buberian dialogue. If an I-thou encounter
occurs, there is a sense of revelation and meaning. If a dialogue is not effected, the
self feels that its environment is menacing, opaque, and absurd. A dialogue may be
affected, according to Buber, only if the self opens up voluntarily to the other. When
the choice has been made, and the self enters into a dialogic relationship with another
human being, or into an authentic relationship with words, music, or a painting, the
alternatives—to use a quantum mechanical simile—collapse, and the relevant mental
energy is infused exclusively into the dialogical relationship.
The complementarity principle in the field of cultural norms may be envisaged in
the following manner: Every organism needs a system-in-balance to function and
survive. This holds true for artifacts as well as human aggregates. Hence, Hellenistic
8
S. G. Shoham; God as the Shadow of Man: New-York Peter Lang 2000
6
cultures stress the need for contextual harmony. The Egyptian ethos, like the Greek
kosmos, which literally means order, anchors on the need for balance. The most
important Greek norm is meden agan, nothing in excess, and the cardinal sin is
hübris, the divergence from the golden mean. In a similar vein, the Egyptian goddess
Maat is in charge of the all-important cosmic order, to be maintained as a
precondition for the cycles of life. Conformity to group norms is a prime Greek
mandate; deviants—both transgressors and outstanding achievers—were ostracized
and expelled from the polis. The Jews, on the other hand, were socialized to strive for
the absolute. This makes for revelatory insights, but poor team workers. Indeed, the
Jews, wherever they were, tended to contribute brilliant ideas to their host cultures,
but usually did not excel as contextual performers. The viability of a culture depends
on a complementarity between the revelatory virtuoso, spurred by directional insight,
and the contextual performers, who integrate the ideas into a durable system-inbalance. Bohr intended the complementarity principle to serve philosophy better than
Aristotelian causality, scholastic coincidentia oppositorium, and Hegelian dialectics.
The link between subject and object has been one of the most relevant psychophilosophical problems from time immemorial. Solomon Maimon, the disciple of
Kant, posited the matter in metaphoric terms: ‘To find a passage from the external
world to the mental world is more important than to find a way to East India, no
matter what statesmen may say.’ Still, our concern is more pragmatic: We wish to
understand how the mental revelation of an Archemedian ‘Eureka’ is structured into
an objective creation. We hypothesize that this creative linkage is affected by a
mythogenic structure, the meaning of which has, of course, to be presently explained.
Andrew Lang, a pioneering student of mythology, stated towards the end of the
nineteenth century that myths are not just cautionary tales to frighten young children
into eating their porridge, but causal and ætiological explanations of phenomena that
had taken place in historical reality. He, therefore, denoted mythology as a protoscience.9 Freud claimed that ‘myths are the distorted vestiges of the wish-fulfillment
fantasies of whole nations…the age-long dreams of young humanity.’10 Freud
actually raised his intra-psychic interpretation of dreams on to the group level and
claims that the myth is an expression of the tribe’s ‘social characters,’ the nation’s or
9
Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion (1906; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1968).
Sigmund Freud,’The Relation of the Poet to Day-Dreaming’, (1908) Collected Papers, IV, (London:
The Hogarth Press, 1925), 182.
10
7
social aggregate’s wishes and visions. Surely, the myth of the Flood was not dreamful
wish-fulfillment, but a projection of actual experiences of disastrous inundations by
rivers—especially in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Myths are, therefore, also a projection
of experiences and of spectacular events borne by a group before written history in
ille tempore. According to Bachofen, ‘The mythical tradition may be taken as a
faithful reflection of life in those times in which historical antiquity is rooted. It is a
manifestation of primordial thinking, an immediate historical revelation and,
consequently, a very reliable source.’11 Eliade further claims that, because myths
reflect the occurrence of events on a high level of abstraction, they also reveal the
principles or designs underlying events. He writes that ‘the myth discloses the
eventful creation of the world and man, and at the same time, the principles which
govern the cosmic process and human existence. The myths succeed each other and
articulate themselves into a sacred history, which is continuously recovered in the life
of the community as well as in the existence of each individual. What happened in the
beginning describes at once both the original perfection and the destiny of each
individual.’12
This brings us to Jung, who regarded myths not only as means of individual
psychic expression, but also as the archetypal contents of the ‘collective human
unconsciousness.’13 As an interim summary, we may regard myths as a projection of
wishes and experiences both on the individual and group levels. Some two decades
ago, in Salvation Through the Gutters, we stated:
...Our methodological anchor is the conception of myths as projections of
personal history. Individuals are aware of their personalities as the sole
existential entity in their cognition. This awareness of existence is the only
epistemological reality. Myths cannot, therefore, be divorced from the human
personality. Whatever happened to us in the amnestic years and even later, is
projected onto our theory of the creation of the universe, magic and other
human beings. The events that happened in the highly receptive amnestic
years have been recorded and stored by the human brain. Events that
11
John Jakob Bachofen, Myth, Religion, and Mother-Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1967), 73.
12
Mircea Eliade, The Myth of Eternal Return , trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Pantheon Books,
1954), 34–48.
13
Carl Gustav Jung, Psychological Types (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1944), 241, 615.
8
happened after the amnestic years may be recalled cognitively, but whatever
happened within these first years of life is recalled, inter alia, by myths of
cosmogony. Myths as personal history may, therefore, be regarded as the
account of some crucial developmental stages in the formative years.
Moreover, human development, in the early formative years, passes in an
accelerated manner through the evolutionary phases of the species.14
Consequently, myths are also a projection of the development of the species, as
paralleled in the development of the individual. It is interesting to note that this
conception of myths as a projection of personal history may be inferred from the
Apocalypse of Baruch, which stated that ‘every man is the Adam of his own soul,’15
which may in turn be interpreted to mean that every human being experiences
original sin. Karl Abraham, as early as 1925 in his article ‘Character Formation on the
Genital Level of Libido Development,’ expressed a basic idea, which may be relevant
for our present purposes, thus:
In the two phases of development…we are able to recognize archaic types of
character-formation.
They represent
in
the
life
of
the
individual
recapitulations of primitive states which the human race has passed through at
certain stages of its development. Hence, in general in biology, we find the
rule holding good that the individual repeats in an abbreviated form the
history of his ancestors. Accordingly, in normal circumstances, the individual
will traverse those early stages of character formation in a relatively short
space of time.16
Hence, the myth of the Fall of Man is the projection of a stage of development of
the individual, yet also a universal human developmental experience. However,
myths become archetypal projections of human experience only when they are
widespread. The more common a developmental experience, the greater its chances
of becoming a mythical projection. The converse is also valid: The more widespread
14
Shlomo Giora Shoham, Salvation through the Gutters (Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere
Publications, 1979), 21.
15
Frederick Robert Tennant, The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin (New York:
Schocken Press, 1968), 140.
16
Karl Abraham, Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, M.D. (London: Hogarth Press, 1927), 407.
9
the myth, the higher the chance that it is a projection of a widespread or even
universal development. The universality of the myth of the Fall of Man, for example,
points to a corresponding developmental phase—the separation of the individual self
from the unified whole of early orality, which is indeed experienced by every human
being.
Therefore, we hold that myths structure meanings for human behavior and serve
as motivation and prime movers for both individual and group behavior. As myths are
projected models of human behavior at all levels, they may be records of past
experience as well as a structuring for future longings and goals. Myths are also
expressions of both overt behavior and of covert dynamics; of the here and now as
well as of transcendence. The dimensions of myths may also vary greatly, ranging
from micro-myths, like names of persons and places representing meaningful
experiences or quests, to meta-myths representing the polar type of human behavior
on both the individual and group levels such as the myths of Sisyphus and Tantalus.
They vary with time and place. Every society and culture has its own indigenous
mythology. Myths move in time from sacred myths recorded before history to
modern myths, like master detectives Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, or the
master spy, John Le Carré’s Smiley, or even Superman, who realizes the dreams of
omnipotence among the downtrodden, henpecked inhabitants of Metropolis.
Myths can relate to individuals. The offering of Isaac and Iphigenia, signifying
the sacrificial enmeshing of the young within the normative system of society, are
two examples. Then there are group myths like the adventures of the Olympian gods
and the tribal exploits of the German Æsir. The Nazi movement may indeed be
studied as a collective myth when the collective worms, to use Goëbbels’ macabre
simile, become effectively a fire spitting dragon.17
We follow in the giant footsteps of Claude Levi-Strauss, who claimed that myths
are a connecting structure between divergent polarities like the raw and the cooked.18
However, we attribute to mythology, as a structure, wider and deeper functions.
Piaget has described the function of a structure, thus:
17
Shlomo Giora Shoham, Valhalla, Calvary and Aucshwitz (Cincinnati: Bowman & Cody Academic
Publishing Inc., 1995) 25.
18
Levi-Strauss, Le Cru et le Cuit, 9.
10
A system of transformations is characterized by the laws of this system (in
contradistinction to the attributes of its individual components). The system is
preserved and enriched by the actions of these transformations, but they do
not lead to outright components, which are outside the (structured system). In
short, a structure is characterized by holism, transformation, and selfregulation.19
It is therefore ‘ahistorical’ in the sense that a myth, as a holistic self-regulating
structure, functions irrespective of its historical veracity. Thus Moses and the Exodus
of the Jews from Egypt, which have no corroboration outside the Bible, have
generated monotheistic Judaism, which is still viable, regardless of Moses’ actually
having existed or not. Also, we hold that myths link subject and object, the individual
and society, consciousness and matter, revelation and creativity, history and
transcendence. This linkage is a feedback cycle, since man, for instance, projects
myths on to metaphysics, which are structured into religion, which in turn feeds the
individual’s faith. The creative myth, or in our terminology, the ‘mythologic
structure’, is not only a self-regulating mechanism, but also a self-recharging
dynamic. Man projects the myths which are remodeling him as role models, creative
muses, ideologies, and religions. Hence, myths are our prime movers, which lift us by
our own proverbial bootstraps à la Baron Münchausen, powered as a self-energizing
perpetuum mobilæ.
Our interest in mythology has been generated over almost three decades of
interest in the theory and practice of labeling. When someone is stigmatized as a
homosexual, a criminal, or a madman, his or her other attributes and qualities seem to
become eclipsed. The fact that the homosexual is also a good pianist, that the criminal
has a sense of humor, or that the madman has a good heart becomes eclipsed by the
over-arching effect of stereotyping as a deviant, jailbird, or lunatic. The
stigmatization of the deviant, the different person or the outsider is just one instance
of the omnipotence of structure. Of special importance in our present context is
Piaget’s exposition on structures which are current to both psychology and physics. 20
Piaget also assures us that children start thinking in structures. This might account
for the fact that the most basic structures are ingrained in us in our oral phase of
19
20
Jean Piaget, Structuralism, trans. Chaninah Maschler (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), 5.
Ibid., 36,37, 39.
11
development, along with the acquisition of our mother tongue. Structures are,
therefore, independent entities with internal transformation that do not change,
because self-regulation keeps them intact.
It is important to note that once the structure has been formed, we get used to it by
processes of feedback. The earlier and longer one has had a structure, the more it is
cherished through the dynamics of cognitive dissonance and is normalized and
mythologized by processes we shall describe later. Established structures lend
security, familiarity, and confidence. Hence, normative upheavals and ideational
revolutions are painful and relatively rare.
The mythogenic structure is the connecting agent between the ani-consciousness
and energy-matter that is structured into a model of a phenomenon to be realized
subsequently as an act of creation. The durability and longevity of mythogenic
structures are subject to natural selection and functional adaptability. In this domain,
as in so many other Sisyphean dynamics of creation and entropy, Darwinian
evolution reigns supreme.21
Once the mythogenic structure has been generated by projected experiences and
yearnings and formed into a self-regulating configuration, it has a life of its own.
Hence, a mythogene is ahistoric. We have already mentioned that there is no
independent evidence for the outright accuracy of the biblical account of Moses or the
Exodus. A recent study by an American archaeologist even concludes that the events
recounted in the first ten books of the Old Testament can have no historical
veracity.22 Hence, not only Moses, but also Saul, David, and Solomon are all fictional
characters. But this is hardly relevant to our present context. The mythogenic
structure obeys W.I. Thomas’s basic theorem of social processes, according to which
if man defines a situation as real, it becomes real in its consequences. Hence, if the
mythogene has been projected, structured, and legitimized by a given group, it
motivates man to generate cultural patterns by a process of revelation and creativity.
Levi-Strauss defines how the mythic structure links nature and culture; we shall try
also to show how the mythogenic structures are generated, grow, and decline. Indeed,
mythogenes are generated, developed, and destroyed in a manner different from the
growth and decline of historical entities. Leon Festinger has demonstrated how belief
21
Compare the views of Penrose on the natural selection of Algorithms: Roger Penrose, The
Emperor’s New Mind (New York: Penguin, 1991), 414.
22
Thompson, The Ancient History of Israel.
12
in prophets has increased just when their historical prophesies have failed.23
Likewise, the serious proselytizing by the followers of Christ started after his
crucifixion, and so did proselytizing by the believers of Shabbatai Zevi, the selfproclaimed seventeenth-century Jewish messiah, after he converted to Islam. The
mythogenic structure moves itself, and us its creators, in a feedback cycle of virtual
reality—once we impute historical veracity to it and insist on incorporating it into our
daily lives we are courting disaster. The numerous Christs, Napoleons, and Elvis
Presleys in insane asylums are all individual instances of the deranging effects of
historicizing myths, whereas the Nazis’ reviving of the Elder Eddas and the
Niebelungen Ring—and reliving them—was a catastrophic instance of this on a
group level.
Since we try to understand the Kultur-Kamph of fundamentalist Islam against
Western culture within the context of Culture conflict it would be useful to examine
this culture-conflict frame of reference. Thoorsten Sellin says:
Culture conflicts are sometimes regarded as by-products of a cultural growth
process – the growth of civilization – sometimes as the result of the migration
of conduct norms from one culture complex or area to another. However
produced, they are sometimes studied as mental conflicts and sometimes as
the clash of cultural codes.
The theoretical premises of culture conflict may be expanded both on the
relatively well-cultivated social level and the meagerly explored personal one. It
would be rather fruitful to guide our analysis by the following trichotomy:
(1) Culture conflict as mental conflict. These normative conflict situations
would take place, presumably, within the arena of the personality of the
potential criminal or deviant prior to his first criminal act or his initial
"recruiting" to a deviant subculture. These internal conflicts and their
subsequent first over manifestations are crucial in the differentiation
process of defining a person to himself and to his relevant others as
23
Leon Festinger, When Prophesy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that
Predicted the Destruction of the World (New York: Harper and Row, 1964).
13
delinquent and deviant. This is the rather abrupt transfer from the "right"
side of the legal and social barricade to the "wrong" one.
(2) The gradual deeper integration of an individual within the criminal or
deviant group and his corresponding rejection of the "legitimate" or
"square" normative systems involves rather elaborate conflict processes:
the narrowing of socioeconomic opportunities, the rupture or jeopardizing
of marriage and other domestic affiliations, the stigmatizing rejection and
counterrejection of friends, community, voluntary associations, and most
of the former membership and reference groups. The last step in this
process is full-fledged membership in the criminal or deviant group. The
resolution of the internal conflicts with the "right" side of the barricade at
this advanced stage of deviance is by severing most relevant normative
ties with it. The normative clashes of social control as a vestige of external
conflict between the deviant's own group and the organs enforcing the
laws of the "legitimate" groups.
(3) The third level of analysis is the perennial favorite of culture conflict
theorists: the fluctuations of crime rates in a given community for a given
time, the genesis and volume of special types of crime and deviance,
urbanization,
industrialization,
internal
and
external
migration,
disintegration and secularization of traditional and tribal structures, and
the ex-definitione link among most of the other forms of social change and
the conflict of conduct norms.
Before we launch our own analysis of the clash between fundamentalist Islam
and western civilization we would like to examine two celebrated attempts to cope
with this phenomenon. One is a journalist's effort and the other a wide ranged essay.
Otherwise we shall be accused of inventing the wheel all by ourselves.
Oriana Fallaci in her: The Rage and the Pride24 urges or rather roars at the
west to realize that an inverse crusade is going on: Fundamentalist Islam is marching
24
Original Title: La Robbia el' Orgoglio; Milan 2001 Rizzoli: our references would be to the Hebrew
Edition by Dvir; Tel-Aviv 2003.
14
against western civilization. A Charles Martellus
25
the Frankish king who stopped at
Poitiers in the years 732 A.D. the Khaliffa Abd-ar-Rahman from conquering Europe
would be of no avail today. The 21st Century Muslim Jihad against western
civilization is waged not by regular armies but by guerillas, terrorists and the most
formidable of weapons: suicide bombers. In the second world war 21 U.S. battleships
were destroyed in 1945 in Okinawa by Kamikaze pilots. This was the main reason for
President Truman's decision to authorize the throwing of the Atom Bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki which actually brought an end to the war. A Kamikaze pilot
before his mission wrote: "I am going to battle with a smile on my face. The moon
would be full tonight when I fly to the open sea on the shores of Okinawa… I shall
target an enemy battleship and I shall show you Caesar that I can die bravely (signed)
Akijo Alshoka Kamikaze26. Likewise the suicide bomber who sacrifices himself in a
Jihad for Allah is not deemed to be a suicide (Intihar) which is forbidden by Islam but
a sacred Martyr (Shahid) which is saintly heroism facing paradise and exposure to
God27. Indeed Sheikh Tantawi of El-Azhar University of Egypt the highest authority
in Islam decreed in 1996 in a Fatwa (religious ruling) that suicide bombers are the
most privileged sacrificial victims with God since they carry out His jihad (the holy
war).28 Thus the terrorist exploits of El-Kaida, El Jihad El Islami, Hisb-Allah, Hamas.
The Martyrs of El-Akza and many other militant Islamic groups are not only
vindicated but also receive religious sanction. Indeed the Sheikh el Karchawi in an
Islamic conference in Stockholm, Sweden, which convened in the first week of July
2003 preached for legitimized and sanctioned terror and suicide bombing. This is of
special importance to our present context since Sheikeh Joseph el Karchawi is the
leader of the Islamic Committee for adjudicating the Sharea (religious law) in Europe.
This committee convenes every few months in a different location in Europe and their
decision binds all Moslems in western countries. In this conference on the 11th of July
2003 in Stockholm a decision was adopted by the guidance of Sheikh El Karchawi
that suicide bombing is prescribed stipulated and ordained in the following cases:
colonialism in which a nation more powerful militarily but not superior morally or
spiritually subjugates another. This is extant with British, French and American
25
Ibid p. 22.
Cited by Anat Berko: The Moral Infrastructure of chief Perpetrators of suicide Terrorism;
Unpublished, P.h.d. Thesis.
27
Anat-Berko op. at P. 9.
28
Ibid P. 10.
26
15
colonialism (against the Indians) and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In the case of
a terrorist state the foremost example of which is Israel which subjugates and
demeans the Palestinian inhabitants; suicide bombings is not only justified but also
the most effective weapon against the Zionist foe. A prime legitimate target of suicide
bombing is the U.S. since it strives to impose its dictatorship on all the people in the
world. When the suicide bomber aims to release prisoners from the Israeli goals the
pulling-out of the trespassing Israeli army from the occupied territories their suicide is
not only legitimate but also moral and the epiphany of Gods' justice on earth. Of
outmost importance and chillingly significant is the conferences' statement that the
blood and property of all The Dar-El-Harb (all those who are not Moslem and
eventually should be eliminated) are not immune from the wrath of the Moslem
warriors. By being antagonistic to Islam the infidels made themselves legitimate prey
to Allah's Shuhada – martyred bombers. And this was decided openly in the capital of
Sweden. This is a measure of the somnolent vulnerability of the west that this kind of
macabre decision by the chief Moslem authority in the West didn't make glaring
headlines in the written and electronic media. Therefore, warns Fallaci, the
fundamentalist Moslems in Afghanistan, Sudan, Palestine, Pakistan, Malaysia, Iran,
Egypt, Iraq, Algeria, Senegal, Syria, Kenya, Libya, Chad, Lebanon, Morocco,
Indonesia, Yemen, Saudi-Arabia, Somalia and many other countries with Moslem
majorities or minorities are out to vanquish and destroy western civilization29. Those
in the west who don't realize it are very much the somnolent European countries in
the 30's which witnessed Nazi Germany arm itself to its teeth yet allowed themselves
to be cheated by the Munich Pact that Hitler actually wants "peace in our time", as per
the notorious declaration of Joseph Chamberlain the British Prime Minister at that
time.
Fallaci assures us that no military victory like the one the Americans had in
Iraq will extinguish the fires of terrorism and jihad. On the contrary, it will kindle
more flames of blood-shed and destruction especially with the Shiite Moslems whose
martyrdom is evidence of their worth. Moreover the Showuhada the suicide bombers
are certain to have a place in Jahana the Moslem paradise replete with 71 black-eyed
virgins whose role, desire and aim is to entertain the Jihad martyrs30. Fallaci rejects
the notion that the war between fundamentalist Islam and western civilization can be
29
30
O. Fallaci; The Rage and the Pride. op. at. P. 23
O. Fallaci: The rage and the Pride op. at P. 50.
16
analyzed within the framework of culture-conflict since her value judgment is that
western-culture is far more superior to the Islamic one and hence they cannot be
compared on a par basis since even in conflict they cannot be examined on a same
level. Samuel P. Huntington, on the other hand is not a journalist. He is a renowned
political scientist and as such he does not avail himself of value judgments. Indeed in
his recent book on the Clash of Civilizations31 he analyzes the conflict between
fundamentalist Islam and western civilization within the culture-conflict frame of
reference. The perennial dichotomy made by Islam between them and us The us being
Dar-El-Islam the Moslem realm and the them being the Dar-El-Harb the realm or
war32. Still there was a time in which many Moslem socialists tried to emulate in toto
western civilization as a lever for catching up with modernism and a means to
compete with the west on the economic and military plains. Huntington calls this
emulation Kemalism after Kemal-Pasha Ata-Turk; the Turkish leader who forcefully
Europeanized the Turks after the first world war replete with changing the Arabic
alphabet into a Latin one, suppressing the Moslem religion and authorizing the
Turkish Police to topple the Red Tarboush the traditional head gear from the heads of
those who wore it. Likewise Rezah Shah Pahlevi in the Twenties of the 20th century
carried out a rigorous revolution in Iran of westernization, industrialization and
secularization which was carried on by his son until deposed by the Ayyatulla
Kuoumeiny in 1979. Concomitant with colonialism in the middle-east and Africa, a
self-effacing Imitation of the British and French cultures was carried out especially by
the indigenous elites the results many times being Levantinism.
The extreme manifestation of the levantine is behaviour according to the
external forms and attributes of a culture, while being ignorant or disregarding its
contents and intrinsic values. It is manifest with members of oriental and eastern
cultures who are exposed to European culture, and also in other cultural contexts. The
Middle Eastern Levantine adopts occidental languages, dress, mannerisms, and takes
care to furnish his house according to the latest ads in glossy journals. He is not
acquainted with nor did he have the opportunity to become interested in European
literature, art or history, nor in internalizing the values of European culture.
31
32
S. P. Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations (Hebrew Edition) Jerusalem 2003 Mercas Shalem
ibid P. 20.
17
In many instances, levantinism results from a failure or partial failure of
imitation or rebellion. Individuals or groups in a society regard the adoption and
absorption of a more advanced and progressive culture as a panacea for all miseries
and social ills. Eventually the task proves to be too formidable or the internal
admixture of the cultures is seen to be impossible, and the innovation or rebellious
zeal to integrate with the so-called enlightened culture deteriorates into a superficial
and shallow imitation of its external manifestations. On the group level, this can take
the form of an Ataturk or a Zaglul Pasha burning with the fervor of making Turkey
and Egypt modern occidental nations, ending in the pitiful image of levantine
bourgeoisie in Alexandria and Constantinople whose original oriental values and
culture are still latent below the surface. The group's reaction toward this behaviour is
far from derogatory, because usually those who display the external trademarks of the
advanced and modern culture belong to the social elite and are idolized by the
ignorant multitudes.
European culture followed Spengler's design. It towered in its technical
achievement to space flight and nuclear energy and declined in spirit to the abysmal
nausea of Sartre, the hopeless men of Becket, the monstrosities of Ionesco, the
agonies of Durrenmatt and the obscenities of Genet. This is a tired spirit, desiccated,
inanimate, hovering pointlessly like last year's cobwebs in the high arches of a Gothic
cathedral, deserted by its spiders long ago. But in the not too distant past the spirit of
Europe was a carnivore, devouring, swallowing, destroying, incorporating and
changing less predatory cultures than itself. On its way it left many victims who were
afflicted in various ways and manners. European gluttony is levantinism. The
levantine is essentially a shallow absorber of culture because levantinism was mainly
associated with mid-Eastern culture which was exposed to European cultural
influence. However, this may happen and must have happened with other predatory
cultures like the Hellenic, the Islamic, the Hindu, the Egyptian, the Mayan and other
carnivores that swept on their way, clashed with, and devoured herbivores or less
aggressive cultures.
Historically, a levantine, in the sociological connotation of the term, was a
European who had "gone native" in the Middle East. Only lately has levantinism been
used (but not studied) in the sense of the present context.
A blending of cultures, in this sense, can produce a new organic entity
whereas the levantine melange is bound to remain a barren admixture. Kroeber says:
18
Cultures can blend to almost any degree and not only thrive but perpetuate
themselves. The classic Greek civilization was a mixture of primitive Greek,
Minoan, Egyptian and Asiatic elements; Japanese civilization is partly
indigenous, partly Chinese, partly Indian and Western in its technology ... the
greater part of the context of every culture is probably of foreign origin,
although assimilated into a whole that works more or less coherently and is
felt as a unit33.
However most encounters, or to be more exact, clashes of Western culture
with other cultures, have resulted in various degrees and shades of levantinism.
Toynbee says:
In the struggle for existence the West has driven its contemporaries to the wall
and entangled them in the meshes of its economic and political ascendancy
but it has not yet disarmed them of their distinctive cultures. Hard pressed
though they are, they can still call their souls their own34.
This would be the case if the subjugated cultures managed to preserve the core
of their indigenous cultures, which is hardly likely in the modern era of rapid social
change. More often their cultural soul, to use Toynbee's simile, has withered away
and in its place they have adopted the watered-down version of Western culture.
Sociologically, this phenomenon is one aspect of the individual's experience
of social culture conflict, as such it was analyzed by Sellin in his discussion of
Culture-Conflict and by Everett Hughes as a part of the problem of marginality35.
Sellin was well aware that the disjunction between the new norms and the
internalized value structure may be associated with deviant behavior. Indeed, this was
confirmed in a study by the authors and Esther Segal. This study suggested that Arab
33
A. L. Kroeber, Anthropology.
A. J. Toynbee, A Study of History.
35
J. T. Sellin, Culture Conflict and Crime.
34
19
villagers in Israel who adopted some of the European secular norms of Israeli society,
were more vulnerable to delinquency and crime36.
The aetiology of levantinism can generally be traced to a failure of innovation.
The Afro-Asian intellectual, the South American revolutionary and the idealistic
communist bring from abroad or from books new ideas, new techniques and various
schemes for raising the standard of living, eliminating malaria, trachoma and syphilis,
introducing more efficient and less corrupt bureaucracies, and installing a postal
service or a telephone system that really works. Reality, however, is rarely
cooperative: there are no roads to carry heavy trucks to convey equipment; there is no
money or trained workers to construct the roads; very few people understand
technical matters; and the population is so entrenched in its traditional routine that
few avail themselves of or are even interested in new services. The Western idea of
hard work and the concepts of accuracy or even of time itself are foreign, undesirable
or meaningless – what is the big hurry? So the great dream deteriorates into rusty,
unused or broken equipment, the clerks continue their perennial slumber, while the
timetables and efficiency charts are slowly covered by dust from the scorched desert
plains or by entangled vines reaching from the humid jungle. The innovator is
discouraged, deflated, disgusted and succumbs to his private hibernation retreat
surrounded by the external remnants of his dream, a few gadgets, a few beverages, a
few clothes and half-baked knowledge sent over to him from the faraway
"progressive" culture. This is the main current of individual levantinism.
With time the emulators of the occidental cultures realized that they had a
love affair with a mirage. There can be no admixture between their indigenous
cultures and the western one especially when the latter was exploiting the former
through political or economic colonialism. Freedom fighting and independence wars
from colonialism marked most of the second half of the 20th century. Furthermore the
conflictual encounter with occidental culture and the relatively shallow absorption of
their patterns of cultures and norms was linked to a disintegration of the familial and
traditional normative structures of the Moslem societies. The Mideastern and NorthAfrican Moslem societies witnessed the disintegration of the familial ties and the
exposure of their young to drugs, alcohol, pornography, gambling and prostitution
36
S. G. Shoham, E. Segal and G. Rahav, "Secularization, Deviance and Delinquency among Israeli
Arab Villagers".
20
which they attributed to the encounter with the west. Hence fundamentalist Islam
howled a rallying cry back to the purist Islamic norms of family asceticism thrift and
sexual mores. The enemy, the wiedergeist the devil was the occident the harbinger of
all those ills. Hence a Jihad a holy war should be waged to the bitter end against the
western powers, their culture, their religion, their technology, economy, art and
literature. Huntington says that westernization and modernization are two parameters
that are only tangentially correlated. First westernization would enhance
modernization of indigenous cultures; but then when economic and technological
progress reaches a fair level of political, military and economic might and
independence a sense of dignity and self-esteem sets in with a pride of one's roots and
tradition coupled with a rejection of the occidental values and the western culture as a
whole37. On the personal level the clash between western values and norms and the
indigenous traditional ones which are liable to give way and disintegrate lead
temporarily to a value vacuum, and to alienation and anomie which may lead to the
embrace of fundamentalist Islam which could lead to a renewed sense of belonging;
rootedness and "ego-identity", in the Eriksonian sense38. Our stance, however, differs
from the culture-conflicts frame of reference as applied to the clashes between
western and Islamic cultures and their resolutions as described by Huntington. He
bases himself on the research by Ronald Dore39 according to which the first
generation elites of colonies receiving their independence get their education in the
universities of the ex-colonial powers, bringing back with them an admiration and
adherence to western norms and culture. However the second generation youth,
studying at home in their indigenous languages are influenced by their own culture
and religion and hence are more liable to adhere to fundamentalist Islam. We,
however, claim that the second generation is still uncertain and confused from the
influence of their parents on the one hand and the local culture on the other. Hence
they are rather culturally passive and rarely active in the rejection of western culture.
This role is rather actively assumed by the members of a generation, usually the 3rd,
who are sure of their origin, anchor firmly on their indigenous culture and are proud
of their heritage which they consider to be far superior to any occidental normative
37
Ibid P. 86
op. at. P. 87
39
Ronald Dore: "Unity and Diversity in Contemporary World Culture" in Bull & Watson: The
expansion of International Cultures. PP 421-428
38
21
system. They are the natural candidates to fight western culture and embrace
fundamentalist Islam40.
The rejection of western mores and values by the Moslem fundamentalists
even though they would accept western technology in the realm of industry, army,
science and medicine is mainly because the largely Sisyphean diachronic arriviste
tool-oriented west does not really agree with the Tantalic synchronic passive and
meditative east. Islam unlike the regimented stratified and specialized Christianity is
unified holistic and embraces the whole human life both individual and group.
Regulating the Moslem's customs, mores, morals and laws in the realm of the family,
tribe, nation, subject and object, physics and metaphysics, faith and logic. Huntington
claims that Islam is well on its way to dominate holistically the Moslem's life, the
way marxism ruled the body, soul and society of its adherents in a totalitarian
manner41. "The Moslem brotherhood" aims and in many Islamic societies succeeds in
dominating the educational systems from kindergarten, to universities, and thus
infiltrates in a relatively short period the social and political infrastructures of a large
number of Moslem nations. Moslems, points out Huntington, tend more to resort to
violence to deal with internal and external conflicts. In the years 1993-1994 Moslems
were fighting 26 out of 50 ethno-political conflicts. The New York Times counted 59
ethnic conflicts in the year 1993 half of which were between Moslems and Moslems
and between Moslems and non-Moslems. Ruth Seaward counted 9 out of 12 wars in
the year 1992 (with at least a 1000 deaths) waged between Moslems and nonMoslems. The most frightening statistic is that the mean military weight of Moslem
countries is 11.8 as compared with 7.1 for other countries and the military efforts in
Moslem countries is a mean of 17.7 as compared with 12.3 for other countries42.
Indeed Din Muhammad Beseif The law of Muhammad, as decreed by Islam, is by the
sword.
Another parameter which is very rarely related to human behaviour is the
entropy gradient of the second law of thermodynamics. This law was formulated for
physics and mechanics by the Frenchman Sadi Carnot in 1827 and by the German
Rudolf Clausius in 1868 that in a closed system, entropy (the dissipation of energy)
must ultimately reach a maximum. Entropy then ordains that in closed systems the
40
Shlomo G. Shoham, Nahum Shoham & Adnan Abd-El-Razek. Brit. D. Crim October 1966 PP 391409.
41
Samuel P. Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations. Op. at P. 137.
42
Ibid P.P. 347-349.
22
physical or chemical processes will degrade43. Also the second law of
thermodynamics decrees that work is dissipated into heat but heat cannot be
converted completely into work. This is the principle of irreversibility in nature44.
This law of entropy increases with nature becoming more disordered determines the
diachronic "arrow of time". However the work more relevant to our present context
has been carried out by Ilya Prigogine and his associates on the second law of
thermodynamics as related to open systems in which energy flows into them and out
of them and are in a state far from equilibrium45. The work of Prigogine and his
associates point out that non-living systems like lasers and living systems which are
dependant for their viability on outside energy can maintain themselves by using
energy from the outside source, reduce their systems' entropy by maintaining their
away from equilibrium order yet increase the entropy of the larger source of energy.
The variation on the theme by Kestin states that systems with temperature, pressure
and chemical equilibrium would resist the dissipation of this equilibrium by opposing
the applied gradients which push the system away from its local equilibrium46. An
example is the need for humans to retain their fixed body temperature thus in hot
weather their body would sweat to reduce body temperature and/or the air-conditioner
would do the rest when cold/warm clothes and heating devices would keep the local
thermal equilibrium of the human body at the cost of increasing the entropy of the
global energy resources.
Prigogine and his associates have investigated the self-organization of
dissipative structures by means of fluctuations which lead to irreversible
indeterministic choices at the jumptions of bifurcations47. This is also in line with the
dynamics of structuralism of the C. L. Straus's and Piaget's brand according to which
structures and apparently dissipative structures inclusive have a self-regulative
capacity48. As for life, Boltzman the pioneering scholar of thermodynamics aptly
describes the evolutionary struggle as a competitive fight for entropy. He says:
43
E.D. Schneider and J.J. Kay: Life as a manifestation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics Math
Comput Modelling Vol 19 No 6-8 P.P. 25-48 1994.
44
Ibid P. 27.
45
I. Prigogine: Thermodynamics of unreversible Processes, John Wiley (1955).
46
J. Kestin: A course in Thermodynamics, Blaisdell (1966).
47
Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers: Order Out of Chaos: New-York Bantam 1984 PP. 160-167.
48
Jean Piaget: Structuralism, London, 1971, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
23
The general struggle for existence of animate beings is therefore not a struggle
for raw materials – these, for organisms, are air, water and soil, all abundantly
available – nor for energy which exists in plenty in any body in the form of
heat (albeit unfortunately not transformable), but a struggle for entropy, which
becomes available through the transition of energy from the hot sun to the
cold earth. In order to exploit this transition as much as possible, plants spread
their immense surface of leaves and unexplored certain chemical syntheses of
which no one in our laboratories has so far the least idea. The products of this
chemical kitchen constitute the object of struggle of the animal world49.
Evolution is carried out through an adaptive choice of the organism vis-à-vis
an influx of energy and changing conditions from outside. Plants grow through their
capture of solar energy and the dissipation of external resources. Hence their growth
and survival is a function of their ability to absorb and dissipate energy on a
competitive basis. It follows that ecosystems also obey the second law of
thermodynamics since
"Such ecosystem development increases, energy degradation thus follows the
imperative of the second law. This hypothesis can be tested by observing the
energetics of ecosystem development during the successional process or by
determining their behavior as they are stressed or as their boundary conditions are
changed.
As ecosystems develop or mature, they should increase their total dissipation,
and should develop more complex structures with greater diversity and more
hierarchical levels to abet energy degradation. Species which survive in ecosystems
are those that funnel energy into their own production and reproduction and
contribute to autocatalytic processes which increase the total dissipation of the
ecosystem. In short, ecosystems develop in a way which systematically increases
their ability to degrade the incoming solar energy50."
49
L. Boltzman: The second law of thermodynamics, In Ludwig Boltzman: Theoretical Physics and
Philosophical problems; 1974; D. Reidel
50
E. D. Schneider and J. J. Kay: Life as a Manifestation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics op. at
PP. 37-38.
24
The application of Prigogine's ideas to our context is through the two
dynamics described by him of fluctuations and bifurcations. Fluctuations are
disorders within the subsystems of systems. When these fluctuations through
resonance or feedback become very violent they can shatter the organization of the
system. This process which happens in a system which is far from equilibrium is the
"bifurcation" junction at which it is up to the organism in our case the human being to
chose indeterministically to react in a manner which is evolutionarily adaptive and
thus reach an "order through fluctuations" or chose not to intervene or react in a nonadaptive manner with catastrophic results for the system51. If we apply these
dynamics to human society we may claim that the transformations and exchange of
energies between social characters obey the rules of thermodynamics and entropy:
The Moslem societies in the Middle East and North-Africa have perennially been
Tantalic participant social-characters of low entropy as where the occidental cultures
have mostly been close to the Sisyphean pole of social characters with high entropy.
When the west invaded the Moslem societies by sheer force of colonialism, by
economic dominion or technological scientific and managerial superiority an influx of
violent fluctuations that led to the bifurcation junction with nefarious, evolutionary
non adaptive and structurally destructive results to the Moslem societies. First of all
the traditional Moslem value of asceticism, frugality, self-sufficiency, lack of worldly
ambition, cohesion of family, tribal mores, sexual virtuousness and belief in God
were assaulted and harassed by the carnivorous covetous, ambitious occidental
invaders. Then industry, oil, conspicuous consumption, fast food, hedonism and
present orientation, brought in an avalanche of high entropy, waste, pollution and the
tyranny of diachronic time – "time is money" and this in low entropy societies which
did not have the means and coping structures to deal with these ecological
catastrophes. Kemal Pasha Ata-Turk, Reza Shah Pah'levi, Zaghlul Pasha and many
others who tried to emulate the west and destroyed the low entropy infrastructure of
their societies but could not possibly build, erect and transform their cultures into
high entropy western type social characters slumped into what Halper calls
incoherence. The Levantine shallow absorption of western culture on top of the ruins
51
L. Prigogine and L. Stengers: Order out of Chaos op. at. P. 206.:
25
of the traditional norms and values makes for an incoherence of weltauschauungen52
crippled
"ego-boundary",
a
resultant
low
self
esteem,
powerlessness,
meaninglessness, alienation, anomia and Accidia. All this may be the resultant
pathological states both for societies of low entropy and the individuals comprising
them who have been invaded, harassed and subjugated by social characters of high
entropy. We need however to carry out a conceptual clarification in order to
understand the alienating havoc wrought by Sisyphean high entropy cultures when
clashing with tantaic low entropy ones.
We propose a conceptual revival of 'accidia', ('acedy' or 'accidie') to denote an
individual's breakdown of involvement with social norms and values, just as 'anomie'
('anomy', or 'anomia') has been resurrected from a sixteenth-century usage to denote
normative disintegration in society. The need for a distinct and specific concept of
accidia stems first of all from the fact that anomie was conceived by all its exponents,
from Durkheim to Merton and beyond, as an attribute of groups and not individuals.
For Durkheim anomie was a collective hangover from a social (mainly economic)
shock. One of its manifestations was the breakdown of controls over a man's
aspirations: 'Whatever class has been especially favoured by the disturbances (of
affluence) is no longer disposed to its former self-restraint, and, as a repercussion, the
sight of its enhanced fortune awakens in the groups below it every manner of
covetousness. Thus the appetites of men, unrestrained now by a public opinion which
has become bewildered and disoriented, no longer know where the bounds are before
which they ought to come to a halt…. Because prosperity has increased desires are
inflamed…. The state of rulelessness or anomie is further heightened by the fact that
human desires are less disciplined at the very moment when they would need a
stronger discipline53.'
Durkheim is speaking of a normative rupture of society. The effect of this on
individuals is almost taken for granted: the normative enclosure has burst open.
Containment by the bumper effects of boundaries and limits has suddenly
disintegrated. Individuals are exposed to the disrupting effects of limitless desires and
boundless aspirations. Merton, Durkheim's contemporary apostle, also stresses the
52
Manfred Halpern: Four Contrasting Repertories of Human Relations in Islam, in L. Carl Brown,
Norman Itzkowitz (eds.), Psychological Dimension of Near Eastern Studies (Princeton, New Jersey,
1977 The Darwin Press PP. 60-102.
53
Durkheim, 1951, pp. 131-60.
26
societal nature of anomie. This might come as a surprise to some students of human
alienation, because in his now classic exposition of Social Structure and Anomie54
Merton expressly deals with individual modes of (mal) adaptations. However, the
crux of Merton's analysis rests on the group, on the disjuncture between the social
structure and the cultural system, between social goals and the normative avenues to
achieve them. The individuals in Merton's paradigm are affected by these social
disjunctions but his units of analysis are still societies and not individuals. He
expressly excludes mental processes which cannot be anchored on the social and
cultural levels of analysis from his study. And he explicitly states that: 'Anomie refers
to a property of a social system. . . Anomie, then is a condition of the social
surroundings, not a condition of particular people. . . to prevent conceptual confusion
different terms are required to distinguish between the anomic state of the social
system.'55 This conception of anomie is focused, therefore, on a societal state and the
individual's confrontation with it is secondary; the individual himself is left in the
shade and his subjective state of mind is entirely disregarded. Merton realizes, no
doubt, that the socially focused conceptualization of anomie leaves a lacuna and calls
for a separate personal concept of anomie. He refers us, therefore, to anomia, a term
coined by Srole to describe the anomic state of the individual. Still, accidia56 is more
of a personal subjective state of mind than anomia. The latter, as measured by the five
variables in Srole's scale,57 is again the confrontation of an individual to some societal
states and not a description of individuals as such. Also Srole implies, thereby, that
anomie as a property of society may be measured by the distribution of anomia as a
property of individuals and vice versa. This assumes, quite unwarrantably, that
objective social properties are always accurately reflected in objective individual
properties, as if individuals' subjective perceptions, phenomenologically, their
experience of their society, were irrelevant and made no difference. This is to our
mind untenable because any acute state of social anomie must be subjectively
perceived as such by individuals; otherwise it would not necessarily be correlated
with anomia as an objective property of individuals. This may be likened to the
54
R. K. Merton (1964)., 'Anomie, Anomia and Social Interaction, Contexts of Deviant Behaviour'. In
M. B. Glinard's Anomie and Deviant Behavior. Glenoce, Ill.: Free Press.
55
Ibid at p. 213.
56
We have used the form of 'accidia' and not 'accidie' to resemble the personalized 'anomia' and not
group-based 'amonie'.
57
Srole, (Dec. 1956). 'Social Integration and Certain Corollaries. An Exploratory Study'. Am. Soc. Rev.
Vol. 21. pp. 709-16.
27
common sociological and Marxist fallacy, which is at best a crude simplification, of
regarding an objective state of economic need, measured by a low standard of living,
as a predisposing factor to crime and delinquency. Perhaps the most ultimate and
objective human deprivation is the threat of starvation. But this would not be regarded
by most human beings as a sufficient justification for cannibalism. Hindus would not
regard it as an incentive to slaughter sacred cows and nor would many orthodox Jews
resort to eating pork no matter how available it was. On the other hand the lack of
funds to buy a mink coat for a new mistress might be subjectively defined by some
individuals as a need potent enough to induce them to embezzle money from their
employers. The relationship (or the lack of it) between anomie and, anomia seems to
be rather similar to the problematic correlation, asserted by crude versions of
Marxism, between economic need as objectively measured in society and economic
need as subjectively conceived by individuals.
Melvin Seeman, in a well known paper, identifies five types of alienation.58
The first three, powerlessness, meaninglessness and normlessness (anomie), are
clearly attributes of society. The other two, isolation and self-estrangement, are
subjective states of mind but they do not cover the same ground as accidia, for
reasons which we shall specify later. We may note here that powerlessness was the
mode of alienation imputed originally by Marx in his early writings to capitalist
society. This was conceived by him as a state in society where the worker does not
have any means of control and decision over the processes of his work and its
outcome.59 A subsequent conceptualization in the Marxist tradition led to the term
Fetishization which was coined by George Lukacs to denote the estrangement of
man's creations from himself, his reification into a mere object in a surrounding world
populated by an increasing number of thing-objects and people-objects.60 These have
lost their normative or affective meaning and have turned into neuter, dead weights in
his cognition. However, Fetishization still relates primarily to ego's surroundings: it is
a condition of his environment and not of his subjective self. Although the
comparison would be vehemently disputed and abhorred by Lukacs, this is in some
ways similar to Heidegger's Das-Man, which also refers to the meaningless reification
of things and persons. The existentialist counterpart to our conceptualization of
58
Seeman, H. (Dec. 1959). 'On the Meaning of Alienation'. Am. Soc. Rev. Vol. 24.
Rosner, M. (1967). Hitnakrut: Alienation – A Comprehensive Analysis of the Marxist Exposition of
Alienation. Hadera: Givat Haviva.
60
Lukacs, G. (1950). Existentialism and Marxism. Tel-Aviv: Hkibutz-Hmeachad.
59
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accidia as a property of individuals consists of their conceptualization of the situation
where a person becomes reified and objectified to himself. We may think here of
Sartre's estranged consciouslessness of etre en soi61 when applied to ego's self-image
as perceived by ego himself. We will say, then, that the objectification of ego's self as
subjectively perceived by him is the core of our conceptualization of accidia as an
attribute of individuals and not of social structures.
The dynamism of our conception of accidia rests in its being the final link in a
triadic chain. The three elements of the chain are as follows. Firstly there occurs an
initial normative gap between previously internalized norms and newly transmitted
ones. Secondly, there is a congruity-motivated involvement by the subject to bridge
this gap. And finally, if this involvement-effort fails, there is a value-breakdown, a
disengagement – or to use current slang, the subject mentally 'cops-out'. Our dynamic
conception of accidia is anchored on the congruity principle, which is a basic ego
defence mechanism – motivating human beings to resolve their normative conflicts
and thus to re-establish their otherwise threatened cognitive balance and consonance.
Pious saints like the Talmudic Reish-Lakish and the Catholic Augustine were
notorious lechers in their youth; the switch from a 'life of sin' to a life of religious
fanaticism and apostasy is quite common. The accidiac, however, would tend to agree
with Sartre that 'it seems that Man is incapable of producing more than an impotent
God'.62 Similarly, when the examining magistrate brandishes a crucifix at Meursault,
his natural reaction is in fact barely to react at all. The Existentialist outsider is
anaesthetized to all value-systems and commitments, particularly religious ones
(including committed atheism). Similarly accidiacs, to use Camus' Judge-penitent's
simile, in the Fall, would like some of Dante's angels be neutral in the fight between
God and Satan.63
Among the types of alienation presented by Seeman, the nearest to our present
exposition is 'self-estrangement'. The latter is quite in line with out conceptualization
in so far as it relates to Fromm's description of a mode of experience in which the
person experiences himself as an alien and has become estranged from himself.64 This
is similar to the element of self-objectification which we have identified as one of the
61
Sartre, J.-P. (1965). Being and Nothingness. New York: Citadel Press. Part III.
Kaufmann, W. A. (1958). Critique of Religion and Philosophy. New York: Harper & Brothers. P.
259.
63
Camus, A. (1956). The Fall. New York: Vintage Books. P. 84
64
Seeman, H. (Dec. 1959). 'On the Meaning of Alienation'. Am. Soc. Rev. Vol. 24. P. 534.
62
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components of accidia. However, Seeman relies considerably on an 'otherdirectedness' element in his conceptualization of self-estrangement. The former as
expounded by Ortega y Gasset and Riesman, is a very common personality trait
among individuals comprising 'the mass society' and 'the lonely crowd'. Otherdirectedness makes for 'joyful obedience', and contentedness of the late Dale
Carnegie brand. But for the accidiac, other-directedness is non-existent. Camus'
Meursault regards the judge who is trying him for murder, the courtroom and its
audience as having hardly anything to do with him. At most his trial appears to him as
a game.65 He assumes the spectator and not the participant role and he feels at times
quite interested in the proceedings because it is his first time at a criminal trial. He
sometimes even feels de trop in his own trial.66 The Judge-penitent in The Fall is also
'playing at doing things, and not doing, being and not being there'. 67 The accidiac
regards his environment as an arena where games are staged incessantly, but where he
is a watcher and not a player. To him, man is a game-player dabbling in semi-serious
games, but the accidiac himself is not one of the players.
Accidia is a hangover of the Tantalic low entropy social character who was
dissipating in his leveling encounter with a high entropy Sisyphean social character.
The etiology of the so called third world societies is linked very significantly
to the invasion of high entropy, sociopolitical and economic patterns of cultures into
low entropy societies which cannot contain the resultant destructive fluctuations.
These assault and destroy the traditional normative infrastructure with nothing but
brute force, violence, corruption, managerial abuse and stifling mindless bureaucracy
to take its place. The mineral and other natural resources in which the 3rd world is rich
work to its detriment in a positive feed-back cycle. The low entropy third world
countries do not have the technology to mine and process their natural resources
hence the high entropy western countries are doing it. They erect petrochemical
plants mining industries; wood processing projects which enhance an accelerated
urbanization which take the form of huge shanty towns. These processes destroy the
traditional villages and create a vast population of poor homeless undernourished
65
Camus, A. (1954). The Stranger. New York: Vintage Books. P. 103.
Ibid at, 105.
67
Camus, A. (1956). The Fall. New York: Vintage Books. P. 87.
66
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diseased population68. Since most of the food and consumer goods and gadgets are
imported they are handled either by western agents and distribution companies aided
by the local corrupt hereditary or military backed oligarchy. This is the frightening
saga of the aftermath of the violent encounter between the high entropy west and the
low entropy 3rd world. Moreover since the low entropy countries are unable to
develop their own industries, the invading high entropy aggressive salesman induce
the already impoverished shanty-town dwellers to buy more consumer goods which
they cannot afford and hence they are sucked into the vicious circle of ever being in
debt to "the company store".
Since the oil revenues in the Middle East and North-Africa went to a small
minority of power crazed and money debauched potentates the local scenes in most
Moslem countries is of a Thousand and one night pomp and ostentatious lavishness
for the exclusive consumption of corrupt and degenerated despots with hardly any
resources diverted to social welfare, socialization, medicine and education for human
rights and their awareness. The result is more poverty, more subjugation, less
democracy and less freedom for women. The only refuge left for the downtrodden
masses seems to be the sole solaces which cannot disappoint and let down: Allah and
the Qura'an. Since the shallow absorption of western culture inherent in the levantine
dynamics made for a distorted perception of the western social-characters especially
as reflected by the colonial bureaucracy or greedy executives of the western economic
conglomerates a us/them dichotomy has been created in the self/other perception of
the Moslem populace69. Consequently those who fall back onto purist Islam create a
vision of themselves as worthy martyrs, mostly crushed, subdued and enslaved by the
western wiedergeist, usurper, Satan. Hence all means are appropriate to combat this
demonic trespasser. No moral scruples, legal restraints or pity should curb the fight
against the hellish adversary. Since the U.S. and its allies the Wise Men of Zion70
have never shown any compassion to their Moslem victims the war against them
should be to the bitter end. This is the ideology, war plan and strategy of the ElKaida; The Hamas, The Islamic Jihad, the Hezbolla and their ilk. Since the war
against the west is a Jihad a holy combat, no human can declare an armistice in this
confrontation, only Allah can decide on the conduct of the war against the accused
68
Jeremy Rifkin: Entropy New-York 1980 PP. 188-193
Lovan H. Melikean: The Modal Personality of Saudi College Students: A Study in National
Characters in L.C. Brown and Nitzkowitz…….. PP. 166-209
70
This Tzarist forgery is a nunaway bestseller in the Moslem Middle East and North Africa.
69
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foes through his emissaries: Bin Laden, Sheikh Nassralla and Sheikh Yassin. This is
also in line with the entropy theorists like Prigonzine and Haken 71 who point out that
when an extreme choice is followed in a bifurcation all the other alternative
possibilities undergo a cognitive collapse as if they never existed.
In the final paragraph of our essay we may ask is there a way to avoid, halt or
curb the catastrophic collision course between the Islamic cultures and western
civilization? In order to deal seriously with this question we should divide it into two:
First is there a model or an experience of changing a low entropy culture into a high
entropy one? And second, can this model or experience be applied to the clash
between Islam and the occident. As for the first query we have an answer in the form
of two examples: one a micro illustration of the absorption of Jewish immigrants in
the hills of Jerusalem. The other is the on going experience of East Asia in the realm
of modernization, social management and economic development.
The official ideology and strategy of the Jewish agency in the fifties was that
the traditional values of the new immigrants who were mostly at that time from low
entropy cultures have to discard as soon as possible the norms and values of their
countries of origin and absorb as soon as possible the normative system of Israel
which was largely at that time a high entropy community. Consequently at the new
immigrants' settlement of Beit Shemesh on the road to Jerusalem the Jewish agency's
bureaucrats took great pains to create a "true melting pot" mixing all assortments of
ethnic groups so that they will quickly discard the pattern of culture and norms of
their countries of origin and become integrated Israelis in no time. Consequently, they
settled a Yemenite family near a Moroccan one and both in front of the asbestos shed
of an Iranian extended family. This strategy resulted apart from the strife, tension and
social conflict with twice the rate of delinquency for Beith Shemesh than for the city
of Jerusalem. Per-Contra when the Jewish agency bureaucrats might have been on
leave, sick or inattentive, a whole tribe of Kurdistani Jews replete with their leaders,
Rabbis, Gabbais (community functionaries) cantors, sooth-sayers and witchdoctors.
At first when the nurse came to offer medication to the sick she was scolded and
chased away. Gradually the tribe members learned that the antibiotic was as effective
as the incantations of the witchdoctor. Hence every box of medicine had to have the
benediction of the witchdoctor before its actual use by the members of the tribe.
71
Yuval Porstugoli: Self-Organization and the City; Heidelberg 2000 Springer: Verlog Forward.
32
Finally when people realized that the medicine was quite effective even without the
blessing of the witchdoctor he was assigned to irrigate the old olive trees which didn't
need irrigation to being with. Today with the third generation reaching maturity there
is no delinquency at the Ness-Harim – the tribes' village. They are flourishing
economically. Many of the Tribes' second and third generation are doctors, lawyers,
high army officers and the rest are successful farmers who grow fruit, grapes, olives,
raise chicken, cattle and goats with the latest scientific techniques. On the Sabbath
and holidays all hundreds of the tribe-members come to the synagogue and kiss the
hand of the tribe's octogenarian head-man who is hardly literate. Here the low entropy
tribe has absorbed the high entropy patterns of the absorbing culture, yet the
normative and traditional structures having remained in tact didn't allow the
fluctuations caused by the absorption of innovations to disrupt the tribe. Hence the
fluctuations resulted in bifurcations which enhanced adaptively the evolutionary
synthesis and cultural growth of the whole tribe and its individual members. The
traditional normative infrastructure on the other hand of the Beit-Shemmesh families
was disrupted therefore the absorption of high entropy patterns of culture generated
fluctuations which played havoc with the new-immigrant families and their members.
On the Macro level we have the cases of some countries in South Asia notably Japan,
China and the "Four Tigers" Hong-Kong, Taiwan, South-Korea and Singapore,
initially low entropy cultures which absorbed high entropy modernization and
technology. Because they succeeded in keeping intact their traditional normative
structures the fluctuations of modernization did not disrupt their infrastructures but
bifurcated into evolutionary adaptation and were synthesized into economic growth
and cultural flourish. Kishore` Mahbubani informs us that Britain needed 58 years
and the U.S. 47 years to double their net national products per person. Japan did this
in 33 years, Indonesia in 17 years, South Korea in 11 and China in 10 72. This brings
to mind Napoleon's warning that we should let China sleep because if she wakes up
the world will be sorry. The western economic conglomerates are sure to be quite
restless in apprehension since the Chinese and the "Four Tigers'" annual economic
growth was about 8%. This remarkable feat was carried out with modernization,
industrialization and scientification kept in checks and balances by the Confucian
values of asceticism, thrift, hard work, the cohesion of the family unit and the
72
Cited in S. P. Huntington: The Clash of Civilization op. at P. 127.
33
responsibility of the individual for the welfare of the community73. Hence the high
entropy patterns of culture have generated fluctuations in the low entropy absorbing
structures. However the Confucian values and norms served as shock absorbers and
the fluctuations led to a bifurcation of growth and adaptive viability. To sum up both
on the micro and on the macro level it is possible to achieve a viable and adaptive
synthesis between low entropy and high entropy. The fundamentalist Moslems have
to realize with Albert Camus that Revolutions failed: The French Revolution ended
with the Terror; The German Revolution with Auschwitz and the Russian Revolution
with the Goulag74. Also the west realizes that the days of colonialism and the
economic exploitation of low entropy countries are just about over. President Bush,
the Israeli security forces and fighters against terrorists the world over are eventually
going to demonstrate to the militant fundamentalist Moslems that terror would not
achieve its disruptive goals. The only way is the viable synthesis between low entropy
cultures backed by traditional normative infrastructures absorbing in a controlled
manner the fluctuation generating high entropy pattern of cultures resulting in
adoptive evolution and growth. In the 10th and 11th century Spain Jews and Moslems
lived for centuries in a mutually fructifying symbiosis later the Christians joined in a
conviveca with Alfonso (El Sabio) the 10th which kindled the renaissance in Europe
the expansive discoveries of new-worlds and The Age of Enlightenment. The
fundamentalist Moslems and for that matter their western adversaries have to realize
the profound wisdom of Rabi Akiva the 2nd century sage who said: "The forces of the
world are determined but Man is endowed with the Freedom of choice". Hence the
stochastic bifurcation is given but a clear choice should be made between suicide,
destruction and bereavement and viability by dialogue and growth through the
complementarity of opposites.
73
74
Ibid P. 133.
A. Camus: The Rebel.