Since a number of you, gentle readers, seem to be confused about what I am advocating here, I thought I might dilate a bit. It isn't Islam that I really care about one way or another. I'll return to that below. Commenter Brian notes:
It's easy to laugh, Ioz. But...arranged marriages and honor killings are an issue, no? Or, are you saying such are merely part of the propaganda war for our never ending conflict against the duky hordes? Or-can BOTH be true-Islam has some messed up gender dynamics AND said dynamics are emphasized as part of a propaganda campaign by certain "unpleasant" elements of OUR society.Regarding arranged marriages and honor killings, there's actually an instructive antecedent in the history of British India. The practice of suttee, a widow's ritual self-immolation, was widely expounded as the sort of backwardness that the British civilizing mission supposedly came to correct. And indeed, for decades after Independence, this narrative repeated itself, until the explosion of post-colonial scholarship in the nineties pointed out that though suttee was real, it was far from prevalent: in fact, it was vanishingly rare. The conquest of the subcontinent and all that entailed could hardly be justified by the fact that it may or may not have prevented a handful of ritual suicides.
Sadly, although there may be victims of Islamic prudery and control, I doubt the numbers match the death and destruction caused by our Freedom Express.
I hold no brief for Islam. It is as preposterous, cruel, and vacuous as its brother-faiths in the Abrahamic tradition. Yet "honor killings" are the sort of thing that happen in America all the time, with nothing to do with Islam. They're plotted on prime time. They play daily on Law and Order. The absence of overt religious motivations doesn't negate the fact that guys kill girls for cheating; husbands kill wives; fathers kill daughters. Intrafamilial and intracommunal violence is horrific and sad, but let us not pretend that it somehow affects the adherents of this or that sect more acutely than some other. Violence and possessiveness are universal frailties of our unfortunate species.
But, to return to the more salient point, I don't advocate a social arrangement that consists of Islam and Therestofus. I advocate the Balkanization of human society, the dismantling of empires and nation-states, the gradual devolution of our immense social entities, the concurrent reduction in human populations, the end of the ability of massive, mechanized warfare. I think a good way to begin is to begin allowing people to create communities of affinity to govern their social affairs as much or as little as they deem necessary, through participatory agreements of limited duration to protect against mistaken affiliation, abuse, regrets, etc.
14 comments:
I think a good way to begin is to begin allowing people to create communities of affinity to govern their social affairs as much or as little as they deem necessary, through participatory agreements of limited duration to protect against mistaken affiliation, abuse, regrets, etc.
How will the "limited duration" be enforced? Indeed, how will these entire contracts be enforced? What about people who are born into a community and cannot abide by the rules they were born into? What mechanism exists to get them out and into a community they would find more agreeable?
What stops community "A", a contractually created community, from annexing and enslaving community "B", a different, weaker and small, contractually created community?
There's a reason why human civilizations grow to the size they do - it's because people are bastards. And when a group of weaker bastards gather together into a community to protect themselves from a stronger bastard, they become a threat to all the other bastards around them.
The only example in the modern world I can think of where anything close to what you propose works is the Amish, and that ONLY works because they abide within the larger scope of US law that provides them a level of protection from neighboring communities. Throw them into the middle of the Middle East or Russia and they'd probably get eaten alive.
So, while I find your ideas interesting, they strike me much like libertarian ones - great for discussion in a philosophy class, but I wouldn't want to live there.
You can always Write Your Congressman and tell him to Impeach! Say No to Telecom Amnesty! Philosophy class. Oy.
concurrent reduction in human population...
Bit of a sticking point there, IOZ.
If there really is a viable non-state solution for people, I hope it's a forward-looking one. The historical lower-population models have never impressed me all that much, and confronted with similar conditions, I don't think we'd avoid them. I don't, for example, see much of an improvement in the birth lottery being a tribal matter instead of a state one. (But I suppose it sure was nice when malcontents could up and leave.)
Hard to avoid that sort of regression without a double helping of technological miracles, but what's more annoying than a futurist?
"...But I, who know the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to mine, not only of the same blood or seed but that it participates in the same intelligence, the same portion of divinity, I can neither be hurt by any of them, for no one can fix in me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my brother, or hate him. For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To go against one another then is contrary to nature, and it is going against one another to be vexed and turn away." -An Emperor
I'm not arguing anything in particular, I just always found the juxtaposition of those views and empire interesting. Ecclesiastes, too, for the same reason.
Well, I guess I am arguing something: that empire doesn't necessarily have to imply philistinism (let alone "bastardy"). That's more of an Anglo-American malady.
it's because people are bastards.
Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling, as Drs. Cox and Kelso said.
The absence of overt religious motivations doesn't negate the fact that guys kill girls for cheating; husbands kill wives
These certainly happen all the time, but they are not called honor killings, because there is no "honor of the family" motive. And lest we forget, they are not tolerated by the rest of us. Men who kill their wives may get a reduced charge, i.e., 2nd degree or whatever, but they are still seen as criminals.
... fathers kill daughters.
I've never heard of a single case in America of a father killing a daughter as a matter of sexual control. I would guess it does happen -- among Muslim immigrants, and perhaps among immigrants from other non-Muslim groups from honor/shame societies. But not among the rest of us. Perhaps as a vanishingly rare perversion.
Evidence?
As for honor killing in the Muslim world... my impression is that it is not particularly rare. The wiki suggests up to 5000 killings per year, worldwide.
Your larger point is good, and I agree: people should live in voluntary circumstances. But as the case is with sharia, there are some real problems.
One is deeply illiberal institutions like honor killing. Certainly I think few of us, if any, would think it reasonable to stand by while a woman is killed extrajudicially for a victimless "crime", even if she did "agree", in some sense, to a social contract allowing that outcome. Of course, some of this gets back to the ease of exit, and in Islam there is no exit. This is one way in which sharia is not a "participatory agreement of limited duration".
Second, what about the status of children? It does seem like their parents ought to decide, as much as possible, their law. However, this again runs into problems at the border. It's one thing for a Christian Scientist to refuse medicine for himself, if an adult. It's his own stupid life. It's another thing for them to refuse medicine to children.
It seems to me that there must be a reasonably liberal "floor" to law below which we do not allow minors. If people want to arrange marriages for their children, so be it, but those children must become adults first and subscribe to the legal system where that's allowed.
If you're into a reduction of the human population you might want to check out the antinatalist blog. I personally don't think it's an Evolutionarily Stable Equilibrium, as I note in the comments.
I find it fascinating that stuff like honor killing is so often attributed to "Islam," via "shari'a," while the causal connection between gay-bashing and Judaism is rarely stressed in our popular discourse. Until we get rid of the Jews we'll have more and more Matthew Shepards.
You are on a slippery slope of your own creation, IOZ, and, if you continue, you will find yourself in a place you really don't want to be.
Time to drop back a few yards and punt.
And after you punt, roll the stone back up the hill so it don't gather no flies!
let us not pretend that it somehow affects the adherents of this or that sect more acutely than some other.
Except that it does. Take a look at the relevant statistics sometime. In some societies male violence against women is consistently frowned on and punished, and therefore happens less. In others it's condoned, excused and happens more. It's ridiculous to pretend that there's any nation immune to it, but it's equally ridiculous to pretend that we're all equally bad in this regard.
husbands kill wives; fathers kill daughters. Intrafamilial and intracommunal violence is horrific and sad
...gee, could you possibly be talking about patriarchy? Nah. That doesn't exist, because it would ruin pretentious Randroid fantasies about the world.
LOLcats @ aaron. wellplayed.
The wiki suggests up to 5000 killings per year, worldwide.
and that's not a 'vanishingly rare perversion'? i fail to see how your standards are anything less than biased
Randroid fantasies! I think the new rule for those who voluntarily subscribe, to be enforced for a limited duration, is that after Aaron comments, the section is closed.
It's awfully difficult to punt on a hill. Man. It's almost as if I'm talking about anarchy.
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