The “Crooked Timber thesis”

I think that the most reasonable way to read Derbyshire’s statement here
…

is that it contains a claim about what has been argued here on Crooked Timber. That claim would be that people at Crooked Timber have argued repeatedly (‘recurrent variant’, ‘usually applied’) that we shouldn’t tell the truth about political Islamism for fear of inciting ‘Islamophobia’.

On the contrary: Derbyshire’s main point is that the “CT thesis” _should_ be applied to circumstances where it generally is not (ie. Guardian article on Beslan). The bit about ‘Islamophobia’ is tangential to his argument but seems to have in mind the postings of dsquared on Islamism (particularly at the end of the post that Derbyshire linked to).

Russkie: Indeed, Derbyshire does accept the point about perlocutionary effect and believes that it has wide application (as do I). But I can’t agree that his post is as innocent as you suggest. As well as the (true) thesis itself he attributes to is (at least by implication) a “recurrent variant” with a highly specific content. That content is stated in such a way as to be ambiguous and on one of the ways of resolving the ambiguity there is a plainly false suggestion made about the view of people here. That the perlocutionary effect (!) of Derbyshire’s post is such can be gleaned from Ms Benson’s comments to his post and from reponses on other blogs. On your reading, his post shouldn’t be taken as critical of CT at all.

As for Dsquared’s comments at the end of the post Derbyshire links to, I have to ask whether you’ve become confused between that post and another one since he doesn’t make any comments about Islamism as such in the thread you refer to.

Chris

Sure, okay. It’s just that we’ve always been very careful to separate our own views, etc., from TPM.

Nader’s highly offensive statement (if that’s an accurate quote) strikes me as so rhetorical that I have difficulty in saying that _any_ assignment of truth-value can be made. Clearly it is literally false though. But the point you are trying to make in introducing the example is rather obscure, I’m afraid.

Chris, Russkie is right: I meant to argue that the true thesis applied in the case of Bunting’s article.

And I had you and Dsquared in mind when I attributed that thesis to Crooked Timber. Perhaps I ought to have been more specific and called it the “Bertram-Davies” thesis. I had in mind your qualified endorsement of Marc Mulholland’s post on “liberal Islamophobia”, which is where this discussion started I think and which accounts for the reference to Islamophobia in my post, and Dsquared’s comments on a number of threads here, including the one on Foucault.

I did not mean to lead readers to “the false belief that people at CT have claimed that political Islamism just shouldn’t be criticized. Nobody here holds that view or anything remotely like it.” Though Dsquared *does* hold the false belief that “‘Islamism’ is a politically convenient but fictional construct drawn up by people who want to drag their own pet Middle Eastern issue into the fight against Al-Quaeda”.

Jonathan, you are correct to think that I believe Marc M said some good things in that piece (I don’t btw agree with everything he said). Indeed his use of Ian Paisley and Catholics to make the speech-acts point was very effective.

I wondered whether you or others would bring up dsquared’s remark about Islamism. It seems to me not germane to do so, since his point (elaborated and refined in the comments to another post I believe) concerned the usefulness of “Islamism” as an analytical category. (He agrees with you and I that Al Quaida and those who think like them are a murderous menace.) In similar vein, people disagree about whether “Fascism” is a useful general category and point to the very real differences between Germany, Italy and Spain. It would be a cheap and misleading shot indeed to say of someone who is sceptical of the analytical value of “fascist” to claim of them that they fail to oppose fascism, since they may very well be bitterly opposed to all and every regime that non-sceptics would characterize as fascist.

Dsquared, you wrote that Islamism is a “fictional construct”. Now you’re saying that the term *does* have some analytical force, providing that those who use it keep a clear head and avoid the implication that “all political Islamic movements are a) violent and b) linked to Al-Quaeda.” Which one is it?

Just to ride this hobbyhorse one more time, it’s perfectly possible to believe “Islamism is a danger to us” without believing that we need to “fight a total war utterly unprecedented in scale.” There’s obviously an Islamist spectrum, as it were, just as there was a fascist spectrum and a Communist spectrum (still is, I suppose, in a few places), and as there is a capitalist spectrum. There are some Islamists who, as Daniel puts it about Al Qaeda, “we need to kill,” while others we may be better off containing, etc. But that all Islamists share certain fundamental assumptions about the nature of the world and of the West seems to me inarguable.

My biggest problem with Dsquared’s take on Islamism is that it seems to be shaped entirely by Western foreign-policy concerns. In other words, the argument is: “It’s dangerous to treat these people as all alike, because it will lead us into foreign misadventures like Vietnam and Iraq, and we’ll end up killing a lot more people than we otherwise might have to.” These are important things to worry about, but Western foreign-policy concerns are irrelevant to the actual question of whether fundamentalist Muslims in the Phillipines, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, etc., are alike in their beliefs or not. (As you’ll have already guessed, I think they are.) Islamism is real, regardless of whether we’d like it to be or not.

One small note: “political Islamism” is redundant. What makes Islamism Islamism is precisely its insistence that the Koran offers a template not merely for spiritual life but for secular life as well, and that Islam is, in its essence, political, so that the only true state is an Islamic one.

Daniel, my reference to the phrase “political Islamism” was directed at Chris’ original post, not at your (correct) usage. And I’m still thinking about Libya, re: our earlier discussion.

In similar vein, people disagree about whether “Fascism” is a useful general category and point to the very real differences between Germany, Italy and Spain.

But the term “fascism” takes in different political systems precisely because it is a general category. We need specific terms, but we also need categorical descriptions as a tool in analyzing systems with similar characteristics and comparing them to systems in different categories. It’s possible to quibble about whether the category of “fascism” is sometimes extended too far, or about whether or not a particular political system fits into that category, but I think the term is a useful one to describe systems with key common threads and broadly similar reasons for coming into being.

“Islamism” also makes sense as a general categorical description for those who believe that Islamic law should be the fundamental basis of the state. This category includes a number of sub-categories and its members from bin Laden to Tunisian modernist Rashid al-Ghannoushi, but the states they want to construct are all based on sharia as the sole source of fundamental law.

This is a type of system that can’t arise out of Christianity, because Islam is a complete legal system in a way that Christianity is not. Nor can it arise out of Buddhism or Hinduism; although the BJP in India is labeled with the analogous term “saffronist,” it is a chauvinist-nationalist party rather than a theocratic one and doesn’t argue that some form of Hindu scripture should be the sole source of law. A similar system could arise from Judaism, and there are in fact political parties in Israel that correspond to various forms of Islamism, but this is relatively localized; with the exception of Israel, the term “Islamism” describes a set of related political philosophies that have no indigenous counterpart in the West. That alone should make it a useful term.

Also note that Malaysia is an Islamic state, presumably run by Islamists, but is (correctly) not on your list. Libya, too.

Libya is not run by Islamists; Qaddafi’s political philosophy (insofar as he has one) can best be described as anarcho-socialist with a tendency toward pan-Africanism. He occasionally uses Islamist rhetoric (much less now than he once did) and nominally acknowledges sharia as a source of law, but the Libyan courts don’t really implement it outside the family sphere. The Islamic component of the current Libyan state structure is nominal – Libya is no more an Islamist state than Egypt.

Malaysia is somewhat complicated. UMNO’s platform can best be described as “Muslim Democratic,” like the AKP in Turkey – it advocates Islamic values as a source of law but not the sole source, and it pays at least lip service to the notion of a pluralist state. The Islamist party in Malaysia is PAS, which is currently in opposition.

Jonathan, I’d note that this is also true of the example I gave. “Whore” is a useful catch-all term for street prostitutes, callgirls, brothel workers, women who have more than two sex partners per year, etc. It’s possible to quibble about whether people extend the term too far, or whether any particular person’s mother is accurately described by it, etc etc etc. Nevertheless, if I were to rock up to the Camden Council social services department and ask what they were currently doing about whores in North London, they would probably inform me that they did not consider it to be a helpful term, particularly because usage over time has tended to associate use of the word “whore” with unhelpful attitudes which do nothing to address the underlying problem

Moving on to your example, you say

““Islamism” also makes sense as a general categorical description for those who believe that Islamic law should be the fundamental basis of the state.

But doesn’t this just push the ambiguity of the term “Islamism” into “Islamic Law”? Mahathir Mohammed believes that Islamic law should be the fundamental basis of the state, but he doesn’t ban the sale of alcohol or stone women to death. There is no such Platonic entity as “Islamic Law”.

What there is, is a whole set of attitudes to the relationship between the state and the Koran, all shaped by the cultural history of Islam, but all also shaped by a variety of entirely local cultural, historical and political factors. These are all gathered together under the portmanteau term “Islamism”, which is fine as far as it goes, but means that it is more or less impossible to make any true statement about “Islamists”.

Furthermore, I think the evidence that John is onto something is that you’re wrong about the impossibility of “Christianism”. If we take the view that it is, as you say, impossible for any similar system to rise out of Christianity, it becomes really quite difficult to understand what the Hundred Years’ War was fought about.

I think “much less congenial argument about meaning” refers to my comments in support of WVO Quine’s thesis (which I argued, was more or less the same as Foucault’s) that it is entirely possible to have a philosophy of language which does not include such entities a “meanings” and that it is better to do so. In other words, I think Jonathan’s problems with the “argument about meaning” aren’t related to Islamism; apparently some things aren’t.

I’m not sure why this is “much less congenial”; I was being perfectly matey when I wrote it, although in retrospect I have been chucking the phrase “your mother’s a whore” around quite liberally, which some might see as less than perfectly congenial.

How about if instead of that project, Marc were to spend a couple of years on a detailed research project into how many senior managers of financial institutions, owners and managers of media organisations and politicians, political advisors and lobbyists, were of the Jewish religion? Not referring to anything wicked, just thoroughly and exhaustively seeking the truth about Jewish control of politics, media and finance?

Would you say that this was simply the product of an “epistemological agenda”? Would anyone?

This is Marc’s entire point; that the (misattributed) “Crooked Timber Thesis” is true (and Foucault is right, cheers cheers) – there are clearly situations in which one has to second-guess the effect of what one is saying, however good one’s own faith.

How about if I decided that a good way to investigate new research directions in human genetics would be to see if I could produce a version of the bubonic plague which only affected black people? What we’re talking about here is the whole question of scientific ethics, and the hard-line position that Ophelia seems to be driving at here doesn’t look like a defensible one.

Well, in that case what point are you trying to make? Some kinds of research projects are more contentious than others. At the moment, you seem to be saying that research into uncontentious issues isn’t contentious.

The point I’m trying to make is that I think the notion that ‘contentious’ subjects ought not to be written about on websites lest they be misused by some equivalent of drunken BNP mobs, is a bad notion. That’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s too broad; too many subjects could be considered (or not even considered but just labeled) ‘contentious’ by people who simply want to eliminate ideas that they don’t like. That’s my point.

No, that’s not what I was suggesting. What I had in mind was the oddity of (part of) the left’s joining hands with its enemies at the expense of its friends. Being protective of fundamentalists at the expense of for instance feminists and secularists. Feminists and secularists from ‘Muslim’ countries don’t appreciate it, I can tell you that.

Dsquared, I’ll admit to going OTT in the comments section at times, and by all means respond in kind, or ban me. Although don’t tell me to eff off too harshly, it makes me feel like I’m reliving the prison camp at Vorkuta, or maybe Karraganda.

But I wasn’t citing those comments thinking ‘leave the poor CT people alone’. Instead I was thinking ‘It is depressing that educated people compare those with whose views they disagree with to the Hitler and Stalin regimes.’ It’s Totalitarian Kitsch.

Ophelia, could you cite one case of a CT writer ‘Being protective of fundamentalists at the expense of for instance feminists and secularists.’

I know I keep asking all these nasty questions, like Vyshinsky or maybe Freisler, but you do keep making all these large and rather inaccurate claims, like the Volkischer Beobachter or do I mean Pravda. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to dash, like a kulak in the collectivisation era or perhaps an Austrian Jew at the Anschluss. A bit crass, no, all these Hitler-Stalin similes?

I mean, Ophelia and I agree.

Pech! I’m useless at these comments.

I knew that was what you meant! And I posted ‘Hoorah, we do’ – but it didn’t – unless it actually did and is hiding them somewhere and next time I look there will be ten posts saying the same thing even though I only clicked ‘Post’ once. There is something very odd about the way these comments work…

This rather like pondering whether Einstein should’ve asked himself, “Are you sure you want to publish this, Al? Once people realize you can convert matter into energy…” Eventually he did regret a somewhat important implication (one significantly more important than the fact that it might incite a mere mob), but it was too late, he couldn’t take back the letter to Roosevelt. In the meantime this particular idea proved to be both one of the grandest and one of the most dangerous concepts ever concieved. The same is even now being done with other ideas and/or other technologies. (Super-smallpox, anyone?)

I have to vote for being diplomatic about something (say, avoiding bringing it up while dealing with the mob) but still studying/ talking about it anyways. The dangers are there, but the promise is too.

Can I register an objection to “Islamism” and “Islamist” on style grounds? I can’t quite nail down why, but they just sound totally stupid.

Probably because literally worked out Islamism converts to “the religion of Islam” with “and by the way, it’s a religion” tacked on the end. Or maybe it’s just the am-ism.

Nevertheless, if I were to rock up to the Camden Council social services department and ask what they were currently doing about whores in North London, they would probably inform me that they did not consider it to be a helpful term

On the other hand, they’d know what you meant, wouldn’t they?

Also, with respect to the sale of sexual favors, there’s a neutral term (“prostitution”) that can be used with no loss of meaning. As far as I know, there’s no alternative term with equivalent meaning to “Islamism,” except possibly “political Islam” which is less precise and has much the same connotations. As far as I’m concerned, using “Islamism” (while being careful to define it) is better than having no term at all for the phenomenon it describes.

Mahathir Mohammed believes that Islamic law should be the fundamental basis of the state, but he doesn’t ban the sale of alcohol or stone women to death. There is no such Platonic entity as “Islamic Law”.

There are certainly different interpretations of Islamic law, but this isn’t the same as saying that Islamic law doesn’t exist. I’m not an Islamic scholar, but from my vantage point there seems to be a broad consensus among Muslims that an Islamic legal system exists and can be divided into certain distinct schools, as well as broad agreement over its sources (Koran, hadiths, jurisprudence, etc.). To the extent that a political philosopher believes that these should be the sole or primary source of law in a modern state, he is an Islamist. Sure, it’s a term as generic as “socialist” or “constitutional liberal,” but that doesn’t make it otiose.

These are all gathered together under the portmanteau term “Islamism”, which is fine as far as it goes, but means that it is more or less impossible to make any true statement about “Islamists”.

No, this means that it’s possible to make a true statement about the common characteristics of Islamist political philosophies, and to contrast them with philosophies that aren’t Islamist. It also means that other terms and subcategories are necessary to distinguish between different forms of Islamism. For instance, the term “radical Islamism” has been used on various CT threads – this isn’t a term I’d necessarily use, but it serves to distinguish some forms of Islamism from others.

In any event, I wouldn’t call Mahathir an Islamist at all – his party believes that Malaysian law should reflect Islamic values, but not that sharia should be the sole foundation of the state. That’s why PAS – which is Islamist – is in the opposition.

If we take the view that it is, as you say, impossible for any similar system to rise out of Christianity, it becomes really quite difficult to understand what the Hundred Years’ War was fought about.

Don’t you mean the Thirty Years’ War? As far as I know, none of the parties to that war or to the Hundred Years’ War wanted to impose an all-encompassing theocracy based on Christian law.

“I do hope I’m not going to have to start swearing at people here because you know how much I hate that.”

A threat. How nice. Shut up or get the ‘go fuck yourself’ treatment, eh?

Okay, I’m off.

‘Okay, I’m off.’
You mean like Thomas Mann exiling himself from the Third Reich, or
like Trotsky fleeing the NKVD?

And one side of [the Thirty Years’ War] certainly did think that princes governed by consent of God and that the Pope could remove them at will. The war was actually settled with the agreement that cuio regio es religio – that the local prince could force everyone under his control to adopt his religion.

There’s a distinction between incorporation of certain religious concepts into the state – e.g., accepting the divine right of kings, using clergy as civil officers, intolerance of minority religions – and regarding religion as an all-encompassing system of law. As far as I know, no medieval European country regarded canon law, or some other form of Christian divine law, as the primary foundation of the state. Instead, European legal systems consisted to varying degrees of Roman law, common law, the law of nations, royal edicts, acts of parliament – and only then, after a long pause, religious law.

Nor did the divine right of kings constitute, in practical terms, subordination of the state to religion – in fact, I’d argue that the Thirty Years’ War and the previous century’s Wars of Religion were fought to make religion the instrument of the state rather than the other way around. You might do better to go back a few more centuries and argue that Boniface VIII’s bull Unam sanctam advocated a “Christianist” political position, but even this declaration of papal supremacy recognized a distinction between sacred and secular law. To an Islamist, there is no such distinction.

I suppose that, theoretically, a Christian philosopher could imagine a state founded solely upon divine law, but such a state would face two practical difficulties. First, Christian divine law doesn’t extend far enough into the secular sphere – there are certain exceptions in the areas of family and criminal law, but not enough to form the basis of a commercial or inheritance code. Compare the code of canon law, for instance – which is probably the most comprehensive Christian divine law system – with sharia or halacha; the former is almost entirely concerned with spiritual matters and the constitution of the church, while the latter extend into all areas of daily life.

Second, it’s harder to make law in Christian systems. Islamic and Jewish law are both common-law systems in which the rulings of jurists become part of the body of law, and are therefore easily adaptable to new situations. Canon law is equivalent, at most, to civil law; the Catholic Church had legislative bodies, but these were of very limited competence with respect to temporal matters.

This distinction has everything to do with the formative periods of Christianity and Islam. I suppose that, if some Church father had got the notion early enough, canon law could have been extended into a complete temporal legal system, but any such intrusion into royal prerogative would have impeded the spread of the Christian faith. In contrast, Islamic law had its genesis in a unified state in which spiritual and temporal were one, and this has remained the Islamic ideal even though dar al-Islam became politically fragmented. It’s thus possible to conceive of an Islamic or Jewish religious state with a much greater degree of unity between secular and divine law than a Christian state could have.

Note that I’m not arguing that people who believe in such a state are “Muslims we have to kill.” I don’t think that the issue of killing, or otherwise, should really enter into the definition of a political philosophy. The decision of who to kill should be based on the acts of particular organized groups – i.e., the way in which beliefs are actualized rather than the beliefs themselves. If the only reason we’re analyzing Islamic political philosophy is to distinguish between who we don’t like and who we have to kill, then we don’t really need to analyze it at all.

[The following article addresses some issues related to the subjects discussed in this thread.]

Political Research Associates

Terms & Concepts: Use with Caution
by Chip Berlet
(Oct.-Nov. 2001 ?)

Islamophobia & Arabophobia, Terrorism, Fundamentalism, Neofascism, Clerical Fascism,
Theocratic Islamic Fundamentalism, Apocalyptic Demonization

Since the attacks of 9/11, writers and commentators have had problems in finding accurate language to describe complicated and unfamiliar phenomena while remaining sensitive to issues of prejudice. Terms such as Islamist, radical Islamic fundamentalist, and clerical fascist entered public discussion. We hope this article will help sort out some of the confusing and problematic terminology that abounds.

http://www.publiceye.org/frontpage/911/clerical-911.html

[dsquared] agrees with you and I that Al Quaida and those who think like them are a murderous menace

Hmmm…are we really so sure? ;)