We continue to search for sources of insight into America’s geopolitical position in the Middle East. Following up on the Pontius Pilate angle (which some people took a little too seriously), we stick with the cinema. PreReview reviews movies the reviewer hasn’t seen, usually because they’re not out yet. Here is a snippet of a review of Hidalgo, the forthcoming Viggo Mortensen disaster:
Viggo Aragorn … goes to Arabia with Hidalgo, his horsey best buddy to race against a bunch of Arabs who are BOUND BY HONOR except when they are DOUBLE CROSSING
This summarizes the basic view of many neocons pretty well, especially the Huntingtonian ones.
Okay, I admit I took it too seriously. But Pilate was legitimately awful… Just to clarify: my last line about the “well-meaning nebbish” picture of Pilate was only referring to Gibson and not to your post.
This summarizes the basic view of many neocons pretty well, especially the Huntingtonian ones.
Huh? “Huntingtonion neocons” is an oxymoron right up there with “neocon Crooked Timberites”.
Huntington’s ideas about a coming “clash of civilizations” were a direct rebuttal to Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis that liberal democracy would soon sweep the world, abolishing local cultural influences on international affairs. It’s not hard to see that the neocons are far closer to Fukuyama than to Huntington—the latter, for instance, would consider it absurd to try to establish democracy in Iraq.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re just robotically inferring “Huntingtonian” = “ethnic determinist” = “racist” = “bad”/”right-wing” = “neocon” , without giving a moment’s thought to any of the terms.
Dan-
I think you’re wrong about Fukuyama and Huntington. Fukuyama’s basically an evangelist for neoliberal economics. Huntington’s thesis was a rebuttal to Fukuyama’s idea of the end of conflict, it’s plain geopolitical realism. Huntington can be considered a neo-con because he believed a certain civilization should exercise power in a way that keeps it competitors in check.
No, Huntington cannot be considered a neocon. The balance-of-power realists had their say on Iraq in 1991, and kept Saddam in power as a counterweight to Iran. The neocons (of which, by the way, I do not count myself one) have made it clear that they place democratization ahead of realist equilibrium.
Once again, bleating, “‘Huntingtonian’ = ‘bad’/’right-wing’ = ‘neocon,’” is just ignorance in the service of partisanship. It is—or at least should be—beneath this blog.
Once again, bleating, “‘Huntingtonian’ = ‘bad’/’right-wing’ = ‘neocon,’” is just ignorance in the service of partisanship. It is—or at least should be—beneath this blog.
Dan, when I am serious about ignorantly bleating in the service of partisanship I can generally do it without quoting fake movie reviews containing phrases like “Viggo Aragorn goes to Arabia” and “Hidalgo, his horsey best buddy.” I know there are people in the world who don’t have this ability, and many of them have blogs, but ask any of my students and they will tell you that I rely on the “horsey best buddy” line of attack in serious argument only on rare occasions.
I guess I’m not a real “neo-con” (regardless of what I’ve been told), since I don’t think Arabs are honor-bound and double-crossing. At least not in the same way at the same time.
(Honor-bound within the family/tribe, and willing to lie without compunction or moral qualm to outsiders? Well, there’s a lot more sociological evidence for that, no? This phenomenon is almost certainly not limited to Arabs, of course, but comparative ethno-sociology isn’t my field. But that’s too subtle and … accurate, to really support a gratuitous “neo-con” code-word slinging, right?)
Of course, Kieran. That’s why I prefaced my comment in response to your posting with the disclaimer, “if I didn’t know better”.
I am an undergraduate in political science, so you can probably gauge my mood regarding the United States and the Middle East. Such an assessment would be valid - if you had made it a year ago. But I have been thinking over the Arabs (NOT Muslims) a lot recently, and I’ve pretty much concluded that they’re making a whole world of difficulties for everybody for no good reason. Eg., religion. I don’t buy post-colonial theory. (Is there no statute of limitations for historical wrongs? When can we start expecting the Arabs to put their houses in order? 10, 20, 50 years from now?) Nor do I buy arguments of cultural specificity, as I believe no one really does anymore. And if Israel is all that stands in the way of an entire region and people calming down and accepting the world as it is, then the obstacle to peace is not very large, all things considered.
Rather, I believe these defenses of Arab belligerance and anti-modernism are simply covers for the almost pathological resistance of large segments of the Arab world to the Enlightenment. Ah! But that is a Western phenomenon, couched in Western paraphernalia. No, it is a human phenomenon, and most of the peoples of the world have accepted it to greater and lesser degrees, except for the Arabs. The clerics rail about the damaging effect modernism has on traditional Islam. Well, that’s how it’s supposed to work. All the great religions and cultures have suffered, perhaps fatally, from the challenge of the Enlightenment. This DOES bring about pain; Europe had to endure two sets of world wars (the Napoleonic Wars, and World Wars I and II) before they reached a modern peace as stable as their premodern peace(for what it was). But this is the course of history; I simply do not believe you can offer an alternative to the Enlightenment.
I short, I believe the Arabs, or better said, the autarchic Arab powers-that-be, need to recognize “Westernization” for what it is: modernization. By attacking the Enlightenment as the fellow traveler of the Great Satan, the Arabs only prolong their backwardness and wreak senseless havoc throughout the world.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review