A neo-reactionary I was arguing with a while back claimed in effect that I have more in common with Muslims than I do with contemporary liberals. This entry will begin an exploration of this theme.
A reader the other day referred me to to Sayyid Qutb (Milestones p.120):
If the family is the basis of the society, the basis of the family is the division of labour between husband and wife, and the upbringing of children is the most important function of the family, then such a society is indeed civilized. In the Islamic system of life, this kind of a family provides the environment under which human values and morals develop and grow in the new generation; these values and morals cannot exist apart from the family unit. If, on the other hand, free sexual relationships and illegitimate children become the basis of a society, and if the relationship between man and woman is based on lust, passion and impulse, and the division of work is not based on family responsibility and natural gifts; if woman's role is merely to be attractive, sexy and flirtatious, and if the woman is freed from her basic responsibility of bringing up children; and if, on her own or under social demand, she prefers to become a hostess or a stewardess in a hotel or ship or air company, thus spending her ability for material productivity rather than in the training of human beings, because material production is considered to be more important, more valuable and more honourable than the development of human character, then such a civilization is 'backward' from the human point of view, or 'Jahili' in the Islamic terminology.
The emphases were added by my reader. He asks: "Is Qutb right or wrong? In which version of conservatism would this doctrine fit best?"
Five years ago, on 11 February 2011, unaware of the above passage, I wrote, in an entry occasioned by the death of Maria Schneider of "Last Tango in Paris" fame/imfamy:
Islamic culture is in many ways benighted and backward, fanatical and anti-Enlightenment, but our trash culture is not much better. Suppose you are a Muslim and you look to the West. What do you see? Decadence. And an opportunity to bury the West.
If Muslims think that our decadent culture is what Western values are all about, and something we are trying to impose on them, then we are in trouble. They do and we are.
Militant Islam's deadly hatred of us should not be discounted as the ravings of lunatics or psychologized away as a reflex of envy at our fabulous success, despite the obvious presence of lunacy and envy. For there is a kernel of insight in the ravings that we do well to heed. Sayyid Qutb , theoretician of the Muslim Brotherhood, who visited the USA at the end of the '40s, writes in Milestones (1965):
Humanity today is living in a large brothel! One has only to glance
at its press, films, fashion shows, beauty contests, ballrooms,
wine bars and broadcasting stations! Or observe its mad lust for
naked flesh, provocative pictures, and sick, suggestive statements
in literature, the arts, and mass media! And add to all this the
system of usury which fuels man's voracity for money and engenders
vile methods for its accumulation and investment, in addition to
fraud, trickery, and blackmail dressed up in the garb of law.
A wild exaggeration in 1965, the above statement is much less of an exaggeration today. But setting aside the hyperbole, we are in several ways a sick and decadent society getting worse day by day. On this score, if on no other, we can learn something from our Islamist critics. The fact that a man wants to chop your head off does not mean that he has nothing to teach you. We often learn more from our enemies than from our friends. Our friends often will spare us hard truths.
Turning now to the topmost passage from Qutb, what should we say about it? Here are some points where this conservative agrees with Qutb and some points where he disagrees.
Points of Agreement
1. The family is the building block of a societal order that deserves to be called civilized. The central function of the family is the education and socialization of children. Human offspring need to be brought from the animal to the social level. This requires the cooperation of husband and wife, man and woman, and a division of labor reflecting the different natural abilities of men and women.
2. The transmission of life-enhancing values and the inculcation of morality must occur primarily at the family level, starting when children are very young. This is where the transmission and inculcation is most effectively achieved.
3. The effects of the 'sexual revolution' have been largely negative. The 'revolution' has not led on the whole to human liberations but rather to enslavement, to the destruction of families, and the degradation of the entire culture so much so that television and popular culture can be described, without too much exaggeration, as an open sewer.
4. The "training of human beings" and "the development of human character" are more important and more honorable than "material production."
Points of Disagreement
1. Qutb goes too far with his claim that the transmission of values and the inculcation of morality cannot occur apart from the family unit.
2. My main disagreement with Qutb is that he assigns women a social role which, while reflecting the natural strengths and abilities of women, is oppressive for many women in that it prevents them from developing as persons in the way men are allowed to develop themselves as persons and not merely as fathers. Clearly, many women have what it takes to become competent physicians, lawyers, engineers, university professors, etc. and among these women, some are better at their chosen fields than many men. This is not to say that women as a group are equal to men as a group with respect to ability in any of these fields; it is to say that women as a group should not be discriminated against on the basis of sex. The same goes for voting. While women as a group are too much influenced by their emotions and thus not as well-suited as men to make wise choices at the polling places, the franchise is overall good and it is just wrong to deny women a political say on the basis of their sex.
Of course, in some areas women should be discriminated against on the basis of sex. If you say that all combat roles in the military should be open to women, then I say you are a p.c.-whipped, crazy leftist. The fact that a handful of amazons could overpower a Navy SEAL cuts no ice.
So this makes me a paleoconservative who yet takes on board the best of the classically liberal tradition while avoiding the latter-day lunacies of contemporary liberalism as well as the extremism of the neo-reactionary paleocons. My reader asked: In which version of conservatism does Qutb's doctrine best fit? Answer: that of the neo-reactionary paleocons.
I expect to be, and have been, attacked from both sides. This is something a maverick philosopher should take pride in. The maverick philosopher navigates by the Polaris of Truth Herself, avoiding extremes, and shunning herds.
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