The following just over the transom. I thought I was being appropriately critical of what is undoubtedly the worst of the great religions, "the saddest and poorest form of theism" (Schopenhauer), but apparently I haven't gone far enough for one of my readers. Balanced and reasonable positions don't have much of a chance in this age of polarization and extremism. There are people to my Right who think that women should not have the right to vote, and there are people to my Left who think that children and illegal aliens should have the right to vote. I am tempted by the self-serving thought that I am one of the few sane people left.
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You write: "Has Islam played any role in the civilizing of the peoples in the lands where it has held sway? Yes, of course."
This strikes me as extremely doubtful. About a year ago, I read "Mohamed & Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy" by Emmett Scott, and it was eye-opening. Islam conquered a peaceful, highly civilized Christian civilization in Asia, North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, and absolutely destroyed them, to the point where there is virtually no history of those lands from 650 to 950 AD--no writing, no archaeological signs of building or commerce. The devastation is so complete that some historians argue that the years did not exist at all--that it is a mistake in the calendar (I get the impression this is largely considered a crank theory, but the fact that it has any currency at all gives evidence to the devastation of the Muslim conquests). There are stories of the great Muslim cities built during that time, but archaeology has not been able to find evidence of them.
As to civilized behavior: In Roman times, the harshest punishment Christians usually doled out to heretics was banishment. Then they interacted with the Muslims for several centuries, and the Spanish Inquisition was born to copy Muslim practices. There is strong evidence that the Viking raids which ravaged the coasts of Europe for nearly a century were inspired by Muslims who were paying a premium for blonde-haired blue-eyed girls (and probably boys). There were a tiny number of Muslim scholars worth reading, but primarily by Muslim converts, non-Muslims living in Muslim lands, or Muslims copying the work of non-Muslims in other non-Muslim lands.
The legacy of Islam is war, devastation, piracy, cruelty, totalitarianism, and slavery. Every large-scale culture must have a few innovations, but as far as I can see, all the evidence says there is nothing like a systematic improvement of the human condition that comes out of Islam.
I am astounded that you even entertain for polite conversation those alt-right interlocutors who harbor these truly contemptible ideas. They are beneath refutation. The alt-right has already demonstrated their depravity and ineligibility for moral discourse. By addressing them, you grant their ideas plausibility, even if ultimately you disagree. When someone raises the possibility that women should be denied the franchise, the proper response is not to fashion some clever syllogism. The proper response is condemnation and censure.
Posted by: EP | Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 09:42 AM
Oh, I don't know. Islamic civilization has its shortcomings, but I think it's pretty hard to look at, e.g., the Ottoman Empire in the era of Suleiman the Magnificent (cf. Andre Clot's Suleiman the Magnificent) and say that Islam had no civilizing effect on peoples where it held sway.
Posted by: Cyrus | Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 12:13 PM
Cyrus,
I agree. Excellent response.
Posted by: BV | Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 12:42 PM
EP,
>>There are people to my Right who think that women should not have the right to vote, and there are people to my Left who think that children and illegal aliens should have the right to vote.<<
Would you say the very same thing about the second independent clause of my sentence? If not, why not? As I see it, both ideas are wrong. If you agree that we ought to oppose the second idea with reasoned discourse, then you should also agree that we ought to oppose the first with reasoned discourse.
Posted by: BV | Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 12:52 PM
Thank you for your reply, Bill. I would draw the distinction in terms of how foundational the principles are that are in dispute. Two interlocutors may come to different conclusions regarding the second clause, yet share a commitment to the fundamental moral equality of all human persons, whereas it is precisely this foundational moral principle that is disputed by the first clause.
Posted by: EP | Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 02:16 PM
EP,
We agree about the moral equality of all persons. But it is not clear to me that this principle is disputed, or rather need be disputed, by those who think that women should be denied the franchise. The argument of the reactionaries is that the emotional nature of women interferes with their political judgment. Just as no reasonable person would give the franchise to children, no reasonable person would give the franchise to women who are essentially just overgrown children. Now it is a bad argument! But it is consistent with respecting the moral equality of all persons, whether male or female.
Should women be allowed into the Navy SEALs? Obviously not: as a group, women lack the physical strength and other attributes for the job. But this is no violation of their moral equality as persons. Moral equality does not entail empirical equality.
Similarly with children. It is no violation of a child's moral equality as a person to deny that child the right to vote.
Posted by: BV | Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 02:55 PM