Salman Rushdie. Earth to Leftists....

[prole]

"If tomorrow the Israel/Palestine issue was resolved to the total happiness of all parties, it would not diminish the amount of terrorism coming out of al-Qa'ida by one jot. It's not what they're after," he adds, his foot tapping against mine as he leans forward. "Yes, it's a recruiting tool, rhetorically. Many people see there's an injustice there, and it helps them to get people into the gang, but it's not what they want.

 

Hey, guess what? An ideology that is not able to gain enough adherents to turn itself into a social movement with agency to act on the historical stage is consigned to the history books. Otherwise we'd just as likely be talking about modern militant French Hugenots (sp.?) or Moonies as Islamic fundamentalists. Again, the interview cited above speaks of a "new Islamic virus". This kind of thinking is really unfortunate among otherwise intelligent people, and speaks to the irrationalism that characterizes the dominant narrative.

[tvashtarkatena]

 

If Rushdie is in agreement with most or all of the points made above, then what exactly is the *mistake* being made by leftists? Where/who are the phantom leftists he's on about? bell hooks? Huh? Is it possible that Rushdie's intimate relationship with and personal danger from Islamic fundamentalism has clouded his thinking?

 

Rushdie would have a hard time finding his mythical Leftie. His death threat collection certainly colors his thinking and sours his view of Islamic fundamentalism, appropriately so, but his broadbrush denouncement of the Failed Left constitutes an unfocused, and therefore failed idea.

[tvashtarkatena]

"If tomorrow the Israel/Palestine issue was resolved to the total happiness of all parties, it would not diminish the amount of terrorism coming....

 

....Again, the interview cited above speaks of a "new Islamic virus". This kind of thinking is really unfortunate among otherwise intelligent people, and speaks to the irrationalism that characterizes the dominant narrative.

 

I agree. Rushdie speaks of a 'they' as if it were a single body with one agenda.

 

If Palestine and Israel made up, terrorism in that area would certainly diminish because the political and security interests of each party would presumably be satisfied, but it's hard to imagine a scenario where the economic and emotional pain inflicted to date would suddenly evaporate. Rogue hardcores may well choose to ignore a truce and continue blowing up bus terminals. Overall, however, terrorist attacks would likely be reduced to these unhappy few, which would certainly be an improvement.

 

Most terrorist attacks are part of a political negotiation between perceived occupier and the occupied. As in any negotiation, both sides have interests, and these interests vary widely depending on geography. Some conflicts will end in an accord; as will probably be the case for the Sunni/Shiite punch up in Iraq. Too many powerful forces want stability in that region for the outcome to be otherwise. Others conflicts are irreconcileable, as is the case with the Taliban, which must be marginalized and/or destroyed. Even in this latter case, providing a better options for the Afghan population would make defeating the Taliban much easier. If you can't satisfy the offending party's interests, satisfy their constituents.

 

Rushdie's partially right; most conflicts would probably continue after an Israeli/Palestianian truce, but not for the reasons he has cited. Each conflict requires its own political resolution. Rushdie confuses Islamofascist hyberbole crafted to pump up jihadists with the varied political agendas that underly such rhetoric. There are very few terrorist movements that actually believe they can reconstitute the Caliphate. Some do, of course, but Rushdie lumps all terrorist movements in with this extremist few. This mentality effectively reduces the options for a country such as the US to extermination of all terrorists, a pipe dream which has clearly backfired.

 

The US and Iran are making motions to establish a dialogue. That, to me, given Iran's support of several movements that employ terrorism, would be a step in the right direction.

[JayB]

Did either of you listen to the speech? Hard to tell from the comments.

 

I'm sorry - although most people are probably quite relieved to hear - that I am just too busy to respond to anything at length today.

 

Some of the Islamist activity fits into neat framework of political violence motivated by concrete grievances that are amenable to negotiated settlements by national powers. Others - like the murder of Theo Van Gough and the "Mohammad Cartoon," episode clearly are not - unless you were to frame the editor of the paper that published them as "the occupier" and Muslim sensibilities as "the occupied" - and Rushdie makes the fact that his commentary in the speech is concerned with the latter of the two phenomena quite clear. I think that you could probably listen to half of the mp3 in the time that it took to crank out a single post.

 

Carl - I could think of no more effective means to discredit Von Hayek than for Sach's to embrace his ideas. Most scientists, like most doctors, are economically illiterate, yet presume otherwise, so it's no surprise that he chose to publish this essay in SciAm as opposed to "The American Economic Review."

[cj001f]

Carl - I could think of no more effective means to discredit Von Hayek than for Sach's to embrace his ideas. Most scientists, like most doctors, are economically illiterate, yet presume otherwise, so it's no surprise that he chose to publish this essay in SciAm as opposed to "The American Economic Review."

 

What I find most interesting about Economics is even among the presumed masters of the craft, not to mention the mere literate, there is a substantially disparate group of ferociously defended opinions on the relative merit of various policies. How people pick and choose those is terribly amusing

[JayB]

Carl - I could think of no more effective means to discredit Von Hayek than for Sach's to embrace his ideas. Most scientists, like most doctors, are economically illiterate, yet presume otherwise, so it's no surprise that he chose to publish this essay in SciAm as opposed to "The American Economic Review."

 

What I find most interesting about Economics is even among the presumed masters of the craft, not to mention the mere literate, there is a substantially disparate group of ferociously defended opinions on the relative merit of various policies. How people pick and choose those is terribly amusing

 

Kind of like the creationists presuming that technical disagreements about the particulars of evolution amongst scientists vindicate their contention that it never occured.

 

Or the great lament that the great unwashed choose to align themselves with a vocal minority that disputes the informed consensus on climate change.

 

Sorry - but trade barriers, subsidies, price controls, etc. are the economic equivalent of creationism. Biology had Lysenko, economics has its equivalents. I agree though, who people align themselves with is revealing.

[prole]

Sorry - but trade barriers, subsidies, price controls, etc. are the economic equivalent of creationism. Biology had Lysenko, economics has its equivalents. I agree though, who people align themselves with is revealing.

 

Congratulations! Spoken like a true fundamentalist.

[JayB]

Yes.

 

Say there sport, when your aren't boning up on the counterhegemonic subtexts in meta-critical discourses and whatnot, you should dedicate yourself to finding a means of coordinating supply and demand that does so more efficiently than the price mechanism, and that enables one to quantify and restrain the missallocation of productive resources more effectively than profits and losses. Should keep you busy for a semester or two.

 

That aside, glad to see that everyone completely missed the guy's point - but in a way, the responses here have been a more concrete vindication of his arguments and perspective than anything that I could have come up with.

[cj001f]

Kind of like the creationists presuming that technical disagreements about the particulars of evolution amongst scientists vindicate their contention that it never occured.

 

Or the great lament that the great unwashed choose to align themselves with a vocal minority that disputes the informed consensus on climate change.

 

Sorry - but trade barriers, subsidies, price controls, etc. are the economic equivalent of creationism. Biology had Lysenko, economics has its equivalents. I agree though, who people align themselves with is revealing.

 

Hark - is that another self professed expert outside of their sphere? Or are your assertions of his economic ignorance tongue in cheek?

http://www.earth.columbia.edu/about/director/documents/Sachs2-pagebioJune2006_005.pdf

 

[JayB]

Linus Pauling and Vitamin C. Einstein and quantum uncertainty.

 

Both had a stature in their own fields that far exceeds Sach's stature amongst professional economists, and both doggedly championed an idea or two within their disciplines that failed to convince their peers.

 

 

Better stop knocking the few climatologists who dispute global warming if you're going to go this route, and start chugging down the multi-gram megadoses of C while you are at it.

[cj001f]

you missed Milton Friedman there JayB

[JayB]

Kind of like the creationists presuming that technical disagreements about the particulars of evolution amongst scientists vindicate their contention that it never occured.

 

Or the great lament that the great unwashed choose to align themselves with a vocal minority that disputes the informed consensus on climate change.

 

Sorry - but trade barriers, subsidies, price controls, etc. are the economic equivalent of creationism. Biology had Lysenko, economics has its equivalents. I agree though, who people align themselves with is revealing.

 

Hark - is that another self professed expert outside of their sphere? Or are your assertions of his economic ignorance tongue in cheek?

http://www.earth.columbia.edu/about/director/documents/Sachs2-pagebioJune2006_005.pdf

 

 

Here's a link to the actual article:

 

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000AF3D5-6DC9-152E-A9F183414B7F0000

 

And here's a quote from the first paragraph which is either a deliberate misrepresentation or a fundamental misunderstanding of Von Hayek's central argument:

 

"Austrian-born free-market economist Friedrich August von Hayek suggested in the 1940s that high taxation would be a "road to serfdom," a threat to freedom itself."

 

This is factually wrong, but I suspect that he's counting on the fact that most of the folks reading that article shoot a quizzical glance at the page, say "Von who..." and take his word for it. The rest of the article is hardly an improvement.

 

 

[cj001f]

And here's a quote from the first paragraph which is either a deliberate misrepresentation or a fundamental misunderstanding of Von Hayek's central argument:

 

"Austrian-born free-market economist Friedrich August von Hayek suggested in the 1940s that high taxation would be a "road to serfdom," a threat to freedom itself."

 

This is factually wrong, but I suspect that he's counting on the fact that most of the folks reading that article shoot a quizzical glance at the page, say "Von who..." and take his word for it. The rest of the article is hardly an improvement.

 

[marylou]

Whoooohhh there. Hot pics Oly. Hey now, he's either got a 6 figure bank account or a multiple digit digit......looks like he's getting the 67 virgins (or whatever that number is ) before he leaves earth, wonder what that tells the Islamic Fanatics?

 

You are so right, all women are for sale.

 

Be nice people, that's Padma, his wife. By the way, she's way more smokin' hot than either of those pictures would suggest, and she's smart as hell.

 

Salman may not be Mr. Foxy, but he's also smart as hell, and sometimes hot women and smart guys end up together.

[JayB]

And here's a quote from the first paragraph which is either a deliberate misrepresentation or a fundamental misunderstanding of Von Hayek's central argument:

 

"Austrian-born free-market economist Friedrich August von Hayek suggested in the 1940s that high taxation would be a "road to serfdom," a threat to freedom itself."

 

This is factually wrong, but I suspect that he's counting on the fact that most of the folks reading that article shoot a quizzical glance at the page, say "Von who..." and take his word for it. The rest of the article is hardly an improvement.

 

 

Closer, but still off the mark. I gave my copy away to a friend, but I'd be willing to but what you've got there is someone's rather crude attempts to summarize a particular sub-argument in cartoon form, rather than a direct quote from the text.

 

Here's a better link for you:

 

Read Me!

[prole]

Say there sport, when your aren't boning up on your neoclassical Chicago-school quackery and drawing supply and demand diagrams on the back of cocktail napkins and whatnot, you should dedicate yourself to finding out how trade barriers, price controls, and subsidies, etc. contributed to the global power of Britain, then to the emergent U.S., and now the rise of China. Then how said policies prompted unprecedented economic growth, since unmatched, in S. Korea and the other "Asian tigers". In whose interest they have worked for and when. Then explain how the capitalist price mechanism has restrained what, when looking around at the state of the planet and at the majority of its human (not to mention its nonhuman) inhabitants, looks like the biggest fucking unrestrained misappropriation of resources the world has ever seen. Should keep you busy for a semester or two.

 

P.S. Didn't Holden Caufield say something about people who say "sport"?

 

That aside, glad to see that everyone completely missed the guy's point - but in a way, the responses here have been a more concrete vindication of his arguments and perspective than anything that I could have come up with.

 

What exactly was the point? I don't think his point holds without producing the illusionary leftists he's referring to. Nice trick turning it back around on the responses (you even absolve yourself of having to respond to them at all). I for one would love an elaboration on the "concrete vindication" you teased out of them, without all the rhetorical bluster this time, I hope.

[foraker]

when your aren't boning up on the counterhegemonic subtexts in meta-critical discourses and whatnot, you should dedicate yourself to finding a means of coordinating supply and demand that does so more efficiently than the price mechanism, and that enables one to quantify and restrain the missallocation of productive resources more effectively than profits and losses.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Did either of you listen to the speech? Hard to tell from the comments.

 

This is our problem?

 

 

Some of the Islamist activity fits into neat framework of political violence motivated by concrete grievances that are amenable to negotiated settlements by national powers. Others - like the murder of Theo Van Gough and the "Mohammad Cartoon," episode clearly are not

 

I've heard Rushdie's speech. In fact, I've heard his speel several times on the interview circuit.

 

Most, not some, of terrorist actions by Islamicists fit into the category I described earlier. The latter examples you gave were either isolated incidents, or didn't really have any long term legs. The exception to this are the immigrant riots in Europe, which seem to be more akin to the race riots in our own past than to some new form of violent religious zealotry.

[Crux]

If Rushdie is in agreement with most or all of the points made above, then what exactly is the *mistake* being made by leftists? Where/who are the phantom leftists he's on about? bell hooks? Huh? Is it possible that Rushdie's intimate relationship with and personal danger from Islamic fundamentalism has clouded his thinking?

 

Rushdie would have a hard time finding his mythical Leftie. His death threat collection certainly colors his thinking and sours his view of Islamic fundamentalism, appropriately so, but his broadbrush denouncement of the Failed Left constitutes an unfocused, and therefore failed idea.

Given the assumption that the article and the interview are authentic, it appears obvious that the relentless pressure suffered by Rushdie through all the death-threat years has indeed colored his thinking -- to an extent where the toll taken upon him now includes his once celebrated capacity to comprehensively evaluate and rationally describe the world around him. I submit as exhibit-A his absurdly oxymoronic equivocation of Islam and fascism, and as exhibit-B his myopic perception of the "left" as being both signifcant and monolithic today when it is neither.

[Dechristo]

Do you really believe (presume) you have a more knowledgeable and observant view of Islam and Islamic culture than someone who was raised in a muslim family and lived his adolescence in Pakistan? What wisdom you possess...

 

Bio

 

President of PEN American Center

 

from Wikipedia:

"On 14 February 1989, a fatwa requiring Rushdie's execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, calling the book "blasphemous against Islam," and a bounty was offered for the death of Rushdie who was thus forced to live in hiding for years to come.

 

On 7 March 1989, the United Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy.

 

Meanwhile, further violence occurred around the world, with the firebombing of bookstores. Muslim communities throughout the world held public rallies in which copies of the book were burned. Several people associated with translating or publishing the book were attacked and seriously injured or killed."

[Crux]

Again, especially considering his remarkable background and considerable intellectual achievements, Rushdie seems to be astonishingly deluded in regard to his perceptions of fascism and the political left. Again, I suggest such a skewed point of view (one which is essentially identical to the debunked views of such great thinkers as our current POTUS) can reasonably be explained as an unfortunate consequence of the enormous strain that Rushdie has heroically endured for so many years. One might hope the supermodel provides some consolation, that Rushdie live a very long life and continue to prosper, and that his genius not be discounted in the greater picture simply because he blew an intellectual gasket along the way to retirement.

[Dechristo]

Maybe this will help: Definitions of Fascism

 

With many definitions of "fascism" in use today, perhaps part of the disagreement is semantic in the ascription to different connotations.

[Stonehead]

Ok, so Rushdie isn’t, in anyone’s wildest imaginations, a nihilist but he’s also to be contrasted against the religious absolutist, which he finds that the radical Islamists represent.

 

There are aspects of the Left that he finds disconcerting, in particular, the tacit approval of cultural relativism. He takes the trouble to distinguish between multiculturalism, which he says is present day reality, and cultural relativism, which is a mindset that accepts all cultures at face value and gives all a free rein. The problem is that in acceptance of all cultures also means acceptance of elements such as genital mutilation, the wearing of veils, etc., all of which he lumps together as unacceptable practices contrary to certain Western values such as liberty.

 

I take it that the failure to see phantom tigers in the tree is not the problem; rather it’s the failure to see the very real threat of actual tigers that may cause the end of us.

 

Although I would think that subjugation from without (invasion, occupation) makes the problem worse, rather is should be reform from within.

 

http://www.ismaili.net/timeline/2006/20061012agakhan-interview.html

 

Gotta run...

[JayB]

I don't have time to add more than a hint to help the folks who have thus far missed the point. The first is that he makes it clear that he is not concerning himself with concrete acts of terrorism. He is talking about the prism through which his western contemporaries view the ideology which motivates these acts.

 

The only other thing that I have time to comment on at the moment is the bizarre conceit on display here with regards to this man's understanding of Islam. He was raised in Pakistan by Muslim parents, and his understanding of Islam and its various political manifestations is less credible than your own? Is this true of Hirsaan Ali as well? Ibn Warraq? Please.

[JayB]

Gotta plug this one again too. Best primer on how Socialism attained its status as the opiate of the intellectuals out there, IMO.

 

The Intellectuals and Socialism. Hayek, 1949.

 

"The term 'intellectuals,' however, does not at once convey the true picture of the large class to which we refer...This is neither that of the original thinker nor that of the scholar or expert in a particular field of thought. The typical intellectual need be neither: he neither posesses a special knowledge of anything in particular, nor need he even be particularly intelligent, to perform his role as intermediary in the spreading of ideas...."

 

"In the sense in which we are using the term, the intellectuals are in fact a fairly new phenomenon of history. Though nobody will regret that education has ceased to be a privilege of the propertied classes, the fact that the propertied classes are no longer the best educated and the fact that large numbers of people who owe their position solely to their general education do not possess that experience of the working of the economic system which the administration of property gives, are important for understanding the role of the intellectual. Professor Schumpeter...has not unfairly stressed that it is the absence of direct responsibility for practical affairs and the consequent absence of first hand knowledge of them which distinguishes the typical intellectual from other people who also wield the power of the written and spoken word. It would lead too afar, however, to examine here further the development of this class and the curious claim which has been advanced by one of its theorists that it was the only one whose views were not decidedly influenced by its own economic interests."

 

Read the whole thing. Perhaps a better title would be "A Brief History of the Parlor Marxist." Or "Prole - a Prehistory."