"Arts and Letters Daily" Watch
For what it's worth, I direct your attention to the usually laudable www.aldaily.com, the source for so much of our intellectual conversation. Certain readers in the past have raised the question of whether the ol' AL leans conservative, or at least if its chief editor, Denis Dutton, does. (And if not conservative, then at least chauvinistically pro-Western, as its somewhat one-sided presentation of the Danish cartoon affair hinted.) A glance at Dutton's website (complete with reviews of Rorty, Baudrillard, and Adorno--not all disparaging!--among others) should show that he's anything but a party hack. However, I was disappointed this week to see this article linked to. In it, the Philadelphia Inquirer's book critic, Carlin Romano, tackles the newest offering from Efraim Karsh, Islamic Imperialism, with nary a negative word in sight. Now, what good does it do us exactly to be presented with a completely unreflective review with the critic parroting the crudest parts of the author's argument? To whit:
"Muslim scholars, proud of Islam's cultural feats, often don't know what to say about its endemic violence and militarism."
"Islam began in banditry."
"Anyone not expert on early Islam will need a scorecard to follow the innumerable murders, impalings, decapitations and dismemberments that marked the early Islamic caliphates and Shiite/Sunni split. You think what's happening in Iraq is new?"
"Karsh's history, which takes Islam right through the Ottomans and Osama, indicates that both the White House and press ignored a crucial historical truth: Cultures rooted in violence, if not shown another way of life before being given back a right of self-determination, slip back into it."
What's especially dastardly about Karsh's argument (or Romano's presentation of it) is that it gives an ostensibly materialistic account. So you get phrases like "secular colonialist payoffs - money, booty, territory," and "a facade that concealed what was effectively a secular and increasingly absolutist rule," "one by which Arab caliphs could 'enjoy the material fruits of imperial expansion.'" Oh, so like the Roman Empire, right? Or Spain in the West Indies? Or Europeans in North America? Or the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the Middle East? Right?? Wrong, I guess, because neither Karsh nor Romano is forthcoming in making any mention of those other examples of imperialist expansion. You would think it would be impossible to combine racism with materialism, since the two seem to be contradictory (i.e. we're going to start from material premises, not "endemic" traits), but apparently the authors want it both ways. For AL Daily's editors to link to this pseudo-article now, at a time when racist portrayals of Muslims are on the rise, is to me totally irresponsible.
"Muslim scholars, proud of Islam's cultural feats, often don't know what to say about its endemic violence and militarism."
"Islam began in banditry."
"Anyone not expert on early Islam will need a scorecard to follow the innumerable murders, impalings, decapitations and dismemberments that marked the early Islamic caliphates and Shiite/Sunni split. You think what's happening in Iraq is new?"
"Karsh's history, which takes Islam right through the Ottomans and Osama, indicates that both the White House and press ignored a crucial historical truth: Cultures rooted in violence, if not shown another way of life before being given back a right of self-determination, slip back into it."
What's especially dastardly about Karsh's argument (or Romano's presentation of it) is that it gives an ostensibly materialistic account. So you get phrases like "secular colonialist payoffs - money, booty, territory," and "a facade that concealed what was effectively a secular and increasingly absolutist rule," "one by which Arab caliphs could 'enjoy the material fruits of imperial expansion.'" Oh, so like the Roman Empire, right? Or Spain in the West Indies? Or Europeans in North America? Or the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the Middle East? Right?? Wrong, I guess, because neither Karsh nor Romano is forthcoming in making any mention of those other examples of imperialist expansion. You would think it would be impossible to combine racism with materialism, since the two seem to be contradictory (i.e. we're going to start from material premises, not "endemic" traits), but apparently the authors want it both ways. For AL Daily's editors to link to this pseudo-article now, at a time when racist portrayals of Muslims are on the rise, is to me totally irresponsible.
posted by to scranton at 7:18 PM
4 Comments:
Not that anti-Semitism isn't on the rise, too. Mel Gibson still runs free.
Have you read Romano's book? Otherwise, I'm a bit wary of your review of this guy's review. You don't disagree with any of the facts--just with the way they are portrayed. It's not controversial that Islam began with violence, nor is it salient to the classification of Islam as an imperialistic ideology that other imperialistic ideologies exist.
But I'm more concerned with the flippant way you refer to ALDaily's "one-sided presentation of the Danish cartoon affair". Since when do we take it for granted that there were two sides to the cartoon "debate"?
Karsh wrote the book, Romano is the critic. You're absolutely right, it's not controversial that Islamic history should involve violence, nor should one have to make it a point in a short review to bring up other imperialistic ideologies (although perhaps it would have made it a better and more thoughtful review). But I'm not interested in this review in a vacuum. There are probably much worse reviews of this book...like these I just googled:
http://www.nrbookservice.com/products/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c6893
http://www.city-journal.org/html/rev2006-06-04td.html
I can't tell if the first is nothing more than an editor's blurb, but it presents itself as a "review." Theodore Dalrymple is normally someone I can read, even enjoy at times, but "the quest for a moderate Islam may be futile"? "[Privatization of Islam] would spell its doom" because "it's all or nothing"? This is modern day anti-Semitism. The idea that all Muslims are some sort of sneaky sui generis sect that all pledge allegiance to something higher than their respective nations belongs in the Protocols. Now, as I said, these reviews come a dime a dozen. That's fine; what's not fine is that they should intrude on our beloved Arts and Letters Daily. As I said, I'm not necessarily just looking at the content, but the circumstances. What would inspire the editors to include Romano's piece? ESPECIALLY right now? Can you honestly just click on that link, read a completely uncritical review of a one-sided argument, and not think, "Now why is this worth my time exactly?" That was my reaction.
You'll have to ask someone else about the website's treatment of the Danish cartoon affair, because I was not the one keeping tabs at the time. This is not necessarily my view, but one of the "questions raised" that I mentioned earlier. (If I have been sloppy here, I cede it, but that means little for my greater point.) But even if you agree that there was a "right" party in the Danish cartoon scandal, as I do, and it was the Danes, because they have a right to free speech, there can still be two sides. Hell, for all I know there can be a hundred sides. But just to imagine two, there could be the side that "Oh yes, the Danes are in the right, because you cannot impinge upon free speech, no matter how offensive" and the side that "Well, we see that primitive A-rabs are once again crapping their robes over our freedoms," an opinion that I'm sure I could find for you in droves if you want it. So there are two potential sides to an answer that is not necessarily in doubt.
By the way, you each said something different: Austin- "Islam began with violence"
Scantron-"Islamic history [involved] violence"
With regard to the Danish cartoon affair, we take it for granted that there were two sides of a debate because there were clearly (at least) two groups of people discussing the issue. If you're considering this to be a once sided issue a priori, then it must be the case that you have already reduced the other side to less than worthy as interlocutors or representatives of a belief or opinion. Even if you vehemently disagree with someone, as long as you're talking to them there are two sides of a debate (of course once you're not, other problems arise, no?) ALDaily however, was not simply being one sided in the representation of a debate, but they were couching their posts in a language which extended past the context of the situation at hand and consistently made claims about Islam, Muslims, Arabs, Orientals, etc. as a group in general. Oftentimes, granted, these views were presented as quotations from linked articles, but this is in a way complicity by means of representation of the viewpoint. al-Daily was in effect producing the very conditions required to efface the second partner in any potential debate by debasing him/her as a barbaric, uncivilized other with whom discussion is de facto impossible. This is a clear case of a fallacy of composition, but moreover it creates a prejudiced staging for any other discourse on the subject. This is a foreclosure of meaningful interaction and a subtle yet vile conservatism parading itself as the heir to humanistic, rational discourse.
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