Denis and All.
You said:
> Also, one must remember that cultures, like everything else on this
> planet, change and evolve. And I would add, especially nowadays, where
> satellite TVs broadcast cultural values all around the world, where
> Internet is omnipresent (one has to see the hundreds of Internet cafes
> in Cairo or Louxor to understand how quickly this world is changing)
> and where more and more people live in countries they weren't born in.
> With such cultural clashes (pious muslims next to cyberporn sites
> bieng just an example), I wonder why things do not blow up more
> regularly, to be frank. Cultural values all around the world are
> changing quickly, more quickly than ever before, and humans only have
> so much "cultural stretchability". We can only hope the world won't
> miss its next static latch and fall back into the Dark Ages that have
> engulfed Afghanistan.
Thanks for your story and profoundly wise words, I agree to it all.
Regarding a more value-conscious attitude I know the navel-
contemplation you describe, perhaps it was exactly THAT I saw a
relief from. What emerged - first - after the Sep.11 in our
Norwegian debate was the old leftists who after a few perfunctory
regrets started on the here's-what-America-gets-for ...and then
Hiroshima, Vietnam ...etc. You felt that in spite of their warnings
against hastily reaction, really hoped that the US would send
missiles flying so that their version of history (which haven't moved
beyond the cold war stage) would be fulfilled.
Re. what you write about the new technology - internet cafes etc.
in the Middle East cities - its interesting to speculate about where
this will lead. If you noticed the "Patronizing Attitude" thread it was
suggested that suppressing science of that day lead to the divide
of western culture. I am not all convinced that this could have been
avoided: that religion and science don't harbour some built-in
resentment - after all this is the Social vs Intellect struggle of the
MoQ. Experts say that Islam says nothing about science, but is
this valid? When the Taliban arrested UN workers for acting as
missionaries it's way off in the traditional sense, yet, CAN the
Afghanistanis (f.ex.) become modern without converting to
Western "intellectualism"; become divided into orthodoxy and
secularism like Israel and the West?
> But for that, as Bo hints, the world (or at least, we westerners)
> would need a real understanding of our own values, of their roots and
> conditions of existence. Perhaps we would then be spared the idiotic
> messages about the "clashes of civilizations", which send us back to
> the tribal age and ignore the monumental changes that are afoot in the
> world.
Agreed. Seeing it as civilization vs barbarism is all wrong, while
MoQ's level theory opens up a different view. But as either party
refuses to use this tool ...!
> PS : of course, I wholly agree with the current dismantlement of
> terrorist cells. There is a difference between understanding what
> pushes people to commit crimes and giving a criminal a gun so he can
> kill you. One hints at intelligence, the other at monumental stupidity
Complete agreement.
Bo
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