Pious Passion On Left and Right in Dictatorship Briefly, I recommend as excellent reading when seeking context for the Taliban— Riesebrodt, Martin. Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran. Trans. by Don Renau. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993 —although the text is a bit dry. It reads like a dissertation revised to book form, and is translated to English from German. There's a Google books preview available; I recommend the first chapter (especially pages 10-20, with attention to the charts drawn on pages 17 and 19).
That's not the difference between left and right, but the difference between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. And there has been no shortage of right-wing totalitarian movements.
Thoughts on the Taliban The Taliban seem to me more akin to something written twenty-six years ago about the state of Islam in international politics: To the careful observer of Muslim countries it is quite evident that a phenomenon hardly visible in the 1960s and the early half of the 70s appears to be gaining momentum and mass approval. A growing consensus among an increasing number of intellectuals as well as the common people suggests that "the time has come to try Islam." There also is evidence that an increasing number of national governments feel it necessary to appeal to Islamic principles to maintain legitimacy. They do this either through the adoption of Islamic apologetics to justify their policies or through the implementation of various Islamic laws. There are numerous examples of such efforts in press reports in the 1970s and 80s. In Pakistan, Zia Ul-Haqq, upon assuming office, aligned himself with the Jamaati Islam and attempted to implement Islamic laws. Other nations, including Turkey, Egypt, Kuwait, Libya, Bangladesh, the Sudan and Indonesia, introduced various Islamic laws. Syria found it necessary to explain that Baath ideology is grounded in Islam, while Ja'far al-Numeiry of the Sudan has written a book justifying Islamic government, entitled The Islamic System: Why? The Islamic revolution in Iran more than any other event in recent history has helped focus Western public opinion, through television and the press, on the troubled conditions prevailing in various Islamic countries. The revolution has generated numerous texts, articles and programs dealing with "Islamic revolutionaries," the activities of the "militants" and the ascendancy of the "fundamentalists" in various nations. The perspectives of the scholars and newsmen reporting these phenomena have varied. Despite the millions of words describing the ideological developments in the area and the socio-political conditions that inspired them, many readers as well as writers continue to perceive those who seek an Islamic identity, an Islamic state or an Islamic order as the radical backward looking fringe who have rejected the enlightenment of modernization and Westernization. Some view their religion, Islam, as intrinsically evil or, at best obscurantist. The growing consensus in Islamic countries for the necessity of articulating an Islamic world view—that can define, supervise and govern all aspects of life—is part of the ongoing search for dignity, identity and purpose. It is an attempt to provide authentic answers to basic human questions such as: Who am I? And where am I going? These are questions that have challenged several generations of Muslims throughout this century as their countries have been conquered, divided, parceled out and assigned to various spheres of foreign influence. (Haddad) Tyranny occurs in many forms. The Bible recalls a Jewish tyrant (Herod), as well as many pagan leaders to whom the term could be applied. The growing Catholic Church slipped easily into the tyrant's role, a drama that would span over a millennium before the rise of Protestantism. The Protestants saw their own dabblings with tyranny, including the British Empire. In this, incidentally, we see a remarkable transition; where the Catholic tyranny was invested in the authority of God, the British Empire was invested in the authority of finance. (See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.) We have since seen that model evolve, with the Russian Revolution attending too much to ideology and too little to industry, and the Third Reich—of whom little good is ever said. At some point, we might understand if it occurs to someone to contextualize tyranny in Islamic rhetoric. It's not a new phenomenon insofar as Muslim history is littered with tyrants both great and petty, unique and mundane. But a broader ideology has begun to coalesce, and how many of today's usual suspects are on Haddad's list? Pakistan? Egypt? Kuwait, Sudan, Libya? Syria? Even Bangladesh is not wholly removed from the contemporary melodrama. The Taliban represent—figuratively, though not deliberately—a crossroads, a psychological phenomenon. In the context of Riesebrodt's consideration of fundamentalism, the Taliban have undergone their mythical regress and their identical (or "identification") authenticity, but present a complicated mixture of the literalist and experiential, a "rational" and charismatic fundamentalism. This is not specifically by design. This blend is the embodiment of the adage that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. The information processed is pre-filtered according to an exceptionally limited number of standards that produce functionally common outcomes. They experience the passion of ideas, but haven't a clue what to do with them. This aspect is most clearly demonstrated by people's fear of a world Islamic order. Such an outcome is untenable. It is presently evident that Muslims in some locales have more problems getting along than even the Christians. A world revolution as conceived by a Khomeni, bin Laden, or Omar, would be unsustainable. While this is one of the reasons I don't fear a worldwide Islamic revolution, the proposition does little to comfort some Americans. Nor does it seem to register with the Taliban, who already find themselves in unpleasant conflict with Pakistani qazis. The problem with unadulterated idealism is that it cannot function; one must either erroneously presuppose common outlook, or create it. And in all its history, one of the things humankind has never accomplished is a gigantic paradigm shift without deadly turbulence. The Taliban would be foolish to think they are the ones to find a way around that. But I'm not sure it's even occurred to them. If they can establish the foundation, they can leave it for others to figure out in the faith that they have done God's work. Whether or not God would agree remains unknown. ____________________ Notes: Haddad, Yvonne Y. "The Islamic Alternative". The Link, v15, n4. September-October, 1982. Americans for Middle East Understanding. AMEU.org. Accessed March 31, 2009. http://www.ameu.org/page.asp?iid=120&aid=163 Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 1904-5. University of Virginia. Accessed March 31, 2009. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/weber/toc.html Reisebrodt, Martin. Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran. Berkeley: University of California, 1993. Google Books. Accessed March 31, 2009. http://books.google.com/books?id=YPX9_545orkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=pious passion
(Insert Title Here) By now it's fairly routine. I do what I can to cut out some information, but mostly it's a matter of practice. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I think the bigger question is ...why do you do it? Surely you don't actually think that people read all those wordy, lengthy, convoluted posts that you present? And the footnotes? Who actually reads the shit, or even cares? Baron Max
His threads are expertly crafted. Three thumbs up for Tiassa- Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I know that i have read all his posts, from the early years to the current ones.
