The Re-Primitivization of the World

Jihad Watch ^ | December 31, 2006 | Hugh Fitzgerald

[quidnunc]

As Saddam was being hung, the voices of several of those present in the room were heard crying out. They didn't cry out "a bicameral legislature!" They didn't cry out "checks and balances, for god's sake let us have checks and balances." They didn't cry out "we want a government of limited powers." No, they cried out "Moqtada al-Sadr, Moqtada al-Sadr."

Amurath an Amurath succeeds.

And will, until it is realized that people suffused with the tenets and attitudes of Islam are not interested in Western parliamentary democracy. Nor are they interested in guarantees of the rights of minorities and especially of the individual, or in the Spirit of Liberty, which is defined by Learned Hand as the spirit that is "not quite sure that it is right." Try to imagine a Muslim Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, James Wilson, Clay or Webster or Calhoun or John Randolph of Roanoke, Lincoln, or for that matter a Muslim John Marshall, a Muslim Louis Brandeis, a Muslim Oliver Wendell Holmes. You can't. And you know why.

And unless, and until, the Camp of Infidels understands that it must not only understand, but make its constant theme, the connection between those assorted amuraths and the politico-religio-legal system of Islam, that refuses to locate legitimacy in the will of mere mortals, all of them rightfully slaves of Allah, and that urges submission to the ruler, no matter how despotic, as long as he is declared to be a Muslim, you never will be able to imagine such creatures. They will continue to be chimerical as long as the connection between the inshallah-fatalism of Islam and the economic backwardness, despite the OPEC trillions, of Muslim lands (where the only real economies are found, in some form, in those countries where Islam has been constrained — as in Turkey or Tunisia) continues to go unnoticed. And the connection between the social failures, the moral failures, the intellectual failures, of Muslim societies must be connected to the doctrines, the teachings, the attitudes, the atmospherics of Islam. The case for such a connection is overwhelming. It will not be easy to deny it, and at the very least, the world's Infidels will see that connection, and so will the most advanced people born into Islam. It will put Islam permanently on the defensive among its own adherents, who will indeed begin to wonder why their countries have a series of despots succeeded by other despots, why their countries are so naturally violent in their politics, why they are, despite such oil revenues, unable or unwilling to create advanced economies, why their societies, so hostile to non-Muslims and to women, will remain estranged from the rest of the world as that world passes them by, and why the habit of mental submission encouraged by Islam will always prevent them from the enterprise of science, or from all else that requires the encouragement, and not the punishment, of free and skeptical inquiry.

-snip-

[Candor7]

Again you show the parallels between the Nordic mythology of Tolkein and the images of Islamofascism.

And the elfin language of Legolas resembles Gaelic.

"Tangado haid! Leithio i philinn!"

We will fight the Islamofascists and grind them to ashes and dust.

And we need to get them all to gather in one spot. Thats the ticket!

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

They even scream a lot alike...

[AnAmericanMother]

Outside of some monestaries — especially in Iteland — scholarship ceased to be.

There aren't many written records for scholars to study.

This simply is untrue.

I just finished a college-level course on the history of Western church music, taught by our choir director (who has a doctorate from Juilliard and did a Fulbright at the Lyons Conservatory).

We have thousands of written records from the late Roman empire right on into the reign of Charlemagne. I just got through studying the 1st volume of the Oxford Anthology of Music and there are plenty of music manuscripts from this period as well as a lot of other stuff.

The thing is, there was just so MUCH of it that even though things were lost over time a great deal remains. The monasteries did good work preserving a lot of classical literature that would otherwise have been lost.

The Victorians - especially the Germans - wanted history to Teach A Lesson. They greatly exaggerated the darkness of the "Dark Ages" because they loved the Renaissance period, and they enjoyed the moral lesson of the progression from virtuous Roman Republic, decadent Roman Empire, dreadful Dark Ages, and the returning dawn of the Renaissance that recovered the best of the Romans. "Every picture tells a story."

[AnAmericanMother]

Actually, there are two Elvish languages, neither of which is based on Gaelic.

The High Elven, Quenya, is based on Finnish. The "ordinary" Elvish tongue, Sindarin, is based on Welsh.

[quidnunc]

AnAmericanMother wrote: (Outside of some monestaries — especially in Iteland — scholarship ceased to be. There aren't many written records for scholars to study.) This simply is untrue. I just finished a college-level course on the history of Western church music, taught by our choir director (who has a doctorate from Juilliard and did a Fulbright at the Lyons Conservatory). We have thousands of written records from the late Roman empire right on into the reign of Charlemagne. I just got through studying the 1st volume of the Oxford Anthology of Music and there are plenty of music manuscripts from this period as well as a lot of other stuff. The thing is, there was just so MUCH of it that even though things were lost over time a great deal remains. The monasteries did good work preserving a lot of classical literature that would otherwise have been lost. The Victorians - especially the Germans - wanted history to Teach A Lesson. They greatly exaggerated the darkness of the "Dark Ages" because they loved the Renaissance period, and they enjoyed the moral lesson of the progression from virtuous Roman Republic, decadent Roman Empire, dreadful Dark Ages, and the returning dawn of the Renaissance that recovered the best of the Romans. "Every picture tells a story."

Music manuscripts… can you say the Church?

The Dark Ages — the period from the late 400sAD to about 1000AD was marked by a lack of written historical records.

What we know largely comes from monestary records and archeology.

One could not earn a degree with a major in history from Beloit College in the '50 as I did without being well-grounded in the history of Western Civilization.

We can thank the monastic movement for most of the written records of the period from the fall of the Roman empire to the rise of feudalism.

This knowledge has been augmented through other non-written sources such as archeology and forensic pathology.

[quidnunc]

PS: Music manuscripts add very little to the historical understanding of the period outside of the very narrow nich of Church music.

[Cronos]

I've heard many Leftists say that America is nothing special -- just lucky. We stumbled on a land that was rich in resources, and -- voila! -- we are now rich and powerful. All because of an accident of history.

Not really -- Americans had the gumption and the will to improve their lot in life because of a strong faith in christianity which is a religion for optimists, a religion with a loving God, unlike Islam which is submission, which deals with a dreadful, evil deity Allah (aka Satan).

[Cronos]

The irony is that Islam was once the most sophisticated an learned culture in the world. While we were wallowing in wattle and daub muslims were building great centers of learning. Something went terribly awry in Islam. Now Islam has become a synonym for violent, mindless reaction and corruption.

Islam was never a sophisticated and / or learned culture. Islam in it's "Golden Age" from the 8th to the 12th century was one in which there were Islamic rulers ruling over vast numbers of Christians and Jews (in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, North Africa, Spain), Zoroastrians (in Iraq, Iran) and Hindus and Buddhists (in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia etc.)

As the numbers of the "infidels" dwindled, the society as a whole decayed -- with more Muslime %s, more decay. All "Islamic" thought and "discoveries" are really by the cultures that were decimated by the cult of Islam -- e.g. "arabic" numerals were actually developed in Hindustan -- India, nearly a millenia before the Muslimes usurped it and passed it off as their own. Omar Khayyam was a PERSIAN poet who was hardly Muslime. The fabulous wealth of the Ummayyad Caliphate in Baghdad was due to Christians.

Thank God the Mongols came and destroyed these scum

[livius]

Oh please, Islam was never advanced. It was a warrior cult that took over other Middle Eastern societies that actually were advanced, ranging from Iraq and Iran to Spain. The learning came from the cultures Islam conquered, but in all cases it extinguished learning, freedom and art within 100 years of its arrival.

[SierraWasp]

How perfectly right you are!!! Precisely correct!!! America is the most exceptional nation ever to exist on planet Earth, due to the works of God through inspired people. The constitution is the second most inspired written word by mankind, up until some of the more recent amendments, that is...

[Cronos]

Hugh doesn't read a lot of history does he? Islamic intellectual culture at one point in history was far more advanced than Western culture. Islamic cultures kept alive learning when other parts of the world were mucking about in the Dark Ages

and

That was true until the Christian West freed itself from an Orthodoxy that surpressed science and individual choice. Islam got worse and paid the price. They are not getting better.

That is incorrect. There was no Islamic intellectual culture -- remember that at that time, much of what we call the Muslime world was still largely Christian and there were only Muslime rulers ruling over the remnants of the Byzantine and Persian Empires.

What we call the "Dark Ages" was actually a time when the foundations of thought, of science were laid down, a time when monks dabbling with herbology led to the rise of pharmaceuticals, when Alchemists dabbled with primitive chemistry, when Northern and Eastern Europe were brought out of savageness and they converted to Christianity -- with Lithuania only becoming Christian in the 11th/12 century. No, there were no DARK ages, just a setting of the ground for Judeo-Christian civilisation to spread.

[Cronos]

And when the West re-claimed the classical learning the new era became proclaimed as the Renaissance. And we've been far ahead ever since.

One of the events that hastened this was the invasion of the Mongols, sadly the Turkics were converted to Islam (though some, like the Bulgars did become Christian)

[Admin Moderator]

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[okay]

[hinckley buzzard]

Take it with a grain of salt. The moslems began to translate Greek writings in the 9th century and took advantage of sources of learning to the east, from India and China which had at least as well developed and sophisticated cultures as the medieval Arabs.

Europe was not the pathetic mud hovel you imagine. One center of "islamic learning" was actually at Cordoba in Spain, where European scholars worked side by side with moslems who came in and assumed authority. Also well known is that much of "islamic learning" was accomplished by Christians living among them, and by jews who fled persecution in Europe, bringing western knowledge and inquiry with them, and were accepted in moslem regions.

For a knowledgeable presentation read Bernard Lewis. He makes clear that while the moslems had their high points, and made their contributions, they were best thought of as an "intermediate civilization". He also explores the fatal flaws of the civilization that has caused it to derail.

Trade was already growing fast between western europe and the eastern civilizations, and without the moslem middlemen the west would still have soon come alive in the renaissance. Taken all together the "golden age of islamic civilization" doesn't pass the Atlantis test.

[DragonMarine]

Oooh, Ooh, Ooh!!

I know, I know....

Let's Rock !! (moon rock that is)

[Mmogamer]

If I may be so bold...
The Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine) kept alive much of the knowledge and laws of the Romans. They also had the knowledge from the Greeks. Remember the Roman empire did not fall in the
400's A.D. It fell on May 29, 1453.

[quidnunc]

Mmogamer wrote: If I may be so bold... The Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine) kept alive much of the knowledge and laws of the Romans. They also had the knowledge from the Greeks. Remember the Roman empire did not fall in the 400's A.D. It fell on May 29, 1453.

That's very true, but the Dark Ages refers to the history of western Europe and the British Isles.

One has to differentiate between the Roman empire and the Byzantine empire.

Their relationship is too complex and lengthy to be thrashed out here, but for purposes of this thread let it be said that Byzantine sources aren't much help in filling in the historical record of the Dark Ages in Europe.

[Candor7]

If you want to nit pick, I am quite ready to pick your nit.

I didn't say the elfin languages were based on Gaelic. I said they sound like Gaelic( read my post 41 again),and they do indeed!

And BTW, Welsh(Cymraeg or y Gymraeg) is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic spoken natively in Wales (Cymru).As such it is closely associated with Gaelic.

I like your nits.

[FreedomCalls]

"Our system is ... a government of limited and well-defined powers."

I have got to disagree on this one. It used to be, but is no longer. Is there anything that the government can do and wants to do but doesn't because doing so would exceed their powers?