ShrinkWrapped

The Arab Mind Meets the Singularity

[Due to time constraints, the next post in The Arab Mind will be delayed; this post is related but much more speculative and imagines how the Arab Mind will deal with the coming technological changes, which has been called the Singularity.]

In the first eleven posts in my series on The Arab Mind,  I have tried to describe some of the child rearing practices and cultural trends that contribute to the development of a personality style and culture that are particularly poorly adapted to tolerate and facilitate change.  Arab culture has been relatively static for a thousand years and the Arab world has reacted to the threat of change engendered by contact with the West and other non-Muslims, by attacking and forcing the offending peoples to submit to Islam.  This worked for the Arab world as long as change could be easily kept at a distance.  The modern world is making this traditional manner of cultural self-defense unworkable.

This post is a much more speculative discussion of the impact of our rapidly changing technology on Arab culture and the Arab mind, and especially the impact of some of the projected changes that are fairly close in historical terms, on the order of 10-25 years.

From time to time I have written about the evolving clash between Islam and the modern world, especially the accelerating rate of technological change leading to the Singularity, which will, in time, cause an implosion in the Islamic world.  I would like to add some detail to the scenario and explore why Islam as it is currently promulgated in its fundamentalist versions (whether Wahhabi/Salafi or Shia Khomeniist) cannot survive the clash.

Arab societies are all essentially Prime Divider societies:

These societies are based on the political axiom “rule or be ruled” and permit even require the use of violence to defend one’s honor. They contain following main features.

legal privilege for the elites (including exemption from taxation, lighter sentences for their misdeeds and heavier penalties for offenses against them).

Information War Strategy and Tactics

Last week, my post On Europe and Genocide provoked a passionate discussion in the comments. Many people take the position that Islam is irreconcilably opposed to freedom and democracy and that the struggle between Islam and thew West can only devolve into open warfare. If such an outcome is inevitable, all the horrors that ensue must be considered and all options must be placed on the table. I think this view is incorrect both strategically and tactically.

There is no question that the radical Islamists, whether the Sunni of al Qaeda or the Shia of Iran, cannot stand against American military might. We have no equals when it comes to the kinetic warfare that has defined the fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Further, once we have established "boots on the ground", our military have been brilliant, with an exceedingly steep learning curve, in discerning who our enemies are, who our potential friends are, and how to differentiate and disaggregate them. That is why we are winning in Iraq after so many early stumbles.

Unfortunately, in the realm of the larger information war, with fronts throughout the Muslim world, Europe, North America, and especially, the Internet, we are not doing a particularly good job.

One lamentable problem thus far in the Global War on Terror, or the war on Islamofascism, or the war on expansionary Islam, is that the West has not yet found a vocabulary to describe our enemies. In point of fact, our enemies have done a much better job of hijacking our language and using it for its own purposes than we have in being clear about who we are fighting and what we are fighting for. Until we can agree on who the enemy is, we will have trouble waging a successful information war. Our enemies have an interest in making this a war between the decadent Western infidels and the Muslim world, the Umma. Unless we desire the worst case scenarios to come to fruition, our interest should be in splitting the most violent, those most willing to use force against us, from the great mass of non-violently antipathetic and neutral, Muslims. The small fraction of Muslims world wide who fit the description of liberal democrats (in the traditional sense of the words) do not yet have sufficient weight to impact the greater struggle, yet. From this description it should be clear that our strategy in the greater war should be similar to the strategy in the Iraqi theater:

Differentiate friends, neutrals, and enemies who could become neutrals or friends, from the hard core Jihadis for whom there can be no quarter granted.

There is a second, equally important the rater in the information war that must also be considered, the left leaning MSM.

Too many on the right have inadvertently allowed their passions to interfere with their ability to make arguments that can actually work.

The Sanity Squad on Blogtalkradio Tonight

Tonight's Sanity Squad Podcast will focus on a discussion of my series on "The Arab Mind".

Please join Dr. Sanity, Neo, Siggy, and me for what promises to be an exciting and in-depth psychological discussion of both the individual and cultural psychological underpinnings of much of the dysfunctional, violent and oppressive behavior that seems to be an inherent aspect of Arab/Islamic populations.

Click on the button below to listen live:

The call in number is is (646) 716-9116. Showtime is a 8 PM tonight.

Biology as Information Technology: Change v Fear

From the earliest days of this blog, in my work, and in my understanding of the world we live in, I have been interested in the dynamic balance between the drive to move forward, progress, and the regressive pull toward the past; the sum total is a homeostasis that has an underlying progressive movement until adulthood and then slowly descends toward individual senescence.   We each exist in that dynamic balance and our society has a larger, constantly shifting analogous balance between innovation and risk-avoidance, with an underlying progressive momentum in the West especially evident since the enlightenment. 

With the increasing pace of technological innovation moving toward what is now commonly known as the (technological) Singularity, it is not a surprise that the increased rate of change has engendered an opposing increased pressure to stop change.  This is visible in such disparate areas as foreign policy, where in response to an unstable and often frightening world, many would like to withdraw from the field and retreat into neo-isolationism and, in my area of greatest concern, biology.

Biology is now in the early stages of moving from an empirical and experimental science toward an information technology.  As we understand more and more about the ways in which our proteins interact we will become better able to predict, intervene, and control such interactions.  The shape of various treatments is already becoming clear.  It is very likely that within a relatively short time, in historical terms, our ability to selectively target all sorts of cancer cells will effectively place a cure for cancer within reach.  Other illnesses once thought intractable and refractory to treatment will also became understandable and treatable. 

The ultimate disease to which we all succumb eventually is aging.  While such thinkers as Aubrey de Grey may be correct that we will one day cure aging, it is inarguable that we will be able to slow aging and cure many, if not most, of the diseases of aging.  This is inevitable, but there are serious impediments that arise out of our fears and our inability to accurately evaluate risk.

Reason discussed a milestone in the movement of anti-aging technology from the fringe to the mainstream and noted that the primary impediment to rapid progress resides in our hidebound bureaucracy:

On Europe and Genocide, Continued

I have not had time to follow the discussion on my last post, On Europe and Genocide.  There are already 65 comments as of this morning and too much to do and too little time this weekend will make it impossible for me to read all the comments and e-mail until this evening.  In the meantime, I would suggest taking a look at Maxed_Out_Mama's post, A Rather Remarkable Blogging Event, in which she succinctly lays out an argument about Europe's future with which I am in complete agreement:

Europe's problem is that the progressive culture there has made defending yourself and your property more of a crime than it is to steal, rape or beat up a person on the street. So naturally the most thuggish groups among the population prevail, which is why the most violent extremists among the Islamic population are prevailing.

This is what the failure to enforce laws brings. Thuggishness and a belief in the viability of mass murder.

Europe can win its future and do its part to preserve Western civilization if and when it decides to enforce its own laws equally.

On Europe and Genocide

Societies under stress tend to regress in predictable and dangerous ways.  I have written about this regression, essentially a retreat form more civilized to less civilized behavior, in several posts, especially  Terror and Societal Regression, Terror and Societal Regression Revisited, and Societal Regression and Splitting.  At the moment the regressive tendencies are most apparent on the fringes, but the danger of demagogues exploiting anxieties, and the regressive tendencies that arise from the anxiety, increases when governments and elites abdicate their responsibilities to articulate societal values and do not address the sources of the anxiety directly.  Government and elite media diffidence enables the most regressive and dangerous events and trends to germinate out of the disinfecting light of day.

LGF links to a post at Gates of Vienna that illustrates how rationality can become perverted in service to regressive tendencies.

Surrender, Genocide… or What?
by El Inglés

Introduction

A few months ago, I wrote “The Danish Civil War”, a fictional scenario which served to structure a consideration of various issues relating to the rise of Islam in Europe and the likely consequences thereof. The essay finished with the conclusion that Islam constituted an existential threat to the survival of European civilization, and that Islam’s influence on Europe therefore needed to be eliminated. It further concluded that, logically speaking, the various ways of achieving this goal could be broadly subdivided into three categories:
1)   inducing Muslims to leave of their own free will,
2)   mass deportations, and
3)   genocide.

Charles Johnson's reaction is understandable and appropriate:

A Very Useful Resource

Not long ago Barry Rubin sent interested bloggers a copy of his compendium, The Israel-Arab Reader, "a documentary history of the Middle East conflict."  His only request was to place a link to the book on my blog, which I am happy to do without reservation. 

the While many of us may have forgotten that we used to look up information in books, there are times where a hard copy readily available can be quite useful.  For example, it may take a while to find the August 3, 1974 interview with George Habash where he stated his rationale for rejecting any peace settlement with Israel:

(pp. 168) "... the Palestinians revolution is strained and ends when it becomes a part of the political settlement presently proposed, and the continuity of the revolution is only ensured by resisting and fighting the proposed settlement plans."

I am tempted to say, "Plus ca change" but I already used up my French quota in my last post, so suffice to say, "the language may change but the sentiments remain."

It is nice to have the information available, chronologically presented, starting with the Bilu Group manifesto if 1882 and ending with President George W. Bush's address to the Annapolis conference last November.

If you are interested in the history of the conflict and would like to know what actually was said, when and by whom, without the imposition of current distortions to the historical record, this book is a very useful resource.

Disturbing Developments

With all of the interest and attention to the Democratic primaries, it is possible to imagine that various serious problems around the world are ameliorating.  We see headlines about food inflation and oil prices are hitting record highs on a daily basis, but Iraq, despite the recent upsurge in violence (which is what tends to happen when religious militias are disarmed) recedes from the headlines, and developments in Iran disappear from the news.  Nonetheless, Iran is not sitting still waiting for the American elections.  Beyond their support for Hamas, still implacably opposed to Israel's existence despite Jimmy Carter's best efforts, Hezbollah, now re-armed far beyond what they had prior to the summer war, and Syria, chastened by Israel's destruction of their nuclear power plant but in no way ready to commit regime suicide in the interest of breaking their alliance with Iran, Iran at home faces continuing and mounting problems.  The Iranian economy is failing, with inflation and unemployment both reaching frightening levels.  Gateway Pundit notes Iran's response; it is instructive:

Ahmadinejad: "Martyrdom Will Solve Current Economic Crisis"

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that the way to beat the growing economic crisis in Iran is through a "culture of martyrdom."
Iran Focus reported:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the country's economic woes can be solved by the "culture of martyrdom, the Mehr news agency reported.

"If we want to build the country, maintain our dignity and solve economic problems, we need the culture of martyrdom," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in a speech on Wednesday in the western city of Hamedan.

He described martyrdom, dying or being killed for one's religious beliefs, as "a quick and shortcut way to reach the summit of salvation."

...

Ahmadinejad has been criticised for pumping excessive liquidity into the economy to fund infrastructure projects, causing huge money supply growth and triggering Iran's current inflation of around 18 percent.

However, critics believe the real inflation rate exceeds 25 percent, and have accused Ahmadinejad of making unscientific decisions in economic matters.

The news gets worse, and the implications of the news are troubling:

Change at Iran's Ministry of Defense

The Arab Mind: Part XI

[All posts in this series can be found at The Arab Mind archive.]

Male Sexual Anxiety and the Danger of Female Sexuality

Male sexual anxiety is a universal part of male psychosexual development.  In the modern Western world, attempts to minimize the anxiety are often expressed through crude "locker room" humor, pornography, and other manner of objectifying women.  A women who is primarily an object for sexual gratification is much less threatening to an insecure man than a fully three dimensional woman who has her own desires and independent mind.  The idea that such a woman could find the man lacking in his sexual prowess and endowment is a great source of anxiety for many men who have difficulty negotiating the developmental milestones along the way toward adult relatedness.

In the Arab Mind, the culture has been much less developed in its handling of male sexual anxiety.  Female sexuality is so intensely frightening to the insecure Arab male that extreme measures have been devised to help control his anxiety. 

In my last installment of this series, The Arab Mind: Part X, I discussed the concept of the women's body as a container of 'ird, honor, which can only be diminished by her misconduct (including being the victim of sexual assault) and can never be replenished.  In order to protect against the woman's sexuality despoiling the honor of his family, the Arab man must find ways to constrain her freedom to transgress.  Thus, in Saudi Arabia, an unaccompanied female is considered to be de facto evidence of shameful behavior.  Worse, an unveiled woman, in many Arab communities, is considered a danger and a temptress.

Iran: Top Shia cleric says unveiled women turn men into beasts

Mashad, 10 April (AKI) - A top Shia cleric in Iran has said that unveiled women are a serious danger to Iranian society as they cause men to be "transformed into beasts".

"Women without the veil are a danger that the authorities underestimate," said Hojatolislam Seyyed Ahmad Elmalhoda, a powerful cleric who leads the Friday prayers in Mashad, a site considered sacred for Shia Muslims as it houses the shrine of Imam Reza.

"This situation is very serious in that if men see these bad women, they will turn into beasts, and then the whole of society will have to pay the consequences."

This is a rather straightforward depiction of the female as temptress that is ubiquitous in the Arab world.  However, there are additional factors that enhance male anxiety with female sexuality in the Arab Mind. 

Playing With Fire

Slowly but surely, led by Iran and its allies in the HISH Alliance (Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, Hamas), the ideology of anti-Semitism is beginning to supercede all competing political ideologies in the Middle East.  Al Qaeda's narrative has become stridently and overtly anti-Semitic; countries as diverse as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Morocco have tolerated, enabled, and overtly pressed anti-Semitic narratives in their state controlled press; Iran is in a class of its own when it comes to genocidal public policy.  Haviv Rettig discusses a new report (that) discusses Muslim anti-Semitism in today's Jerusalem Post:

Muslim anti-Semitism is growing in scope and extremism, to the point that it has become a credible strategic threat for Israel, according to a 180-page report produced for Israeli policymakers by the semi-official Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) and obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post ahead of its Tuesday release.

According to the report, by educating generations of Muslims with a deep animus toward Israel and Jews, this anti-Semitism, actively promulgated by many states in the region, holds back the peace process and normalization efforts between Israel and Muslim countries. It also forms the intellectual justification for an eliminationist political program.

"This isn't ordinary prejudice," explained ITIC director Col. (res.) Dr. Reuven Erlich, formerly of the IDF's Intelligence Directorate, who heads the team of researchers that produced the report. "This prejudice is evil because it isn't theoretical. It is ideological incitement by states and organizations with the practical means of translating it into action."

Those who have been paying attention to MEMRI, Camera, et al, and sifting through the white-washed version of the news in MSM outlets, have been aware for quite some time that anti-Semitism as an organizing structure for Arab/Persian society has gained tremendous traction and has increasingly replaced prior structures and been incorporated into the narrative of Muslim supremacy and Islamic radicalism.  This endangers Israel and Jews everywhere.  It also makes the Middle East an increasingly dangerous place; that is because the logic of anti-Semitism is inexorable and genocidal.