Could Modern Civilization Fall?

[Perinquus]

What does radical Islam have to threaten anyone with? It's backward dogmatic primitive theological nonsense perhaps, or the underdeveloped shitholes where it holds sway?

Think about it. Radical Islam has gained in popularity in the last half century or so, and continues to do so. You have countries like Algeria and Morocco, for example, with strong fundamentalist movements, and broad popular support to make those countries offically Islamic theocracies. This is an ideal that is spreading in spite of the fact that it is anti-rational, and anti-intellectual. And despite teh fact that it will not make the lives of people in those countries better or freer. People are often swept up in popular movements despite their often irrational nature. That doesn't make them any less a force to be reckoned with.

I believe that between the years 1914 and 1918, Western Civilization cut its own throat. I think it is still in the process of bleeding to death. What remains to be seen is whether or not the wound can be closed before it is too late.

Justify this assertion.

I have attempted to do so. You dismissed it as "vague scattergun claims". If you are looking for scientific type proof, I can't give it to you. The best I can do is point out certain trends which I believe show a connection. This is "social science" and despite its name, it's more art than science. It doesn't always admit of the same kind of concrete proof. I could go into greater detail in pointing out these trends, but for a subject as complex as this, it would literally require a book-length exposition to make a proper job of it, and no one would read that sort of thing here.

And this is a BAD thing? I'd hate to burst your bubble, but the blithe, nonchalant, uber-patriotic way those masses of young men went off to war (BERLIN BY CHRISTMAS!) was not to be admired, and I applaud the demise of such moronic national sentiment- though you could argue it's making a comeback.

Why is patriotism not to be admired? Jingoism is not to be, I would agree, but these days, in America, it is kind of gauche to be openly patriotic - though somewhat less so since 9/11/01.

Why do you mourn the passing of patriotic bombast. It's what gave us WW1 in the first place, and if we had a dash of it during the Cold War, the USA and Russia *might* just not be here.

I'm talking about popular culture. The countries that made the opening moves in WWI were monarchies with more or less absolute rulers. Popular sentiment, patriotic or otherwise, had relatively little to do with whether or not their leaders were willing to embroil them in a war. It wasn't patriotic bombast that gave us WWI, it was mounting diplomatic tensions and an upset of the balance of power, which had existed in Europe since the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Patriotic bombast made the people a little more willing to march off to war, but that didn't last long once the reality of life in the trenches set in.

Also, I fail to understand how you inextricably link the decline of Western civilization to a decline in foolish misplaced ultra-nationalism and a lack of knowledge of modern war (which is what WW1 was, essentially).

World War One was a very great deal more than that. It signalled a fundamental shift in attitudes about a great many things (again, I can't give anything like a detailed account of all of this in the limited space of a message board). After people lost faith in the old ideals, many turned to new ones. Socialism enjoyed a huge rise in popularity for instance. The distrust of one's own government engendered by the war also had other negative consequences. A certain healthy skepticism of your govenment is a good thing, but after WWI, this distrust often reached near paranoia. This is one reason why liberal intellectuals - some of them truly brilliant minds - like George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell were so ready to disbelieve what their own government was telling them about Communist Russia, and yet at the same time, were prepared to accept Soviet claims more or less uncritically. Shaw even went to Russia, and was taken on a tour of several Potemkin villages, and came back telling everyone what a great country the U.S.S.R. was, and how it was a progressive social democracy, full of happy, freedom-loving people. This spirit of "blame your own goventment first" is alive and well today. I keep hearing people tell me how it's basically our fault the Muslims hate us so much. America is such an arrogant cowboy that it's not wonder they can't stand us, and if our foreign policy were only more enlightened, all this could have been prevented, blah, blah, blah...

Vague scattergun claims without any supporting evidence. You must justify your assertions that such change in attitudes and ideals are bad. You sound like an old fogey whining about the good old days.

And you sound like a punk kid with no life experience displaying the knee-jerk scornful reaction of youth to anyone's sober reflection that not all changes in society are for the good, and who can't just respectfully disagree with someone, but who has to sneer at a different opinion than his own. Maybe politeness was another casualty of the war.

What does WW1 have to do with changing morals? Identify, if you can, the difference between morals in 1920 and 1950. God you sound like an old man. I'd hate to break it to you, but the older generation has been complaining about the decadence of the younger generation since the beginning of time.

No shit Sherlock? It has? I'd never have guessed. Since I'm talking about things here that happened more than fifty years before I was even born, this is not exactly a case of me pining away for the good old days of my youth. I'm trying to take a look at certain trends in society over the course of the last century or so.

And better to compare 1920 to 1970. The seeds sown in the ashes of WWI really germinated with the baby boomer generation. The WWII generation was restrained somewhat by the Depression, when everyone had to tighten their belts and nobody had much of anything, and then the need to fight WWII, and everyone had to make sacrifices for the struggle against the Nazis and the Japanese. But with the baby boomers, you really get a generation living in untramelled prosperity, which gave them more room to indulge themselves. It was this generation that saw the rise of the real counterculture. There had always been a few people inclined to go against the mainstream before, but nothing as large as this.

The claim that modern Western society has no moral 'rudder' does not justify itself. What 'greater aspects' are lost?

Confidence in the future. Faith in human progress. Respect for one's elders. Not to mention the fact that the twentieth century had to cope with the horrors of Naziism and Bolshevism as a direct result of the war, and all the damage they did.

At the risk of soundling like a broken record, I can't begin to give a full accouting here of all the innumerable ways in which WWI changed the popular consciousness - it's too big a subject. I can only refer you to do some research into the matter yourself. Read "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque, "Sagittarius Rising" by Cecil Lewis, or "Goodbye to All That", by Robert Graves. Probably the greatest single thing to come out of the war was a jarring sense of disillusionment. It was a trauma and left civilization as a whole traumatized. That's bound to have some severe negative effects.

[Perinquus]

To Europe, though, I warn thee:

The Barbarians are at the gates!

huh
you´d better warn the usa because the barbarians are in americas living room. they came in with a couple of planes which they crashed into the twin towers, and some others developed from perfectly sane american citizens into illogical, hate promoting, christian warmongers. there are even a couple in the white house.

More from the "Blame America First" crowd...

You have before you, the example of a bunch of hairy barbarians who represent a medieval style, fanatical religious theocracy, and who joyfully snuff out thousands of lives.

You have a madman in Pyongyang busily chasing his dream of nuclear weapons (and this is the same man who has historically proven more than willing to sell any kind of weapon to anybody).

You have innumerable bloody-handed dictators in the third world, recent examples of "ethnic cleansing" in the Balkans, the institution of chattel slavery still practiced in the Sudan and parts of Africa, and so forth, and so on, ad infinitum...

But let's not forget who's the world's greatest villian! The United States of America

[Vympel]

Think about it. Radical Islam has gained in popularity in the last half century or so, and continues to do so. You have countries like Algeria and Morocco, for example, with strong fundamentalist movements, and broad popular support to make those countries offically Islamic theocracies. This is an ideal that is spreading in spite of the fact that it is anti-rational, and anti-intellectual. And despite teh fact that it will not make the lives of people in those countries better or freer. People are often swept up in popular movements despite their often irrational nature. That doesn't make them any less a force to be reckoned with.

Force to be reckoned with in what way? By any of the indicators of power and influence, Islamic theocracies are utterly pathetic.

I have attempted to do so. You dismissed it as "vague scattergun claims". If you are looking for scientific type proof, I can't give it to you. The best I can do is point out certain trends which I believe show a connection. This is "social science" and despite its name, it's more art than science. It doesn't always admit of the same kind of concrete proof. I could go into greater detail in pointing out these trends, but for a subject as complex as this, it would literally require a book-length exposition to make a proper job of it, and no one would read that sort of thing here.

Why is patriotism not to be admired? Jingoism is not to be, I would agree, but these days, in America, it is kind of gauche to be openly patriotic - though somewhat less so since 9/11/01.

Because patriotism all too often leads to moronic sentiments such as 'my country, right or wrong'. It often puts an end to any meaningful sort of debate about the action a government may take, and what's more, the claim of being unpatriotic has especially after 9/11 been used to silence discussion.

I'm talking about popular culture. The countries that made the opening moves in WWI were monarchies with more or less absolute rulers. Popular sentiment, patriotic or otherwise, had relatively little to do with whether or not their leaders were willing to embroil them in a war. It wasn't patriotic bombast that gave us WWI, it was mounting diplomatic tensions and an upset of the balance of power, which had existed in Europe since the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Patriotic bombast made the people a little more willing to march off to war, but that didn't last long once the reality of life in the trenches set in.

And what of the patriotism on the home front? That had no effect in prolonging the war?

World War One was a very great deal more than that. It signalled a fundamental shift in attitudes about a great many things (again, I can't give anything like a detailed account of all of this in the limited space of a message board). After people lost faith in the old ideals, many turned to new ones. Socialism enjoyed a huge rise in popularity for instance. The distrust of one's own government engendered by the war also had other negative consequences. A certain healthy skepticism of your govenment is a good thing, but after WWI, this distrust often reached near paranoia. This is one reason why liberal intellectuals - some of them truly brilliant minds - like George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell were so ready to disbelieve what their own government was telling them about Communist Russia, and yet at the same time, were prepared to accept Soviet claims more or less uncritically. Shaw even went to Russia, and was taken on a tour of several Potemkin villages, and came back telling everyone what a great country the U.S.S.R. was, and how it was a progressive social democracy, full of happy, freedom-loving people. This spirit of "blame your own goventment first" is alive and well today. I keep hearing people tell me how it's basically our fault the Muslims hate us so much. America is such an arrogant cowboy that it's not wonder they can't stand us, and if our foreign policy were only more enlightened, all this could have been prevented, blah, blah, blah...

What so instead you think the US bears no responsibility for why Muslims hate America? You're going to tell me that you buy that self-serving bullshit that "oh, those Muslims just hate freedom and democracy"

And you sound like a punk kid with no life experience displaying the knee-jerk scornful reaction of youth to anyone's sober reflection that not all changes in society are for the good, and who can't just respectfully disagree with someone, but who has to sneer at a different opinion than his own. Maybe politeness was another casualty of the war.

Well gee, sorry old timer, guess I didn't know when to respect my elders Why don't you put on the Grandpa Simpson tone and talk about how wearing an onion on your belt was the style back in the 1920s?

No shit Sherlock? It has? I'd never have guessed. Since I'm talking about things here that happened more than fifty years before I was even born, this is not exactly a case of me pining away for the good old days of my youth. I'm trying to take a look at certain trends in society over the course of the last century or so.

And better to compare 1920 to 1970. The seeds sown in the ashes of WWI really germinated with the baby boomer generation. The WWII generation was restrained somewhat by the Depression, when everyone had to tighten their belts and nobody had much of anything, and then the need to fight WWII, and everyone had to make sacrifices for the struggle against the Nazis and the Japanese. But with the baby boomers, you really get a generation living in untramelled prosperity, which gave them more room to indulge themselves. It was this generation that saw the rise of the real counterculture. There had always been a few people inclined to go against the mainstream before, but nothing as large as this.

And what's wrong with counterculture?

Confidence in the future. Faith in human progress. Respect for one's elders. Not to mention the fact that the twentieth century had to cope with the horrors of Naziism and Bolshevism as a direct result of the war, and all the damage they did.

Confidence in the future and faith in human progress is a moral now? Where is the lack of such confidence and faith demonstrated? How does it manifest itself?

Bolshevism and Nazism is also irrelevant to the question that I asked- which was Western civilization's moral rudder.

At the risk of soundling like a broken record, I can't begin to give a full accouting here of all the innumerable ways in which WWI changed the popular consciousness - it's too big a subject. I can only refer you to do some research into the matter yourself. Read "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque, "Sagittarius Rising" by Cecil Lewis, or "Goodbye to All That", by Robert Graves. Probably the greatest single thing to come out of the war was a jarring sense of disillusionment. It was a trauma and left civilization as a whole traumatized. That's bound to have some severe negative effects.

I've read All Quiet on the Western Front. Regardless, WW1 had negative effects but that hardly means that it caused the decline of Western civilization. I don't see a decline anywhere.

[Vympel]

But let's not forget who's the world's greatest villian! The United States of America

And who the fuck supported about half of these bloody handed dictators for five decades because it was expedient?

*cue Star Spangled Banner*

Sure, you can do anything you like because you're the leader of the free world, but fuck no you're not responsible for what happens when you're finished with the place are you?

Anyone got that picture of Rumsfeld kissing Saddam's ass?

[salm]

To Europe, though, I warn thee:

The Barbarians are at the gates!

huh
you´d better warn the usa because the barbarians are in americas living room. they came in with a couple of planes which they crashed into the twin towers, and some others developed from perfectly sane american citizens into illogical, hate promoting, christian warmongers. there are even a couple in the white house.

More from the "Blame America First" crowd...

You have before you, the example of a bunch of hairy barbarians who represent a medieval style, fanatical religious theocracy, and who joyfully snuff out thousands of lives.

You have a madman in Pyongyang busily chasing his dream of nuclear weapons (and this is the same man who has historically proven more than willing to sell any kind of weapon to anybody).

You have innumerable bloody-handed dictators in the third world, recent examples of "ethnic cleansing" in the Balkans, the institution of chattel slavery still practiced in the Sudan and parts of Africa, and so forth, and so on, ad infinitum...

But let's not forget who's the world's greatest villian! The United States of America

what the fuck are you talking about, perinquus? i was asking why she was warning europe because of the barbarians in front of the gate when she´d better warn the us because of the barbarians INSIDE the country. that´s got nothing to do with blaming america to be the greatest villain!!!

did the fundies crash into a wtc located in europe? no, the last time i checked nyc was in the us.
is the "creationist" a well known word in europe? no! why not? because there arent any!
are people like chick and what´s that fundy preacher idiot (falwell?) called, more common in the us and to they find more followers in the us? yes!
the barbarians have already arrived in the usa and i hope they´re not going to swim to europe.

[Vympel]

the barbarians have already arrived in the usa and i hope they´re not going to swim to europe.

Fear not, they're too stupid to swim.

[Perinquus]

Force to be reckoned with in what way? By any of the indicators of power and influence, Islamic theocracies are utterly pathetic.

And growing. Maybe you don't think of it in these terms, but when I see more and more people buying into an anti-technology, anti-intellectual, anti-human rights philosophy, and more to the point, more and more people willing to kill in the name of this belief system, I tend to view this as threatening.

Because patriotism all too often leads to moronic sentiments such as 'my country, right or wrong'. It often puts an end to any meaningful sort of debate about the action a government may take, and what's more, the claim of being unpatriotic has especially after 9/11 been used to silence discussion.

So any form of patriotism is bad? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Patriotism has its value. People who attempt to use patriotism to silence dissenting opinions are not only being jingoistic, they are also missing the whole point of the United States - the right to express opnion, including the right to criticize policies so long as one does not cross over into treasonable behavior. This does not make love of your own country a bad thing.

And what of the patriotism on the home front? That had no effect in prolonging the war?

It meant people weren't rioting to oppose it at first. Though that started in 1918 as well. What do you expect? People who are safe at home, out of first hand contact with the war and its horrors, and who basically believe what their government tells them are going to up and riot to stop it?

What so instead you think the US bears no responsibility for why Muslims hate America? You're going to tell me that you buy that self-serving bullshit that "oh, those Muslims just hate freedom and democracy"

I've got news for you, the terrorists have no negotiable demands here. In the words of Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah: ''We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.''

But he's a terrorist, you say. You shouldn't take him as a representative of what the Arab world thinks. Okay then, how about a more ''mainstream'' figure in the Islamist movement such as Sheik Muhammad al-Gamei'a, an Egyptian big shot who was the imam at the Islamic Cultural Center and Mosque in New York at the time of September 2001's unfortunate example of the price of American arrogance. Back in October, the big-time Westernized imam thought it was all to do with America's Jewish influence: ''You see these people all the time, everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs. Because of the Jews, there are strip clubs, homosexuals, and lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world.''

Self serving bullshit huh? Well, call me credulous, but I just take their word for it. I'm not making this up to justify America; I'm listening to what they say. They don't hate us for what our government does or does not do, they hate us for who and what we are - licentious, decadent, godless, corrupt degenerates who flout "God's law". The real reason for this mess is the comprehensive failure of the Middle East's various despotisms. As Charles Krauthammer said:

Underlying most of the individual grievances is a sense that Islam has lost its rightful place of dominance, the place it enjoyed half a millennium ago. Al Qaeda deputy Ayman Zawahiri's allusions to the loss of Andalusia (medieval Spain) reinforce Osama bin Laden's promise of revenge and redemption.

This feeling of a civilization in decline -- and the adoption of terror and intimidation as the road to restoration -- is echoed in a recent United Nations report that spoke frankly of the abject Arab failure to modernize. It is one thing for the Arabs to have fallen behind the West. But to fall behind South Korea -- also colonized, once poor and lacking any of the Muslim world's fantastic oil wealth -- is sheer humiliation.

In the face of their backwardness and lack of importance on the world stage, the Islamic countries can either own up to the fact that their adherence to a strict, anti-intellectual medieval philosophy has held them back, or they can blame others for their current doldrums and lash out. Guess which choice is easier for human beings and their egos to make?

If you've a different theory, let's hear it. But no offer to al-Qaida or Hamas or the other Islamists short of the West's conversion and submission to Islamic law will stop them from wanting to kill you. They're fanatics. I hope you are not seriously subscribing to the delusion that you can reason with a fanatic.

Well gee, sorry old timer, guess I didn't know when to respect my elders Why don't you put on the Grandpa Simpson tone and talk about how wearing an onion on your belt was the style back in the 1920s?

Since my father wasn't even an itch in his daddy's pants yet, that would be kind of hard for me.

And what's wrong with counterculture?

Free love and the rampant spread of STDs, not to mention teen pregnancies; increased demand for recreational drugs and the creation of a vast network of criminal suppliers to satisfy it; anarchism and the condonement of not just protest, but violent protest...

Little things like that.

Confidence in the future and faith in human progress is a moral now? Where is the lack of such confidence and faith demonstrated? How does it manifest itself?

In extreme movements like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, which are basically anti-technology, anti-progress. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for environmental awareness, but for many of these people, it's religion, not science.

Bolshevism and Nazism is also irrelevant to the question that I asked- which was Western civilization's moral rudder.

Bolshevism and Naziism were new ideologies that rose up to fill the vacuum left by ideals that people had lost confidence in, and are therefore hardly irrelevant, since my whole point was that WWI shook people's faith in certain things, and left them looking for new things to believe in.

You are also siezing on one phrase I used and clinging to it like a dog with a bone it will not let go. I have already said on several occasions that this is a topic so large and complex that thorough explanations would require a thesis of such length that it simply cannot be done here. All I can do is point out certain trends which I think are correlated. The subject of the overall moral compass of Western society as a whole is huge. I'd have to go into everything from the decline of the nuclear family, to the rise of alternative religions, the growth of communism/socialism and reactions to it, the effect of WWI literature on popular consciousness, changes in the world economy and its effect on people's lives, politics in the post WWI West, the rise of anti-Semitism in post WWI Germany, "war guilt" and reparations, and much, much more.

Subjects this broad do not often lend themselves to encapsulated summaries. About the best I can do in brief is point to the moral relativism that prevails among so many (especially on the political left) these days - the philosophy that there is no objective right and wrong, all viewpoints are equally valid, etc. People didn't used to believe that sort of thing before WWI. But this, all by itself, is a big sign of modern society being morally rudderless; when people are either unable or unwilling to make value judgements it would seem to indicate that they lack a sense of direction, morally speaking.

I've read All Quiet on the Western Front. Regardless, WW1 had negative effects but that hardly means that it caused the decline of Western civilization. I don't see a decline anywhere.

The whole point is that civilizations in decline seldom notice it happening while they live through it - it takes too long to observe in a single lifetime. The average Roman citizen of the late 4th century A.D. actually felt himself to be living in just as civilized and just as enlightened an age as his ancestors did, but a century later, the Empire was a dead letter in the west and the Dark Ages were underway.

And who the fuck supported about half of these bloody handed dictators for five decades because it was expedient?

*cue Star Spangled Banner*

Sure, you can do anything you like because you're the leader of the free world, but fuck no you're not responsible for what happens when you're finished with the place are you?

Anyone got that picture of Rumsfeld kissing Saddam's ass?

The U.S. rightly or wrongly supported these dictators as opponents to what it felt to be a worse dictatorship. I don't necessarily agree with this, but historically, nations have always done whatever they perceived to be in their own self interest. The U.S. is no worse and no different in this than any other nation, and still has a better record than some. In fact, say what you will, our record is leagues ahead of Soviet Russia's or red China's, just to name two.

[ArmorPierce]

I hate it when people say, 'well according to history all civilizations fall' and go on to say how it's all going to eventually collapse. The past was different, civilizations were much smaller and conquest was common place. In modern days, it would be extremely difficult to have a whole civilization just disappear, especially large ones that spans over great distances and has a large population.

[The Dark]

the barbarians have already arrived in the usa and i hope they´re not going to swim to europe.

Fear not, they're too stupid to swim.

No, they already live in Londonistan.

[Necro99]

Could?
COULD?
COULD??!!

It IS going to fall! The only thing to wonder is WHY and WHEN.
It's going to be the dark ages again, just with modern tech.

[Sea Skimmer]

Could?
COULD?
COULD??!!

It IS going to fall! The only thing to wonder is WHY and WHEN.
It's going to be the dark ages again, just with modern tech.

A contradiction. The Dark Ages where dark because of the loss of large amounts of technology with the fall of Rome. Things like running water and closed sewers that could be found in any Roman city would not reappear in until the second half of the 19th century.

[Pu-239]

The US will either turn into a police state since the tech to implement it exist; the government will be dominated by massive bribes, the end will be like Stephen Baxter's Titan- we turn into a fundie state, and eventually break apart and get run over by terrorism and war with the chinese; the stripping of rights may die down though. I'm still scared of fundies. Civilazation won't end, but will not be pleasant.





Sorry I'm just a paranoid pessimistic cynical person.

[The Dark]

Of course it could fall. There could be a nuclear war tomorrow and civilization is blasted back to the bronze age. Is it likely? No.

Over time civilization will either become more conservative or more liberal, with a tendency to either become conservative to the point of stagnation or liberal to the point of anarchy. When the forces go out of balance, that particular nation falls, and another rises in its place, usually with slightly reduced civilization until some time has passed, at which point it surpasses the previous nation. Unless a series of nations rapidly succeed each other, causing a cumulative decline in civilization, a total degradation is unlikely.

[Coaan]

In a word....

Yes.

[Vympel]

And growing. Maybe you don't think of it in these terms, but when I see more and more people buying into an anti-technology, anti-intellectual, anti-human rights philosophy, and more to the point, more and more people willing to kill in the name of this belief system, I tend to view this as threatening.

Terrorists are a threat, but not a civilization threatening one, despite the rhetoric.

So any form of patriotism is bad? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Patriotism has its value. People who attempt to use patriotism to silence dissenting opinions are not only being jingoistic, they are also missing the whole point of the United States - the right to express opnion, including the right to criticize policies so long as one does not cross over into treasonable behavior. This does not make love of your own country a bad thing.

And who doesn't love their country, in your opinion? To 'know my enemy' so to speak I watch a lot of Fox News, where you see the kind of fucking assholes like Weekly Standard writers/editors proclaiming the lack of patriotism of 'the Left'.

It meant people weren't rioting to oppose it at first. Though that started in 1918 as well. What do you expect? People who are safe at home, out of first hand contact with the war and its horrors, and who basically believe what their government tells them are going to up and riot to stop it?

And that was the problem- they didn't question anything, for the most party they blithely went along with the great slaughter, handing out white feathers to objectors etc. Where were the voices of dissent? Meek whispers in the corner compared to the nationalistic masses.

I've got news for you, the terrorists have no negotiable demands here. In the words of Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah: ''We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.''

But he's a terrorist, you say. You shouldn't take him as a representative of what the Arab world thinks. Okay then, how about a more ''mainstream'' figure in the Islamist movement such as Sheik Muhammad al-Gamei'a, an Egyptian big shot who was the imam at the Islamic Cultural Center and Mosque in New York at the time of September 2001's unfortunate example of the price of American arrogance. Back in October, the big-time Westernized imam thought it was all to do with America's Jewish influence: ''You see these people all the time, everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs. Because of the Jews, there are strip clubs, homosexuals, and lesbians everywhere. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world.''

Self serving bullshit huh? Well, call me credulous, but I just take their word for it. I'm not making this up to justify America; I'm listening to what they say. They don't hate us for what our government does or does not do, they hate us for who and what we are - licentious, decadent, godless, corrupt degenerates who flout "God's law". The real reason for this mess is the comprehensive failure of the Middle East's various despotisms. As Charles Krauthammer said:

Underlying most of the individual grievances is a sense that Islam has lost its rightful place of dominance, the place it enjoyed half a millennium ago. Al Qaeda deputy Ayman Zawahiri's allusions to the loss of Andalusia (medieval Spain) reinforce Osama bin Laden's promise of revenge and redemption.

This feeling of a civilization in decline -- and the adoption of terror and intimidation as the road to restoration -- is echoed in a recent United Nations report that spoke frankly of the abject Arab failure to modernize. It is one thing for the Arabs to have fallen behind the West. But to fall behind South Korea -- also colonized, once poor and lacking any of the Muslim world's fantastic oil wealth -- is sheer humiliation.

In the face of their backwardness and lack of importance on the world stage, the Islamic countries can either own up to the fact that their adherence to a strict, anti-intellectual medieval philosophy has held them back, or they can blame others for their current doldrums and lash out. Guess which choice is easier for human beings and their egos to make?

If you've a different theory, let's hear it. But no offer to al-Qaida or Hamas or the other Islamists short of the West's conversion and submission to Islamic law will stop them from wanting to kill you. They're fanatics. I hope you are not seriously subscribing to the delusion that you can reason with a fanatic.

Bait and switch. Muslims and terrorists are NOT the same thing. You can quote individuals all you like and pretend they represent the whole, doesn't mean I'm going to be convinced by it- it's truly amazing that you can actually buy the thought that walking up to a Muslim and asking him "do you hate America because of it's freedom and democracy" will result in the answer "yes, damn that freedom and democracy, I enjoy being oppressed by my royal oil shieks- who the US supports incidentally". No thought given to the US record of supporting status quo, oppressive regimes in the region- or crimes like the toppling of the democratically elected Mossadeq government in Iran due to their nationalization of British oil interests. And then you turn around 30 years later when they rise up against their royal overlord and ask "why do they hate us?"

Free love and the rampant spread of STDs, not to mention teen pregnancies; increased demand for recreational drugs and the creation of a vast network of criminal suppliers to satisfy it; anarchism and the condonement of not just protest, but violent protest...

Little things like that.

Do you have any facts to back any of these assertions up? Sex, STDs, drug use, criminal organizations and anarchism, rebellions are not exclusive to the post WW1 20th century. Were people in the Dark Ages having less sex than they are now? How much opium was being smoked in the 1800s? How many rebellions in the history of Europe? How much protest?

In extreme movements like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, which are basically anti-technology, anti-progress. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for environmental awareness, but for many of these people, it's religion, not science.

Well what kind of environmental awareness would you have? I'm sorry but I'm not too impressed by humanity's record in terms of enivronmental care-someone needs to get off their ass and not be satisfied with the current status quo. Justify your accusation that Greenpeace is 'anti-technology' and 'anti-progress'? They're not all a bunch of tree hugging nymphs who like to live in thatch huts. What progress? Where are they trying to stop this 'progress'?

Bolshevism and Naziism were new ideologies that rose up to fill the vacuum left by ideals that people had lost confidence in, and are therefore hardly irrelevant, since my whole point was that WWI shook people's faith in certain things, and left them looking for new things to believe in.

Except, both those ideologies are dead and buried, not flourishing, in Western civilization. They had their time, were destroyed, and went away.

You are also siezing on one phrase I used and clinging to it like a dog with a bone it will not let go. I have already said on several occasions that this is a topic so large and complex that thorough explanations would require a thesis of such length that it simply cannot be done here. All I can do is point out certain trends which I think are correlated. The subject of the overall moral compass of Western society as a whole is huge. I'd have to go into everything from the decline of the nuclear family, to the rise of alternative religions, the growth of communism/socialism and reactions to it, the effect of WWI literature on popular consciousness, changes in the world economy and its effect on people's lives, politics in the post WWI West, the rise of anti-Semitism in post WWI Germany, "war guilt" and reparations, and much, much more.

I'm just dealing with what you're saying one piece at a time. I am completely unconvinced that a war that took place almost 100 years ago has had any long lasting, fatal effects on Western civilization (actually, I think we should actually define what it is before we talk about it's death I guess);.

The U.S. rightly or wrongly supported these dictators as opponents to what it felt to be a worse dictatorship. I don't necessarily agree with this, but historically, nations have always done whatever they perceived to be in their own self interest. The U.S. is no worse and no different in this than any other nation, and still has a better record than some. In fact, say what you will, our record is leagues ahead of Soviet Russia's or red China's, just to name two.

This is hardly a difficult thing to point out- as I point out in Israel threads where the apologists point out how much better Israel is than say, Iraq- being better than such a shithole is not hard.

Of course the US is no worse/different in terms of it's pursuing its self interests- but I can still call the propaganda what it is.

[Perinquus]

Terrorists are a threat, but not a civilization threatening one, despite the rhetoric.

They are just a symptom of a deep, deep discontent in the Islamic world. People who establish fundamentalist theocracies don't have to go around blowing up buildings to be sabotaging modern civilization. The proliferation of states where freedom is stifled, and people are made to live under ignorant, fundamentalist theocrats is quite bad enough.

And who doesn't love their country, in your opinion? To 'know my enemy' so to speak I watch a lot of Fox News, where you see the kind of fucking assholes like Weekly Standard writers/editors proclaiming the lack of patriotism of 'the Left'.

They do go to far. But I do think there are some on the left who are genuinely unpatriotic, like Sen. Patty Murray actually trying to justify Osama Bin Laden. She seems to be a part of the "blame America first" group.

And that was the problem- they didn't question anything, for the most party they blithely went along with the great slaughter, handing out white feathers to objectors etc. Where were the voices of dissent? Meek whispers in the corner compared to the nationalistic masses.

You do realize this was not like the Vietnam War era right? There was no TV bringing images of the horrors of war into people's homes. The alternative sources of information were fewer, and the information they did get was more carefeully controlled. People don't just automatically distrust the authorities and start opposing them, they have to have other input. And based on what they were told, the people felt there were legitimate grievances; so they supported the war effort.

Bait and switch. Muslims and terrorists are NOT the same thing. You can quote individuals all you like and pretend they represent the whole, doesn't mean I'm going to be convinced by it- it's truly amazing that you can actually buy the thought that walking up to a Muslim and asking him "do you hate America because of it's freedom and democracy" will result in the answer "yes, damn that freedom and democracy, I enjoy being oppressed by my royal oil shieks- who the US supports incidentally". No thought given to the US record of supporting status quo, oppressive regimes in the region- or crimes like the toppling of the democratically elected Mossadeq government in Iran due to their nationalization of British oil interests. And then you turn around 30 years later when they rise up against their royal overlord and ask "why do they hate us?"

Maybe you missed the part where I quoted a more mainstream figure in the muslim world. He was not a terrorist. But far be it from me to leave it at that. Let's not forget those now famous news broadcasts of average Palestinians dancing in the streets when they had just learned that 3000+ innocent people had just perished in flames in the World Trade Center. There are any number of polls conducted in the Middle East showing Arab dislike for America. As for freedom and democracy... this may come as a shock to you, but your typical Islamic fundamentalist probably does not view those as good things. To him, the ultimate source of good government is not the democratic process, but the Islamic law as laid out in the Koran. Indeed, if anything, a Muslim fundie may look at freedom and democracy as bad things, since they have led so many people away from worshipping Allah as they should.

Do you have any facts to back any of these assertions up? Sex, STDs, drug use, criminal organizations and anarchism, rebellions are not exclusive to the post WW1 20th century. Were people in the Dark Ages having less sex than they are now? How much opium was being smoked in the 1800s? How many rebellions in the history of Europe? How much protest?

Oh don't even try to pretend that the counterculture did not promote these things. Don't even try. That's just as flat out dishonest of you as it can be, and you know it. You know very well that the counterculture youth of the 60s was indulging in sex and drugs. There isn't a soul in the U.S. today who doesn't know this! They were all about it. And it's interesting that you chose to compare the 60s counterculture to the rate of drug use in the 19th century, before it was regulated, and to the frequency of sex in the Dark Ages. Nice red herring of you, since we are talking about effects on society since the First World War, and you've just tried to direct my attention to examples of things from well before that period. (It's interesting too though, that in trying to disprove that the counterculture was returning things to a less civilized state, you compare them to people in a time when Europe was notably less civilized.)

Well what kind of environmental awareness would you have? I'm sorry but I'm not too impressed by humanity's record in terms of enivronmental care-someone needs to get off their ass and not be satisfied with the current status quo. Justify your accusation that Greenpeace is 'anti-technology' and 'anti-progress'? They're not all a bunch of tree hugging nymphs who like to live in thatch huts. What progress? Where are they trying to stop this 'progress'?

Knee jerk opposition to nuclear plants, opposition to drilling in the ANWR, the oppposition they erect to virtually any major industrial project, in fact. Look at California and their recent rolling black outs. They had those because the enviro-lobby succesfully kept them from building any new power generating facilities for the last 20 years, and what they had couldn't keep pace with the demands of a growing population.

Except, both those ideologies are dead and buried, not flourishing, in Western civilization. They had their time, were destroyed, and went away.

Take a walk on any American college campus recently?

I'm just dealing with what you're saying one piece at a time. I am completely unconvinced that a war that took place almost 100 years ago has had any long lasting, fatal effects on Western civilization (actually, I think we should actually define what it is before we talk about it's death I guess);.

That might be a good idea. Don't imagine that events from long ago can't put your society into a tailspin. History's replete with examples. Take the Byzantine Empire. It finally collapsed in 1453 with its conquest by the Ottoman Turks. Historians are nearly universal at putting the turning point in their fortunes at their defeat in the Battle of Manzikert. That was in 1071.

[Zaia]

Except, both those ideologies are dead and buried, not flourishing, in Western civilization. They had their time, were destroyed, and went away.

Take a walk on any American college campus recently?

I already spoke my peace on the first page about what I think about this topic and have no sides with either of you, but I have to clarify that Vympel is Australian and therefore hasn't walked through the campus of any American college as he is stuck in Sydney, Oz, as far as I know.

Technicality, I know, but you have to be careful with that stuff....

[Vympel]

I already spoke my peace on the first page about what I think about this topic and have no sides with either of you, but I have to clarify that Vympel is Australian and therefore hasn't walked through the campus of any American college as he is stuck in Sydney, Oz, as far as I know.

Technicality, I know, but you have to be careful with that stuff....

It's a common cliche that universities are filled to the brim with 'lefties'

[Vympel]

They are just a symptom of a deep, deep discontent in the Islamic world. People who establish fundamentalist theocracies don't have to go around blowing up buildings to be sabotaging modern civilization. The proliferation of states where freedom is stifled, and people are made to live under ignorant, fundamentalist theocrats is quite bad enough.

Yes, but that doesn't mean they're contributing to Western civilization's downfall.

They do go to far. But I do think there are some on the left who are genuinely unpatriotic, like Sen. Patty Murray actually trying to justify Osama Bin Laden. She seems to be a part of the "blame America first" group.

She's the one that said something about Osama building schools or something, right?

You do realize this was not like the Vietnam War era right? There was no TV bringing images of the horrors of war into people's homes. The alternative sources of information were fewer, and the information they did get was more carefeully controlled. People don't just automatically distrust the authorities and start opposing them, they have to have other input. And based on what they were told, the people felt there were legitimate grievances; so they supported the war effort.

Exactly. They didn't know how horrible the war was, they didn't particularly care to question why they were sending a generation off to be destroyed, and basically all they did was wave flags. Compare to Vietnam. Unless it is your argument that the Vietnam was a good idea that had to be broken off for lack of patriotism?

In the respect of enthusiasm for organized killing, I'd have to say WW1 was a boon. The memory of it should never fade.

Maybe you missed the part where I quoted a more mainstream figure in the muslim world. He was not a terrorist. But far be it from me to leave it at that. Let's not forget those now famous news broadcasts of average Palestinians dancing in the streets when they had just learned that 3000+ innocent people had just perished in flames in the World Trade Center. There are any number of polls conducted in the Middle East showing Arab dislike for America. As for freedom and democracy... this may come as a shock to you, but your typical Islamic fundamentalist probably does not view those as good things. To him, the ultimate source of good government is not the democratic process, but the Islamic law as laid out in the Koran. Indeed, if anything, a Muslim fundie may look at freedom and democracy as bad things, since they have led so many people away from worshipping Allah as they should.

Decide who you're talking about. You're going from an alleged 'mainstream' Muslim, to fundamentalist terrorists. I never said Arabs didn't like America. What we're talking about is why- and it sure as hell ain't because they don't like your 'freedoms'.

Oh don't even try to pretend that the counterculture did not promote these things. Don't even try. That's just as flat out dishonest of you as it can be, and you know it. You know very well that the counterculture youth of the 60s was indulging in sex and drugs. There isn't a soul in the U.S. today who doesn't know this! They were all about it. And it's interesting that you chose to compare the 60s counterculture to the rate of drug use in the 19th century, before it was regulated, and to the frequency of sex in the Dark Ages. Nice red herring of you, since we are talking about effects on society since the First World War, and you've just tried to direct my attention to examples of things from well before that period. (It's interesting too though, that in trying to disprove that the counterculture was returning things to a less civilized state, you compare them to people in a time when Europe was notably less civilized.)

For all that arm waving and indignation, you didn't answer the question. You can't just take it as a given that sex drugs etc somehow rose because of WW1- I don't care if you think everyone knows this, because an appeal to popularity is a fallacy. You're making the claim, you have to prove it. Comparing the situation before WW1 is one way to do this.

Knee jerk opposition to nuclear plants, opposition to drilling in the ANWR, the oppposition they erect to virtually any major industrial project, in fact. Look at California and their recent rolling black outs. They had those because the enviro-lobby succesfully kept them from building any new power generating facilities for the last 20 years, and what they had couldn't keep pace with the demands of a growing population.

While I don't agree with them on their nuclear powerplant phobia, if by ANWR you mean the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve, there are good reasons not to drill, and the pro-drilling side (again, if what I hear by the pundits on the news is any indiciation) just wave their arms and claim it'll free America from independence on foreign oil, and protect them from Saddam Hussein (yes, someone actually said this). Which isn't true.

Take a walk on any American college campus recently?

No, but if you want to claim that a few idealistic young Marxists (or some stodgy old Marxists) materially helps your argument, that's a huge stretch.

That might be a good idea. Don't imagine that events from long ago can't put your society into a tailspin. History's replete with examples. Take the Byzantine Empire. It finally collapsed in 1453 with its conquest by the Ottoman Turks. Historians are nearly universal at putting the turning point in their fortunes at their defeat in the Battle of Manzikert. That was in 1071.

That may be so. It doesn't mean it applies now though.

[Perinquus]

Yes, but that doesn't mean they're contributing to Western civilization's downfall.

They're just one factor among many. There are other things, both external and internal, that are eating away at it. There are numerous others. In fact I would venture to say the internal threats are more serious than the external ones. Most great civilizations, after all, are not wiped out in their prime; they rot from within, and finally someone else comes along to push over the tottering remains.

She's the one that said something about Osama building schools or something, right?

That would be her. What she overlooked is that those schools he founded were not centers of education and higher learning. They were madrases, and are occupied with religious indoctrination of extreme fundamentalist Muslim values, and all the attendant intolerance and narrow-mindedness.

Exactly. They didn't know how horrible the war was, they didn't particularly care to question why they were sending a generation off to be destroyed, and basically all they did was wave flags. Compare to Vietnam. Unless it is your argument that the Vietnam was a good idea that had to be broken off for lack of patriotism?

I don't think you're quite getting me here. Notice how your first sentence here carries the presupposition that they understood that they were sending a generation off to be destroyed. They didn't, remember? They all thought the war would be over by Xmas, and that it wouldn't be so drawn out and horrific.

In the respect of enthusiasm for organized killing, I'd have to say WW1 was a boon. The memory of it should never fade.

I'd agree in principle. The question is whether all the other harms it did outweigh that bit of good.

Decide who you're talking about. You're going from an alleged 'mainstream' Muslim, to fundamentalist terrorists. I never said Arabs didn't like America. What we're talking about is why- and it sure as hell ain't because they don't like your 'freedoms'.

My point is that there is less difference between the two than many in the West would like to imagine. The difference is one of degree more than principle. The terrorists enjoy broad supoprt in the Muslim world. That means that while most Muslims are not willing to go to the extremes the terrorists do in order to carry out their jihad, a lot of people in the Islamic countries, perhaps even a majority, do not disagree with the terrorists' aims or dispprove of their methods.

For all that arm waving and indignation, you didn't answer the question. You can't just take it as a given that sex drugs etc somehow rose because of WW1- I don't care if you think everyone knows this, because an appeal to popularity is a fallacy. You're making the claim, you have to prove it. Comparing the situation before WW1 is one way to do this.

The whole point, which again you seem to have missed, is that the shock and disillusionment of the First World War conferred a certain "respectability" if you will, on rebelling against the "establishment" - after all, it was the established authorities that led their countries into war, was it not? This idea gained momentum over time, and reached it's fullest flowering (pardon the pun) in the counterculture movement of the 60s. But the problem was that the counterculture was an extreme reaction, and like most extremes, did more harm than good.

Oh, and incidentally, this is not an appeal to popularity fallacy. It is an appeal to common knowledge. You actually demanded that I cite proof that drug use and sexual promiscuity increased during the counterculture revolution of the 60s. That "arm waving" as you put it was my response to what was a blatantly dishonest debate tactic - an attempt at obfuscation. There is no need to cite proof of that which is common knowledge. If I assert that George Washington was the first President of the United States, or that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066, or that John F. Kennedy was assassinated, there is no need for me to cite some historical source for these things. You asked me what was wrong with the 60s counterculture, and I replied by pointing out the increase in sexual promiscuity and drug use, and anarchic, violent protest. Your response was: "Do you have any facts to back any of these assertions up?" You may disgree with my conclusions or interpretations, but in this instance, we were dealing with simple fact of whether or not there was an increasein sexual promiscuity and drug use; you demanded I cite proof there was, and to demand evidence for something that is common knowledge is just ridiculous.

While I don't agree with them on their nuclear powerplant phobia, if by ANWR you mean the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve, there are good reasons not to drill, and the pro-drilling side (again, if what I hear by the pundits on the news is any indiciation) just wave their arms and claim it'll free America from independence on foreign oil, and protect them from Saddam Hussein (yes, someone actually said this). Which isn't true.

The area they are talking about drilling, is a very small part of the extreme northern range of the ANWR, far, far away from any population centers, and rather bleak and desolate. Not even much wildlife lives there. I'd rather not launch off into this issue, since it could occupy a whole topic by itself, except to point out that this just shows that even the most minimal environmental impact is too much for these groups.

No, but if you want to claim that a few idealistic young Marxists (or some stodgy old Marxists) materially helps your argument, that's a huge stretch.

Not as huge as you think. The kids on these campuses graduate and vote Democratic. The Democratic party has been swinging farther and farther to the left ever since George McGovern. Socialism may be dead most everywhere else in the world, but not in the Democratic party. All you have to do is listen to their rhetoric. It's loaded with the language of class struggle. (I swear if I hear one more Democrat say "tax cuts for the rich" one more time I'm going to track him down and vomit all over him.) After their recent electoral bitch slap in the midterm congressional races, the Democrats responded by replacing Dick Gephardt as leader of the house Dems with Nancy Pelosi - one of the most extreme left leaning members of the party.

That may be so. It doesn't mean it applies now though.

I think it does. You seem entirely too ready to dismiss the notion that extremely pivotal events in history have consequences and repercussions that carry on for decades, even centuries after they occur. That's a rather extraordinary position to take in view of the legion of historical examples we have of this very phenomenon.