Originally Posted by Kevin Parker '59

Originally Posted by Governor Gallagher

One funny thing I have noticed living in Europe is that many Europeans' perceptions of Americans is almost solely based on our international leadership. For example I have an Italian last name. Everybody here calls me the Italian man, even though I am American. They don't understand that Americans have other names other than Clinton, Gore, Cheney, Powell, Bush, etc. They say, "but you have an Italian name, how can you be an American?"

This is a funny thing I have noticed. They also consider the American accent to be very folksy and depictions of americans in my textbooks always draw on the Western themes, cowboy hats etc.

It's pretty funny.

I wonder, Justin, if that perception varies based on where in Europe one goes? For example when I visited France in 1995, the cute college girl who worked in the hotel breakfast nook asked me, immediately after taking my order, if I was American or British. She could just...tell...that I was from an English speaking country, most likely the U.S., and I don't sound folksy or cowboyish in the slightest degree. Then again, perhaps that is why she also wondered if I was perhaps British.

Governor Gallagher

Not many cowboys wandering the streets of Seattle.



Mike Alexander '59

Where does Tristan Jones fit into this scheme?

Standard disclaimers apply.

Germans Wake Up to the Call of the Muezzin
by Bertrand Benoit -- FINANCIAL TIMES, Tuesday 11/4/2003

"In our constitution religious communities are not subject to state
surveillance, nor are they being registered as such. It is not the role of the state to
scrutinise spiritual practices."

This remark, in the preamble to a 93-page document, came from the German
government three years ago in response to questions raised by parliamentarians
keen to know more about the country's 3.2m Muslims.

Almost a year later, in 2001, Germans were shocked when it emerged that three
of the four hijack pilots behind the September 11 attacks in the US -- and
one of the suspected masterminds -- had been Hamburg residents.

A community that had been left to its own devices has since become an object
of unprecedented scrutiny. It is a political U-turn that is building a wall of
distrust between Muslims and non-Muslims and, some say, could end up fueling
extremism.

"We are being observed, we are being harassed. The general sentiment for many
loyal citizens is one of increasing discomfort," says Nadeem Elyas, chairman
of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD), the most politically
active of the four large federations of Muslims in the country.

For Cornelie Sonntag-Wolgast, the Social Democratic chairman of the interior
committee in parliament, the feeling of estrangement is reciprocal. "A lot of
efforts went into the Muslim-Christian dialogue right after September 11. But
we have grown disillusioned. I would like to see clearer gestures coming from
our Muslim partners."

Of Germany's main religions, Islam is the most recent import. Judaism
appeared with the Romans, followed by Christianity's gradual extension up to the 9th
century, but there were only a few thousand Muslims by the end of the second
world war.

Since 1961, however, when the first Turkish "guest workers" arrived to help
power the country's economic renaissance, Islam has become Germany's third
largest denomination after Protestantism and Catholicism -- a development that,
until two years ago, had drawn little interest.

In a paper written just before the September 11 attacks, Ursula
Spuler-Stegemann, author of Muslims in Germany: Side by Side or Together?, warned: "In the
past few years, almost unnoticed, a self-sufficient Muslim parallel society
has developed in nearly all areas of life." The attacks shook Germany, she says,
and justified more aggressive interference in the affairs of minorities --
something the constitution and Germany's postwar trauma had previously prevented.

"It has become much easier to go after extremists without being branded a
xenophobe," she says. "There is a realisation that by refusing to act you do a
disservice to the silent majority of liberal Muslims."

Two bills adopted in the past two years have boosted security. They include
the legalisation of profiling and the capacity to shut religious organisations.
Since their enactment, the ZMD claims 80 mosques and 400 offices and
apartments have been searched. According to the interior ministry, three nationwide
organisations were banned between December 2001 and January this year.

"The state has a duty to look after security," says Dr Elyas, who was born in
Mecca in 1945 and has lived in Germany since 1964. "But it must be done in a
way that does not push the large majority of law-abiding Muslims on to the
other side."

Most conflicts involving the Muslim community are still resolved by Germany's
consensual approach. The King Fahd Academy, a school financed by Saudi
Arabia, was allowed to continue operating last week despite evidence that
inflammatory preaching had taken place there. The school will have to have its syllabus
approved and ban fundamentalists from its teaching staff.

Last month work resumed on what should become Berlin's largest mosque, on a
site belonging to Turkey. The striking Ottoman-style building was almost 10m
higher than allowed by local planners. Rather than being destroyed, the mosque
paid a fine.

The current debate about Muslim headscarves in state schools could prove
harder to defuse, however, especially since the German state -- while guaranteeing
religious freedom -- entertains close relationships with the dominant
Christian churches, on whose behalf it collects taxes.

The constitutional court ruled in September that while the state of
Baden-W?rttemberg had no grounds to ban Fereshta Ludin, an Afghan-born teacher, from
wearing a headscarf in school, it was free to enact legislation to this effect.

Five states have since said they will legislate to ban Islamic headscarves
while continuing to allow yarmulkes (skull caps), crucifixes and habits. "For
many people the scarf is an _expression of fundamentalist principles. The
yarmulke is not," says Karl Feller, deputy Bavarian minister for religious affairs.
"And...the Bavarian constitution says state schools should reflect Christian
principles."

Critics say the bills will probably be struck down by the constitutional
court for being discriminatory. Advocates note that secular Turkey, where
two-thirds of Germany's Muslims have their roots, bans headscarves from universities,
schools and the civil service.

"But we live in Germany. Let us not discuss what the headscarf means in
Turkey or in Afghanistan. It is irrelevant," says Dr Elyas. "What Bavaria is
contemplating I call a provocation."

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

Originally Posted by Kevin Parker '59

Originally Posted by Governor Gallagher

One funny thing I have noticed living in Europe is that many Europeans' perceptions of Americans is almost solely based on our international leadership. For example I have an Italian last name. Everybody here calls me the Italian man, even though I am American. They don't understand that Americans have other names other than Clinton, Gore, Cheney, Powell, Bush, etc. They say, "but you have an Italian name, how can you be an American?"

This is a funny thing I have noticed. They also consider the American accent to be very folksy and depictions of americans in my textbooks always draw on the Western themes, cowboy hats etc.

It's pretty funny.

I wonder, Justin, if that perception varies based on where in Europe one goes? For example when I visited France in 1995, the cute college girl who worked in the hotel breakfast nook asked me, immediately after taking my order, if I was American or British. She could just...tell...that I was from an English speaking country, most likely the U.S., and I don't sound folksy or cowboyish in the slightest degree. Then again, perhaps that is why she also wondered if I was perhaps British.

Governor Gallagher

Not many cowboys wandering the streets of Seattle.



Mike Alexander '59

Where does Tristan Jones fit into this scheme?

I'm confused. Does this mean that Tim Walker is Mike Alexander?

I meant Kevin Parker '59; that is, his Aug. 25th post. *** ***

Boy, this place has changed since the last time I'd been here. :shock:
So, did I miss much?

Stanley

Originally Posted by Stanley Alston '61

Boy, this place has changed since the last time I'd been here. :shock:
So, did I miss much?

Stanley

I dunno. When were you here last?

One thing that has changed is people using pen names and aliases rather than real names. When I post from work, I post as "The Wonk". Marc Lamb posts as "yo", although it changes from time to time.

I'd give you more pen names, but I'd like to know when you frequented these boards last. No sense in saying that xxx is yyy if you don't even know who yyy was. :wink:

I dunno. When were you here last?

I would say back in 2000. I use to be one of the regulars here.
Work and other things, including looking fully at English Generations
took me away.

I'd give you more pen names, but I'd like to know when you frequented these boards last. No sense in saying that xxx is yyy if you don't even know who yyy was. :wink:

Well, as I'd said, the last time I was here was in 2000. I use to be one
of the regulars and one of the main contributors to this forum when it started, and had met Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe in '98 (Washington, D.C./Alexandria, Va.) and '99 (Nashville) during group get togethers.
Still working on the English Generartions, but more to back up my evidence, then to see which generation goes where and what turning occurred when. By the way, is Prof. David Kaiser still around?

Stanley

Originally Posted by Vince Lamb '59

"But we live in Germany. Let us not discuss what the headscarf means in
Turkey or in Afghanistan. It is irrelevant," says Dr Elyas. "What Bavaria is
contemplating I call a provocation."

'Secular Europe' honestly has no idea how much it still retains, in its institutions, its assumptions, and its linguistic/cultural roots, a core imprint of the Christian West. They may have lost their faith, but not their heritage.

They're also, IMHO, 'deeper' in a 3T mode than America ever got, this time around. They are just starting to emerge from that.

Originally Posted by Stanley Alston '61

Boy, this place has changed since the last time I'd been here. :shock:
So, did I miss much?

Stanley

Besides our ongoing and rather childish partisan food-fight? :lol:

Besides our ongoing and rather childish partisan food-fight? :lol:

Well, some things never change.

Stanley

Originally Posted by Stanley Alston '61

Boy, this place has changed since the last time I'd been here. :shock:
So, did I miss much?

Stanley

Probably... I (as a liberal '84 cohort with libertarian leanings and Nomadic inclinations) joined the board in November 2001 and became a regular poster in early 2002 - my primary identity for most of this time has been 'mmailliw' (all my 'mmailliw' posts became 'Cadaver' posts for 5 minutes and then 'mmailliw 8419' posts; as I couldn't go back to my original name, I added the digits that made up my birth year, but in a slightly different order)...

(actually, there was an influx of posters right after 9/11/01; I joined the board 2 months after - after having lurked since May or June of that year)

I take it you probably consider yourself an early Nomad (based on your birthyear), but I guess I'll have to read more of your posts to see your views in general

I take it you probably consider yourself an early Nomad (based on your birthyear), but I guess I'll have to read more of your posts to see your views in general

I see myself as an early Nomad, and rather proud of it, dude. Don't nobody call me a Boomer. It'll just get me ticked off. That's my older sis, not me.

Stanley

Originally Posted by Stanley Alston '61

Well, as I'd said, the last time I was here was in 2000. I use to be one of the regulars and one of the main contributors to this forum when it started, and had met Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe in '98 (Washington, D.C./Alexandria, Va.) and '99 (Nashville) during group get togethers.

Still working on the English Generartions, but more to back up my evidence, then to see which generation goes where and what turning occurred when. By the way, is Prof. David Kaiser still around?

Stanley

Welcome back. A few of us prolific posters started contributing regularly in 2000, including Mark Lamb (aka "yo"), Kevin Parker '59, and myself. I live in the DC area and helped organize a 4T get-together in the DC area during the Martin Luther King weekend in 2001. I met Strauss and Howe, and also Liz Libengood, David Kaiser, (now retired) Captain Mike Eagen, Matthew Elmsley, Bob Cooperman, and others.

Of them, Mike Eagen still posts -- check out the football thread under the culture forum. David Kaiser didn't post for a long time, but recently we've seen a flurry of posts from him in the last week. Interestingly enough, a David Horn, also born in 1947, and also a liberal, regularly posts as David Redux and for a while, us old-timers thought he was David Kaiser (he posted as "David '47").

A number of our most prolific posters joined right after 9/11, including "Seadog", a 1967 cohort, and "Hopeful Cynic", a 1968 cohort.

One of the big themes is whether 9/11 was the catalyst for 4T or whether it was a early November snowstorm and we still be 3T. "Yo", "Hopeful Cynic", and "mmailliw 8419" are vocal proponents of the "we be 3T" theory; Brian Rush, David Kaiser, and "David Redux" strongly believe we be 4T.

Another longstanding debate is whether the generational lineup causes the turnings or whether some else does. Those who believe something else does include Mike Alexander (whose been posting at least since I started in 2000), Dr. Vince Lamb (another long-time poster), and Dr. David McGuiness, who I haven't seen post for about a year or two. Incidently, they believe that 4T started around 2000/2001.

Anyway, besides the partisan food fights between the liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and moderates, those are the big issues of debate.

Originally Posted by Jenny Genser

A number of our most prolific posters joined right after 9/11, including "Seadog", a 1967 cohort, and "Hopeful Cynic", a 1968 cohort.

And me (a 1961 cohort and a liberal with libertarian tendencies) and Justin Maroncelli (aka Justin '77), who is an anarcho-capitalist.

One of the big themes is whether 9/11 was the catalyst for 4T or whether it was a early November snowstorm and we still be 3T. "Yo", "Hopeful Cynic", and "mmailliw 8419" are vocal proponents of the "we be 3T" theory; Brian Rush, David Kaiser, and "David Redux" strongly believe we be 4T.

I'm on the fence but leaning toward 4T.

Welcome back, Mr. Alston. Always good to meet someone new.

Jenny Genser wrote:

Welcome back. A few of us prolific posters started contributing regularly in 2000, including Mark Lamb (aka "yo"), Kevin Parker '59, and myself. I live in the DC area and helped organize a 4T get-together in the DC area during the Martin Luther King weekend in 2001. I met Strauss and Howe, and also Liz Libengood, David Kaiser, (now retired) Captain Mike Eagen, Matthew Elmsley, Bob Cooperman, and others.

Thanks. Nice to hear some of the 'old timers' are still posting, although I am a little surprised to hear that Professor Kaiser is now retired. Sorry I wasn't able to make the 2001 get together in DC, but I was busy, working that is. :wink: Speaking of which, I still have to real that book of his on the 1948 American League Pennant Race. Been too busy with my research and other things to get to it.

Jenny Genser wrote:

One of the big themes is whether 9/11 was the catalyst for 4T or whether it was a early November snowstorm and we still be 3T. "Yo", "Hopeful Cynic", and "mmailliw 8419" are vocal proponents of the "we be 3T" theory; Brian Rush, David Kaiser, and "David Redux" strongly believe we be 4T.

Another longstanding debate is whether the generational lineup causes the turnings or whether some else does. Those who believe something else does include Mike Alexander (whose been posting at least since I started in 2000), Dr. Vince Lamb (another long-time poster), and Dr. David McGuiness, who I haven't seen post for about a year or two. Incidently, they believe that 4T started around 2000/2001.

Anyway, besides the partisan food fights between the liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and moderates, those are the big issues of debate.

Thanks for the information. I hope to soon post up the generational
information I gotten done on our English cousins. I'm sure it'll spark
some disapproval. :wink:

Kiff 1961 wrote:

Welcome back, Mr. Alston. Always good to meet someone new.

Thanks for the welcome back. New? Nah. Returning is more like it.

Originally Posted by Stanley Alston '61

Jenny Genser wrote:

Welcome back. A few of us prolific posters started contributing regularly in 2000, including Mark Lamb (aka "yo"), Kevin Parker '59, and myself. I live in the DC area and helped organize a 4T get-together in the DC area during the Martin Luther King weekend in 2001. I met Strauss and Howe, and also Liz Libengood, David Kaiser, (now retired) Captain Mike Eagen, Matthew Elmsley, Bob Cooperman, and others.

Thanks. Nice to hear some of the 'old timers' are still posting, although I am a little surprised to hear that Professor Kaiser is now retired. Sorry I wasn't able to make the 2001 get together in DC, but I was busy, working that is. :wink: Speaking of which, I still have to real that book of his on the 1948 American League Pennant Race. Been too busy with my research and other things to get to it.

You misread. It is the former Captain Eagen who is retired, not David Kaiser. My bad; I can see how you would read it the other way. :oops:

Jenny Genser wrote:

You misread. It is the former Captain Eagen who is retired, not David Kaiser. My bad; I can see how you would read it the other way. :oops:

After rereading, so can I. No prob.

Stanley

The British are probably one of the most sensible of the modern Western European states. But the BBC is sort of like the New York Times, it lives in its own world.

The following is quoted without intention of infringement or profit for discussion only.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=11785



The PRAVDA BBC
By Alexis Amory
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 16, 2004


I don't know about you, but this "multicultural Britain" business is beginning to feel like an interim phase. ? Mark Steyn, writing in The Daily Telegraph.

British TV talk show host Robert Kilroy-Silk had his show canceled by the BBC for revealing a robust opinion of the Arab world in The Daily Express, a newspaper. A sample: ?What do they think we feel about them? That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors??

Not only was his 20-year old BBC talk show canceled at the speed of light, but a deeply authoritarian and ignorant chap by the name of Trevor Phillips who heads up a nasty organization called the Commission for Racial Equality, reported Mr Kilroy-Silk to the London police for ?incitement to racial hatred?. Phillips, of West Indian descent, lost his bid to become mayor of London to Ken Livingstone. As a self-promoter with an impeccable thought-fascist pedigree, Phillips ranks right up there with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. He said that although there was no incitement of any kind to violence in Kilroy-Silk?s article, ?some people may read it that way?. So now we have a new definition of ?incitement to racial violence?. How some dimwits might interpret a newspaper article.

Kilroy-Silk quickly proffered a semi-apology. His article had originally run in the lead-up to the war against Saddam and was written as an opposing view against the appeaseniks. When it ran originally, he had referred to ?some Arab states? rather than ?Arabs?. When it originally ran last April, it raised nary a twitter. It was run a second time, last week, by a mistake made in either the Daily Express editorial department or Kilroy-Silk?s office, and a sub-editor seems to have altered it slightly.

Kilroy-Silk?s openness, however, got him nowhere with the BBC, which was beside itself with the explosive fury normal people reserve for the mass murder of innocents. Like, say, 9/11. It announced his show would remain canceled until ?we have completed our investigations?, although there was no word on how they were going to investigate an opinion column. Parse it?

Meanwhile, Trevor Phillips, on a roll, has adjudged Kilroy-Silk?s apology for the changes in his text (which weren?t made by him) inadequate. He needs to offer a fuller and much more abject apology, opined the mighty Mr Phillips, donate a portion of his substantial earnings as a TV talk show host to an Islamic charity, and ?learn about Islam?. Only then, can we ?let the matter rest?.

Mr Phillips, clearly an ill-educated, self-satisfied buffoon, went on to lecture the British public about former great Islamic achievements. They were great mathematicians, he informed us. Oh? Mathematics passed through the Arab world on its way to Europe from India, where the concept of zero had already been intuited and where they were already using the decimal point. In any event, this was before the advent of Islam. Even if the Arabs had been responsible for any of the scientific achievements Phillips claims for them , with the advent of Islam, all scientific and other inquiry into the nature of the universe ceased. The Prophet delivered his message from Allah, and everything was settled.

Although public outrage has caused the BBC to back-pedal slightly and say they will be re-instating Mr Kilroy-Silk?s show after all, the TV host still finds himself ?under investigation? by both the BBC and, at the behest of Trevor Phillips, the Metropolitan Police.

Note that at no time, even in the altered rerun article, did Kilroy-Silk advocate racial or religious violence.

He stated some indisputable facts about life in some Arab states.

Note also that although some British Muslims had been a bit huffy about the wording in the newest edition of the article (when it was thoughtfully drawn to their attention by Mr Phillips), they shrugged and settled down when told the original piece had referred to ?some Arab states? rather than ?Arabs? in general. The BBC and Trevor Phillips alone are carrying the torch of indignation on behalf of British Muslims, who, in the main, seem unperturbed.

Now, the BBC?s heavy-handed instant self-abasement to the Islamofascists and their apologists is doubly hypocritical, because there is a British Oxford-based poet, lecturer and attention-seeker by the name of Tom Paulin who appears regularly as a panelist on the BBC.

In contrast to the mild Kilroy-Silk, Mr Paulin has indeed freely incited violence. A pick ?n? mix selection of Paulin?s comments made during an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram last April: "Brooklyn-born" Jewish settlers on the West Bank "should be shot dead"; "they are Nazis"; "I feel nothing but hatred for them". A few days after his violent views were published, Mr.Paulin's script was acted out as a Hamas Death Squad shot dead four Israeli settlers in their beds, including a five year-old girl.

I am not saying it was cause and effect. And I am not saying that Mr Paulin is anti-Semitic as opposed to anti-Israel. I am, however, saying that his words were an incontrovertible incitement to hatred and violence. Yet, while Kilroy-Silk was scraped off the air with indecent haste for an article in a British newspaper, Paulin continues his regular appearance on the BBC?s The Late Review, his wrist not even lightly tapped for comments he made to an Arab newspaper. Nor does Trevor Phillips have any words of admonishment for him.

The BBC wriggled in its seat when tackled about this by British journalists, and offered the disingenuous statement that airing the views of Mr Paulin, who it styles ? a poetic polemicist?, was OK because he was ?being paid to have opinions?. So that?s OK, then. Harvard University withdrew a speaking invitation after his comments appeared, but the BBC is relaxed about that too, saying he appears to have ?ruffled some feathers? in the United States, ?where the Jewish question is notoriously sensitive?.

Meanwhile, if the Metropolitan police decide to charge Mr Kilroy-Silk with incitement to violence and he is found guilty, he could face a prison sentence of seven years. It is inconceivable, given that he committed no criminal offense, but that?s not the point. The threat now hovers in the British polity.

Harvard University withdrew a speaking invitation after his comments appeared, but the BBC is relaxed about that too, saying he appears to have ?ruffled some feathers? in the United States, ?where the Jewish question is notoriously sensitive?.

Eh? The 'Jewish question'? Sensitive in America? Has he looked immediately east lately?

From the New Perspectives Quarterly. Standard disclaimers apply.

Two Wests

This conversation between Samuel Huntington of Harvard University and Anthony Giddens of the London School of Economics took place under the auspices of the Aspen Institute Italia in late Spring.

Samuel Huntington | The central division in the West is one which so many people have focused on: the difference in power between the United States and Europe. This division naturally gives rise to antagonisms, and, at times, conflicts, and certainly to differences in perspective and interest.

This is not a relationship, however, which is limited to the US and Europe. It is basically, I believe, a product of the global structure of power. During the Cold War we had two superpowers who inevitably had to compete with each other. We now have one superpower and several major regional powers, and their interests necessarily conflict at times. The US, as a global superpower, has interests in every part of the world and it tends to promote those interests in every part of the world.

On the other hand, what I call "major regional powers," such as the European Union, or Russia, or China, or India, or Brazil, have interests in their regions. They quite appropriately and understandably think that they ought to be able to shape what goes on on their turf. These differences in perspectives and interests inevitably, in many cases, lead to conflict.

There are also, within every region, countries that are not the major regional power and that, by and large, don't want to be dominated by their stronger and more powerful neighbor. At times, as we have seen, they turn to the US, on the one hand, and the secondary regional powers on the other. If you look back over the past decade, you will see that the relations between the US and many of these secondary powers have grown much closer. We saw a manifestation of that this winter when they lined up in the United Nations Security Council.

Anthony Giddens | To reinforce your point, I would say that the issue of transatlantic divisions, to my mind anyway, doesn't come primarily from disagreements about Iraq. Rather, this disagreement about Iraq-this tremendous fissure-came primarily from unresolved problems which we haven't thought through and which are essentially left over from the Cold War period. I would call these the residual problems of 1989. I think we have only gradually come to realize how thoroughly the Cold War defined our institutions. There are three such residual problems which I consider the biggest: first, the meaning of the West; second, the identity of Europe (because Europe developed essentially in some part as a Cold War formation and now has to face up to a massive process of globalization); third, US military power in relation to Europe.

Now I think that there are two senses of the West which I would separate: I'll call these West One and West Two. In the first sense, the West refers to a constitutional, juridical system, a set of individual rights, the rule of impersonal law, civil liberties and so on. I believe passionately that in this sense, the West is still the West. I believe passionately that the principles which have emerged in Western democratic systems are generalizable systems to the rest of the world, and I believe that you can show that these principles can spread to most societies throughout the world.

West Two, however, is what most discussions about divisions concentrate on. West Two is a geopolitical formation, and here there are serious problems. I still think they are mainly ex-Cold War problems, rather than specific problems about the recent turn of events, but there remain important issues to come to terms with-starting with the fact that Europeans must acknowledge the nature of the new threats, and this has yet to be done sufficiently.

There is a major difference between the kinds of terrorism which we are familiar with here in Europe (local, reasonably confined, with the objective of forming national identities), and the new geopolitical terrorism. This new terrorism leverages the power of civil society. The Cultural gap and the role of religion

Huntington | This perfectly illustrates my further point: the second significant division, in the West, is a cultural one. Obviously Europe and the West share a great deal, but there is one difference which is really significant: The US is a profoundly religious country, European countries are secular. The American settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries were created largely for religious reasons. The religiosity of Americans has struck almost every European visitor to the US since Tocqueville. We are still one of the most religious people in the world and quite exceptional among industrialized societies. And religion and nationalism on a global basis tend to go together: People who are more religious also tend to be more nationalistic. Americans are generally deeply committed to both God and country, and, overall, Europeans seem to have rather weak commitments to both.

In addition, the founding religion in the US was dissenting Protestantism and this has introduced a deeply moralistic strain in American culture. We do tend to define issues in terms of good and evil-more than Europeans-and this tendency has certainly reached a peak in the current administration. This clearly contributes to differences between the American and Europeans.

Giddens | This issue of religion is very interesting, but I'm not convinced that there is a massive difference between Europe and the US. In the US there is a very strong degree of in-church secularization: religion has always had a different function in the wider society than it has in Europe. The difference between Europe and the US is not a straightforward religious one, but one of politicization, the politicizing of the religious right in particular.

Huntington | The results of a series of polls on the extent of belief in 17 countries graded them on their degree of religiosity: the US came out a clear first with the rating 1.7, then, among European countries, Ireland was 4.1, Poland 5.2, Italy 5.9, Britain 11.6, and then Germany, where a distinction was made between West Germany and East Germany. West Germany was 12.1 and East Germany was last with 16.3.

One should note that there is a global resurgence of religion. This is taking place just about everywhere except, possibly, in Western Europe. Religion is becoming more and more important in the way in which countries define their national identity-in the way in which governments try to establish legitimacy-as well as an important element in communal conflicts. As far as America is concerned, it is more religious now than it was 20 or 30 years ago-and there is a lot of evidence on this. America has traditionally gone through what I call "great awakenings," beginning with the first "great awakening" in the 1730s and the 1740s-which prepared the way for the American Revolution-and leading to what I think is a new "great awakening" now. Is religion being politicized in the US? Yes. It is becoming very political. In 2000, each candidate running for top office-with the exception of Joe Lieberman-had to proclaim his belief in Jesus Christ. That has never happened before in American politics. Democracy and Islam

Giddens | Let me go back, for a moment, to West One. There are four times as many democratic systems in the world today as there were 25 years ago-even taking into account the fact that there are more states in absolute terms. There is a structural reason for this, I think. We are living in something like a global information society: People are no longer passive citizens, they want to be much more active with regards to their own lives. That is one of the reasons why I think discussion on democratization in Iraq is different from discussion on democratization in other countries even 10 to 15 years ago. Comparisons with post-war Germany and Japan are not very accurate either. Current discussion must be in terms of the wider spread of democratic systems, which make previously non-existent forms of leverage possible.

Huntington | You have very appropriately pointed to the tremendous spread of democracy throughout the world; however, most of the countries to which democracy has spread were either countries that had cultures quite similar to those around the North Atlantic-that is Latin American countries or Central European countries-or were the result of long American influence-like South Korea and Taiwan. I am not saying that it is universal, but still, the cultural factor would seem important. As Joe LaPalombara has said, "to democratize means to Westernize." I wish this were true, but the fact of the matter is-at least in the Muslim world where elections have been held-it is the fundamentalists groups that come out ahead. Even in France, where they had an election for the Islamic Council established by the government, or in Pakistan or other Muslim countries, it's the fundamentalists who tend to win. They represent to a very large extent popular opinion. If we organize elections anytime soon in Iraq I would be willing to bet it will be the more extreme Shiite and Sunni fundamentalists who will come out ahead. So while we are all in favor of democracy, we might want to restrain ourselves in persuading some countries to become democratic.

Giddens | In relation to the Muslim world, countries like Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey and Indonesia are emerging democracies. It is not at all clear that their outlook here is necessarily incompatible with the West. There is clearly a division between problems in the Arab world and the large range of problems in the "greater Middle East." I think the struggle of our age is not one between civilizations-though your thesis on the "clash" is one of the most brilliant to be found in the recent history of political science-but a struggle between cosmopolitanism on the one hand and fundamentalism on the other.

Cosmopolitanism is at the core of the West, in the sense of West One: universalizable principles which allow people of different cultures to relate to one another and to live alongside one another. Fundamentalism is any kind of fundamentalism-not just Islamic, not just religious, but ethnic and nationalist, too. To me, the fundamentalist is someone who says there's only one way of life and everyone else better get out of the way. In this sense, I would claim very, very strongly-passionately even-that the West is still the West.

Huntington | Yes, but the West has a legitimacy problem. To be more precise: the world faces the problem of gap between power and legitimacy. Effective, authoritative governance can only exist when the two go together. At present, the US has the power but, in the eyes of most of the world, it lacks the legitimacy.

The global community faces the basic problem of how to bring power and legitimacy together: exercising power without legitimacy can in the long run have very deleterious effects. If I had one message to send to the Bush White House it would be the one framed so well by Rousseau: "The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master unless he turns might into right and obedience into duty."

Bringing together legitimacy and power is a crucial issue whether it involves developing ways of giving greater legitimacy to US power, or greater power to UN legitimacy. Either the UN should be reformed, or the US should try more than it has recently to act in a multilateral fashion and through international organizations, and thus gain legitimacy.

Giddens | How do you achieve legitimacy in the international system? Well, I think, quite simply, through rules: impersonal rules which are observed by everybody. That's why the WTO is particularly important. It is a rule-bound organization, and the fact that the Chinese have signed up, that Taiwan has signed up, that Russia signals its wish to do so, is extremely important.

Huntington | Yes, but are there institutional remedies? Well, I can think of some-none of which, however, has any chance of being adopted. One, for instance, would be to simply restructure the UN Security Council, adding countries like India, Japan and Brazil as permanent members, and doing away with veto power for everyone except the US. That, it seems to me, would create a Security Council that more or less reflects the power structure in the world today.

In any case, divisions have existed between America and Europe in the past, most notably in the 19th century, and the current differences are mild. I think it is important to emphasize the common historical and cultural legacy that joins America and Europe-going back through the centuries of the Renaissance Reformation, Enlightenment, development of the Westphalian system and nation states, but, even more important, a division between spiritual and temporal authority, the rule of law, social pluralism, representative government, individual rights...These, it seems to me, constitute the basic features of Western civilization. They distinguish Europeans and Americans from other societies and cultures whether they are Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Muslim, Arab or other.

Giddens | I think Max Weber-the celebrated German sociologist and economist-got it right when he argued that the origin of the West is fundamentally to be traced to the rule of law, and especially the impersonal rule of law. No other cultures had the impersonal rule of law and it is from this that a great deal of civil liberties stem.

Huntington | The crucial difference now, of course, comes with the engagement of Western countries with Islam and this manifests itself on a whole variety of fronts. In Europe you have Muslim immigration: This poses serious social and cultural problems and questions of national identity which have come to the fore in European countries. It also, quite obviously, poses security problems in that so many of the terrorists have found a home in Western European countries. They are, of course, just part of a global, broader manifestation of militant Islam. We must distinguish between militant Islam and Islam in general, but militant Islam is clearly a threat to the West-through terrorists and rogue states that are trying to develop nuclear weapons, and through a variety of other ways.

The extent to which communal violence in today's world involves Muslims is striking: The Economist identified 32 major conflicts going on in the world in the year 2000, and if you look at those 32 conflicts more than two-thirds involve Muslims fighting other Muslims or Muslims fighting non-Muslims. Hence it seems to me a high priority for Europe and America is to recognize what they have in common and to try to work out a common strategy for dealing with the threats to their society and security from militant Islam.

I would add that a strategy which allows for preemptive war against urgent, immediate and serious threats is absolutely essential for the US and other Western powers in this period. Our enemies-primarily the militant Islam, but also other groups-cannot be deterred, that much is obvious, so it is essential-if they are preparing an attack against us-that we attack first.

Originally Posted by Vince Lamb '59

From the New Perspectives Quarterly. Standard disclaimers apply.

Two Wests



There are also, within every region, countries that are not the major regional power and that, by and large, don't want to be dominated by their stronger and more powerful neighbor. At times, as we have seen, they turn to the US, on the one hand, and the secondary regional powers on the other. If you look back over the past decade, you will see that the relations between the US and many of these secondary powers have grown much closer. We saw a manifestation of that this winter when they lined up in the United Nations Security Council.

Interestingly, there is a internal precedent for this in the history of the West: the power of the aristocratic class was originally tamed in many of the European nation-states by an alliance between Crown and Commons motivated by similar impulses.

Huntington | This perfectly illustrates my further point: the second significant division, in the West, is a cultural one. Obviously Europe and the West share a great deal, but there is one difference which is really significant: The US is a profoundly religious country, European countries are secular. The American settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries were created largely for religious reasons. The religiosity of Americans has struck almost every European visitor to the US since Tocqueville. We are still one of the most religious people in the world and quite exceptional among industrialized societies. And religion and nationalism on a global basis tend to go together: People who are more religious also tend to be more nationalistic. Americans are generally deeply committed to both God and country, and, overall, Europeans seem to have rather weak commitments to both.

Which creates a basic problem for Europe in responding to crises, since they have a hard time finding answers to the question of 'why' when leveled at them by opponents, internal or external.

Huntington | The results of a series of polls on the extent of belief in 17 countries graded them on their degree of religiosity: the US came out a clear first with the rating 1.7, then, among European countries, Ireland was 4.1, Poland 5.2, Italy 5.9, Britain 11.6, and then Germany, where a distinction was made between West Germany and East Germany. West Germany was 12.1 and East Germany was last with 16.3.

One should note that there is a global resurgence of religion. This is taking place just about everywhere except, possibly, in Western Europe. Religion is becoming more and more important in the way in which countries define their national identity-in the way in which governments try to establish legitimacy-as well as an important element in communal conflicts. As far as America is concerned, it is more religious now than it was 20 or 30 years ago-and there is a lot of evidence on this.

Though this resurgence apparently takes place entirely below the radar of America's 'chattering classes', many of which share the basic European outlook. Perhaps they simply don't understand what they're seeing.

Democracy and Islam

Huntington | You have very appropriately pointed to the tremendous spread of democracy throughout the world; however, most of the countries to which democracy has spread were either countries that had cultures quite similar to those around the North Atlantic-that is Latin American countries or Central European countries-or were the result of long American influence-like South Korea and Taiwan. I am not saying that it is universal, but still, the cultural factor would seem important. As Joe LaPalombara has said, "to democratize means to Westernize." I wish this were true, but the fact of the matter is-at least in the Muslim world where elections have been held-it is the fundamentalists groups that come out ahead. Even in France, where they had an election for the Islamic Council established by the government, or in Pakistan or other Muslim countries, it's the fundamentalists who tend to win. They represent to a very large extent popular opinion. If we organize elections anytime soon in Iraq I would be willing to bet it will be the more extreme Shiite and Sunni fundamentalists who will come out ahead. So while we are all in favor of democracy, we might want to restrain ourselves in persuading some countries to become democratic.

Giddens | In relation to the Muslim world, countries like Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey and Indonesia are emerging democracies. It is not at all clear that their outlook here is necessarily incompatible with the West. There is clearly a division between problems in the Arab world and the large range of problems in the "greater Middle East." I think the struggle of our age is not one between civilizations-though your thesis on the "clash" is one of the most brilliant to be found in the recent history of political science-but a struggle between cosmopolitanism on the one hand and fundamentalism on the other.

Here Giddens misses the point in a basic way. There's no such thing as 'cosmopolitanism' as a thing in itself.

Cosmopolitanism is at the core of the West, in the sense of West One: universalizable principles which allow people of different cultures to relate to one another and to live alongside one another.

Here we encounter one of the ironies of the 'cosmopolitan' position, it's insistence that Western principles are universalizable. They are, but only at the cost of more-or-less displacing the already extant cultures and the operating systems of those cultures. The impulse to do so, in turn, is ancient in the West. The modern 'cosmopolitans' inherit their desire to create a universal European Union type state from their cultural ancestors, who dreamed of a universal Catholic Church. Same basic cultural impulse. The West is an inherently expansionist culture.

Huntington | Yes, but the West has a legitimacy problem. To be more precise: the world faces the problem of gap between power and legitimacy. Effective, authoritative governance can only exist when the two go together. At present, the US has the power but, in the eyes of most of the world, it lacks the legitimacy.

The global community faces the basic problem of how to bring power and legitimacy together: exercising power without legitimacy can in the long run have very deleterious effects. If I had one message to send to the Bush White House it would be the one framed so well by Rousseau: "The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master unless he turns might into right and obedience into duty."

Bringing together legitimacy and power is a crucial issue whether it involves developing ways of giving greater legitimacy to US power, or greater power to UN legitimacy. Either the UN should be reformed, or the US should try more than it has recently to act in a multilateral fashion and through international organizations, and thus gain legitimacy.

Giddens | How do you achieve legitimacy in the international system? Well, I think, quite simply, through rules: impersonal rules which are observed by everybody. That's why the WTO is particularly important. It is a rule-bound organization, and the fact that the Chinese have signed up, that Taiwan has signed up, that Russia signals its wish to do so, is extremely important.

Even before I googled them, I was 99% sure after reading that that both men were Silents.

Giddens | I think Max Weber-the celebrated German sociologist and economist-got it right when he argued that the origin of the West is fundamentally to be traced to the rule of law, and especially the impersonal rule of law. No other cultures had the impersonal rule of law and it is from this that a great deal of civil liberties stem.

The origin of the West lay in the interaction of two great social and cultural forces, the 'barbarian' germanic tribes and groups, and the Roman-Christian heritage of Clasical Civilization's remnants. The concept of impersonal law came later. In fact, the Church fought an ongoing battle, in the early days of the West, with such impersonal legal techniques as the trial by ordeal.

Huntington | The crucial difference now, of course, comes with the engagement of Western countries with Islam and this manifests itself on a whole variety of fronts. In Europe you have Muslim immigration: This poses serious social and cultural problems and questions of national identity which have come to the fore in European countries.

Case in point: the current controversy in France over the ban on headscarves for students. (They tried to disguise it by also banning 'over large' crucifixes and other symbols, but nobody was fooled as to the intent of the law.) France finds itself in a basic dilemma, they don't want to become a Muslim nation, but their birth rate is now very low, while the birth rate for Muslims in France is high, as is the immigration rate. Further, the Muslims are strongly motivated, while the French find themselves in the position of trying to resist something with nothing, or at least a national culture that defines itself by what it isn't.

I suspect that the birth rate in Europe is likely to become a major issue in the not too distant future.

Birth rate in Europe:

It'll be interesting to see how the "New Europe" situation plays out. France is so derisive of these countries, yet in 50 years the demographic balance of the EU will definitely turn their way as they have children and the rest of Europe doesn't.


Islam and Democracy:

The big problem that EVERYONE seems to forget is that DEMOCRACY IS SIMPLY MOB RULE.

The reason that democracy works so well in the west is because it is not merely democracy. It is because we all have a version of the BILL OF RIGHTS.

Democracy *without* strong protections for the individual will devolve into a non-democratic situation. It is the Bill of Rights that makes the situation stable.

Implementing a "vote" in Iraq without first guaranteeing the inalienable rights of women and minorities is crazy.

Another take on the odd malaise that seems to have overtaken the integration effort in Europe, in the form of an address by Niall Ferguson

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Another take on the odd malaise that seems to have overtaken the integration effort in Europe, in the form of an address by Niall Ferguson

A couple of observations Ferguson makes about the role of German money in the European 'ever closer union' project:

If you add up all the--to use the technical term--unrequited transfers that Germany has paid through the European budget since its inception, one of the most striking facts that I can offer you is that the total exceeds the amount that Germany was asked to pay in reparations after the First World War. It is more than 132 billion marks, the sum that the Germans in the 1920s insisted would bankrupt them if they paid it. Well, they finally did pay it. They paid it not as reparations, but as net contributions to the European budget.

Today, Germany accounts for around a quarter, a little under a quarter, of the combined gross domestic product of the entire European Union. It accounts for just over a fifth, 22 percent, of its population. It accounts for 16 percent of the seats in the European Parliament, and around about 11 percent of votes on the Council of Ministers, though that process of voting is, of course, under a process of reform. (In fact, if the draft treaty isn't enacted after enlargement, Germany's share of votes in the Council of Ministers will fall to 8 percent.) But if you look at net contributions to the European budget in the years 1995 to 2001, Germany contributed 67 percent.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Interestingly, there is a internal precedent for this in the history of the West: the power of the aristocratic class was originally tamed in many of the European nation-states by an alliance between Crown and Commons motivated by similar impulses.

I used to think this. By the late 15th century, strong monarchies had arisen (curtailing the power of the aristocracy) in Western Europe, but not elsewhere in Europe. The "alliance" model you suggest posits that Western monarchs made common cause with powerful non-aristocratic interests against the aristocracy to gain absolute power.

If this were the case one would expect that the Netherlands, part of the duchy of Burgundy, would have formed a core of support for the French monarch or the Holy Roman Emperor as they strove to assert their authority over the French nobility or the German princes.

But this wasn't the case. Generally the Dutch were unenthusiastic about monarchial rule and by the late 1560's were in rebellion against the kings who tried to rule them. The other economically-advanced region in Europe, Italy, apparently liked the decentralized political power of Medieval times. There was no serious effort at unification under a monarch there either, suggesting no support for such a cause.

In fact in both Italy and the Netherlands, the commons made alliances with their own local aristocrats to form oligarchies comprised of landed nobility and wealthy commoners.

Originally from The Guardian, reposted in the right-wing site frontpagemag.com, quoted without intention of profit or infringement for discussion and illustration only.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=12873



The Guardian | April 7, 2004

Britain's race relations chief Trevor Phillips was attacked by politicians, community leaders and commentators yesterday after he called for the country to abandon its attempts to be more multicultural.
In a newspaper interview the head of the Commission for Racial Equality said that 'multiculturalism suggests separateness' and added that the UK should strive towards a more homogeneous culture with 'common values ... the common currency of the English language, honouring the culture of these islands, like Shakespeare and Dickens'.

His views drew stinging retorts yesterday. Lord Taylor of Warwick, the black Conservative peer, described Phillips as too right wing. 'If you take his line to its fullest extent you are going to get a situation like the one in France where they are banning Muslim girls from wearing headscarves. It certainly wouldn't work in Britain.'

And the idea of imposing British values on the country's different racial groups was likened by the Asian Labour MP Keith Vaz to the work of Christian missionaries. 'Britishness cannot be imposed on people of different races, cultures and religions,' he said. 'In Britain's multicultural society differences are celebrated, not exploited. It has been a great achievement - the envy of Europe.'

Phillips's remark that 'people should be allowed to be a bit different' drew a stinging response from Lord Herman Ouseley, former head of the Commission and current chairman of Kick Racism out of Football. He said the idea of allowing people to be different was 'a load of nonsense'.

'We have differences whether we like it or not. Even if you take black and brown out of it there are still different ages, classes and locations. Most people who come here as migrants have a sense of Britishness but also a recognition that there are different cultures.'

There were also murmurings by members of the Muslim community who said they felt Phillips's comments were aimed directly at them. 'We should not have to hold the whole society hostage by forcing them to keep to one strict culture,' said Riaz Ahmed, who was the mayor of Oldham during the height of the racial tensions in the town. 'Britain is rightly a multicultural society - why do we want to kill it off when most black and Asian people consider themselves British, obey the laws but retain some of their heritage?'

The Muslim Council of Britain also said it was concerned. A spokesman said: 'It is a major statement with profound policy implications. We need to speak to Trevor himself, but at first glance his comments appear to be too Muslim specific when we are already under so much pressure.'

However, there was some support for Phillips. David Lammy, the Constitutional Affairs Minister and one of Labour's leading young black politicians, said multiculturalism was in danger of encouraging polarised communities living separately alongside each other. He said multiculturalism had 'served us well in the past' but second- and third-generation immigrants wanted something different. 'Young ethnic minority people in this country feel as British as anyone - in fact the majority were born in this country,' he told The Observer . 'What Trevor's saying is that having been born and raised here, I feel passionate about this country and I find it really worrying when I come across young people my age - Muslims - who are not able to feel as included as I do.'

The editor of Prospect magazine, David Goodhart - who recently caused a stir with essays along a similar line - said he thought Phillips was merely stating the obvious. 'We need to strike a balance between diversity and the common culture. Over the past 20 years the Left have often forgotten the latter.'

Right-wing philosopher Roger Scruton also agreed: 'Multiculturalism is a recipe for disintegration and instead we should have a common culture that also embraces differences. I welcome this because previously heads of the commission have been in favour of not just multiculturalism but have made blanket accusations against the white majority for being racist.'