I think it should be mandatory that all college students read a book antithetical to his or her professed beliefs about the world and the way it should be. Lately, with the help of D’Souza and his The Enemy at Home, many of my beliefs have disintegrated. My response to many problems is unreasoned, arbitrary, and fickle. My reactions are instinctual. In fact, one of my strongest intellectual beliefs at the moment is that I don’t believe I really have any, none that might not blow away in tomorrow’s wind.
(When I heard D'Souza speak last semester I felt a bit like I'd been flattened by a steam roller. He is so persuasive and confident that I, with mostly inchoate beliefs, had difficulty holding onto my beliefs and measuring them against the ones he presented.) D’Souza is immensely and frighteningly convincing. The meat of his arguments appear valid. I do believe that in many ways what he calls the “decadent American culture,” which – as he tirelessly emphasizes – “the cultural left has fostered”1 is responsible for American resentment in the Middle East. Our societal standards are very different from those of Muslim societies, and “we should always be aware of the blinders that ethnocentrism places on our minds.”2 We broadcast vulgar television shows, such as Jerry Springer, which exploit the plight of many sad and unfortunate people. We place utmost emphasis on freedom of expression and the right of the individual to be autonomous. (Yes, just as was pointed out today in class, my words are filled with gross generalizations. I will refrain from making them only long to acknowledge that I will continue to make them.) According to D’Souza, America is still largely Christian. “The real story of America should be entitled ‘How This Christian Country Has Become an Even More Christian Country.”3 But he also declares that most Americans are only nominally Christian. Islam is the only of the three great monotheistic religions that still believes. And does it ever. The Qur’an prescribes all facets of life to be dictated by God and religion. In America, liberals and most conservatives cherish our separation of church and state. It is a victory for liberal democracy, a victory that should be shared with the rest of the world. But Muslims do not desire this. This goes against all that governs their lives. (“Unlike many Christians, who have multiple idenities only one of which is that they happen to be Christian, Muslims typically regard their religion as central to both private and public identity, and consider all other affiliations as secondary or derivative.” 4) Many Muslims would prefer it if America was more Christian than it is. As D’Souza fiercely explains, Muslims are disgusted with our moral values (or, in their view, lack there of). Radical Muslims do not hate our freedom or our new technology or even our democracy. Many advocate for democracy because with democracy they see an opportunity to gain political power. Radicals have depended on technology to orchestrate their growing regimes, for international communication, to build weapons, and carry out terrorist attacks. They do not even hate freedom. They hate OUR freedom, which they do not perceive as freedom at all but depravity.
And even if many Muslims despise American culture, they are not enraged to violence simply because our values are different from theirs. What enrages them is the fact that we are pressing our values onto their world. This raises a very interesting question. What is our right to meddle in the business of others?
(The declaration of cultural relativism. Inevitably, inaction and existentialist malaise take over if this doctrine is driven to its extremes. So how do we reconcile the truth that everyone has certain natural rights with the truth that what we perceive to be human rights may be cultural constructions? How can we learn to step beyond our ethnocentrism and see what are culturally relative factors and what truly are universals? We must learn to be aware of cultural propensities, especially when manipulating international ordeals.) Do we move into a country that promotes perspectives of human life radically different from our own, yet lives peaceably and without interfering with other countries? It seems we ought not to. But what if there is internal turmoil, such as a civil war. Or what if a majority of traditionalists stringently maintains power over a newly developing body of progressives, which more closely agree with our ideals. How far do we go in this case? What if there is harsh repression by a dictatorial regime, who couldn’t be happier with the position they’re in. Should we intervene? Is it our responsibility? Their right? Does a people have rights to rights that their culture has never before espoused. Does a culture that believes its value structures to be better, more fare, than another’s have the right to push this structure on others?What if, as D’Souza claims, one country is trying to push its progressive values on a traditional culture that does not want its society restructured? It seems as though the cruelty of some of the despotic regimes in our world day is innately evil. There is no question, torture, undue violence and suppression seem to be universal evils. But many such oppressed people are utterly certain that they do not want the liberal values that come with an American liberation.
D’Souza stresses that “America’s ideals and its interests are not identical.”5 By this he means that American do not really want all the freedoms for radical Muslims that they are proposing. Releasing dangerous, detained potential terrorists threatens American security. We do not want the extremists to gain more power; that would be devastating to the world as we know it. But this line insinuates something deeper. D’Souza writes extensively about religious discrimination in America under the name of religious equality. If Americans allow the public display of many diverse belief systems, why is religion so taboo? “One’s right to espouse a belief system does not require every institution of government… to abstain form supporting a different set of views.”6 For example, “if the government puts up a monument to Abraham Lincoln, is it violating the freedom of those who detest Lincoln? It would seem not.”7 D’Souza cleverly points out that hypocrisy espoused by freedom-seeking progressive institutions. Everyone is equal and has equal rights until they disagree with me. D’Souza argues that religious people are being discriminated against here in America because so many have gained the right to express their beliefs, while religious people – he means Christians – have lost theirs.
The meat of D’Souza’s arguments are well supported and very well argued. It is his bias and his conclusions I disagree with. So say it is indeed true that liberals, liberal pop culture in particular, are responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11.
(A map of the countries from which al-Queda received financial support between 2004 and 2006. Terrorism takes very little money, and it seems as though once the terrorist impulse is engendered it is impossible to halt it. Terrorism must be stopped at its roots. What does this entail for our interactions with Muslim countries?) In what way does this convince liberals that they are wrong? I do not believe this will convince liberals to become more conservative. Being at the front edge of evolution requires being ostracized by the vast majority (not that our disgusting cultural displays are at the cutting edge of morality). Just because Muslims define progress as going back to the eleventh century when their empire was at its height does not mean that we will ever be able to agree. Conversely, does progress entail the recent developments in American society? And how far does cultural relativism go to explain the inability of our differences to be reconciled?1. Dinesh D’Souza, The Enemy at Home (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 2.
2. Ibid,. 68.
3. Ibid., 186.
4. Ibid., 82.
5. Ibid., 43.
6. Ibid., 187.
7. Ibid., 187.
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