From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Fri Jul 29 2005 - 15:50:27 BST
All,
Until now I've kept out of any discussions of the recent events in London
and the wider conflict. This is mainly because I find myself without any
stable ideas about what is going on in what I think is an incredibly complex
conflict whereas many of you seem to have it firmly and decisively figured
out. Another reason is that it is often suggested that there is an
alternative channel of information - one that tells us what is really behind
everything - whereas most people are kept in the dark by popular media.
So, not knowing which channel it is I'm picking up, the chances are I'm in
the dark. And I certainly don't have any firm answers.
But anyway, for what it's worth, what do I think at the moment?
I think the act of violence, the detonation of a bomb in a public place, is
the use of one set of inorganic/biological patterns which destroys other
inorganic and biological patterns. The effect of this is inorganic
structural damage, a tragic loss of life and the destabilisation of social
patterns which support and are supported by the biological patterns.
Probably, intellectual patterns change too, to accommodate and adjust to
changing social patterns and the possible intrusion of new values emerging
out of the events. But it is fairly easy to describe violence and its
effect in terms of the MOQ. The significant thing to describe, with respect
to formulating a solution, is the cause of the violence.
First of all, cause is not justification. We can discuss the possible
causes of violence without assuming tacit consent or condemnation. When
someone uses words like "apologist" to describe someone who is trying to
understand the conflict you can usually be sure that a conflation of cause
and justification has occurred.
What, then, are the possible causes of the violence? A few of the common
suggestions are:
i) Eternal fornication - I think the MOQ would translate this as a cause
motivated by a biological pattern of values i.e. sexual gratification.
However, the belief that this biological quality would be attained as the
result of suicide/martyrdom is the product of a social pattern of faith and
submission to authority.
ii) Resistance to contested occupation - I think the MOQ would translate
this as a cause motivated by a social pattern of values i.e. the desire to
protect one's culture, economy, government, religious faith etc. against an
invading body.
iii) Establishment of a global dar al-Islam - I think the MOQ would
translate this as a cause motivated by a social pattern of values i.e. the
desire to expand the geographic prevalence of one's culture, economy,
government, religious faith etc. In this case, the social pattern that
wishes to expand would be a certain strand of Islam.
iv) The destruction of secular democracy - I think the MOQ would translate
this as a cause motivated by a social pattern of values i.e. the desire to
inhibit the intellectual freedom offered by democracy and/or the desire to
fill a perceived moral vacuum created by secular democracy.
I'd like to make a couple of general comments. I don't think these causes
are exclusive (or exhaustive) i.e. combinations of the four (and others) are
possible.
I don't think any of these causes, from their own perspective, are evil. In
fact, the MOQ would say that they are primarily a form of static good,
otherwise they wouldn't be causing anything at all. Nobody does anything
because they think it is evil.
But what the MOQ also says is that "static good" can be organised into a
hierarchy of morality. This morality is defined by the five codes we all
know which try to maintain evolutionary relationships between the four
levels and DQ. When we look at specific conflicts between the levels and
codes we can define them in terms of good and evil.
Thinking about the causes of the violence this way I got to thinking about
democracy and how it relates to the moral codes. I have said before that
democracy, to me, is the name we have given to one value mechanism which
operates in the moral code between intellectual and social patterns rather
than being just an intellectual pattern. Furthermore, as I see it, it
doesn't operate in the social-biological code. On its own, I don't think
democracy controls the biological level. What does, then? The police
force? Perhaps. The law? To a degree. But what prevents the excessive
indulgence of biological patterns when getting caught is not a real threat?
Historically, of course, it has been mainly religious faith and values
and/or the fear of a posthumous reprisal for one's actions. And this is
where you may begin to see something interesting about (ii), (iii) and (iv).
Religion is very good at supporting the social-biological code. Democracy,
as I am defining it, is not. It doesn't attack it, nor prevent it from
working, it just isn't what it does.
I am of course willing to explore this definition but what I'm thinking is
that when it is said that "democracy is under attack" it is assumed that it
is the intellectual freedoms offered by democracy that are under attack when
it may be more to the point to see it as a misguided attack on the lack of
control it has over biology. This is hardly news but - as Pirsig speculates
in LILA - is there a growing need to fill a moral vacuum opening up at the
social-biological interface of the democratic west? From this point of view
we could see the cause of violence emanating from a basic social level
position of wanting to control biological degeneracy. The biological
methods are surely wrong and ultimately self-defeating but there is, at some
level, a potential to recognise a static good common to both sides of the
conflict.
Does the democratic west therefore need to pump up the faith? Well, maybe,
maybe not. What we are talking about is installing a morality which
recognises that biological patterns need to be kept in check whilst
supporting intellectual freedom - and, being on this forum, we just happen
to know of a candidate.
At the same time there are the strands of Islam which want to free the
Qur'an from the medieval interpretations which feed the jihadist strain and
these should be supported in their bid to install/maintain an
intellectual-social moral code which supports intellectual freedom. This is
another common static good from which a better, more peaceful future may be
created.
Now, this is, of course, a potential long-term solution based on the
recognition of common static good. Right now, different measures are
required. Again, I certainly don't have any off-the-shelf answers.
Generally speaking, any social pattern has the right to protect itself
against another social pattern and biological patterns when its own
existence is threatened. It is normal that this defence will be carried
out, in part, at the biological level. As such, I think the increased
security presence is a proper response as long as it is proportionate to the
threat. However, I think this is necessary but not sufficient. The
cultural pattern which is causing the violence will keep on manipulating new
biological patterns. This is where the pattern of Islam needs to help
others to help itself. Racial profiling was mentioned on this list. The
MOQ states that social patterns are not fundamentally connected to any
particular set of biological patterns. I think this makes racial profiling
absolutely immoral. However, cultural profiling is another matter. The
problem is, cultural patterns are harder to detect, but not impossible. I
think Muslim leaders would be able to help in this regard by identifying and
eradicating any problem patterns (e.g. Wahhabist, Qutbist) within their
organisations. At the same time, I think more could be done to educate the
non-Islamic public about the specific problem strands within the religion to
curtail a general backlash which wouldn't help anyone.
There is another cause of the conflict, related to (ii), and that is the
foreign policy of various countries. In particular, there is the military
occupation of Iraq and the policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
There are certainly patterns at work here which need to be addressed
alongside the action I am tentatively suggesting here. There is also the
moral question of the legislative measures outlined by the British
government as a response to the recent attacks but this post is already too
long and I need to think more about these aspects.
Regards
Paul
P.S. I openly admit to being uninformed with respect to many aspects of the
ongoing conflict and I'm happy to be corrected on any factual errors I make.
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