The "Nation Building" angle

By Razib Khan -
Most you know about the plot that was caught in time. The suspects are brown British born Muslims. This is speaks to my general concerns that the "War on Terror" looks abroad when I suspect that the real monster is lurking within the beast. Before we transform foreign cultures we need to absorb some of our own subcultures.

Comments

jinnderella said…
Natural selection is the mechanism that generates biological adaptation. In cultural evolution, however, there is in addition a second mode of selection, which is the result of capacity for decision making.
--cavalli-sforza
we can do the math that shows it is far easier to assimilate a subculture than to transform a foreign one. ;)
4:29 PM
bc said…
Before we transform foreign cultures we need to absorb some of our own subcultures.

Razib, apparently, well, by your name, a fellow Asian, has a nice choice of expression. Why is he to speak of "We"? You count yourself among the american or western "We"? Even living in America, i could never bear such expression, to "we" myself with "them"(the american). And what is one to make of this mention of "transform foreign cultures"? Why are so many seemingly otherwise rational Asians and moslems defending the west and abandoning the cultures? Mr Razib, you really need to look inside yourself and ask why you feel this way about Islam. You christian, Jewish, other? How American(or British)do you feel yourself? You speak like some old white hawk i'd hear in the offices of the Pentagon. Very sincerely you have depressed me.
2:04 AM
jinnderella said…
*sigh*
i can't take him anywhere.
11:20 AM
Razib Khan said…
You count yourself among the american or western "We"?

hell yeah!

by belief and not by blood shall the truth of you be known to your fellow man.
2:36 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A fair solution to Jerusalem

By Aziz P. -
I remember reading one of the books by Tom Clancy in which Jack Ryan was credited with coming up with a solution for Middle East peace which was pointedly never actually detailed in the novel. It was just a way to give his character some foreign policy cred, but ended up like that mysterious suitcase in Pulp Fiction. I couldn't help but be reminded of that, though, when I read former New York mayor Ed Koch's innovative solution to resolving the status of Jerusalem . Instead of putting the hot-button issue of Jerusalem last on the agenda, the issue should be addressed first. If the Jerusalem question is solved, everything else should fall into place more easily. I believe there is a way to keep Jerusalem unified. I am talking not only of the old walled city, which is a very small part of the city of Jerusalem, but the whole city, east, west, north and south. [...] My suggestion is to situate the new Palestinian capital in that part of East Jerusalem that is occupied overwhelming...
Read more

Conservatism's shari'a, liberalism's ijtihad

By Aziz P. -
An interesting meta-debate by intellectual conservatives over conservatism's future is playing out. It started with David Frum's Waterloo essay, which led to his political excommunication. Julian Sanchez observed that this represented an epistemic closing of the conservative mind , a thesis that was validated by the retribution visited upon Jim Manzi for daring to suggest that conservatives will achieve more persuasion by using honest, strong arguments instead of weak, emotional ones. All of this has led John Quiggin at Crooked Timber to argue most wisely that as conservatism implodes, liberalism needs to find its own rationale that is more than just "not conservatism". Quiggin has a list of priorities for the liberal movement to address, and closes with the general plea, ...the left has to stand for something more than keeping the existing order afloat with incremental improvements. We need to offer the hope of a better world as an alternative to the angry tribali...
Read more