The Global Culture War

Herbert London looks at the Present Global Culture War between the West and the Muslim world.

What the world now faces is the dark side of Hegel, the side Marx contemplated when he turned Hegelianism on its head. For many Islamicists western evolutionary thought is flawed. They prefer a backward glance at the wreckage of the past and conclude that freedom unrestrained by rigid religious laws inevitably results in debauchery. So passionate are these Islamists that they are willing to kill any who deviate from their theocratic musings.

Rather than embrace the Socratic dialogue of questioning, they insist on doctrinal recitation. Truth is not elusive, a matter to be pursued. For the Muslim true believer truth is already known, written on the tablets of the faith. One merely turns the page to know what is true and what must be pursued. This is not a culture of doubt, but one of assurance and insistence.

For those who embrace this religious ideal, there isn't a dialectic. How can there be when truth is already determined? Perhaps this explains why new pharmaceutical or software products do not emerge from the Islamic world. Scientists cannot question or doubt. Hence they cannot engage in real science.

How this conflict between freedom and orthodoxy unfolds is already evident. If the idea of freedom prevails civilization, despite ebbs and flows, will prosper. If, however, Islamic extremism manages to capture the imagination of those who find freedom too hard to ingest, a dark ages may be in our future. That in the bluntest of terms is the present global culture war.