What’s Special About Islam?

Not much.

An acquaintance asked me the other day whether I thought there was something ‘inherent’ in Islam that had made it ‘the opponent’ of America today – compared to other religions, was it more warlike, or more repressive, or more philistine, or what?

There is a huge amount to say in response to this question – there’s the faulty assumptions in the idea of Islam as an opponent of the USA, as if a religion could fight a country, there’s the scholarly question of doctrinal differences, there’s the sociological question of ‘do doctrinal differences make any practical difference?’.

But rather than going into a long discussion about those sorts of things, I thought: given that Islam has attained a particular prominence in current geopolitical events and discourses, can we explain this in any fantastically simple ways? And then I thought: yes.

Naming System

We in the UK have a naming system which goes something like this: your family passes on to you one name, by which you are known in the wider world, and by which your faily is known, and your parents choose for you another name, by which you are known among your family and your friends.

What sort of society does this system make sense in? I’m not particularly bothered about changing it, or arguing that it’s bad, just considering why it is the way it is.

Scary

“We’re still very early on in this research, but it is looking very promising”

Apparently the US government is developing technology to scan your face and pick up “mal-intent” in places like airports. As someone who harbours a fair amount of mal-intent towards the US government (mainly involving exotic implements and rubber chickens) this does not sit well with me.

Should Hamas be supported?

This post will not dispute the wickedness of many of Hamas’ actions, nor the wrongness of many of their beliefs. It will ask only: given that there hardly any group or movement of any substance in the Middle East which does not use bloody and wicked tactics, and given that beliefs are less important than actions, is Hamas ‘the best side’ – would a ‘victory’ for Hamas, whatever that would mean, be better than a ‘defeat’ of Hamas by one of its now existing enemies.

Picture the scene. The dictator’s support is crumbling, and he is held up only by backing from America, who need him as a strategic partner in the Middle East. Around him, two popular movements of resistance are building their strength. On the one side are the Islamists, dreaming of banishing corruption, decadence, Western imperialism and Western liberalism, and establishing Islamic order. On the other side are the Leftists – communists, feminists, trade unionists, dreaming of freedom both from their oppressors within the country and from foreign domination.

Human Genetic Enhancement

This is going to be another post that gets me called Orwellian, but here goes.

Some people seem to want human genetic enhancment (hereafter HGE) to not happen. I think that’s rather beside the point: it clearly is going to happen. If we need a more specific argument, I’d suggest that any organisation with sufficient power to actively prevent millions of people from making use of such a technology would be the sort of organisation that would itself enthusiastically use HGE to make itself stronger. Opposing HGE in general seems a bit like throwing oneself in front of a steamroller with ‘History’ written on its side in pink with some glitter.

Moreover, I don’t think it has to be a bad thing. And I don’t just mean for dealing with genetic illnesses and stuff, I mean for ‘enhancement’. We don’t really have any idea in advance what HGE would be able to do. It might be able to iniate a new golden age of culture, when we’re surrounded by creative geniuses at every turn. It might be able to triple the speed of scientific discovery. It might be able to double life expectancies. Or it might do none of those things.

More interestingly, it might turn out that much subtler variables have a genetic component. What if we could give the average person a 5% increase (however that’s measured) in empathy, sensitivity to other people’s feelings? That effect, summed over millions, could cut away the oxygen from a lot of the more vicious communal conflicts. What if we could give the average person a 5% increase in courage – and then have injustice being challenged more, difficult personal decisions being made and stuck to more, lives collapsing from cowardice and confusion less? What if we could make people physiologically more vulnerable to pleasure – and then find that they have less hatred and anger, lower rates of depression and suicide?

Again, maybe none of these things is remotely possible. Maybe they would only be possible with outweighing side effects. But we can’t know in advance. And if we don’t want to be taken by surprise by history, we should consider how to respond if it were.