Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Darwin and Islamist Suicide Bombers
I've read or listened to many discussions of Darwinism vs Intelligent Design(ID). There seems to be a lot of intellectual muscle and intensity arrayed against ID - often expressed as a strong (if not exclusive) preference for a secular over a religious world view.
It had never occurred to me that to ask if that preference could be a major disadvantage to the survival of a society or a human collective, as Ralph Peters suggests in his essay on Survival Strategy - Middle Eastern Islam, Darwin and Terrorism. It's in keeping with his reputation as a iconoclastic and provocative thinker on timely topics. I'll provide some quotes, but you can read the whole thing here ARMED FORCES JOURNAL . He raises and discusses this Key Question:
"Why has the cult of the suicide bomber developed so swiftly today, and why is it rooted in the Middle East and not elsewhere (from Indonesia to Kosovo, Muslims behave violently but not suicidally)?
The answer is timely, given the current fuss about intelligent design versus the theory of evolution in our own country: Suppose that Darwin was right conceptually, but failed to grasp that religion is a highly evolved survival strategy for human collectives?"
Well, I wish he had a more optimistic ending for what it takes to win or survive. Read it all; it is a well-articulated and important insight. Discussing Darwin and ID becomes existentially more interesting if ID stands for Islamist Designs.
It had never occurred to me that to ask if that preference could be a major disadvantage to the survival of a society or a human collective, as Ralph Peters suggests in his essay on Survival Strategy - Middle Eastern Islam, Darwin and Terrorism. It's in keeping with his reputation as a iconoclastic and provocative thinker on timely topics. I'll provide some quotes, but you can read the whole thing here ARMED FORCES JOURNAL . He raises and discusses this Key Question:
"Why has the cult of the suicide bomber developed so swiftly today, and why is it rooted in the Middle East and not elsewhere (from Indonesia to Kosovo, Muslims behave violently but not suicidally)?
The answer is timely, given the current fuss about intelligent design versus the theory of evolution in our own country: Suppose that Darwin was right conceptually, but failed to grasp that religion is a highly evolved survival strategy for human collectives?"
FAITH AS A STRATEGIC FACTOR
Once a human collective expands beyond the family, clan and tribe, decisive unity demands a higher organizing principle sufficiently powerful to entice the individual to sacrifice himself for the common good of a group whose identity is no longer defined by blood ties. A man or woman will die for the child of his or her flesh, but how can the broader collective inspire one stranger to volunteer his life to guarantee the survival of a stranger whose only tie is one of abstract identity?
No organizing principle, not even nationalism (a secular, debased religion), has proven so reliable and galvanizing as religious faith. Religion not only unites, it unites exclusively. Throughout history, religious wars have proved the cruelest in their execution and the most difficult to end satisfactorily (toss in racial differences and you have a formula for permanent struggle).
Beyond blood, nothing binds human beings together more powerfully than a shared religious creed. No heart is mightier or crueler than the one beating in the breast of the holy warrior. And no other factor provides so rich an excuse for mass murder as stern faith.
Beyond blood, nothing binds human beings together more powerfully than a shared religious creed. No heart is mightier or crueler than the one beating in the breast of the holy warrior. And no other factor provides so rich an excuse for mass murder as stern faith.
THE ANALYTICAL MISMATCH
Secular, analytical thought in the West today is every bit as close-minded as the worldview of the inquisitors who forced Galileo to recant. Its true believers have simply exchanged one set of rigid doctrines for another.
Without the personal experience of transformative faith, it’s nearly impossible for analysts to comprehend the power of religious belief as a decisive motivating factor. One of the most dangerous asymmetries we face is the mismatch between our just-the-facts-ma’am analysts and the visionary ferocity of our enemies.
WHAT WILL IT TAKE?
Religion is, to say the least, a volatile topic. Even those national leaders willing to come to grips with the need for a tough response to Islamist terror take great pains to assure the world that ours is not a religious war and that the Muslim faith is as peaceful as a newborn sheep in a meadow full of wildflowers. Islam is, of course, an umbrella faith, covering forward-looking movements as well as reactionary, violence-prone sects. But we nonetheless must come to grips with the extent to which Middle Eastern Islam itself has become the problem — not only the cause of structural failure, but an impetus for confessional violence (defensive violence, in the Darwinian context, since it seeks to preserve the threatened community — although it’s savagely aggressive from our perspective).
We shy away from a fundamental question of our time: What if Islam is the problem?
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If we are serious about understanding our present — and future — enemies, we will have to rid ourselves of both the plague of political correctness (a bipartisan disease so insidious its victims may not recognize the infection debilitating them) and the failed cult of rationalism as the only permissible analytical tool for understanding human affairs. We will need to shift our focus from the individual to the collective and ask forbidden questions, from inquiring about the deeper nature of humankind (which appears to have little to do with our obsession with the individual) to the biological purpose of religion.
The latter issue demands that we set aside our personal beliefs — a very tall order — and attempt to grasp three things: why human beings appear to be hard-wired for faith; the circumstances under which faiths inevitably turn violent; and the functions of religion in a Darwinian system of human ecology.
Well, I wish he had a more optimistic ending for what it takes to win or survive. Read it all; it is a well-articulated and important insight. Discussing Darwin and ID becomes existentially more interesting if ID stands for Islamist Designs.
