ASK
SPENGLER Of Groucho,
yokels, mullahs and modern
'art'
Dear
Spengler, Reading your response to my previous
inquiry about your philosophical connections to Oswald
Spengler and Decline of the West, I'm left to
conclude that you're no more a Spenglerian than Groucho
was a Marxist. Russ Winter
Dear
Russ, I would never join a philosophical movement
that would have me as a
member. Spengler
In response to my
April 14 essay, Why Islam baffles
America, in which I drew a
bright line between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian
notion of prayer, numerous Atol readers objected that
some Islamic writers sound like Christian or Jewish
mystics, while some rabbis sound like mullahs. Two
letters excerpted below are
representative:
Dear Spengler, I am
writing in reference to ["Why Islam baffles America"]
written by Spengler on April 16. He makes the statement,
"By no means am I biased against Islam; I go directly to
the most reputable Islamic sources," yet his methodology
is clearly flawed. He is comparing Jewish and Christian
theologians' writings on the spirituality of prayer with
a technical explanation of a prerequisite for prayer by
a Muslim theologian, [Grand Ayatollah Ali] al-Sistani.
Spengler has totally ignored the whole experience and
influence of Sufism in Islam. If he had anything more
than a cursory knowledge of Islam he would have found
all the spirituality and love in prayer that he finds in
Christianity and Judaism. Obviously he needs to work on
his sources. Shahab
Mushtaq
Dear Spengler, There
seems always to be an effort of understanding Islam in
your writings. Sometimes I also think that you only try
to do as much damage to the image of Islam as you can
do. This paradoxical perception is the main reason why I
read you.
You say, "Reading through Muslim
sources, I am at loss to find anything remotely
resembling [Josef Cardinal] Ratzinger's quite typical
discourse on prayer." I think that you're not reading
the right sources. You're reading al-Sistani, who's a
marjaa [ayatollah], someone of whom people ask
basic questions that he has to answer. I think you would
be better to read someone like Jalal al-Din Rumi
[Persian mystic, 1207-1273] or [Mansur] al-Hallaj
[Persian mystic, 857-922]. These people only talk about
prayer and what it makes them feel, and for this they
usually use poetry.
Judaism and Christianity are
not occidental religions. They were born in the same
land. What al-Sistani does, is what any rabbi does,
interpreting and reinterpreting ad nauseam. It's his
job, his duty and his obsession. The Catholics preach
the same thing.
Concerning the experience of the
prayer, you should have a look at St John of the Cross
as well as St Teresa of Avila. These two wrote a lot
about experience of prayer and God's love. Then you
could make a lot of parallels with Ibn al-Arabi's [Sufi
mystic, 1165-1240] writing about the intimate experience
of God's love and the meaning of prayer. Jean
Santerre
Dear Shahab, Jean, et
al, A vast literature compares medieval Islamic
(mainly Persian and mainly Sufi) mystics to Christian
visionaries and Jewish cabbalists. Karen Armstrong, an
ex-Catholic convert to Sufism, extends this to a global
group hug among the "Abrahamic" religions. Stephen
Schwartz, a Jewish convert to Sufism, opposes
"spiritual" Sufi Islam to Saudi Wahhabism.
All
this has little to do with modern Islam as the vast
majority of Muslims practice it. Sufism is a soup that
has been cooking for a thousand years, whose original
ingredients no longer are recognizable. Those who eat it
do not stir it too much. Precisely what the 11th- and
12th-century writers had in mind is a matter of debate,
but their influence among today's practicing Muslims is
secondary at best. As imagined by Western Islamophiles,
Sufism is a Romantic construct that bears no more
resemblance to reality than the utopian image of Russia
promoted by Western communists during the 1930s.
Occidental interest in Sufism falls into a long line of
vapid infatuations with Eastern mysticism, eg, Tibetan
Buddhism, Japanese Zen, and Madonna's favorite, cabbala.
I do not mean to disparage any of these traditions, but
rather to question the judgment of the spiritually
challenged Westerners who dabble in
them.
Mainstream Sunni as well as Shi'ite Islamic
authorities look askance upon Sufism, whose mystical
side draws upon pre-Islamic elements (as its defenders
also state). All the mainstream Islamic websites publish
warnings that some forms of Sufism are not Islamic at
all. By "mainstream" I refer to the religious
authorities of the dominant Muslim countries. Sufi
orders still flourish in the Islamic world, but they
describe themselves as an "elect" rather than a popular
phenomenon. Western Sufi-tasters would find their
practices bizarre. For an amusing report, see Christian Caryl's Sept 11, 2003
account in Newsweek.
In parts of the Jewish
Talmud from the early Middle Ages, one can find
rabbinical pronouncements quite as pungent as the cited
passages from the writings of Ayatollah al-Sistani, some
readers observe. That is no surprise; Talmud preceded
Shariah, which drew upon the older Jewish law. But these
are medieval, while al-Sistani is contemporary. One
still can find Jewish rabbis today who sound like
mullahs, particularly emigres from Arab countries, but
their role in Judaism is if anything less significant
than that of today's Sufis in Islam.
Prayer is
not a "pillar" of Judaism or Christianity; it is the
defining religious act. Following the destruction of the
Second Temple in 70 AD, Jewish leaders instituted prayer
as a substitute for the animal sacrifice that no longer
could be performed. Observant Jews display a unique
passion for prayer, which occupies almost the whole
Sabbath from Friday to Saturday sunset, including three
ritual meals, as well as a four-hour Hebrew language
morning service. Jewish practice does not lend itself to
the sort of spiritual tourism that makes Sufism
attractive to spiritually challenged Westerners,
Madonna's enthusiasm for cabbala
notwithstanding.
It is pointless to cherry-pick
out of religious traditions what one finds appealing.
Disaffected Westerners wander through the world's
religious traditions as if they were a spiritual theme
park. For the Islamic world, religion is not a consumer
good, but a matter of survival. Muslims who wish to
represent Sufism as "true Islam" against Saudi
Wahhabism, Iranian Shia orthodoxy, and so forth should
address themselves to their co-religionists first.
Non-Muslims must deal with the Islamic mainstream, such
as it is.
One learns little from apologetics, but
much from the daily experience of believers. Again, I
refer to Franz Rosenzweig's "sociological" approach to
religion. Spengler
Dear
Spengler, Granted, a catalogue of religious
crimes accomplishes little since all religions have
engaged in them. However as you yourself have written,
Christianity does have one thing that other religions
don't have and that is "the City on the Hill", the "New
Jerusalem". Since I have no knowledge of the theology of
Islam whatsoever it would be pointless to try and
address such concerns. However I don't believe that
motivation is as difficult to understand as you imply.
Obviously a one-word answer is an extreme
over-simplification but I offer one anyway. The
motivation for Islam is jealously which leads to hate.
The world, not just Islam, is envious of both America
and Israel because of what Judeo-Christian ideals have
specifically accomplished.
And what of a cure,
you ask? Is it democracy, you ask? In an indirect manner
it is. I believe democracy that works and lasts is a
Judeo-Christian ideal. You yourself answered this
question in one of you earlier articles. "An intriguing
thought is that the same people who brought about the
Christian Reformation, not to mention the founding of
the US, might do the same for Islam. I refer to the
radical wing of evangelical Protestantism, whom the
intellectual caste of the West dismiss as stupid
yokels." The real question should be, how is the Islamic
Reformation going to take place? Democracy just might
allow this to happen.
In response to your
statement about being enlightened over efforts to answer
the difficult questions, my advice is, don't hold your
breath. No one is going to admit that the answers and
solutions may rest with stupid yokels. Best
regards, W K
Dear W K, As
Mephistopheles said to Faust, “Du bist noch nicht der
Mann, den Teufel festzuhalten!" ("You are not yet
man enough to catch hold of the Devil!") America
remains, despite its faults, the only nation on earth
capable of true generosity, and its spirit is
Protestant. Yet American evangelicals are far from ready
to take up the mission that history has put before them,
and I fear that Friedrich Schiller's judgment upon the
generation of the French Revolution ("History brought
forth a portentous moment, but sadly the moment
encountered a mediocre people") may come down upon them
one day. George Bush speaks their language, to the
profound annoyance of secular Europe. Reader Ben
Silverman (Letters, April 16) complains, "American
policymakers in the Bush administration are deeply
religious. They truly believe that they are in a holy
war and that God is on their side." That is misleading;
Bush evidently believes that Islam is a religion of love
and peace, not profoundly different from his brand of
Methodism. Unless he dissembles not only to the public,
but also to those close to him, he believes every word
of his televised statement last week to the effect that
human beings have an innate affinity for freedom. As you
know, I see matters differently; the majority of all
cultures that ever existed show an affinity for willful
self-destruction.
Broadly speaking, I agree with
you that jealousy is the root of all evil, but that
Biblical concept does not by itself give us much
information. Jealousy well may motivate Muslims to hate
the West, but of what are Muslims jealous? Surely it is
not a semi-attached house and video on demand. The
tragic aspect of America's encounter with Islam, as I
argued in "Why Islam baffles America", is that America's
existence as such threatens Islam as it is practiced in
most parts of the world. One's impulse should not be to
simplify, but to investigate.
Many evangelical
leaders (prominently the Rev Franklin Graham) dislike
Islam, although they have trouble explaining why. The
trouble is that they have difficulty explaining who they
are, and why they are there to begin with. Lack of
intellectual clarity is mirrored in the proliferation of
Protestant sects. To think of American Protestantism as
an entity, one almost has to postulate the existence of
a mystic "Church Invisible" which has not yet manifested
itself in fully organized form.
That is why
America's victory over radical Islam by no means is
assured. The answer well may lie with a bunch of yokels,
but they will have to become cleverer yokels than they
presently appear to
be. Spengler
Dear
Spengler, Modern art is self destructive. It
takes the vessel of consciousness - the human form - and
mutilates it. Gunther von Hagens' World of Bodies
exhibitions exemplify this trend. In 1998, at the
Mannheim Museum of Technology and Work, nearly 800,000
people hurried to ponder the meaning of 200 corpses that
were mummified, sculpted, and plastinated in a variety
of manners. Numerous exhibitions have followed.
(Click here
for a comprehensive list.)
Despite government
warnings and much religious rebuke, von Hagens' "art"
seems poised to continue to attract millions of curious
beholders. Spengler, should we be surprised? Should the
treatment of the lifeless corpse be any different from
the living body?
Each day genetic engineers get
one step closer to cracking the human genetic code. They
dream of farming organs, cloning muscle cells, and
creating limbs from scratch … Where is this all going?
How can we respect life if we can’t respect the vessel
which harbors it? Awaiting your reply, Martin
Leon King
Dear Martin, I share your
concern, and suggest by way of remedy that we raise
funds to commission a self-portrait from Gunter Von
Hagens.
Those of us who cling to the antiquated
standards of Western high culture have "fought the long
defeat", like Tolkien's Elves. Western music (The Ring and the remnants of the
West, Jan 11, 2003) is a journey
with a goal, in which even the most peculiar effects are
subordinate to the overall goal. Western visual art
subordinates the objects of the visual world to
composition in perspective. The ideal form of this
journey, I believe, was the Christian soul's journey
toward salvation. Western art therefore is Christian
art. Art could not do without Christianity, whence it
drew its mission of creating the illusion of a goal, any
more than Christianity could do without art. Whereas
Judaism began with a people and became a congregation,
Christianity began with a congregation and continuously
attempts to become a people. The actual "people of
Christ", the "Church Visible", never embodies this
ideal; one must imagine (as the Catholic Church always
did) the existence of a "Church Invisible", composed of
the true saints.
Unlike the Jews, whose sense of
immortality is rooted in their physical continuity,
Christians must imagine a future whose existence is a
matter of faith, on a perpetual journey whose goal is
forever hidden in the mists. The task of Christian art -
the goal-oriented tonal motion of Western music, the
composition of painting in perspective, the vaults of
the cathedral rising toward heaven according to the
divine proportion - is to provide the believer with a
mirage of that goal. That is another idea I have poached
from Rosenzweig. European art, I surmise, died along
with European Christianity. Classical music is removed
enough from its original motivation to find a home in
exile, for example in Asia. For Western visual art, I no
longer have any
hope. Spengler
Dear
Spengler, I assume you're based out of Asia, or
at least are well aware of it, and you probably know
that Hinduism also has many rituals to do with pollution
and daily ablutions. In many ways, these rituals are
what ordinary Hindus associate with Hinduism, rather
than any esoteric philosophical aspects. But this has
not stopped Hindus from maintaining a rational sphere:
democracy, a secular system of law, and free enterprise
more recently, etc. It's hard to see why Islamic
countries are having so much trouble agreeing on a
minimal common set of social expectations. Jon
Sreekanth
Dear Jon, It is hard to
characterize Hinduism as a single religion. In contrast
to the colorful polytheism of its popular expressions,
its elite always has displayed great depth and
sophistication, not to mention adaptability, as
demonstrated by the great success of Hindus in all the
quantitative disciplines, and more recently in English
literature. The great concerns of Hindu thinkers, that
is, are quite different from those of Ayatollah
al-Sistani, as you may verify by visiting his excellent
website. It also is true that uneducated Hindus are
capable of appalling behavior. More important than the
superficial resemblance among purification rituals is
each religion's concept of imitation of God. Sanskrit
scripture conveys a radically different view of how one
should walk in the footsteps of the divine than does
Islam - and that is a long tale for another occasion.
Spengler
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SPENGLER
