A notorious counter-example of this is Sayyid Qutb, "the father of Islamism", who studied in a Colorado university, and returned to Egypt with a pathological hatred of America and the West in general.

Morko:

That's mostly a canard. However, the tragedy of Qutb is that he rejected both America and Islam in favor of continental European philosophy.

members.cox.net/slsturgi3/PhilosopherOfIslamicTerror.htm

oj:

It's not a canard. He was influenced by European philosophy, but that doesn't matter any more than the fact that medieval Muslim thinkers took their cues from Greek pagans. He promoted totalitarianism and theocracy, but so do the Quran and the Sunnah, Islam's primary sources. Nothing in Berman's article suggests that he rejected Islam for European ideas.

The fact of the matter is that Qutb lived in America for several years, but that did not make him embrace "Americanism". The opposite is more true.

Well, those 12 highjackers didn't learn to love America, no matter how many strip bars they patronized!!

Qutb wrote of his 'turmoil' while attending a dance in 1949. If Islam is brittle, then the brittleness of men who are creepy in their own skin is the source of a lot of it.

Morko:

Yes, his exposure to Western ideas led him to the opposite path from America's--the totalitarianism of the Franco-German side.

www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2003/08/the_modernity_of_barbarism_1.html

He is indeed an unfortunate exception to the rule.

Re Qutb, it's not exactly shocking that someone who attends a US university would come out hating America, even in his time...

oj:

Has it crossed your mind that some systems in the world are neither American nor "Franco-German"? Qutb's system is a rejection of modernity, a back-to-the-middle-ages thing.

Morko:

No, and no it isn't. Qutb was an extreme modernizer and Islamicism bears a greater relation to Socialism than to Islam.

oj:

Qutb was a traditionalist. If he was a modernizer in some sense, his modernity was certainly very much like your American modernity, and completely different from your French model. God and divine law are recognized in Islamist and American models, whereas the French system is secular and relativistic. Earlier you have said that you prefer Islamists to Europeans precisely for this reason.

No, he wasn't. There's nothing traditional about his ideology. Traditional Islam is indeed preferable to the totalitarian ideology he borrowed from continental Europe.

Totalitarianism is just old school despotism coupled with better communications. It's nothing new to Islam, and there's no religious prejudice against it.

The sultans and caliphs of the past would have liked nothing better than to rule with an iron hand over the minute details of the lives of their subjects. Unfortunately it takes several months to get from Istanbul to Timbuktu on a camel, so this was never feasible.

Modernity makes it possible for Muslims to realize their age-old dreams of total control.

Morko:

No, old school despots had nothing like the power that modern statists claim. Totalitarianism is a modernist innovation.

I just told you why old school despots didn't have the power that modern despots have!

Totalitarianism is a very natural development in Islam in the light of history.

No, Islam's natural development wasn't tyrannical at all. Totalitarianism was imported from France, Germany, and Russia. But you're stumbling towards truth--had Qutb only been old school we'd have avoided this Islamicist mess. Instead he was a Western-influenced modernizer.

The main reason why Americans help others is because of their culture which is based on the doctrines of Christianity found in the bible.