Earl Warren is to blame. Islamic utopianism doesn't neen no stinkin' western rationalism to show it the way, it's always had it's own utopian tendencies. The problem with all utopian schemes is all the poor bastards who become subjects of the experiment: they always revert to acting like human beings and the experimentors, if they have the power, have no choice but to tighten the screws. So, the cycle continues.

Which is why utopianism is dependent on powerlessness. Once you run the experiment you disprove the theory.

Just want to include the authors finale:

"[...] A book is dangerous only if it exposes something in the culture that some people are eager to keep hidden.

And what is that? It is that the far left seems to hate Bush nearly as much as it hates bin Laden. Bin Laden may want sharia, or Islamic law, in Baghdad, they reason, but Bush wants sharia in Boston. Indeed, leftists routinely portray Bush's war on terrorism as a battle of competing fundamentalisms, Islamic vs. Christian. It is Bush, more than bin Laden, they say, who threatens abortion rights and same-sex marriage and the entire social liberal agenda in the United States. So leftist activists such as Michael Moore and Howard Zinn and Cindy Sheehan seem willing to let the enemy win in Iraq so they can use that defeat in 2008 to rout Bush -- their enemy at home.

When I began writing my new book, this concern was largely theoretical, because the left was outside the corridors of power. Now I fear that the extreme cultural left is whispering into the ears of the Democratic Congress. Cut off the funding. Block the increase in troops. Shut down Guantanamo Bay. Lose the war on terrorism -- and blame Bush.

Pointing this out is what makes me dangerous."

Basic ole' temptation, in Christian parlance, we're leading them into temptation.

Stop funding planned parenthood and a passel of problems would disappear.

Why are some people freaking out over one mans ideas. Liberals are always the first to cry for the persecution of thought crimes, he thinks this so he must be muzzled and punished but don't question my patriotism.

"This argument has nothing to do with Falwell's suggestion that 9/11 was God's judgment on the ACLU and the feminists for their sins"

No D'Souza, it has everything to do with it, but since we know that Falwell is a buffoon, it is important that you separate yourself from him.

Islam hasn't found its Burke yet and, so, is left with nothing to offer but a return to the imagined conditions of the 7th Century -- a nihilism disguised as utopianism they borrowed from Western rationalists

I don't see how Western rationalism can always be blamed for religious fundamentalism. Yes, fundamentalism can occur as a reaction to rationalism, but calls to return to the (supposed) religious purity of ones ancestors long predate rationalism and the West.

h:

That's silly. Falwell said it was God. D'Souza says it was the terrorists.

Thanks, oj, for the link to Berman's NYT piece on Qtub. Mein Kampf in Arabic, even as to authorial ambience.

That said, many of the premises (but not the conclusions) are highly credible.

Pap:

Name one?

"When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint". -- Hesiod

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?" -- Plato

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self control." -- Inscription, 6000 year-old Egyptian tomb

Perhaps more on point, how about when Akhenaten's monotheism was replaced by reinstated polytheism? No doubt that was accompanied by claims that the old religious ways were better and Egypt needed to get back to them.

There are probably more examples here but I need to run.

Like D'Souza's critics you're confusing mere conservatism for utopianism.

And whose values and commandmants does D'Souza think the terrorist were attempting to fulfill. The cookie monster?

The question isn't the values of the terrorists, but our own.

Who, me? No, I'm just calling you on your strange, ahistorical claim that fundamentalism is a result of Western rationalism, when it's clearly an impulse as old as the hills.

But perhaps I should be grateful you didn't blame it on Darwin....

Papaya - I don't know about Hesiod's time or 6000 years ago in Egypt, but Plato may well have been right. Greece was in rapid decline and about to be conquered by the Macedonians. Its population fell calamitously about that time.

D'Souza falls into the error secularists are prone to, of under-estimating spirituality and over-estimating ideas. The terrorists don't hate us because of "how we use our freedom"; their hate has little to do with us, and much to do with them. They hate everything and everyone, including themselves, which is why they don't mind suicide attacks; and why they are just as happy blowing up fellow Muslims as Americans.

No one said anything about fundamentalism.

The probelm is Qutb had this reaction after visting Colorado Springs in 1949, not Vegas
or Times Square. Wahhabist outliers like Bin
Laden, don't think Saudi Arabia is extreme
enough, much less the US. This is not in keeping
with Islamic culture practiced up to the 13th
century, and even afterwards

One liberal oddity of Wright's book is that he accepts the Kinsey Report at face value but says Whittaker Chambers testified, rather than revealed, or something more appropriate.

He makes a big deal about Kinsey though I don't know that Qutb ever mentioned him.

Claiming present times are corrupt and wanting to return to an earlier time of religious purity based on a literal reading of a religious text sounds like "fundamentalism" to me.

But call it whatever you want. My point was just to object to your seeming to blame "Western rationalists" for Islamicism. Islamicism is antithetical to most Western rationalists, international or national socialists notwithstanding.

I've always been a fan of Mr. D'Souza's efforts since the excellent "The End of Racism". How, though, does his theory reconcile the 9/11 killers spending final nights ensconsed in strip clubs paying for lap dances with a supposed last ditch defense against secularlism and porn?

(It was the stress talking?)

Your point about Qutb and misogyny is spot on - it was highly unusual for him not to have married. After all, he could have even found a 9-year old (like Muhammed), or an older widow (like Muhammed).

And many of those who went through bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan probably weren't married either.

Pap:

Yes, Western rationalists have different utopias they wish to impose. The commonality between all the True Believers -- Communists, Socialists, Nazis, Libertarians, Islamicists, etc. -- is that their desired society exists only in their heads. They are rational constructs. All also require the power of a modern state to impose themselves.

America, by contrast, is fundamentalist but anti-Utopian.

Wright is nearly blatant about Atta being gay, but more wishy-washy about Qutb.

If we had an Intelligence service just one of the rumors they'd spread is that al Qaeda is basically a gay gang.

Also, remember that many Taliban fighters had "comfort boys" they used and abused (and then killed). Just despicable.

Wasn't only 1 of the 9/11 terrorists married?

And how many "honor killings" are done by brothers who aren't married and just lounge around Gaza or Islamabad all day long?

OJ, one can be a Western rationalist without having a utopia one wishes to impose!

Assuming D'Souza is correct in his analysis, how do you intend to solve the problem? Censorship? How much of the Bill of Rights are you all willing to sacrifice?

Pap:

No, one can't.