As a Jew, I initially dismissed the rage of Muslims directed at the Danish newspaper's publishing of cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad. My first instinct was to see it as the obscene product of demagogues exploiting their own alienated populations. When it comes to imagery of Jews, the viciousness of Arab media never inspired any sustained concern among the larger community of Middle-Eastern thought leaders who weighed in on this issue. Regardless, this week's CBS 60 Minutes examined the controversy, proving again the power of television footage. Because seeing the faces of Danish Muslims, well, they struck me as far from crazy. Rather they seemed pained and frightened.
Which brings me to The New Republic. Published by Martin Peretz, a man who can be accurately characterized as aggressively pro-Israel, this is a magazine thought by some progressive thinkers as a mouthpiece for the neo-cons, a group which is too frequently associated with anyone who has had good feelings for Tel Aviv, nevermind for the crazy energy of the culture it has spawned. Anyway, the breadth of The New Republic constantly trumps the preach-to-the-choir politics of media like The Nation, Counterpunch, and certainly Aljazeera. I mention that because today's online edition proved why it's a must-read for anyone interested in ideas explored with vigor, whether it's politics, literature, or the underpinnings of issues like Danish newspapers confronting Muslim sensitivity.
Not that either piece is about the Danes and Muslims. Rather the two essays are focused on the work of scholars who explore how the interests of the collective can be balanced by those of the individual. The first article is a review of the writings of Kwame Anthony Appiah, a scholar who teaches philosophy and African-American studies at Princeton. Appiah's uncle was a Ghanaian king, his grandfather a British chancellor, his parents were Christian, but he has many relatives who are Muslim. Appiah, himself, so far as I know is not religious. He is, however, proudly gay. His books, The Ethics of Identity and Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers are reviewed by Thomas Nagel, author of several books, himself, including the co-written Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice, which I have not read but will, given the author's ability to create clarity from a lot of dense ideas. Appiah's work explores the opportunities and challenges raised by multi-cultural societies.
The second article, Chili and Liberty, takes its title from the fact that foods frequently associated with an Indian diet (chile and curry) were actually imports brought by empire - chile from the Portuguese in Goa, curry the creation of British soldiers stationed on the Indian continent. The piece is the work of Amartya Sen, a Nobel winning economist (1998) whose latest book, to be published this spring, is titled Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. Having left South Asia as a young man to study in England, Sen has almost-fond memories at the innocence of his first British landlord, a woman who he recalls was frightened that his dark skin color might wash off in her tub. How far we've come since then - both good and bad.
Sen, Nagle, and Appiah are all concerned with a seemingly simple question that has no simple answer: how can we all get along in today's highly global world where the rules of your neighbors may be very different from your own. How, for instance, does anyone who believes in a fiercely open free press genuinely acknowledge and consider the pain felt by Muslims? All three authors are really concerned with the next level of that question: how to navigate the everyday conflicts that are part and parcel of many different cultures rubbing elbows on a daily basis by leveraging the best traditions of Western liberal thought?
Their answers are neither simple nor simplistic. But they are fairly practical. In essence, all three writers share a sense (or so it seems to me) that what gets in the way of reason is carelessness, specifically in lumping us into pods that are far too broad. Not all of us have lives as layered as Appiah, but many of us still have multiple identities (congregation member, aspiring rapper, dutiful mom - theoretically someone could be all three). Modern western society, in essence, can't serve all of the power interests of those identities equally, but if we are to follow our moral and philosophic foundations, we will know that all identities are worth a listen.
Needing to serve individual identities leads, in my mind, either to relativistic paralysis or narrow-minded bigotry (the resentment of those who feel themselves over-burdened and/or harassed). Acknowledging identity, on the other hand, demands something less and more: a clear and patient listening for the nuanced concerns of being what we all are - human beings with the normal set of quirks life inevitably provides us. More accurately, it requires the growth of social institutions that will provide that listening, in the process giving both a collective and also individuals some voice. It doesn't require singing "kum ba yah" with anyone we don't like. Rather, it's creating authority able to mediate between interests, authority clear-eyed enough to recognize full responsibility of all those involved in conflict. Institutional authority that is sometimes a newspaper, sometimes a court, or sometimes a group of politicians.
Apparently, as 60 Minutes made clear, none of those institutions were at all available for the Danish Muslims who, responding to what they viewed as offensive cartoons, just asked to be heard. To explain their sensitivity. For reasons of political survival, the local Danish leaders did their best to stay out of the fray. Denmark is similar to much of the developed world... dependent on cheap foreign labor to do menial jobs. Many of those workers are Muslim. But if it's okay for them do the jobs natives do not want, the country will not let these workers build an actual mosque. Talk about a lack of social institutions to give voice to human beings. Those cartoons were probably both the end product of Danish ambivalence to their growing Muslim collective, and the latter's response was that of a growing underclass.
That's not to say I'm much in sympathy with the mob. And I hope to hell that the press doesn't back down on this issue. The entire world would suffer if the western media starts treating Islam with inflated delicacy, as if all Muslim were children. First of all, the individuals who got so angry are far from children. They responded with the emotion, thought and calculation of adults, however violent or disturbed. Second, as amplified in importance as the western press may think of itself, its reservoir of aggressive "digging" is critical to accountable institutions. And finally, it's the lack of accountability where those rioters are so dangerous. They're not simply misguided. Check out Nir Rosen's excellent article on jihadists in this past weekend's New York Times Magazine. The leadership is tapping into a deep core of home grown alienation, making stooges of disenfranchised people. Tragically, that group of the disenfranchised is proclaiming fealty to leaders that are violently oppressive, and even less accountable than any in the western world. At the same time, you could say that "backing down" for the modern press would be as much about denying the full story as pandering to part of it.
What most interests me about all this is how all the authors here come out of traditions impassioned by both philosophy and economics. That's Capital was inspired by a similar instinct, though on a very practical level. How do markets serve us? And how do markets drive our behavior? Are markets, in themselves, more accurately reflective of a collective voice than the political sphere in responding to identity? A good example is romance or dating. Talk about differences. Here's an arena where business can actually create value that matches the nuances (and craziness) of human beings. Matchmakers. We are not shills for any company, but my long ramble is gonna be a plug for a few emerging brands in this space. More on that tomorrow. For now, where are the matchmakers... or interfaces... that will allow people to agree to disagree. And are brands replacing social institutions? And if so, on what terms?
by Jonathan Field
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