What is it that could make people mad enough to act? What is it that could motivate them into action? I mean, there are regimes out there that have persecuted, starved, and humiliated their peoples using all hideous tactics conceivable to the human mind, and yet, their victims remained inactive, inactive on account of their fear, of their sense of and desire for self-preservation. What does that mean? Is the threat of genocide the only way to get people to break through the barrier of fear?
Category: Sociopolitical Observations
Few Notes on Islamic Reformation
An intervention in an electronic forum
Hi all,
Let me take the opportunity to add a few notes to this discussion being, in part, a man of an Islamic background, though I currently do not profess to be a Muslim or a member in any faith. Continue reading “Few Notes on Islamic Reformation”
On the Pragmatic State!
In an ideological state, the ruling ideology is not important in itself but only inasmuch as it can serve as a mantra whose repetition is necessary to justify the continuing control of the corrupt ruling elite. For this reason, ideological states are almost always incapable of reinventing themselves. The best that can be achieved in them is implosion and disintegration.
The survival of a certain administrative core, in some cases, and the fight to maintain that survival, are not necessarily signs of (cultural and civilizational) vitality inasmuch as they are indications of the desperate activities of certain interest groups working hard to cut down their losses, on the one hand, and maximize their potential benefits from the breakdown, on the other. Continue reading “On the Pragmatic State!”
Class & Morality
Of all the barriers that separate people in the world, racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious, sectarian, etc., the barrier represented by one’s social class, however defined, seems to be, historically, one of the hardest to break through. In fact, the thing that often makes the other barriers so difficult to break through or maneuver around seems related in no small measure to the fact that, in time, they tend to acquire a social dimension as well. That is, they end up delineating social classes as well. Or should we say sociomoral classes, since each class tend to develop its own particular conception of morality?
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 