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These TOC commentaries and external background articles address the cultural context of the war on terrorism. We look at the challenge of anti-Modern, anti-Enlightenment values wherever they are found, including in the Muslim world and in Western intellectual life.
TOC Commentaries:
The Ideas That Promote Terrorism by David Kelley
Posted: 4/1/2005 |
| Description: In an address to the March against Terror in Washington, D.C., David Kelley appealed to all who stand for happiness, freedom, progress, and reason to join in opposing those who want to control the mind, roll back progress, stifle freedom--and who are willing to kill and maim to do so. |
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Bringing Western Values to Capitol Hill
Posted: 7/1/2004 |
| Description: The Objectivist Center took the discussion about the basis of a free society where it is needed most: Capitol Hill. A star-studded lineup, including Christopher Hitchens and TOC executive director David Kelley, discussed “What Are Western Values and Should We Return to Them?” |
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The Iliad and Islam by Edward Hudgins
Posted: 6/24/2004 |
| Description: ''The Iliad,'' Homer's epic about the Trojan War, made a great story whether recited in ancient palaces or made into Hollywood blockbusters. But the violent rage of Greek warriors and their obsession with the gods mirror the brutal and primitive aspects of Islamic culture today. The solution offered by later Greek philosophers in the classical era—a secular philosophy of reason and disciplining emotions—could bring enlightenment to a backwards part of the world today.
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Report from the Front: 9-11: The Ultimate Philosophy Lesson by Edward Hudgins
Posted: 9/10/2003 |
| Description: 9-11 teaches us that a rational philosophy is literally a matter of life and death.
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Rejecting the Fetish of United Nations Consensus by Edward Hudgins
Posted: 3/20/2003 |
| Description: Whether one favors the war with Iraq or not, those with a fetish for a United Nations sanction to give moral legitimacy to American actions exposed their own ethical confusion and pernicious political premises. In this op-ed I argue that the United States was founded to protect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of its citizens, while the U.N. is dominated by governments that repress their own people. American foreign policies should be judged by whether they protect the freedom of Americans, not by whether they can garner a majority from the mortally bankrupt. |
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Allah Bless America! by Edward Hudgins
Posted: 12/18/2002 |
| Description: American Muslims who wish to secure their country against terrorism owe it to themselves and their fellow Americans to police their own communities. They should also contribute to America's culture of liberty by promoting religious toleration within those communities. |
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From the Silk Trade Route to the World Trade Center by Neera Badhwar
Posted: 9/9/2002 |
| Description: Today’s predators do not want to steal wealth but, rather, to destroy it and
its source, our freedom. To preserve the spirit of the Silk Road and the
World Trade Center, we must affirm and celebrate their goals of prosperity
and peace. |
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The War against Modernity by David Kelley
Posted: 5/31/2002 |
| Description: Islamists do not hate the United States because of its international policies. Nor is their antipathy based primarily on the long-standing struggle between Western civilization and Islamic civilization. Rather, it is the culture of modernity—born of the Renaissance and Enlightenment—that has drawn the hatred of this distinctly contemporary and untraditional manifestation of Islam. |
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Democratic Tyranny by Patrick Stephens
Posted: 4/30/2002 |
| Description: Democracy is a valuable part of a free society, but, writes Patrick Stephens, TOC's manager of current affairs, democracy provides no guarantee of liberty. Indeed, in the Muslim world, democracy may lead to the imposition of Islamic law and a harsher tyranny than most dictators would dare to impose. |
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The Decline of the East by Roger Donway
Posted: 3/31/2002 |
| Description: In What Went Wrong? Bernard Lewis—the leading American scholar of Islam—recounts Muslims' desperate quest, over the last three hundred years, to discover the causes of their civilization's decline. |
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The Intellectual as Barbarian by Roger Donway
Posted: 1/11/2002 |
| Description: Roger Donway writes that the Western assault on civilization can be traced all the way back to Rousseau's first Discourse, in 1750. But Norman Mailer's remarks on September 11 displayed both the continuing influence of that work and its cultural consequences for the West. |
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Suggested Readings: Totalitarianism
Posted: 12/1/2001 |
| Description: Suggested Readings on Totalitarianism to go with Brink Lindsey's article: The New Totalitarians. |
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Remember: It's not 'Infinite Justice' by Roger Donway
Posted: 11/20/2001 |
| Description: Linking the war on terrorism to women's rights is wrong as a matter of tactics, because it is likely to backfire very soon. But linking the war on terror to women's rights is wrong on a much deeper level, the strategic level. |
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Choosing Sides by Roger Donway
Posted: 11/13/2001 |
| Description: The events of September 11 have changed the political landscape in America. Traditional political groups—progressive, liberal, conservative, and libertarian—have found themselves deeply split over the terrorist attacks and the war. |
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A McDonald's in Kabul? by Shawn E. Klein
Posted: 11/9/2001 |
| Description: The exportation of American values is what threatens fundamentalists, not the exportation of our cultural products like McDonalds. |
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Suggested Reading: Islamic Fundamentalism
Posted: 10/16/2001 |
| Description: Suggested Readings on Islamic Fundamentalism. |
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'It Was Like a Movie':The Atrocity and the Arts by Richard Speer
Posted: 10/12/2001 |
| Description: The terrorist attacks reminded many people of contemporary movies. That says worlds about the state of cinema, writes Richard Speer. |
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The Toxic Fallout on Campus by Damon W. Root
Posted: 10/3/2001 |
| Description: Anti-American sentiments spreading in U.S. colleges
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Unilateral Moral Disarmament by Robert James Bidinotto
Posted: 9/21/2001 |
| Description: Robert James Bidinotto explains why certain philosophic principles led the terrorists to committ the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and how philosophic ideas prevalent in America morally disarmed us from properly protecting our country from an attack like September 11, 2001. |
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The Assault on Civilization by David Kelley
Posted: 9/13/2001 |
| Description: David Kelley, Executive Director, comments on destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists on September 11, 2001 as an attack on the symbols of the values of civilization. |
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External Articles
"The Islamofascist Agenda" National Review Online Posted: 12/9/2002
By Deroy Murdock |
Description:From Bali to Nigeria to cells in America itself, Islamist fanatics are moved
by hatred of non-Muslims, and ultimately by hatred of life itself.
Article Date: December 3, 2002 |
"The Good & the Bad: Stephen Schwartz on Islam and Wahhabism" National
Review Online Posted: 11/22/2002
By Kathryn Jean Lopez |
Description:An interview with Stephen Schwartz, author of The Two Faces of Islam: The
House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror, focusing on the history, nature,
and prevalence of the fundamentalist sect of Wahhabism.
Article Date: November 18, 2002 |
"Moral Hazard: The Life of a Liberal Muslim" The New Republic Posted: 11/22/2002
By Franklin Foer |
Description:UCLA legal theorist Khaled Abou El Fadl has been denounced and ostracized by
fellow Muslims, and even received death threats, for arguing that Islamist
thinkers and clerics have "produced a culture that eschews self-critical and
introspective insight and embraces projection of blame and a fantasy-like
level of confidence and arrogance." (Registration Required)
Article Date: November 12, 2002 |
"Militant Islam's New Strongholds" New York Post Posted: 11/7/2002
By Daniel Pipes and Jonathan Schanzer |
Description:The Islamist movement--the movement of those who seek to make Islamic law
the basis of their country’s constitution and legal code--is not confined to
the Arab world, nor does it always pursue its goal by peaceable persuasion.
As Daniel Pipes and Jonathan Schanzer report, important groups of Islamists
can be found in a large part of the world, from East Asia to West Africa,
and they often use terror to achieve their ends.
Article Date: October 22, 2002 |
"The Bin Laden Memorial" The Radical Capitalist Posted: 10/25/2002
By Dan Roentsch |
Description:"Rebuilding the towers - or structures better than the originals - does not
cheat the heroes of their tribute, it is their tribute. If you want to
commemorate the event of the attacks, put a plaque on the side of one of the
buildings, and for an inscription write: 'On September 11, 2001, a handful
of tent-dwellers thought they could stop this.'"
Article Date: January 22, 2002 |
"The NEA's Sensitivity Tutors" TownHall.com Posted: 9/6/2002
By George Will |
Description:Columnist George Will writes that the National Education Association's
suggested lessons for the first anniversary of 9/11 illustrate three
appalling attitudes on the part of American educators.
Article Date: August 28, 2002 |
"The Mullahs and the Postmodernists" The Atlantic Monthly Posted: 9/6/2002
By Jonathan Rauch |
Description:Jonathan Rauch observes that radical Islamists and radical-egalitarians,
despite their great differences, stand united in their opposition to
Enlightenment individualism.
Article Date: January 2002 |
"September 11 and the Struggle for Islam" Social Science Research Council Posted: 9/6/2002
By Robert Hefner |
Description:Robert W. Hefner, a professor in the department of anthropology at Boston
University, writes that Middle Eastern governments, immediately after World
War II, tried to dampen religious forces and strengthen the states. But the
failures of nationalism and socialism in the 1970s and 1980s led the
populations of those countries to turn to religion.
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"The Religious Undercurrents of Muslim Economic Grievances" Social Science Research Council Posted: 9/6/2002
By Timur Kuran |
Description:Timur Kuran, professor of economics and law at the University of Southern
California, writes: "Muslims who are angry at the United States are
propelled by more than their own poverty or that of their societies. They
are driven also by a vision that treats Islam as the answer to every
conceivable problem and attributes all failures to no-Islamic influences."
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"Terrorism and Freedom: An Outside View" Social Science Research Council Posted: 9/6/2002
By Luis Rubio |
Description:Luis Rubio, general director of the Center for Research for Development in
Mexico City, argues that the 9/11 attacks tend to disprove the "clash of
civilizations" thesis put forward by Samuel P. Huntington. Rather, says
Rubio, they point to a clash within each civilization, including Islamic
civilization, between a modernist vision and a medievalist one.
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"Islam and Liberal Democracy: The Challenge of Secularization" Journal of Democracy Posted: 9/6/2002
By Abdou Filali-Ansary |
Description:A brief description of the differences in the religious attitude between one
of Islam's major Islamist thinkers and one of Islam's major anti-Islamist
thinker.
Article Date: 1996 |
"Occidentalism" The New York Review of Books Posted: 1/18/2002
By Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit |
Description:A stunning cultural and philosophical analysis of anti-Westernism--among Western as well as Islamic and other thinkers.
Article Date: January 17, 2002 |
"Illusion of Muslim Unity" Dawn Posted: 12/22/2001
By Irfan Husain |
Description:A journalist for the Pakistani magazine points out the core problem Islamic countries face: "is a conflict between the perceived dictates of our faith and the demands of modernization and rationality. For centuries, Muslim rulers have been unwilling to provide the space and freedom needed for free thought to flourish, exercising tight control over intellectuals and teachers. This is why there is such little creative activity in the Muslim world."
Article Date: December 15, 2001 |
"Non-Judgment Day at Yale" The Washington Post Posted: 12/20/2001
By Michael Kelley |
Description:Using a Newsweek column by a Yale student, Michael Kelly shows the extent to which cultural relativism has infected education and prevented many from making proper moral judgments.
Article Date: December 19, 2001 |
"Fighting Militant Islam, Without Bias" City Journal Posted: 11/22/2001
By Daniel Pipes |
Description:Pipes clearly distinguishes Islam from Islamism--the militant fundamentalist
movement that supports terrorism worldwide--and offers ways to neutralize
the latter.
Article Date: Autumn 2001 |
"Postmodern Jihad: What Osama bin Laden Learned from the Left" The Weekly Standard Posted: 11/19/2001
By Waller R. Newell |
Description:The influence of European philosophers and writers like Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul, Sartre, and Franz Fanon on the Islamic fundamentalist and terrorist movements.
Article Date: November 26, 2001 |
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"Bin Laden rails against Crusaders and UN" BBC News Posted: 11/5/2001
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Description:The text of a videotaped statement made by Osama bin Laden and broadcast on al-Jazeera television.
Article Date: November 3, 2001 |
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Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Posted: 11/5/2001
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Description:A women's organization that has shown extraordinary courage in calling for secular democracy in opposition to fundamentalist rule. The site contains photographic evidence of Taliban brutality.
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"Islam has become its own enemy" The Observer Posted: 10/31/2001
By Ziauddin Sardar |
Description:A prominent Muslim writer calls for the moderate Islamic world to take responsibility for dealing with terrorism, which has caused more harm in their own societies than elsewhere.
Article Date: October 21, 2001 |
"What is the Koran?" The Atlantic Posted: 10/23/2001
By Toby Lester |
Description:A survey of scholarly trends in interpreting the Koran
Article Date: January 1999 |
"The Last Totalitarians" National Review Online Posted: 10/18/2001
By Brink Lindsey |
Description:Brink Lindsey, of the Cato Institute, delineates the common motivation behind fundamentalism Islam, communism, and fascism.
Article Date: September 28, 2001 |
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The Terrorism Research Center The Terrorism Research Center Posted: 10/18/2001
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Description:The Terrorism Research Center offers a wide variety of information and sources to help understand America's new war.
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"The Enemy is not Islam. It is Nihilism" The Weekly Standard Posted: 10/16/2001
By Charles Krauthammer |
Description:"Once again, the world is faced with a transcendent conflict between those who love life and those who love death both for themselves and their enemies."
Article Date: October 22, 2001 |
"Terror and Liberalism" American Prospect Posted: 10/16/2001
By Paul Berman |
Description:Berman examines the similarity of Islamic terrorism and 20th century totalitarianism and their hostility toward modernism.
Article Date: October 22, 2001 |
"This is a Religious War" NY Times Sunday Magazine Posted: 10/11/2001
By Andrew Sullivan |
Description:An insight on the link between fundamentalism and political controls among all religions and secular creeds. (registration may be required)
Article Date: October 7, 2001 |
"Statement on the World Trade Center Atrocity" Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society Posted: 9/28/2001
By Ibn Warraq |
Description:Ibn Warraq (a pseudonym) is the Tom Paine of Islam: a humanist critic of its sacred texts. His site has commentaries, book references, and other valuable material.
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The Middle East Forum The Middle East Forum Posted: 9/21/2001
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Description:This research institute, led by Daniel Pipes, "works to define and promote American interests in the Middle East." Its journal, Middle East Quarterly, publishes accessible analyses by scholars.
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"Postmodern Terrorism" Foreign Affairs Posted: 9/17/2001
By Walter Laqueur |
Description:An eminent historian's prescient analysis of terrorism in historical and global perspective.
Article Date: September 30, 1996 |
"The Roots of Muslim Rage" The Atlantic Posted: 9/17/2001
By Bernard Lewis |
Description:An insightful in-depth analysis by a preeminent historian of Islam.
Article Date: September 1990 |
"The Drive for Power" Middle East Quarterly Posted: 9/17/2001
By Martin Kramer |
Description:A review of the key ideas and thinkers who created the Islamic fundamentalist movement over the last century. Kramer is a scholar at Tel Aviv University. Like Bernard Lewis, he cites the ideas of Western leftists as one source of hatred for the West.
Article Date: June 1996 |
"Get Ready for Twenty World Trade Center Bombings" Middle East Quarterly Posted: 9/17/2001
By Steven Emerson |
Description:An interview with a specialist on Muslim terrorist organizations operating in the United States. Emerson produced the award-winning PBS documentary Jihad in America, broadcast in November 1994.
Article Date: June 1997 |
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