Earlier I was taking part in a discussion of the article The Meaning of Meaning on the TrueU site’s accompanying forums, in particular whether the comparison between left-wing literary theorists and radical Islamic terrorists is a valid one. (Incidentally, I’m currently reading Derrida in preparation for writing my English dissertation, which I’m planning to do on Christianity and literary theory, possibly focusing on Deconstruction. The article under discussion is rather simplistic, to say the least.)
Here’s one of Michael Bauman’s defences of his article, to give a flavour of the debate:
The comparison I drew was between some cultural leftists and some Arab terrorists. The two groups are not alike in that they both are killers. They are not. That is not their similarity. They are alike in that they both nurture a strong animosity toward traditional western culture and values and they both work to undermine them, albeit in quite different ways. After all, there’s more than one way to undermine (and eventually to replace) a culture and its values. Violence and literary criticism are but two of them.
So is the “Western tradition” really “the greatest human legacy the world has seen” that we should be seeking to defend from Arabs, literary critics and other ne’er-do-wells? Well, what follows are my responses to the debate in edited form.
Firstly, the idea of the “Western heritage” needs to be explained, because it’s such a broad term as to be useless without elaboration. Obviously, there are both good and bad things in the history of the West. Bauman highlights some of the things that he sees as positive in his article: “rational analysis, representative government, freedom under law, unimaginable prosperity, scientific progress beyond our greatest dreams, and an unprecedented and unequaled spread of human rights and human liberation”, but there are many unsavoury skeletons in the closet.
For example, a traditional western cultural trait is for western cultures to use their technological and economic strength to exploit other parts of the world, maintaining a position of power. That’s one thing that is resented by terrorists. I’m sure that’s not an aspect of western culture we should be defending.
Or in the intellectual sphere, part of the western heritage is that of the Enlightenment, which views man as autonomously able to discover truth and unified meaning to all of life by himself. It’s the deification of man, and that pretention is one of the elements of the western heritage that Christians can join with many literary critics in opposing.
Seeking to oppose and to change elements the western heritage isn’t good or bad in itself – it depends on whether a particular characteristic is one that is worth keeping or one that needs changing.
We should indeed seek to defend our freedoms and systems, but not “warts and all”, as one of those on the forum suggested, arguing that we should resolve them ourselves in the Western way rather than having lefties and terrorists “impose their viewpoints and social systems on the people through any means, fair or foul”. Where there are the warts of abuses and injustice, where there are problems and weaknesses and wrongs in our system and freedoms, we should not only be striving to fix those problems, working at making things better, but also willing to listen to the criticisms of others.
Funnily enough, “seeking to supress opposition and impose their viewpoints and social systems on the people through any means, fair or foul” is exactly what many people, not just “Islamic fundamentalists” and “left wing extremists”, see the West as doing, both in the past, and in the present (especially America right now).
We in the West may recognise “the innate worth of a person and their freedoms” in theory, but in practice, our record is far less shining, from Abu Ghraib prison to the firebombing of Dresden to the UK and US involvement in overthrowing Iran’s democratically elected government in favour of a dictatorship back in the 1950s, and many other activities besides. If we’ve had the right principles, then that makes the West’s abuses of its power all the worse: we should have known better.
Sadly, given our track record, hostility to the West is often all too understandable. What we sow in injustice, we reap in anger and hatred and bloodshed. We ought to listen to the critics of the West, both from outside (such as the Islamic world) and from within (such as academics who seek to criticize the philosophical and theoretical basises for our wrongs).
Of course, there are those who go to wrong extremes. To seek the wholesale destruction of all the West is and stands for is just as misguided as its wholesale defence, “warts and all”. We must indeed stand against those who seek such complete destruction of either Western lives through terrorism or Western values through the extremes of critical theory.
But extremism of one’s enemies doesn’t negate any legitimate grievances they may have. We should seek positive solutions, to build on what’s good from our past, and there is much good, as well as repenting of and making reconciliation for our evil, and there is also much evil.
A mix of good and evil and a lot of complicated stuff that isn’t easily categorised as either – that’s not just the Western heritage, that’s humanity in a nutshell, though we in the West have our particular inheritance of this mix, of course.
“Western Heritage Good – Nasty Terrorists & Lefty Critics Bad” might be a nice and comforting generalisation, but like anything to do with this God-imaged, sin-broken, redemption-in-progress humanity, it’s just not that black and white.