Steven Den Beste has written another post about his theory of a long-term three-way conflict between P-Idealism, Empiricism and Islamism. I think the thing that bothers me about his typology is that it assumes that religion exists in a kind of sub-basement of the philosophy "main house." It's an interesting typology, but it fails to provide any comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of totalitarianism, nor does it really explain the emergence of Islamism, which I believe is an offspring of a religio/cultural condition and what he'd identify as P-Idealism (Teleology), and which I see as the European Counter-enlightenment. But one edge of congruence exists between my perspective and his: the Counter-enlightenment involved turning back towards a worldview that had carried through the classical world and deeply into Catholicism. The "interpretive turn" that began with Kant, was an attempt to resurrect the classical teleological principles.
However, I submit that there is an empericist version of P-Idealism, and that it's related to an approach toward the "interpretive element" of human nature that can be studied empirically in the cognitive sciences. There is, I think, a profound difference between actual beauty and the dried out husk that P-Idealism identifies as "aesthetically pleasing." The difference is as great as the difference between a statue of a horse, and a living, breathing equine.
Well, a typology is only a model anyway, and the reason it's not entirely accurate in every detail is that to be entirely accurate it would actually have to be the thing that's modelled. So let's not get too excited about the shortcomings of one typology vs another, and just be glad we aren't stuck with only one,... or two. As the following passage demonstrates, whatever route we took got us to the same place:
France in particular, and Belgium and Germany and Spain, are strongly dominated by p-idealism. And what that means is that they are not allies. We in America are not engaged in a shooting war with them, but diplomatically speaking they are our opponents and they are actively working to bring about our defeat in this war. It isn't that the US as a nation is seen as an enemy by France as a nation; it's that American empiricism and America's power and influence which have resulted from the success of empiricism is seen as an enemy by p-idealists in France, with their failed embrace of socialism and bureaucratic autocracy.Posted by Demosophist at May 5, 2004 02:20 AM | TrackBackThey have no love for Islamists, but they hate us even more. An Islamist victory over America is preferable to an American victory over Islamism. (Mutual defeat would be better yet.)
The current American strategy for the war, which aims to maximize the effectiveness and rate of spread of American soft power in the middle-east in order to cause liberalization and reform there, is seen by p-idealists as a horrible threat. In the terms of the three-way struggle, they see it as (cultural) imperialism of the worst kind, whether the US as a nation actually exercised political control over nations in the middle east or not. P-idealists see it (correctly, I might add) as an attempt by us to convert the entire region to empiricism by trying to encourage populist democracy, capitalism, classical liberalism, and realism.
That's why I can't take seriously any political rhetoric about "cooperating with our alienated allies". They aren't allies.
Has anyone seen any evidence that the French or Russians are directly aiding the anti-freedom insurgency in Iraq? Iran is sending almost $100 million in aid a month to the anti-coalition terrorists. I wonder how much France and Russia would send, if they had the cojones?
Posted by: RB at May 7, 2004 08:20 PM