Subtlety, Intimacy, Motivation XII

Certainty, masculinity, narcissism. Throughout my life, I have too often heard these terms used as synonyms. They have been used by angry men to justify emotional reactivity, violence, and hatred, and they have been used by angry women to justify emotional reactivity, denigration, and hatred. My response is that stupid is as stupid does.

The headscarf debate going on in Turkey right now is a fascinating case study of multicultural gender relations. Atuturk's strong-arm secularism has had a lasting influence in a largely Muslim country with an influential military. The international social question could generally be phrased as, "What constitutes--or feeds into--progressive global sustainability now?" This is equally as relevant in Kosovo, India, China, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Sudan, and Texas. While the Acid-Face Burkha Club enjoys a relatively small worldwide membership, they have the "positive" attribute of being able to say clearly where they stand on gender relations. It's "positive" because this certainty offers a type of psychological security for women as well as for men; we can all know where we stand. It's virulent because, once violence towards women is espoused as a political method, there can be no end to the violence until the world population is covered in beards and burkhas. So it is a political stance based on public violence, reputedly due to some sort of private appreciation. Of course, the violence must come first and universally before the appreciation can be seen. An interesting justification of universal violence to purportedly respected women. I certainly don't want that sort of respect. This sort of thinking shows clearly how security is different than peace; the Acid-Face Burkha Club members cannot rest until the world population is punished into respectful submission of their ideology.

The flipside of this security is something along the lines of enforced openness. Headscarf bans are an example. We want to be free--sterilized--of virulent religious-political dogma, so we legislate clothing expectations in the name of liberalism. Also interesting. The evangelical liberal cannot rest until the crusade to unmask every woman, to remove the mobile and public sense of privacy and piety that a headscarf can symbolize, is complete. A further step in such a political agenda might be to legislate against the usage of cosmetics (which some feminists have taken up as a more personal, radical value against some sort of male oppression, although I have yet to find many manly men who are interested in the fashion industry). In this case, the security is hoped for from secular laws rather than once-and-done religious ideology.

In a post-colonial world, I don't know that suppression of Arab-Muslim culture is a part of a progressive and genuinely liberal agenda. It does look like Muhammad's reformation of Arab culture did benefit the world--in certain ways at least--beyond Arab boundaries. We all know that a largely Catholic Europe was hardly the bastion of progressive liberalism throughout the Dark Ages. What this means for me is that we might have a hard time "placing" or accurately understanding our current political stupidity without considering worldwide political stupidity of earlier generations. There are certainly some common human threads that show some tendencies that I am obviously not exempt from.

Who gets to claim individualism? At this point in time, individualism seems held dearly by EuroAmerican cultures. But, if we want to trace this appreciation of individualism, we can follow the thread back through Catholicism and the emphasis on souls to Greek political individuality to the Hebrew emphasis on helping those in need and holding onto the uniqueness of the tribes of Israel. I blame and venerate the Americans, European Catholics, Greeks, and Jews then. But hold on--Muhammad also talked about each one of us being judged for all of our own actions. Okay, I'll blame and venerate Muhammad as well; lump him in with the prophet Ezekiel, Martin Luther, and Gandhi. Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha, also said something along similar lines, so the circle grows.

But if we look to see where this focus on individualism came from, we should also consider group identification as well. Things get very interesting here. Did Genghis Khan stand out as an extraordinary Mongol, as an individual, or was he more an example and expression of the Mongol tribe? Either way, we can be certain that the huge Mongol influence on world history was not expected of such a small tribe. In fact, it has been stated that the Mongol's ability to benefit from invading so many other societies was largely due to their (until their invasions) relative isolation and economic deprivation. Because they didn't already have customs for legislating huge and very dense societies, they chose what seemed to work best from each society they conquered. (For that matter, how many people expected the Carthaginian general Hannibal to beat Rome? Granted, he didn't beat them brutally enough--didn't break their ability to smash Carthage.) What are we to make of these instances of small groups quickly coming to prominence--whether it be Macedonians, Arab Muslims, Mongolian tribesmen, European merchants and colonialists, Americans, Mormons, or even Bill Gates and his Microsoft empire? This fascinates me. Who's next? What changes are just around the corner? The number of nongovernmental organizations has grown exponentially in the last fifty years, and micro-loans given to individual women and groups of women may be quietly and profoundly changing first banking and then the power dynamics of many societies. Motivated, poor women may be the best new investment opportunity. The fact of the matter is that no one really knows what large-scale influences may come of Youtube being available in Pakistan. The once-impressive British Raj's influence on India has returned to Britain where the most popular dish is curry, where they seemingly could not live without tea.

Similarly, we have no idea what influence it will have on world culture when Islam is integrated into world culture more completely. We know what happens when one society conquers another militarily. The dominant society usually impresses certain values onto the conquered group and aspects of the conquered group seep "upwards" into the dominant society and culture. Any conquering society does well to quickly and thoroughly integrate anything of value, however foreign, into their customs and administration. Look at the Great Khan's Mongols, their decision not to waste time and resources invading a relatively impoverished Europe, and the eventual results that came from Europe's competing principalities remaining outside of the Mongol World Empire and administration. We saw a military conquest with the birth of Islam, but we have no idea what influence on world culture and economy a social spread will have. The same was true of the oppressive Roman Empire's inclusion of Christianity and the same is true of America's openness to the international Jewish community and America's influence on American Jews. We can be certain that neither one religion nor another will survive (or completely disappear), but beyond that, the future is mostly unknown. Some people believe that an apocalypse is impending; they would rather believe in a doctrine of global violence because believing they understand the future gives them a measure of security. I say their security is measured in violence, and apocalypse is extreme, war is extreme.

This is why unflagging certainty in oneself is important. I am not certain of how I might change from becoming better acquainted with Muslims, Mongols, or Macedonians, but I have no need of that type of security. I have not been able to anticipate the ways I've grown from becoming acquainted with pious and libertarian women, but I'm certain I've grown. People only feel the need for security when they feel fear, and when fear is the basis of one's religious or political beliefs, those beliefs tend to support violence.

My certainty is not a masculine thing--I've learned that from women who are certain in themselves. But my certainty cannot be predominantly feminine, Muslim, Jewish, or anything else that I am not. It's simple. Rather than taking and defending a marginal feeling of security by clutching onto some position or marginal identity, I feel comfortable with change because of personal simplicity. Because of this, I am unthreatened by other forms of personal simplicity, unthreatened by other folks' simplicity and comfort. The simplicity is available without joining the Acid-Face Burkha Club or the Patriot Act Promisekeepers, but this certainty does not provide a security based on being unwilling or unable to change.

While love and nonviolence are nice and good and well, while Gandhi did the world a great favor by placing satyagraha squarely on the world stage, while Gautama presented a movement forward from historical Hindu caste-ism (and Hinduism was able to incorporate Gautama's philosophy), I do not believe in a policy of total pacifism. I do, though, believe in pacifists having a place to speak in the public dialogue. It's very simple.