Which are our Western Values?

Rob wrote an interesting post, Support Shiv Malik’s book, regarding various things among which a speech Tony Blair delivered to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council in August 1, 2006. As Rob writes, Tony Blair “called for a complete renaissance on foreign policy to combat reactionary Islam:”

“Whatever the outward manifestation at any one time – argued Blair, then Prime Minister - it is a global fight about global values; it is about modernization, within Islam and outside of it; it is about whether our value system can be shown to be sufficiently robust, true, principled and appealing that it beats theirs. Islamist extremism’s whole strategy is based on a presumed sense of grievance that can motivate people to divide against each other. Our answer has to be a set of values strong enough to unite people with each other.
This is not just about security or military tactics.
It is about hearts and minds about inspiring people, persuading them, showing them what our values at their best stand for.” [italics by Rob]

This is my comment:

“A very good post, Rob. I will only comment on one aspect where we probably are of different opinion.”

“This complete “renaissance” on foreign policy to combat Islam fanatics, seen as a global fight about global values … mmmm, nice talk indeed. Tony Blair is a valuable man in many respects and he is not deprived of some greatness. I admired him for example in his last day as a prime Minister, where he showed dignity and courage.”

“But let us face it: how can Mr. Blair think he/we/the West can win this battle for values? Which were the values that provoked the Iraqi war? Finding (non existent) mass destruction weapons? Exporting democracy? Everybody now has a clearer idea why that war was started: for power in the region and for oil. Ok, that is realpolitik. Every power plays its game in the world chessboard. None the less, I am asking myself, are we especially entitled or do we have any special chances to win such a battle on global values? Isn’t there instead a lack of values in the West? Isn’t Blair’s talk you quote hypocritical to a large extent?”

“This war has provoked the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians (the number of US casualties being in comparison irrelevant). The Italian Berlusconi government joined the so to say happy bunch, my only consolation being that the VAST majority of Italians were totally against that war.

Best regards,

Man of Roma“

“PS
Not that I think the Islamic fanatics have better values. But are we sure our set of values is really much more “robust, true, principled and appealing” that it is so clear that it can beat theirs?”

Pain in the Heart

Among my international students (systems engineering courses) the most interesting to me are the Indians, the Chinese and the Muslims. I find they are profound, less globalized (the term here being used in the negative sense) and extremely intelligent. Ok, they are also more exotic to me, but this is not the only reason.

One evening, in a small sweet town of Southern Italy where life is relaxing and food so exquisite, I was having dinner under the pergola of a nice restaurant overlooking the sea together with a group of 4 Muslim students in their thirties (image above: source), all of them affectionate and long-term pupils of mine. One is from Lebanon, quick-glancing eyes, restless, a real Phoenician; one from Afghanistan, elegant and supple, coming from a rich family of land-owners; one from Bosnia, acute light-blue eyes & acute mind; one finally from the Ivory Coast, a sweet good-natured black giant I called my body guard and who spoke very good French.

At the end of this pleasant dinner after a lot of laughing and pleasant chatting (and where unfortunately no wine was tasted) I touched upon the subject of the victim complex many Muslims (in my view) have and of the necessity of rolling up one’s sleeves to really solve problems (this playing-the-victim and always-blaming-the-others type of behaviour, I told them, was also typical of many Italians from Southern Italy, who keep blaming Northern Italy for many of their woes).

They didn’t overreact, but I clearly felt they took it badly. Sympathy among us was not broken, no, not at all, but I felt some further explanation was necessary. Unfortunately being already very late we had to separate, and since it was the evening before the last day of course, we didn’t have the opportunity to approach the subject again.
It is a pain I keep in my heart.

Obsessive Engines

We said in a previous post that all men are philosophers because everyone in the course of his/her life keeps building a constantly evolving grid of concepts (& connections among them) thus shaping his/her unique conception of the world. So philosophy is not such a weird thing belonging to a specialized category of professionals only. It is on the contrary a natural feature of our species, exactly like talking or walking on two legs.

There is another element I want to point out here (since we only mentioned it briefly in the past). These concepts and their linking seem to me related to inner motives each of us nourishes, unconsciously or not. These motives, often of biographical origin, are like filters that highly influence the way we see the world. Everyone has his/her unique way of doing this, the uneducated and the educated alike, the simple-minded and the great pros of thought (traditional philosophers and scientist philosophers).

To those who are maniacal about ancient Roman stuff, for example, their craze can filter out what they see accordingly. They can look at a Renaissance façade and notice only the Roman elements that were reinvented by Renaissance architects, the semi-circular (or triangular) arches of the windows for instance, which they can mentally link to Rome’s Pantheon niches on its walls which probably hosted the statues of Caesar, Augustus and Agrippa. Me being one of those maniacs, when within the walls of a Roman Basilica I am rarely pervaded by religious feelings being rather inclined to imagine business people and magistrates doing their jobs in ancient Rome. What I tend to see is in fact the public building the Romans utilized for business, for markets and legal matters, and not the place of Christian religious cult Basilicas were converted into (when they were not created from scratch for this purpose by the new pervading religion). You can see above the huge Constantine’s Roman Basilica in German Trier, today used as a Protestant church (courtesy of Dulcevisa).

What I mean is that we all have our obsessions, themes, leitmotivs. My idea is that these obsessive engines not only greatly influence our view of things. They also tend to push our ideas towards some kind of order (or is it just a hope?), thus helping a bit to make us little or great philosophers. Well, let’s face it, these obsessions can energize our ideas tending to shape them in some way, but this doesn’t lead automatically to a real coherent philosophical unity in the strict sense, something that can be attained only through great study and effort (this being the work of the pros).

These themes are evident in people we know well, very close friends, family members, colleagues. We know too well their leitmotivs and fixations (because sometimes they bore us so much with them lol). It can be a father (or mother) figure obsession, a pervading mental escapism that comes out in many comments or behaviours, it can be anything. These leitmotivs are also present in the works of writers, musicians, scientists etc., although they are more complex to detect. A big part of a critic’s job is to probe these works in search of these persistent elements and of the ways they are interrelated, which makes the stylistic imprint of an author.

To provide an example, one of the reasons why a melody of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff is recognized as his and only his is this bizarre (to western ears) Arabic-scale obsession he has and that is surely related to some deep experiences in his life. It’s because he had some Tartar ancestors? Was he desperately in love with a Muslim girl? I have to check, and it might be for both reasons. I read somewhere he was desperately in love with a Muslim girl and that he lost this love forever. I may be wrong (plus I may sound corny) but I couldn’t check this information in the books I have or in the Internet.

Let us in any case listen to a typical Rachmaninoff’s orientalizing melody from Piano Concerto N. 2, III, Allegro scherzando.