sabotabby

If you believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and sundry conflicts throughout the Middle East, will never be solved while current political and economic structures are intact, then I think you're likely right.

If you believe that said conflicts will not be resolved because you are the sort of curmudgeon who believes that people will always be fighting for some reason in one part of the world or another, then I disagree with you, but I'll shrug it off and not think any less of you for being cynical. I like cynics—I am one, at times—but if I didn't think a better world was possible, I'd have to pretty much give up, y'know?

If, however, you believe any of the following:

• there is something different about people in the Middle East that makes them fight more than people elsewhere, either because of a genetic factor or because of deeply rooted cultural values;

• Jews and Arabs have never gotten along and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on since the beginning of time and they never will get along because of something moronic written in some book somewhere;

• the ones who want to fight should be put on an island somewhere where they can duke it out and everyone else will shrug their shoulders and go on with their lives, and furthermore you are very clever for coming up with this solution all by yourself;

• "they" don't want peace;

• a resolution will only be reached once one population is deported or slaughtered; or

• the only way there will ever be peace in the Middle East is if a) the desert is turned to glass, b) the desert is turned into a parking lot, or c) someone drops a giant fifth-dimensional alien squid on a heavily populated area;

then really, you are an idiot, you lack historical perspective, and you are a racist schmuck. I got over that "turn the desert to glass" bullshit in high school at around the same time I got over Ayn Rand. It's basically the fascist end of the liberal "a plague on both their houses/cycle of violence" mentality and is just as absurd. The only reasons to think that you're living at the end of history are because you have an ego problem or are heavily invested in your own apathy, or both.

Yeah, just braid my hair and call me Pollyanna, motherfuckers. This too shall pass.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wow: by virtue of having been living in a cave at the bottom of the ocean—or so it would seem—I was unaware of Mr. Fukuyama and his claim to the phrase 'end of history'.

As you point out, however, history's obsolescence in the Fukuyaman sense has nothing to do with eschatology. As I understand it, Mr. Fukuyama has cried 'We have a winner!' in the global ideological tournée, a sort of Political Ideology to End All Political Ideologies: liberal democracy at the top of the food chain. Which, setting aside all assumed niceties about his theories, about which I know nothing, sounds like utter kindergarten bullshit to me. Even humans and lions and sharks get viri and bacterial infections, and 'In [Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution], he qualified [ed: hedges? you did say hedges, right?] his original 'end of history' thesis, arguing that since biotechnology increasingly allows humans to control their own evolution, it may allow humans to alter human nature, thereby putting liberal democracy at risk.' Uh-huh. Sounds like a virus in the ointment to me. Oops, I meant to say history is ALL BUT at an end.

So. Even given (hypothetically, temporarily, and solely for the sake of argument) the radical assertion 'Religion, by and large, is an ego problem,'—how could it fail to be a superego problem, if we're relying on crude formulations of mind?—I do not see how the same ego problem could be said to explain anyone's belief in the 'end of history' in the Fukuyaman sense (though cerebral trauma due to repeated head-dropping might.) Frankly, I don't see any logical application of this so-called 'post-Cold War meme' to the issues and conflicts that have beleaguered the Middle East; in fact, those issues and conflicts would seem to argue against any such stance—though Mr. Fukuyama would doubtless explain them away with all the grace of a startled gazelle escaping a peritonitic lion.

At bottom, however, while I revile religious belief of all flavors and care not to form any defense thereof, I just can't get behind your claim that 'belief in the immortality of the human soul' derives from or is attributable to an inflated ego, at least in any Freudian or street sense of 'ego'. I genuinely believe the human ego can be more correctly said to justify each and every 'Here is my truth' statement in this thread (mine, yours, others') than to justify a primeval, seemingly hardwired notion like 'I am and therefore cannot not be.'

In general, and in an attempt to justify my petulance and fractiousness with a glance, at least, at the original topic, I frankly get put out when people seek to proscribe avenues of discourse because they disagree with them or are tired of hearing them. It basically says, with the certitude (if not the amplitude) of conviction of an Arab killing Jews for Allah, 'I have weighed all the possible issues and opinions, and this one, this one, and this one are utterly wrong. And the people that think that, suck.' Sigh. I know I am hypocritical, because I think the people who think Jesus wants me dead for being a faggot, suck. Oh well.

I agree. it's a Super-Ego problem. I was being funny. I still don't think a desire for immortality is inherent to the Id. The Id doesn't think about stuff like that. If anything, the id wants to enjoy life the most, or escape it's problems. All this angst over potential non-existence definitely seems to be working on a much higher level in the consciousness.

I, apparently controversially, don't think religion is at the heart of this conflict. Many folks in the U.S. (and Canada) seem to wish to interpret the conflict through a religious viewpoint--which I suppose is only to be expected among societies more religious than Israel.

I think we are just semantically stretching

sabotabby's rant against some very stupid arguments that start with a position that mass murder is a solution to conflict that has directly killed less than 15,000 people since 1936. Not that the discussion and it's tangents aren't fascinating.

I'm glad I could tell you about Fukuyama. I've been annoyed with him since 1992.

Can the posthumans count on your support against the fans of Jesus the homophobe? I mean, if they hate you for wanting to do what you are capable of with just your god-given biology, wait till they find out about the people who want to splice chlorophyll production into their DNA.

PSA

Re: Religion is an ego problem

Fukuyama has a super ego!