Islamic Doctors
July 6th 2007 02:24
The psycho-social dynamic that makes extremism attractive to the middles and professional classes has been known for many years.
Take the Apocalypse of John the Seer. The older view was that it was written for a community suffering from oppression and poverty. Its extravangant, often warlike, imagery was conceived by a mind pushed violently towards the edge by Roman persecution. It could easily seem from a marxist view as a simple instance of the class struggle.
The reality, though, doesn't fit the picture as we understand it. Many of John's communities were not full of traumatised Jews, but reasonably prosperous gentile converts. Many were members of the upwardly provincial middle classes.
Such people are more susceptible to the feeling of exclusion from the elite strata of society and the desire to punish those who have so rejected them. Rather than re-evaluate their religious views, that do not reflect reality - in the case of the Apocalypse, the non-appearance of Jesus as Universal judge and Saviour - there is a tendency to embrace social exclusivism and to reject the surrounding society as thoroughly demonic.
There is an instructive parallel with modern Islam. It thrives on the notion that Islam is the most sophisticated and pure of religions, even in the face of its political impotence and social decline. The engine for exclusivism and extremist language, and actions, is not necessarily poverty, but the disjunct between the religious a priori and perceived reality. This disjunct is more likely to be felt keenly by those who are moving up the social scale and yet still find themselves excluded from the great society, which they then reject with a vengeance.
Theocracy is of necessity the seed-bed of cognitive dissonance.
Take the Apocalypse of John the Seer. The older view was that it was written for a community suffering from oppression and poverty. Its extravangant, often warlike, imagery was conceived by a mind pushed violently towards the edge by Roman persecution. It could easily seem from a marxist view as a simple instance of the class struggle.
The reality, though, doesn't fit the picture as we understand it. Many of John's communities were not full of traumatised Jews, but reasonably prosperous gentile converts. Many were members of the upwardly provincial middle classes.
Such people are more susceptible to the feeling of exclusion from the elite strata of society and the desire to punish those who have so rejected them. Rather than re-evaluate their religious views, that do not reflect reality - in the case of the Apocalypse, the non-appearance of Jesus as Universal judge and Saviour - there is a tendency to embrace social exclusivism and to reject the surrounding society as thoroughly demonic.
There is an instructive parallel with modern Islam. It thrives on the notion that Islam is the most sophisticated and pure of religions, even in the face of its political impotence and social decline. The engine for exclusivism and extremist language, and actions, is not necessarily poverty, but the disjunct between the religious a priori and perceived reality. This disjunct is more likely to be felt keenly by those who are moving up the social scale and yet still find themselves excluded from the great society, which they then reject with a vengeance.
Theocracy is of necessity the seed-bed of cognitive dissonance.
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Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
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Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Orwell's notion of revolution was the middle class trying to swap places with the upper classes. The Proles stay the same and suffer the same fate under the next ruler.
In reality terrorism is usually the weapon of the educated and intellectual misfit rather than the starving masses. Using a place that I do know about Sri Lanka I can say with out hesitation that it was the educated and the cultured that most quickly became the most uncivlized.
The JVP recruited on universities. The leader Wejaweera
was educated at Moscow University.
The LTTE has an Australian nurse training the female cadres. Including child soldiers
High ranking LTTE member are Doctors.
In Melbourne LTTE fundraiser that were arrested included doctors.
Middle class intellectuals seems to be the dominant pattern.