" saw the beginning of the Renaissance, a development made possible largely by the cultural flourishing of Islam, which through translating Aristotle into Arabic and other intellectual accomplishments kept alive the knowledge and wisdom of the past. "
How Ironic that, in a article opposing false hope, Islam gets put on a rickety old pedestal. What delusion.
How Ironic is it that Islam, the same force that weakens and nearly destroys the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantium starting in 700CE gets this genuflection by "progressive" academics. Its all really nonsense. Islam did not create anything other than ruin and enslavement. That some libraries of Greek and Roman origin survived is called a Islamic triumph of some sort?? What the hell is really going on here?
Byzantium was the functioning repository for most of the Roman and Greek and scientific knowledge as it was the bastion that had held out against the waves of Germanic tribes as well as the Golden Horde. It only falls when the Ottoman Caliphate finally succeeds in capturing Constantinople during the Renaissance period (29 May 1453 = Fall of Constantinople to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II after 2 months of siege ).
Take a look at a map of the Mediterranean . Every coast line was once controlled by the Byzantines to some degree. In 700CE the peoples all along these bordering lands were mostly Christians...and then the sword of Islam arrives while the Byzantines are busy fighting invaders to the East.
That is the reality. Forced conversion, slavery and death by Islam. One million "European" peoples are exported as slaves from Spain and Italy and France to the markets of Islam. Oh, but Islam "saved the knowledge"? Islam did nothing. Muslims sacked cities and a few saw the value of the bits of the classical world that they had yet not trashed.
So please, you moron Chris Hedges. Stop being obsequious to Islam as though it offers some of that Enlightenment thinking. Islam offers submission and oppression and nothing else. We need to cut the HOPE of Islam being something it is not.
And, BTW. Hedges gets it wrong quite often In a recent speech that referenced Lenin he declared how the WWI Wiemar Generals did not play a hand in spreading his ideology to the Russians. That was incorrect and speaks to a need to rewrite history so that Communism/Leninism is seen as being more "organic" than it actually was. General Ludendorff arranged for Lenin to make it to Russia so that the Tsar's armies would stop their fight...and it worked. Germany helped engineer the bolshevik revolution. History is what happened, not what you want to have happened.
(Muslim battle map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo )
[–] novictim ago (edited ago)
How disappointing. Chris Hedges correctly points a wagging finger at our collective "hope" and expectation in progress and delusional sense of the inevitability of progress. He should be praised for doing that. But then he obliterates this insight into our psychopathology with the inane call to "wisdom". Ugh!
Hedges chess move seems to be the substitution of the rational for the drumming circle. Which may work for him and his echo-chamber brigade but it fails everyone else. Drumming circles, in the form of disorganized and catch-all OWS, don't work. Please have the wisdom to recognize that, Hedges!
"Wisdom connects us with forces that cannot be measured empirically and that are outside the confines of the rational world....Resistance will take place outside the boundaries of popular culture and
academia, where the deadening weight of the dominant ideology curtails
creativity and independent thought."
Is any of that remotely the case?
I think that Hedges was highly indulgent here and it is totally unhelpful for real problem solving. Hedges blames the "technocrats" and the linqua franca of capitalism but this misses the mark by a mile. We are on a myopic ride into oblivion, yes, but that falls squarely on the structure of how corporations make decisions and on their purchase of Government as a tool of business. These truths are not mysterious.
These targets that I point to are highly rational and the solutions are rational and easily understood. Solutions don't exist in some vague call to some supposed revival of "wisdom". What is needed is political will, pure and simple, and yes, the end of magical thinking that Hedges is trying to peddle.
Rational choices are stalled by systems of corporate power that operate on autopilot. It is that simple.
(BTW: Islam created nothing. Christianity created nothing. Rational thought made your cell phone, vaccinations, etc possible, Hedges. Islam played a large role in creating the dark ages and in overwhelming any attempt to reconstitute the Roman/Byzanting empire starting in 700CE. See Jihad battle map, 548 Muslim conquests, in timelapse map below:)
(Muslim battle map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo )
Edit: I posted this on http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/05/26/our-mania-for-hope-is-a-curse/. And it was censored
[–] bill.lee [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Hey /u/novictim...very thorough analysis :) Overall, I enjoy Hedges writing even though I'm not always agree with his ultimate conclusions. Although, I did like he worked in his viewpoints on knowledge v. wisdom. But I may have less of a materialist outlook. The portion of his historical interpretation that lost me was the distinction between the Renaissance and the Dark Ages. It's more a pet peeve but when these periods are brought up, I mean, no one in 1402 thought: "Hm, I really feel like I'm in the Renaissance now...doesn't feel anything like the Dark Ages".
I may not be enunciating that quite clearly--but I find it absurd. This goes toward one of my biases: after hunter-gatherers, history is dominated by people seeking wealth and then killing a bunch of other people. Certainly, that's a generalization but it's part of the reason I'm woe to romanticize periods or individuals. Do I need to have some declarative set of facts on Suleiman and Richard the Lionheart to reach a conclusion that vilifies one and celebrates the other...or perhaps some variation? In either case, I'd argue, having any kind of opinion on these long-dead people doesn't advance me at all.
I did like his point toward the end on the only certainties being birth and death. It reminds me of the line from Dylan "All the money you've made will never buy back your soul". A personal favorite.
[–] novictim 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Oh, I agree with you and so do most historians today: The middle ages are a period of growth and reason, and all but a very short period following the collapse of the Roman empire in the West are worthy of the title "dark ages". Myths and misconceptions from the past sure do hang on when people don't bother to update the assumptions and knowledge. (Hedges needs this)
"doesn't advance me at all." I'm with that side of the historic view. I don't find the great man view of history very compelling or useful except when truly unique characters are identified (eg Martin Luther). A systems/underlying-trends/forces approach usually gives up the take home message and the deeper understanding.
"When your soul wears out, buy new shoes" - Unidentified Stride Rite Shoes executive