Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Things have got to be getting better when someone crafts a satire like this:
One of the incidental pleasures of the past few weeks has been watching the Western media struggling to come to terms with the notion of Arab democracy.
Ok, that's moderately funny. But he's just getting warmed up. You see, we've just got it all wrong:
Sure the revolutions are brave and they’re exhilarating to watch from afar, but in the end the military will take over, or the Islamists will take over, or they’ll mess it up some other way. This is the assumption — sometimes implied, sometimes flatly stated — that still underpins much of the outside comment and analysis on the Arab revolutions.
You lunkheads, you. But the sidesplitter is coming:
The default mode for human beings is equality. Every pre-civilized society we know about operated on the assumption that its members were equals. Nobody had the right to give orders to anybody else.
And, one more to force you to read the whole article:
Modern democracy first appeared in the West only because the West was the first part of the world to develop mass communications. It was a technological advantage, not a cultural one — and as literacy and the technology of mass communications have spread around the world, all the other mass societies have also begun to reclaim their heritage.
Can you guess who is peddling this tripe? Read Democracy and the Arabs: The Divine Comedy now held over for a special engagement at a soon to be bankrupt dead tree edition near you.
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Comments :
Nov '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Gwynne Dyer could, at one time, be quite interesting when he stuck to his field of military history. Problematic and provocative to be sure (and from my perspective, often just wrong), but at least generally well argued. But alas, his descent into pollyannish liberalism seems to be near complete.
So my apologies on behalf of Canada....
May '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Gwynne is a man's name?
Jan '11
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Just reading the quotes, it's hilarious! I cracked up on the "pre-civilized society" one. After sobering up, though, I found it frightening that people with influence dissemintate this baseless drivel.
Feb '11
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Oh, you should have the read the quotes beneath the article - my favorite:
The book has done some damage, but officers such as LTC Allen West have done even more damage. Conservatism destroys people's ability to be cross-culturally competent, because the ability to respect others' perspectives, adapt to new situations, and to be flexible and compromising under stress are counter to the Conservative personality, but these abilities are absolutely essential to cross-cultural competency.
Yes, yes, someone how can't understand the origins of democracy in the West, is surely possessed of cross-cultural competency. I can't wait for the sequel.
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
That's historical illiteracy or ideological blindness to an extreme. In fact, it's almost exactly 180° off. The prehistoric man likely lived in clans or small troops with a single alpha leader. Not coincidentally, homo sapiens seems to have an almost hard-wired instinct to conform to our neighbors and follow the hierarchical leader. That makes us eternally susceptible to the siren song of anti-individualist appeals to security in the place of individual liberty, our understanding of which is almost solely the creation of the 17th and 18th century British Isles, drawing on Athens, Jerusalem, etc., and which, pace Mr. Jefferson, would not have been—at all—self-evident to any previous society in human history (all of which, remember, countenanced slavery until 1833).
Edited on Mar 2, 2011 at 12:09pmNov '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
"The default mode for human beings is equality."
We really need to get our new guest social anthropoligist, Stanley Kurtz, to weigh in on this. I only minored in anthropology, several decades ago, and was floored by Dyer's illiteracy.
Sep '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Gwynne is a man's name?
I prefer to think of it as a precivilised rendering
Sep '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Dyer keeps saying Arab, as if the real issue isn't Islam. Obviously, Arabs are not physiologically incapable of democracy/equality. It is what many of them believe, and the values they hold and fears they have that is the problem.
Jun '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
J. C. Casteel: "The default mode for human beings is equality."
We really need to get our new guest social anthropoligist, Stanley Kurtz, to weigh in on this. I only minored in anthropology, several decades ago, and was floored by Dyer's illiteracy. · Mar 2 at 12:27pm
And here I always thought the default mode was "let me at the casserole first so I can get more than my equal share."
Sep '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
"The default mode for human beings is equality."
Paging Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Nov '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Pure mindless drivel.
Jul '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
The man is plainly uncontaminated by the slightest acquaintance with anthropology or history. This kind of ignorance cannot be attained in nature, but apparently can at King's College and Sandhurst, or could in the pre-Thatcher 70s at least.
Oct '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Mr. Dyer, what you've just written is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent essay were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this blog is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Sep '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Ah, Mike, you're just jealous you didn't get the Order of Canada or write something as juicy and government funded as the CBC (Like PBS but on 100% Government Funded Steroids) Climate Wars:
Edited on Mar 2, 2011 at 7:34pmJul '10
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
They were all very little societies
So small that they didn't exist.
On the rare occasions when they had to make a major decision, they would actually sit around and debate it until they reached a consensus. Direct democracy, if you like.
What doesn't qualify as a major decision in a hand-to-mouth existence?
My take on a typical Tuesday in Noble Savageville ca. State of Nature:
Noble Savage #1: "Eat today."
Noble Savage #2: "No eat today. Save."
NS #1: "Eat today!"
NS #2: "No eat today! Save!"
NS #1 beats the hell out of NS #2 and eats everything in sight.
Gwynne Dyer: "Consensus is achieved."
For extra fun, try playing that little scenario out regarding relations between the sexes.
All hunting-and-gathering societies were essentially egalitarian. The mass societies that we call civilizations arose less than 10,000 years ago, thanks to the invention of agriculture.
As is clearly demonstrated by the fact that every single non-agrarian, nomadic folk throughout history was all about equality. "Khan" is just another word for nothing left to lose.
Re: Western Comedian Tours Arab World
Of course Gwynne is a man's name...