The Hallmark of the Age of "Modernism"

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TIA Daily • February 14, 2012

COMMENTARY

The Hallmark of the Age of "Modernism"

Happy Valentine's Day, unless of course you live in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, or Belgorod, Russia, in which case not so much. But that's one of the reasons why you probably don't live in any of these places.

I have some longer articles I'm working on about the economic recovery and following up on the fate of the Arab Spring, but for this edition, I wanted to bring your attention to a revealing juxtaposition of news stories.

Scholar and blogger Walter Russell Meade brought my attention to a report in London's Daily Mail which indicates that Osama bin Laden had already given up the cause of jihad before we made him give it up for good. He supposedly told his children, "Do not follow me down the road to jihad. Go and get a good education in the West."

The source of this claim, from what I can tell, is the brother of bin Laden's fifth wife, which puts it into the category of "maybe it's true." But Meade argues that the fact that a member of Bin Laden's family would make such a claim is revealing because "it looks increasingly as if America not only killed bin Laden: we are destroying his dream." I think there is a lot of evidence that this is true, that "jihadism" has been discredited. That does not mean, of course, that the radical Islamists have gone away, just that they are now pursuing power through other, less destructive means: the Turkish model of "Islamic Democracy."

But that's not what is most interesting about this story. In the comments section of Meade's post, one of his readers notes the irony. If Bin Laden's children were to follow this advice of seeking out a Western education, "when they get to the United States, they will come under the tutelage of professors who will teach them—or imply—that the West is evil. It won't be long before they conclude that Jihad is the right and sanctioned thing to do."

When I first read that, I though it might be a bit exaggerated—until I came across this story. It seems that the son of Oliver Stone, the famously anti-capitalist, anti-American, conspiracy-theory-mongering filmmaker, has formally converted to Islam in Iran. In case you wondered whether he might have adopted a moderate or liberal version of Islam (since there are some Iranian clerics who teach relatively moderate versions of the faith) he has also gone on record making excuses for Iran's theocratic regime.

Earlier this month, the Iranian press reported that Sean [Stone] attended a conference on "Hollywoodism and Cinema" in Tehran, which featured an address by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and focused on "Hollywood's behind-the-scenes policies and its destructive effects on family foundation," according to the Islamic Republic News Agency....

Last fall, Sean...traveled to Iran to work on a film about the mystic poet Rumi and to help "introduce Persian culture and civilization to the West," according to the Tehran Times. After his visit, he told The Wrap that Iran had a right to nuclear weapons and defended Ahmadinejad. "Iran is ruled by law," he explained. "People don't like Ahmadinejad, but that doesn't warrant a war or an uprising."

The same report also notes that the elder Stone has made a documentary with sympathetic interviews of Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez and that he has previously requested permission to make a documentary on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Now let me point out that Oliver Stone has long been at the crazy fringe of the left, and he and his family are outliers. Sean Stone does not represent the broad trend of American youth, and college kids are not departing in any significant numbers on pilgrimages to Tehran to take Islamic instruction from the Supreme Leader.

But then again, the Bin Laden family is not exactly typical, either, so take these two extreme cases as representing in exaggerated form the odd ideological circle that has been a despicable hallmark of the age of "modernism" and its philosophical sabotage of the Age of Reason.

During the late 20th century, people suffering under Communism longed for the freedom of the West, while young Westerners who enjoyed those freedoms idolized Che Guevara and other Communist goons. Modern man has enjoyed ever greater heights of technological advancement, while lapsing into ever more maudlin celebrations of the greater enlightenment of the noble savage. (Remember this as you watch the computer-generated special effects of Avatar on your high-definition, 3-D, flat-screen television.) So we shouldn't be too surprised if the children of a jihadist leader decide to give up the cause and go to the West—while some children raised with wealth, education, and all of the benefits of the West go off to adopt the philosophy and serve the interests of our most regressive enemies.

This is the hallmark of a society whose intellectuals have failed to keep up with our moral and material achievements. The cultural self-doubt that produces a Sean Stone is, thankfully, not yet strong enough or widespread enough to destroy us. But it will extend and deepen the dangers we have to pass through to keep civilization alive and thriving.—RWT

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