Thesis excerpt

Ending my teaching career, I might get time to revisit my PhD thesis. Here's a small excerpt:

There was a malicious story put abroad in the ancient world, probably originating with the satirist Timon, that on one of his journeys to southern Italy Plato had procured at great price a copy of Philolaus of Croton's one work on Pythagorean cosmogony, and on his return to Athens, plagiarised its doctrines for his own Timaeus. The figure of Timaeus, who by Plato's account was a leading citizen of Epizephyrean Locri, was believed to be a thinly disguised portrayal of Philolaus himself. In the Timaeus Plato presents the Locrian as visiting Athens, and, while enjoying the hospitality of Socrates during a festive season, giving a lengthy account of the creation and the wherewithal of the natural order. This, the story implied, was a fiction through which Plato hoped to present Timaeus as his mouth-piece and thereby claim as his own the cosmological teachings of the Pythagoreans. It was a story that held wide currency at one time - at least amongst those who were not admirers of Plato - and it was sometimes cited as evidence that Philolaus had indeed written a book on general cosmological matters.

What is instructive in the story for our purposes is that it acknowledges the Timaeus as the work in which Plato owes the greatest debt to Italian Pythagoreanism. In this respect the story is consistent with a widely held view among later generations that on his journeys to the western parts of the Greek world Plato had made contact with the Pythagoreans, and that the Timaeus, legitimately or not, was the fruit of that encounter. Plato's admirers, of course, told a different story of the identity of Timaeus and the origins of his doctrines as Plato presents them. They believed that the very purpose of Plato's travels to the west was to seek out Pythagoreanism in its heartland. This was in order to be instructed in its teachings, initiated into its mysteries, and to discuss his own philosophy with its living teachers. Timaeus, they believed, was one of those teachers, an historical figure, whom Plato had met and possibly studied under during his sojourn in the Magna Graecian cities. But it was never denied in these circles that he was a Pythagorean nor that the Timaeus was a thoroughly Pythagorean work. In the first century A.D. a document appeared called On the World-Soul and Nature which bore Timaeus' name. It was in fact an epitome of the Timaeus and obviously a neo-Pythagorean forgery but it was widely believed to have been the original document upon which Plato based his own work. Among those sympathetic to Plato and Platonism it was believed that, far from plagiarising Philolaus, the Timaeus communicated genuine Pythagorean science under the full authority of one of its greatest exponents.

It is not difficult to see how these sorts of stories developed, for the Pythagorean element in the Timaeus is certainly pronounced and it demands some explanation. There is a recognisable strand of Pythagoreanism throughout Plato's dialogues, but it is never as forthright as it is in this case. There is no explicit acknowledgment of Pythagorean influence in the work - Plato rarely mentions the Pythagoreans in any of his writings - but his use of Pythagorean ideas is unmistakable. Similarly, it is not explicitly stated that Timaeus of Locri is a Pythagorean, but the evidence we are given makes his philosophical affiliations clear. Locri, like Tarentum and Croton and many other of the city states of Magna Graecia, was a noted Pythagorean strong-hold. Plato tells us that Timaeus is one of its statesmen, as well as an accomplished philosopher, and, above all, an astronomer who has made the nature of the universe his special field of expertise. From this information it seems certain that he is to be understood to be a Pythagorean, or at least a philosopher under marked Pythagorean influence. This is confirmed by the general tenor of his teachings. The entire structure of his account of the creation of the world and the creation of man depends upon the correspondence between the macrocosm and its microcosmic reflection. Man and cosmos in Timaeus' world share a common order. What is true of the cosmos is true of man. The cosmos is a Living Creature, he teaches, and man is its reflection in miniature. This is the single most commanding idea in the Pythagorean cosmology, an idea that is given its most forthright expression in the doctrine of the harmony of the spheres whereby the order of the universe finds a resonance in the human soul. Timaeus' account of the construction of the soul of the world, which is one of his key doctrines, strongly bears this Pythagorean stamp. He describes how the World-Soul was made according to certain arithmetic and harmonic proportions, some of which correspond to one version of the Pythagorean's emblem, the tetractys. This is evidence enough of his Pythagorean credentials. There is little disagreement on this point in any case. Today, as in the past, the Timaeus is recognised as the most overtly Pythagorean dialogue in the Platonic corpus, and it is understood that its central character is portrayed as an Italian Pythagorean visiting Athens. 

This Pythagorean element in the Timaeus is arguably the work's most outstanding feature. No serious study of the dialogue can overlook the question of Pythagorean influence, nor can any credible attempt at interpretation fail to offer an explanation as to why it is so Pythagorean. The first and most immediate problems raised by the work stem from here - the question of the identity of Timaeus, for example, and of why Plato chose a Locrian to deliver the most important statement on cosmology and 'natural science' in any of his dialogues. A more general question is the extent of Plato's contacts with Italian Pythagoreanism. What precise bearing did his Pythagorean contacts in Magna Graecia have on his work? What did he find in the Italian Pythagoreans that attracted him? These matters are often so perplexing, though, that attempts by modern commentators to address them have sometimes given risen to hypotheses as unlikely as the stories told in ancient times. Taylor, for instance, whose commentary is one of the most thorough and extensive studies of the Timaeus in the twentieth century, was so impressed by the Pythagorean influence in the dialogue that he came to doubt that Timaeus' views were at all representative of Plato's own. Instead, he argued, the Timaeus is merely a record of Pythagorean beliefs, a type of anthology in which Plato sought to preserve the main tenets of old Pythagorean cosmological thought, without necessarily endorsing it himself. This, Taylor believed, is the only possible explanation for Plato writing a work that reproduces the doctrines of the Pythagoreans with such fidelity. The dialogue's value, he says, is not as an account of Plato's teachings, but as the fullest and most detailed account of early Pythagorean doctrine to survive to us. This view, however, has met with little or no support from other scholars and is today widely regarded as eccentric and unsubstantiated; but it is an understandable point of view nevertheless - like the ancient accusations of plagiarism it arises from the observation that the Timaeus is remarkably Pythagorean. This Pythagorean influence upon the work will be one of the main themes of this present study.

The Pythagoreanism of the Timaeus must, however, always be considered in a wider context. There is no contesting the fact of strong Pythagorean influence, nor of the importance of Pythagorean doctrines such as the microcosm's correspondence with the macrocosm to an understanding of Timaeus' teachings. We can say with confidence, however, that while Plato's use of Pythagoreanism is so plain and direct that he must have fully expected his readers to appreciate the work's Pythagorean background, it is not the only influence that can be detected. Without in any way underrating it, the Pythagoreanism of the Timaeus needs to be considered from the outset in the broader context of Plato's 'borrowings' from a much wider range of sources. 'Pythagorean' is, in any case, something of a blanket term and, in the context of the fifth and fourth century philosophical milieux of both Magna Graecia and Athens, it needs to be more carefully defined. This is the approach that Cornford argues for in his commentary. He acknowledges the Pythagorean component, but he emphasises the importance of two related yet distinct schools of western Greek thought, the Parmenidean and the Empedoclean, as well. "Much of the doctrine [in the work]," he says, "is no doubt Pythagorean..." but Timaeus also "sometimes follows Empedocles, [and] sometimes Parmenides." For general purposes it is sufficiently accurate to nominate Timaeus as a Pythagorean, but to be perfectly accurate this must be qualified by saying that his affiliations are with all three of the major philosophical schools of the western Greek city-states. It is true, of course, that all aspects of western Greek philosophy were under the sway of Pythagoras and his followers, and that both Parmenides and Empedocles may be counted as Pythagoreans themselves, but they nevertheless formed distinct and divergent philosophies of their own. Cornford's point is that Timaeus' debt to them is as evident, if it is not also as extensive, as his debt to what we know of the Pythagorean school proper. This is perhaps only a matter of emphasis, but it is also important. Timaeus' Pythagorean affiliations are among the most immediately conspicuous features of the dialogue, but on closer examination what he teaches is not entirely pure doctrine; his Pythagoreanism is supplemented by kindred doctrines from the two other main streams of Sicilian and Italian cosmological thinking. Cornford asks us to see Timaeus as representative not of one specific school of thought, but of the whole western Greek philosophical milieu.

In contrast to theories such as Taylor's, this broader approach to the Timaeus has met with widespread acceptance among the work's modern students. Timaeus' use of doctrines from Empedocles and Parmenides is as widely admitted as his primary affiliations with the Pythagoreans themselves. It is not hard to find evidence of his debt to Parmenides either, and, indeed, his adoption of Parmenidean teachings is often as undisguised as his use of fundamental Pythagorean ideas. Near the outset of his speech, for instance, he describes the cosmos as singular, finite and as "a sphere with its extremities equidistant from the centre." This conception is clearly taken from the Eleatic cosmology. "The argument [in this case] is Eleatic rather than Pythagorean," Cornford says, and notes that Diels regarded this part of the dialogue as "the best commentary" on Parmenides' comparison of the One with a perfect sphere. Similarly, later in his speech, Timaeus gives an account of the mechanisms of sight that have some obvious parallels with the theories of Empedoclean biology. The whole tenor of what Timaeus has to say on the structure and workings of the human body is in fact recognisably in debt to Empedocles' school of medical science. Timaeus is shown to be well-versed in Empedocles' teachings, and he makes extensive use of them.

From this it is not only justifiable to claim that the Timaeus is Plato's most Pythagorean work; it is, viewed in a larger perspective, a testament to his affinity with the western cosmologists in general. The Timaeus stands as something of a tribute to the approach to cosmology of all the major schools of the western hemisphere of the ancient Greek world. This is indicative of Plato's usual philosophical sympathies. Like his attraction to Pythagoreanism, they are well-marked throughout his works. Parmenides and the Eleatic school had a strong influence upon him. It is significant, for instance, that in Plato's later dialogues the Stranger from Elea tends to replace Socrates at centre stage. The Timaeus, where the Locrian stands at centre-stage and Socrates' role is reduced to a minimum, is similar evidence of Plato's respect for the philosophers from the west. The Timaeus is a work that endorses, by adoption, their approach to the questions of cosmology, creation, man and the world. In its general Pythagorean orientation, and in its debt to the distinct branches of Pythagoreanism of Parmenides and Empedocles, we have a resounding reminder that of all the Presocratic philosophers the Italians and Sicilians were closest to Plato's own mind. The only exception to this was Heraclitus, who was also admired by Plato, as Aristotle tells us, but who came from Asia Minor. Speaking generally, though, we find Plato's major cosmological work is built upon the foundations, and substantially from the materials, of western teachings.

'Am I a True Conservative?' - Alan Jacobs

The following article by Alan Jacobs appeared a while back and I keep returning to it in my mind. So I've decided to post it here for future reference, and so i don't have to find it on google any more. It's an article that ticks a lot of boxes for me - a conservative who knows crony capitalism when he sees it.

AM I A TRUE CONSERVATIVE? 

by Alan Jacobs

Am I a conservative? Heck if I know. All I know for sure is that the good people here at The American Conservative are interested enough in what I have to say to give me a platform on which to say it. For which I am genuinely grateful.

I am not and never have been a Republican. I feel roughly as alienated from that party as I do from the Democratic Party. I hold a number of political views that strong-minded Republicans typically find appalling: I think racism is one of the greatest problems in American society today; I am not convinced that austerity programs are helpful in addressing our economic condition; I am absolutely convinced that what many Republicans call free-market capitalism is in fact crony capitalism, calculated to favor the extremely wealthy and immensely powerful multinational corporations; I think that for all of the flaws of Obamacare, it was at least an attempt to solve a drastically unjust and often morally corrupt network of medical care in this country; I dislike military adventurism, and believe that our various attempts at nation-building over the past decade were miscalculated from the outset.

So is there any sense in which I might plausibly be called a conservative? I don’t really know; I’ll leave that to others to decide. It doesn’t really matter to me whether I fit into any pre-existing political or intellectual categories. I can only say this: that I do have three overarching political commitments (or beliefs, or convictions) that are more important to me than any others.

The first is that I strive to be a consistently pro-life Christian. I am aware that many people believe that the whole notion of a “consistent pro-life ethic” is a way for liberal Christians to minimize the evil of abortion by wrapping it in a whole series of other issues, and that may well be true for many, but I do believe that there is such a thing as a consistently pro-life position and that that position involves an absolute commitment to the unborn and also to the weak, the sick, the elderly, the mentally ill, and all the others who find themselves at the margins of our society, generally unloved and uncared for. My models in this quest are the Cappadocian fathers of the Church.

My second steady commitment is to the principle of subsidiarity. I believe that almost all of our social evils and shortcomings can be handled better by small, local organizations and empowered persons than by national institutions or for that matter even state-level institutions. There is no question that local communities can be cruel and indifferent to sufferings in their midst, but they are also more subject to shame and other forms of correction than high-level political systems. They can be more easily altered, turned, reformed. A great deal of suffering in America today is caused by the evacuation of intermediary structures: the church, the family, voluntary organizations. These intermediary structures are in desperate need of renewal and that can only happen if there is a systematic shift of power, wealth, and influence from state and national governments to local units. Among my chief teachers on this matter is Robert Nisbet, and another is Patrick Deneen, so let me cite the latter writing about the former here and here. Nisbet himself simply identified conservatism with this tendency: “The essence of this body of ideas is the protection of the social order — family, neighborhood, local community, and region foremost — from the ravishments of the centralized political state.”

My third leading political conviction is that the wisdom of our ancestors is both deeply valuable and tragically neglected. On this let me cite Roger Scruton:

Our work, it seems to me, consists in what Plato called anamnesis — the defeat of forgetting. We cannot ask young people to live as we lived or to value what we valued. But we can encourage them to see the point of how we lived, and to recognize that freedom without responsibility is, in the end, an empty asset. We can tell them stories of the old virtues, and enlarge their sympathies toward a world in which suffering and sacrifice were not the purely negative things that they are represented to be by the consumer culture but an immovable part of any lasting happiness. Our task, in other words, is now less political than cultural — an education of the sympathies, which requires from us virtues (such as imagination, creativity, and a respect for high culture) that have a diminishing place in the world of politics.

So that’s largely what I believe about politics. And again, whether that qualifies me as a True Conservative I neither know nor care.

Some Thoughts on Scientology

"Scientology is NOT a church or even a religion. They pulled a dodgy move way back in the 60's when Henry Bolte banned them from this state because of their unacceptable activities. The law of the country says religions cannot be discriminated against so they got around the ban that way. A stupid law - otherwise we could ban Scientology and Muslims and all those murderous sects who have brought so much misery to the Western world. "

- MRJ Posted at 12:17 PM March 06, 2011, Melbourne Herald Sun

In recent years, as part of my job, I made a study of Scientology. It is part of my job to investigate such groups and to arrive at an independent, objective assessment of the place of such groups in contemporary religious life. Scientology has been around since the 1950s. It is a vast and complex topic. I do not regard myself as an expert on Scientology, but I do regard myself as sufficiently well-read in this field to have an informed opinion.

There is an extraordinary amount of hype surrounding this controversial topic; propaganda generated by Scientologists themselves, media sensationalism and virulent anti-Scientology propaganda generated by its detractors. My job, in part, is to sift through this material in search of the facts and in order to better understand Scientology both in itself and among other religious movements.

I do not have hardened and intractable opinions. Nor do I approach such studies with any hidden agenda, religious or otherwise. (I must stress that I do not have any links or affiliations with Scientology whatsoever. In fact, my personal affiliations are with traditional (conservative) religious systems in the Abrahamic faiths.) I am always prepared to change my position in line with new information and new research. The platform from which I make all my studies is a commitment to the spiritual autonomy of the individual, to a healthy religious diversity and to freedom of religion as a mainstay of a free, modern society.

Here are a few points about Scientology:

*I accept the ruling of the High Court of Australia which declared that, for all legal purposes, Scientology is a religion and is therefore entitled to the legal benefits that come with that status. Scientologists should be free to practice their religion under the rule of law just like any other group.

*Quite apart from the legal arguments offered by the High Court of Australia, I accept that Scientology is a religion in a wider sense. Although it has many unusual features that distinguish it from the more traditional religions, and in some ways it challenges conventional definitions of religion, its theory and practice is clearly of a spiritual nature. Its scope extends beyond a psycho-therapy and concerns the welfare of souls in eternity. It is therefore best classified as a religion.  (Note: I did not always hold this view. For a long while I argued that Scientology is not a religion. After further investigations I changed my mind.)

*I do not accept claims that Scientology is "just a scam" and “nothing but a tax avoidance scheme." After carefully examining the evidence, I do not accept the common claim that L. Ron Hubbard cynically set out to create a religion as a way of making money. Certainly, on any reading, the origins of Scientology are far more complex than that.

*I have made a particular investigation of the claims that the roots of Scientology are in “black magic” and occultism, and find them unsubstantiated. I find that Hubbard had little association with the Satanist Aleister Crowley and that his brief “occult” phase when he lived with a follower of Crowley, Jack Parsons, amounted to little more than dabbling. (In fact, in an extant letter Crowley described Hubbard as a “swindler” - a big call from Crowley, I must say - and it seems Hubbard stole both Parson’s girlfriend and money.) I detect no significant similarities between Scientology and Crowley’s own religion, Thelema. Nor do I detect any other satanic elements in Scientological theory or practice. I find that claims that the higher levels of Scientology are openly satanic have no more substance than the same claims brought against Freemasonry.

*I do not indulge in judgments about the character and motives of the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard. The Church of Scientology’s account of his life is clearly hagiographical and should be understood as such. Some of the non-Scientological biographies of Hubbard I have read strike me as excessively hostile. I am inclined to believe that the truth is somewhere in between. He was obviously a colourful larger-than-life character of unusual intelligence, wit and imagination who often took liberties with his own life narrative. I do not regard him as a saint of cosmic proportions, but neither do I regard him as a personification of pure evil. I doubt assessments that would portray him as a lunatic. His facility with and deconstruction of language is cogent and often impressive, even attracting the admiration of such considerable authors as William S. Burroughs. (Speaking personally, the veneration of Hubbard is one of the least attractive aspects of Scientiology. All my dealings with human beings have made me rather disinclined to cults of personality.)

*While some features of the belief-system of Scientology may appear strange and is often subject to ridicule in the media, I find Scientologists to be perfectly sincere in their beliefs. Scientology tends to be heavily jargonized. When we look beyond the jargon and the strangeness of appearances, the belief-system is not radically different to aspects of Hinduism or Jainism or some schools of Gnostic Christianity. The "science fiction" ("space opera") aspects of Scientology tend to be sensationalized and over-emphasized by the media. It constitutes very little of Scientology, in fact. In any case, many (or most) religions entertain "strange" beliefs (eg. virgin births, angelic visitations, etc.) Scientologists ought not be subject to ridicule and discrimination just because others might find their beliefs outlandish. 

*I find some anti-Scientology campaigns extreme and unfair and impede the right of Scientologists to openly practice their religion. Scientologists - more than almost any religious group I know - are subject to misunderstanding, caricature, ridicule, suspicion, conspiracy theories and abuse. Many Scientologists feel the need to hide their religious affiliations because people will suspect them of nefarious deeds and hidden agendas. It is of great concern to me whenever any religious group (Freemasons and Mormons are examples that come to mind) become targets of widespread contempt and derision. No religious group should be beyond criticism and critical examination, but nor should any religious group be hounded to the point of persecution. Much anti-scientology material available on-line goes far beyond reasoned critique and expose; it is abusive hate literature. Sensationalized tabloid journalism brings this into the mainstream. It often amounts to religious vilification. I think the recent characterisation of the Church of Scientology as a "crminal organisation" by Senator Xenophon in the Australian Senate was excessive - it effectively labelled all Scientologists criminals - and an abuse of parliamentary privilege (an abuse that the Senator has since repeated in regards to other religious groups.)

*Unlike many critics of Scientology I do not find its objections to psychiatry a cause for blanket condemnation. Many people have legitimate and well-founded concerns about psychiatric practices; much of the history of psychiatry is indeed barbaric and many of its current practices - including its relationship with drug companies – is questionable. Through my own reading of R. D. Laing, Michel Foucault etc. I am myself sympathetic to critics of psychiatry. (This is an important matter in religious studies today. In some contemporary psychiatric literature there are very worrying moves to pathologize all religious experience and world-views.) While the views of Scientologists on psychiatry often strike me as over-stated, I note that there are many instances where Scientology has exposed serious abuses by the psychiatric profession. (An example in Australia is the Chelmsford scandal.) This is a positive contribution Scientology has made and continues to make to our society.

*I find the Scientological practice of "disconnection" - where Scientologists are ordered to disconnect themselves from family or friends deemed "suppressive persons" - objectionable and socially destructive. I object to the practice of "shunning" in all religions. I find groups where exclusion and shunning is a core practice (the Exclusive Brethren, for example) particularly problematic. I am concerned about any religious group that requires or encourages its members to turn away from their wider network of family and friends or that isolates people from the general community; isolation is always a recipe for trouble. Scientology does not do this in a systematic way but there are many documented cases where the practice of "disconnection" has caused trauma in families and has led to cult-like abuses.

*I do not take the cynical view that all Scientological organisations - including charities run by Scientologists or affiliated with Scientology or deploying Scientology "tech" - are merely "fronts" for the Church of Scientology. Programs such as Narcinon (drug rehab) and Criminon (criminal rehab) should be applauded wherever they do good work in the community. Such charities, of course, should be required to operate within appropriate guidelines set by law. Where this happens I think such charities should have the same status as charities run by, say, the Salvation Army. There is no basis for discriminating against properly run, legally appropriate charities simply because they have affiliations with Scientology. The same applies to other applications of Scientology "tech" such as "Applied Scholastics". There are no grounds for schools rejecting Applied Scholastics simply because it is based on ideas proposed by L. Ron Hubbard. Such systems as Applied Scholastics should be assessed on their own merits and according to objective (evidence-based) criteria.

*Against the Church of Scientology I support the rights of those Scientologists who endeavour to practice their religion outside of the control of the official organisation, i.e. in the so-called "Freezone". I find the Church's aggressive litigation against individuals in the Freezone, and the heavy-handed application of copyrights etc., disturbing. Usually in matters of religion my instinct is to support the rights of individuals over corporate and collective controls.

*In Australia there seems to be an on-going problem in the Church of Scientology concerning the distinction between paid and volunteer labour. There are persistent reports that suggest that the Church engages in exploitative labour practices. The emphasis on “upstats” driving employees to long hours of work and ever higher levels of productivity, easily leads to exploitative situations. In Australia at this time at least it is clear that the Church of Scientology needs to do more to adapt its practices to Australian labour laws.

*My deepest reservations about Scientology concern its practice of charging fees for many of its core services and persistent allegations of its financial exploitation of its members. I accept that many religious organisations charge fees for counselling and other services in order to recoup costs, but the corporate structure and ethos of the Church of Scientology seems to extend beyond this to an unseemly emphasis on profit. I note that many Churches demand tithes and financial contributions from their members and that this is not the case in the Church of Scientology, but it concerns me that spiritual advancement up the “Bridge” is, in practice, linked to capacity to pay. I am suspicious of any model in any spiritual system other than voluntary donation. In general, there seems to be a lack of financial transparency in the Church of Scientology which I regard as unbefitting to a religious organisation. A model of religio-corporatism (complete with a “Chairman of the Board”) invites suspicions of financial misdeeds. I belief that public authorities are quite right to expose the Church of Scientology, and affiliated charities, - and indeed all religious groups - to careful financial scrutiny. The number of ex-Scientologists who feel that they were subject to financial exploitation by the Church is a matter of considerable concern.

*I understand the Scientologist's "E-meter" device to be like various "biofeedback" devices common in counter-culture circles in post-war America. I do not regard scientific assessments of the "E-meter" relevant to Scientology as a religion. In context, claims that it is "unscientific" carry no more weight than claims that prayer is "unscientific". In general, I suspect that Scientology is ahead of its time in applying "biofeedback" as a psycho-spiritual methodology. I expect that Scientology - and other groups - should abide by appropriate legal guidelines in all claims made for the powers of such methods. I note that the "E-meter" is now classified as merely a "religious artefact" and that Scientology has not made extravagant claims about the powers of the E-meter for many decades.

*I note that most of the complaints about the Church of Scientology concern the behaviour and tactics of the administrating organs of the Church. The Church has a strongly top-down mode of organisation. Such hierarchical and tightly managed organisations are prone to a culture of abuse and at very least tend to alienate people. Free-thinking individuals tend to resent regimentation and heavy-handed central control. This is also true of, say, the Roman Catholic Church, but it does seem to be an on-going problem with the Church of Scientology. Some of the governing organs of Scientology, such as the RTC, attract a high level of criticism and, very often, respond to such criticism with aggression rather than self-reflection and contrition. I find that there is a disturbing lack of self-reflection in the upper levels of Scientology management. In some cases the financial and legal behaviour of Church management may be a legitimate concern for law enforcement agencies.

*I note a disturbing number of cases over many years where ex-members of Scientology have reported that it was difficult for them to disentangle themselves from the Church. There is evidence that the Church has often behaved like a "cult" in such cases. Ex-members, or members seeking to leave the religion, have often been subject to harassment and intimidation. This is not uncommon in minority religious groups, but it seems to be a particular problem in the case of Scientology. Where this extends beyond low-level peer pressure, some of the practices of the Church regarding ex-members or disgruntled members may sometimes be a legitimate concern for law enforcement agencies.

*Despite the top-down and very controlling nature of Scientology's structures, there does appear to be considerable local variations in the behaviour of the organisation. The behaviour of Scientology in America isn't necessarily reflected in the Australian organisation. On the whole, I find Scientology in Australia law-abiding and socially benign. The American context can be quite different. American religiosity is quite different. 

*While I note that there are plenty of complaints about Scientology from disgruntled customers, and the media is always ready to sensationalise such cases, I have met many people (both current and former Scientologists) who attest that Scientology has been a positive force in their life. I have met people who tell me, very sincerely, that Scientology helped them in a time of need, straightened out their life and gave them purpose. It is hard to argue with such evidence. Clearly, it works for some people. These are not robots with glazed stares. Often they are highly motivated, successful, intelligent people, perfectly sane and self-determining. (Actually, all of my dealings with Scientologists have been cordial and cooperative. They're nothing like how they are often portrayed in the media.) 

*Finally, I note that Scientology has probably reached its peak and is, if anything, in decline. It is very hard to find reliable figures. The heyday of Scientology was the late 1980s-early 1990s. Since then, it has contracted. I see it as now in a consolidation phase. I see it has having a modest future as a minority religion that will necessarily change and adapt to a changing social milieu. I suspect Scientology will be better off when the current leadership moves on through generational change. 

- Harper McAlpine Black

Walter Charles Horsely - the French and the British

Continuing my late-night exploration of orientalist painters - at the end of the day its nice to sit back and look at pictures rather than text. Here are two very interesting images from Walter Charles Horsely, a very popular orientalist painter in his day. These two paintings contrast views of the French and the English in Egypt. Both are deliciously ambiguous images. Have a close look at all the figures and what they are doing. On a light note, Horsely seems to think it is the French - rather than mad dogs and Englishmen - who go out in the noon-day sun. The British here are enjoying the shade, very sensibly. The French are unruly and out in the heat of the day. There is much more to say on this interesting contrast of two types of colonialism - I'II add further comments at a later time. 

The British

The French

Sir Alfred East (1844-1913)

A few days ago Alex (a post-grad I'm supervising) gave me an article on wabi-sabi, the Japanese quality of... of... well, it's difficult to translate. I didn't quite understand the concept until I got to the bit where the article said that wabi-sabi is what makes Katherine Hepburn sexier than Marilyn Monroe.

In any case, it set me off on a nipponological excursion back through my photos of Japan and I wondered if there were any orientalist artists who recorded pre-modern Japan. I hit upon Sir Alfred East, British landscape artist. In 1889 he was commissioned to spend six months in Japan sketching and painting. He returned with 104 works, which he exhibited to wide acclaim. A British landscape painter in Japan.

Knit one, purl two

Today provided a glowing example of why I am in self-imposed exile from the Left of Australian politics. A leading magazine today published a picture of the Prime Minister knitting. Here is the picture in question:

She is knitting a kangaroo as a gift for the forthcoming royal baby. I personally like it. In fact, I think it might be the best picture of Julia Gillard I've ever seen. If there was more of this, I'd be better disposed towards her. A. its reassuring that she's not useless. B. I'm fond of royalty, C. knitting is a traditional craft of which I approve. The picture shows the PM as an old fashioned girl. I also approve of that.

But today the feminist press went into hyperdrive. Some of them had conniptions. Is knitting politically correct was the question. Is it OK for a feminist to knit? is how the columnist in the Age put it. The burning issue of the day. Does the sisterhood approve of knitting? Doesn't it undermine Gillard's misogyny tantrums? The Age included graphic shots of Gillard knitting juxtaposed with Abbott in his lycra shorts looking masculine and sweaty. Oh my God, gender stereotypes! This is what passes for political commentary at the Age these days, which is exactly why myself, and hundreds of thousands of others, no longer read it. (Alright, I read it today, but its been at least ten years since I bought a copy.)

More interesting is the fact that the picture is a carefully crafted piece of PR. The pic was approved by the PM's office and is part of the on-going effort to rehabilitate the PM's image with the Australian public. The glasses are part of that too. But to what audience does the knitting pic play? Perhaps it plays to the massive 7% of male voters who have abandoned the Labor Party in the last three months? It sure doesn't play to the feminists. They were bemused. Some of them were deeply disappointed. Some of them were outraged.  As if its a crime for a woman who is currently occupying the most powerful political office in the land to display old fashioned femininity. How tiresome. How utterly tiresome.

Yet that tiresome mind set pervades the Left these days. I've even stopped reading my union newsletter because of a concentration on this sort of thing. Many a university staff room will be buzzing with the 'knitting question' tomorrow as the sisters agonize over the semiological implications of the picture. Gender ideology is a toxin that is poisoning the Left, or rather has already poisoned it, at least as far as I'm concerned. I've moved on, or rather I've stayed put and the Left have wandered off into loopy land.

All the same, the Prime Minister - an avid knitter, it turns out - rises in my estimation, much as the Leader of the Opposition went up in my regard after I read his very sincere and moving tribute to the journalist Christopher Pearson who died last week.

(I pinched the title - Knit one, purl two - from Philipa Martyr, by the way, who blogged her usual high quality intelligence and wit on this matter today.) 

Eastern Christians Betrayed by the West

I'm migrating material from an old blog to this one. Bear with me. This is the first article, dated 22nd July 2012. 

Several days ago in an act of public provocation a member of the Israeli parliament (Knesset), Michael Ben Ari, denounced the Christian scriptures, tore up a copy of the New Testament and threw it in the garbage. Since then he has been denounced by several leading Jewish groups in the USA including the influential Anti-Defamation League. The American Jewish Committee issued a statement saying that Ben Ari’s actions were “unacceptable” while the only Christian member of the Knesset, Hanna Sweid, described it as an act of “hooliganism.” What, though, was the response of Christian leaders in the West? Nothing. Not a peep. Not only did Ben Ari’s actions not rate a mention in the Western media, but Christian leaders in the West remained silent. An extensive search across the internet did not reveal a single word of outrage or condemnation from Christian leaders including nothing from the usually vocal and quick-to-offend Religious Right in the USA. This is in contrast to Muslim responses to wanton attacks upon the Koran. When Christians burn or deface the Koran Muslims worldwide riot. In contrast, when the Christian scriptures are attacked, nothing.

Meanwhile, in Syria, the so-called “Syrian rebels” – who in any other context would be called Islamist terrorists – have issued warnings to Syrian Christians to get out of the country as soon as possible because Syria is soon to be “liberated” and turned over to Salafi-style Sunni Islam and Christians won’t be welcome in the new Syria. In some places in Syria Christians are being attacked by the “rebels” and whole areas are being “cleansed” of Christian communities and their Churches. These attacks are reported in the Russian media, and elsewhere, but in the West… nothing. What do we hear from Christian leaders in the West? Nothing. Silence. What do we hear from the American Religious Right? Nothing.

And meanwhile, in Egypt ancient Christian communities are being attacked and run out of the country by the newly empowered “Muslim Brotherhood”. The response of Christians in the West? Nothing. And in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Christians have been run out of the country since it was “liberated” from Saddam Hussein by the US, UK and the “Coalition of the Willing”. An outcry among Western Christians? No. Nothing. Churches destroyed. Christians killed. Whole communities forced to leave. What is the response of Western Christians in defense of their eastern brothers? Not a whimper. Right across the Middle East the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ has been a nightmare for Christians. Secular regimes are falling one after another and are being replaced by Islamist regimes. In many cases, these are Christian communities from the very earliest periods of Christian history. The Copts in Egypt, the Iraqi church, the orthodox communities in Syria have all lived in those lands for nearly 2000 years. Now they are being pushed out by modern political Islamic ideologies bent on religious and ethnic cleansing. In most cases, this turn of events has been supported and orchestrated by the ‘Western powers’. Remarkably, the Western media – and the Christian religious establishment in the West – continue to ignore these events; the de-Christianizing of the Middle East passes without comment or condemnation.

Why is this? It raises an interesting historical parallel. In the Middle Ages – the year 1071 to be exact – Byzantine emperor Alexis I sent an urgent letter to the Pope in Rome calling upon his Christian brothers to help prevent the Byzantine Empire from being overrun by the Seljuk Muslims. The Muslims were threatening to cleanse ancient lands of their Christian populations and to close Christian pilgrim routes in the Holy Land. In response, the Pope called for a “Crusade” – a holy penitential war – and thousands of Europeans set off to march eastwards. Rather than helping their eastern brothers, however, the Western Christians (Crusaders) took the opportunity to pillage and loot Byzantium and installed themselves in “Crusaders states” in the Middle East. The West used these Crusader States as trading out-posts doing business with the Muslims at the expense of the eastern Christians. The eastern Christians were betrayed in the West’s larger geo-political designs.

This is more or less what is happening today. The state of Israel is now the “Western out-post” in the Middle East (parallel to the old Crusader states) and Western geo-political and economic (i.e. oil) interests far out-weigh religious affiliations. The West has shown again and again that their “Christian brothers” in the east are expendable. Even among the Religious Right in the USA the safety and priorities of the state of Israel are far more important than the welfare of eastern Christians. Saddam Hussein had to go – he was a threat to Israel. Never mind that the new regime in Iraq does nothing to protect its Christian minorities. Syria is the same story. The Assad government has protected the ancient Christian communities in Syria. That counts for nothing. More important is the fact that Assad is anti-Israeli. In Reuters news this morning the Assad government was described as “the most oppressive regime in the Middle East.” Really? Then try being a Christian in Saudi Arabia! Right across the Middle East in this ‘Arab Spring’ the West is supporting “regime-change” that will install murderous anti-Christian Islamists to power. This is not a new turn in Western realpolitik. The West has shown that it is prepared to jettison its Christian façade when power and influence are at stake. It seems that not much has changed since the Crusades. No one really cares about the Christians in the east - least of all Christians in the West.

- Harper McAlpine Black

The Blogs of Barbara Wells Sarudy

I recently stumbled across the blogs of Barbara Wells Sarudy. They are beautiful on-line museums of American history. Her chosen specialities are women in American history (without any feminist angst about it), and early American gardens. An amazing resource.

Here is a picture I borrowed from one of her inter-connected blogs:

Mowing the White House lawn, date unknown. 

Robert Dowling (1827-1886)

In Tasmania recently I saw some of the paintings of John Glover. They are far better and much more interesting than the usual text books suggest. I also really like Robert Dowling. Both should be regarded as Australian orientalist painters. Glover has scenes from Paestum in Italy and elsewhere. Dowling travelled to Egypt and North Africa, then on to London, before returning to Melbourne where he finished life as a modest portrait painter. I find Dowling's depictions of the aborigines more interesting than Glover's.

Here is a series of paintings by Robert Dowling:

Minjah in the Old Time

The Sheihk and his Son Return to Cairo after the Pilgrimage to Mecca

Jeremiah Ware's Stock.

The Gleaner

Camels in Cairo (watercolour on board)

Mrs Aldophus Sceales and Black Jimmy

Early Efforts - Art in Australia

Mrs Robertson (Dolly from Colac)

The most conceptually interesting painting here is 'Early Effort - Art in Australia' which he painted in London in order to illustrate to people there what artists did in the Australian colony. We see the artist, his family and his subject, the aborigines. 

On Trenton Oldfield

You know who Trenton Oldfield is. He's the Australian guy who swam into the path of last year's University boat race in Great Britain. He was jailed for six months as a public nuisance for his trouble. He presents himself as an "anti-elitism activist" who objects to such elitist activities as University rowing. This makes him some type of hero among rusted-on leftists and dreadlocked ferals, but on the whole he is reviled in Britain as the pages and pages and pages of abusive, derisive comments in on-line forums makes clear. Undeterred, Oldfield believes that he, somehow, represents "the people" - whoever they might be. The news this morning is that the UK government has decided he is an undesirable and a troublemaker and are kicking him out of the country. I say, fair enough. He has demonstrated total contempt for the country in which he is residing and an on-going unwillingness to abide by the laws of the land. If he was a right-wing ratbag then the chattering class would be baying for his neck. As it is, he's a left wing ratbag with the characteristic narcissism and self-righteousness that goes with it.

I have a personal interest in this case because Oldfield is that new phenomenon, an activist town planner. I am very familiar with this type because, for several years, I have had to work side by side with them. While once I worked in an appropriately titled Department of Humanities, teaching literature, history, philosophy etc., various bizarre restructurings have left me stranded in a 'Department of Arts and Planning'. The traditional disciplines have all been downsized and the Planners are the new kids in town. Arts & Planning? When I tell people I work in Arts & Planning they usually fall about laughing at the incongruous stupidity of it, or they ask the obvious question: what has urban planning go to do with Arts? It's a good question. In part, the answer is that it is a case of administrative convenience that has no connection to reality at all, a bit like a government department of 'Youth, Immigration and Inland Drains'. It might make administrative sense to the bean counters, but otherwise no sense at all. Pedagogy? What's that?

But I've come to realise that the town planners are, in fact, right at home here because they are an extension, a new expression of, the social sciences. The discipline of Geography went by the wayside years ago, but it has reemerged as "Planning" which is, it seems, a revamped Geography with an in-built activist left-wing agenda. The connection is social engineering. The social science people and the planners have this in common: an overwhelming desire to control other people's lives. They are activist academics. They want to use their positions in academia to remake the world according to their own criteria. In this, they are self-appointed. No one asked them to do this, and in fact - as we see in cases like Oldfield - the great unwashed public don't actually like what they are about. These are the people who want to stop you driving a car and who spend their days working out new and inventive ways to coerce you into riding a bicycle. Social scientists want to shape your life with various "programs" and "educational" campaigns. Planners want to control your life by designing funny shaped roads and cul de sacs.

Even so, you might think Planning is relatively benign, but these days it is an ideologically driven field of study. Oldfield, for example, does his "research" on the "socio-economic history of fences and railings." He's against fences and railings. He sees them as symbols and instruments of class division and inequality. People like him find their way onto local councils and onto planning committees and then foist their agenda upon both landscape and community. Such people are the authors of the endless red (and green) tape that seeks to regulate what you do with your own backyard. They are on a mission to save the planet - from people like you and me - and they take very seriously the dictum 'Think globally, act locally.' They're crusaders and have the crusader's zeal. What if a community doesn't care for the Planner's urban dream? Well, they need "re-educating."

In fairness to Oldfield, the flip-side of his "anti-elitism" is that it wants to do something about poverty. A noble cause. I want to do something about poverty too. There are lots of people who want to do something about poverty. Most of them roll up their sleeves and do something practical, like starting a shelter for the homeless, or a food kitchen for the hungry, or a system of micro-loans for the self-employed, or training schemes for unemployed youth. They realise that these sorts of activities are far more constructive than attacking the rich and befouling national institutions. What Oldfield did, as the woman judge who sentenced him said, quite correctly, was just vandalism, pure and simple. He's no different than someone who thinks it helps the poor to throw rotten eggs at a rich man's Mercedes. His claim to moral superiority is entirely mistaken. He has the morality of a vandal and nothing more.

Imagine for a moment if some white-skinned do-gooder was to run onto the field in the middle of the AFL Grand Final and make off with the ball as a protest against the treatment of Aborigines in Australia. Would it advance the cause of Aborigines? Not a bit. Would it invoke the ire of the Australian public? You bet. Would people forgive him because it was "in a good cause"? Not a chance. The really remarkable thing about activists like Oldfield is their total lack of powers of self-reflection. It never, never, never occurs to them that they might be mistaken. Even when the very people they claim to represent loathe them, it is like water off a duck's back. They really have no idea just what a small and generally disliked minority they are. In their own eyes, they are heroes. The UK should move to get rid of people like Oldfield (and many others), but in his case it probably means that he will be back in Australia. We don't need any more professional troublemakers either. Beware of Planner-activists.

What is Spirituality?

This is a short piece I wrote and posted on Facebook - which is not an appropriate place for it, really. The occasion was a series of posts by Green Left atheists who proposed that the whole concept of "spirituality" is meaningless. My account of what spirituality is is largely shaped by the Buddhist notion of "skillful means", which is to say I have gone for a pragmatic rather than a dogmatic or theological approach. Spirituality isn't something you "believe in" - it is a set of techniques and perspectives that have a practical application to the human condition. Given that many people now identify themselves as "spiritual" but not "religious" I thought it might be useful to define these otherwise quite rubbery terms. 

It is the unanimous testimony of countless sincere men and women - often the most revered and honored of people in a community (saints, heroes) - since Neolithic times at least, that the common human experience of life (the human predicament) is limited, illusory and in some ways founded upon error and mistaken perception, but that it is (theoretically) possible for everyone (as a birth right) to go beyond this mode of experience, to resolve the human predicament and in doing so recontextualize (transcend) pain, suffering, meaninglessness and the limitations, contradictions and mysteries of existence.

There is, that is to say, a primordial discontent. It is described in many ways but by every analysis it stems from the contradictions inherent in a finite being's sense of the Infinite. It is an acute problem in the subject/object dichotomy.

It can be overcome.

That is, to put it another way: the common experience of the human condition is alienated, but it is possible to overcome (rectify) this alienation. The testimony of the saints and sages is that transformation is possible (albeit not always easy).

***

Rightly or wrongly, this endeavor is often referred to as “spiritual”, the term based on the dichotomy:

*common (profane) state = material, gross, dense
*exalted state = spiritus, rarefaction.

The metaphor (taken from Latin) is that of density. The “spiritual” is less dense. The “profane” is more dense. (Alienation is a burden, a weight.) The exalted or spiritual state is also called “numinous” (the metaphor of clarity) or “enlightened” (the metaphor of the light/dark polarity). And so on.

Sometimes the 'profane' (untransformed, alienated) state is characterized as an existential disease (therapeutic metaphor) and transformation is thus a cure (salv- ation = to be healed).

This pursuit of the spiritual or numinous (exalted experience) is the common heritage of the human race. It is the subject of art, literature, mythology, stories, saga, poetry, song from very, very ancient times.

***

There is a very ancient and diverse technology (techne = skill) of methods devoted to this endeavor, from contemplation (sitting around thinking about it) to obliteration (extreme induced hallucinatory experiences).

In some (but not all) traditions an essential method is to posit a Supreme Other (God) against which one's being stands in contrast. It's a practical move. Devotion is a method - an awed self-emptying into this Other. Similarly, some (but not all) traditions posit an after life as a lure to motivate the alienated man.

Other traditions pursue the numinous (or spiritual) not through transcendence but through immanence, through the radical identification with the Here rather than the pursuit of a Beyond. These are different means to the same end.

An abiding theme of all the great spiritual traditions is that human self-sufficiency is a pretension. The false ego – self-pride, narcissism – is the enemy.

Many methods of spirituality are best understood as types of play. Homo ludens. Ritual. Dance. Drama. Liturgy. Myth and make believe. The most noble forms of play devoted to the most noble end, the resolution of the human paradox.

Tried and true collections of methods are called “paths” (metaphor of the journey).

***

“Religion” is a particular way of going about “spirituality”. It is one way of organizing the spiritual dimension of human life - the dominant way of doing so (for sociological reasons) since about 600 BC. (The so-called Axial Age)

Religion is typically social/communal. (There are so-called “faith communities”, the Church, the Sanga, the Ummah, etc.) Not only do individuals seek the numinous by themselves, individuals gather into groups to help each other do so. Virtually all human societies address this dimension of life as a collective ideal and have institutions and provisions beyond mere utility (because “man does not live by bread alone.”)

Typically, religions try to make the exalted experience more likely for groups of people by organizing and encoding with meaning time (festivals, rites of passage) and usually (but not always) by imposing moral and ethical regulations deemed conductive to or a prerequisite for the exalted (numinous) experience. Again, for practical (techne) reasons (what Buddhism calls “skillful means”).

Example: Islam prohibits alcohol in order to create certain social conditions within the community (Ummah) but also, and more importantly, because drunken states are inimical to many of the techniques and methods employed in Islamic spirituality. It is a practical, not a moral, matter first and foremost. Everything is calculated to foster the numinous experience, realization.

***

Religion, that is to say, is a sub-set of spirituality. Religion, given its subject matter, is necessarily spiritual, but the spiritual isn't necessarily religious.

Religions serve (in the best cases) to create fruitful conditions for spirituality. Religions create the 'space' and resources for spirituality. Religions texture cultures in this way and for this purpose (unless they lose sight of this and become ends in themselves - tyrannous formalisms or empty fundamentalisms.)

There is spirituality that is not necessarily religious in the sense that it does not take place inside the defined structures and frameworks that are typical of religions. More often, though, enduring methods of spirituality are adapted to or shelter within but are only semi-attached to religions.

Some methods (systems) of spirituality present themselves as the “true” or “inner” (esoteric) meaning of a (legalist, externalist) religion according to an inner/outer model.

Some methods (systems) of spirituality clash with the religious edifice of the day and are forced underground (occultism).

Alchemy (a spirituality of metaphors extrapolated in prehistory from the observed transformations of early metallurgy) is a good example of an enduring spirituality that is not, in itself, a religion, but which often attaches and adapts itself to particular religious traditions - thus we find Christian alchemy, Islamic alchemy, Taoist alchemy etc. - but which nevertheless sometimes must retreat into secrecy (occultism) when it clashes with passing religious norms.

Before and over-lapping with the age of religions there were also traditions of Philosophy. “Philo-sophia” in the ancient and proper sense is a mode of spirituality employing an intellectual and dialectical methodology (think your way out of the human predicament). In these traditions the exalted, realized state is called “wisdom” and is usually personified as feminine (sophia).

***

Some methods of spirituality employ intellect as the means of transformation (jnana yoga), some employ emotion (devotionalism), some employ imagination (gnosticism), some employ altered or extreme states of consciousness, catering to different human temperaments and constitutions.

All the human faculties, the full range of human diversity, every reach of human ingenuity - from counting beans (Pythagoreanism) to sexual orgies (tantra), from spinning around on the spot (Sufism) to symbolic cannibalism (Catholicism) - have been put to this endeavor: spirituality. It embraces the rational and the irrational. It is comprehensive in that way.

It is integral to what human beings are. And will continue to be so in future, even though methods and frameworks change.

- Harper Mc Alpine Black

A Shriners picture

The great discovery today was this delicious image on my hard drive. I have no idea where it came from, or what the context was. The symbol below the word Islam, however, is clearly the emblem of the so-called Shriners or the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, a para-Masonic organisation established in 1870. The Order is still active and has its headquarters in Tampa. Its charter says that it was specifically created to bring masons some "fun". Presumably, this explains the scantily clad ladies. Usually, though, the Order is at pains to distance themselves from Islam, despite their entirely Islamic symbolism. In this picture the connection is blindingly obvious.

Again, I'm interested in these groups and perceptions of Islam before the watershed era of the mid 1920s. I reject the prevailing post-colonial leftist narratives about these orientalist phenomena. I think there is something much more interesting going on than simply "imperialism". I don't find the theoretical perspectives that dominate academic studies of cross-cultural and inter-religious encounters at all useful.

This picture is a classic. There's much more I want to say about it.

Moroccan revival architecture

Orientalism was not merely a movement in painting, it was also an influence upon the architecture of the era. I was reminded today that there are some shining examples of this here in Victoria, and especially in Melbourne. The example in the picture (above) is the Forum Theatre. It is built in the so-called Moroccan Revival style. I was fascinated with this building when I was younger and worked in the Melbourne central business district. I only saw one play there, though, or perhaps two. It is a strange and incongruous building set amongst 1950s functional box office blocks. How odd to find such a conspicuously Islamic-style building in the centre of a city at the far south of Australia. But, as I say, the good state of Victoria boasts many fine 'orientalist' buildings, both public and private, including some 'orientalist' Masonic Lodges. Here's an example above a store front in Bourke Street:

These buildings are now a powerful reminder of just how far our cultural affinities and borders have shifted. In nineteenth century Melbourne, the English/Australian establishment - like the English upper class - were fascinated by all things 'oriental' and Islamic. The context for this was, of course, European subjugation of much of Islamic civilization, but there was a conscious process of assimilation, a real attempt to appreciate and understand the 'orient'. This was a flirtation of the upper class conservatives. They wanted to acquire the opulence and fine taste of the east. In contrast, the new labour movement despised 'orientals' of any description and were irked by upper class fraternising with the 'Turk'. 

Today, the situation is quite different. One of the characteristics of contemporary conservatives is their unrestrained loathing and distaste for anything to do with Islam. The context for this, of course, is a resurgent Islam and the threat of militant Islamism. It is leftists who favour Islamic immigration and oppose the oil wars. So a building like the Forum is especially incongruous. Not only is it geographically incongruous but it is also now temporally incongruous as well. It belongs to another era entirely, when the whole shape of global geopolitics and the configurations of the Islamic/West dynamic were entirely different to how they are today. 

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