Quadrant: Viewpoint on Islamic Extremism

RECENTLY, Osama bin Laden called George W. Bush stupid. Well, Bush has run the world’s largest and arguably most successful economy through challenging times. Like Ronald Reagan, he’s used tactics that have proven most of the economic intelligentsia wrong. Regard-less of what you think of Bush’s skills as an orator, that takes intelligence. Bin Laden, on the other hand: his greatest achievement has been to finance novel ways for people to blow themselves up in crowded places.

More importantly, bin Laden comes from a position of profound intellectual weakness. He’s an ideologue. He and his fellow terrorists have no means of dealing with the world in a way that is anything but dogmatic. There has been no Renaissance in their particular universe; they can’t even draw on any figurative art tradition where these issues are played out. They’ve never learnt to live with complexity and uncertainty.

The Muslim fundamentalists are not really at war with the West. They are at war with inductive reality and with the challenge of any other competing worldview. Their response to uncertainty and doubt is rage.

Islamic extremism, as a subculture, might also have the resources to stay indefinitely locked at the stages of denial and anger. It could act as a brake, effectively stopping large parts of the Islamic world from developing its own Renaissance capability and engaging with the modern world in a rational way.