Unfinished Biz
A little unfinished business. I meant to add something to that N&C about Terry Eagleton’s comment last month – and then I forgot. Now I’ve remembered again.
Like hunger strikers, suicide bombers are not necessarily in love with death. They kill themselves because they can see no other way of attaining justice; and the fact that they have to do so is part of the injustice…People like Rosa Luxemburg or Steve Biko give up what they see as precious (their lives) for an even more valuable cause. They die not because they see death as desirable in itself, but in the name of a more abundant life all round. Suicide bombers also die in the name of a better life for others; it is just that, unlike martyrs, they take others with them in the process. The martyr bets his life on a future of justice and freedom; the suicide bomber bets your life on it. But both believe that a life is only worth living if it contains something worth dying for. On this theory, what makes existence meaningful is what you are prepared to relinquish it for. This used to be known as God; in modern times it is mostly known as the nation. For Islamic radicals it is both inseparably.
“Suicide bombers also die in the name of a better life for others”. That’s what I wanted to say more about. No they don’t. Not all of them. Some may, but certainly not all. Some die in the name of, or for the sake of trying to attain, a much much worse life for others. Orders of magnitude worse. Specifically, some suicide bombers die for the sake of trying to attain among other things a much, much worse life for women. All women. All women on the planet. If some suicide bombers got what they ‘martyred’ themselves for, every single woman on earth would be walled up indoors under the ownership of a man, forbidden to go outside, forbidden to work, to go to school, to learn at home, to get medical attention. Subject to beating by armed gangs of thugs if she does venture outside and accidentally allows a piece of hair or a bit of wrist to show. Subject to being buried up to the neck and killed by having large rocks thrown at her head if she is accused and convicted of adultery; subject to being convicted of adultery (and thus stoned to death) if she charges a man with rape and he is acquitted – which must happen a lot since she is required to produce witnesses of the rape in order to make the charge stick. This is the ‘better life for others’ that some suicide bombers dream of. A regime of unmitigated hatred, contempt, violence, control, confinement, and stultification for all women.
“The martyr bets his life on a future of justice and freedom; the suicide bomber bets your life on it.” No, he does not. Justice and freedom? Justice and freedom? Under what perverse definition of justice and freedom? I would be charitable and suggest that Eagleton must have forgotten the suicide bombers of September 11, and the ones who blew up the two African embassies – but he mentions the people who jumped from World Trade Center to escape the fire, in the column, so he can’t have forgotten it. So does he think those suicide bombers were betting anyone’s life on a future of justice and freedom? Does he even think they thought that? They were betting other people’s lives (as well as their own) on a future of purity and submission, not one of freedom and justice. (Justice by their definition, maybe. But I earnestly hope their idea of justice is not Terry Eagleton’s.)
What’s going on here? What did Eagleton even think he was saying? I don’t know, but I’m guessing that he was confusing commitment and passion and a sense of grievance with something else. With legitimate or valid or halfway decent commitment and passion and sense of grievance. A lot of people seem to get confused about that. Seem to think that sincerity and authenticity are some kind of sign of virtue and altruism. They can tell the difference (usually) when the passion and grievance are neo-Nazi or otherwise fascist in some familar way, but they seem to lose the ability when the fascism is in some way mixed up with postcolonialism. At least, that’s my guess, although I find those two re-quoted remarks pretty baffling.
But this kind of thing is why the ruling in the Shabina Begum case is not good news, and why the right to manifest her religion cited in one article on the subject does not say it all. Because in the current context it’s more than just a manifestation of religion. Political Islam is political. Backword Dave has good comments on the subject here and here. The second one discusses Azam Kamguian’s ‘Why So Much Fuss About a Piece of Clothing?’.
It’s international women’s day. Here’s hoping we can start to figure out what a better life for others actually means, before too long.
Oooh, but they’re such romantic figures! Gosh, just imagine the passion these hard, brave warriors feel! So unlike our bland, passionless, decadent existence here in generic bourgeois wimpyland!
About ten years ago I actually heard some New Age hippie dipshit musicians in San Francisco pining for the raw passion and vitality of the Balkans. “Sure, there’s horror going on there, but my God these people feel so much! Imagine what it must be like to have such commitment in your life!” Yeah, I’m sure that genocide concentrates the mind wonderfully. I swear, this vile idiocy enough to make a person run screaming to the nearest American Legion post.
“So unlike our bland, passionless, decadent existence here in generic bourgeois wimpyland!”
Funny – when I was musing on this post I thought of that line in Hamlet – ‘this is the impostume [which means ulcer] of much wealth and peace’. And of course that’s exactly what a hell of a lot of people thought as the First World War was starting. Boy, did they ever change their minds.
That musician thing is really interesting. I guess Eagleton’s line of thought is not so unusual as I had imagined…
Stuff like Eagleton is saying here is also compatible with the dopey Ward Churchill argumemt that the USA had the terror attacks coming. Terrorists are fighting for freedom and justice, and voicing legitimate grievances against the Great Satan.
They have grievances, all right – they grieve that Western liberal values might make the women in their society believe they have a right to be heard. Honestly, if suicide bombers are considered liberators by some on the radical left, I’d love to know what they consider oppressors to be. But wait…that’s right, we’re the oppressors. Sometimes I forget.
Incidentally, Ward Churchill was on Bill Maher’s show last Friday. Man, what a vapid, glassy-eyed goon.
Phil
Ridiculous as it is, I think the ‘pining for the raw passion and vitality’ thing is pretty widespread, especially among young men. There’s a terrible feeling around late adolescence that something important is going down somewhere — else. In Lit Crit terms, they’re looking for an objective correlative for what the rest of us call hormones. There are several responses to this feeling. Go out, get laid, grow up, being the most practical, and the most common. You could look for ‘danger’ and ‘edginess’ in fine art or comedy — in short, become a Guardian critic. Or you really could go to the Balkans and get involved. There are two classes of people who do this: one are called ‘mercenaries’, the other, ‘war reporters.’
“What did Eagleton even think he was saying? “
I’m not sure; I thought it was pretty poorly written, as if ol’ Eagletoon was distracted by something, perhaps marking abysmal term-papers ? I must add, in fairness, I have read some intensly well written stuff by him elsewhere in the past. Completely wrong, but intensly well written.
I thought the line about the difference between a martyr and a suicide bomber – being the former is willing to sacrifice their own life, the latter other people’s – was traditionally made about terrorists in general (rather than just suicide bombers).
I guess where suicide bombers differ is that they are willing to be both martyrs and terrorists, they’ll sacrifice their life and yours (contrasting them with the likes of the IRA on the one hand, and traditional religious martyrs on the other). I suppose that is why they are so scary, a combination of the zeal necessary to sacrifice your own life, with the willingness to kill other people too, no obvious restraint on either urge because you don’t mind who you hurt in the process and you are prepared to lose your own life.
“”Suicide bombers also die in the name of a better life for others”….No they don’t. Not all of them. Some may, but certainly not all….some suicide bombers die for the sake of trying to attain among other things a much, much worse life for women.”
I think you may be being a little unfair on Eagleton here, while -you- may think women are better off not being forced to cover their bodies and being a man’s property, you can legitimately claim that, if you believe in a crazy, vindictive, rule prescribing, god-like entity, they mightn’t be.
“The martyr bets his life on a future of justice and freedom; the suicide bomber bets your life on it.”
On the one hand, this is a silly line. My charitable reading of it is that he had justice and freedom in mind when he thought about martyrs, and the ‘bets your life on it’ line was just so good he had to tack it on without qualification. But on the other, you could argue that the September the 11th types were indeed fighting for -freedom- from American influence in the Middle East, and concomitantly, -justice- in their eyes. Not what -we- might call ‘freedom and justice’ to be sure, but still freedom and justice of a sort, even if their wider worldview includes subjugating women and theocratic government.
“What did Eagleton even think he was saying?…I’m guessing that he was confusing commitment and passion and a sense of grievance with legitimate or valid or halfway decent commitment and passion and sense of grievance.”
Again, I might suggest that (much as with the understanding how one might become a suicide bomber remarks of Jenny Tonge) to understand the perspective of someone doesn’t mean that you endorse that perspective. To think otherwise is to make a bad move a step beyond even JB’s Partial defence = support
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/badmovesprint.php?num=52
Of course “There is a smack of avant garde theatre about this horrific act. In a social order that seems progressively more depthless, transparent, rationalised and instantly communicable, the brutal slaughter of the innocent, like some Dadaist happening, warps the mind as well as the body.” is just pretentious twaddle.
“Man, what a vapid, glassy-eyed goon.”
Why am I not surprised…
“There’s a terrible feeling around late adolescence that something important is going down somewhere”
Yeah. It’s no accident that most criminals and most terrorists are young men. Most causers of car crashes, too. Sublimation is a good thing.
“I have read some intensly well written stuff by him elsewhere in the past.”
I know, so have I. I commented on one here a long time ago – some strikingly shrewd and well-written insight about rhetoric, I think. In another Guardian piece. That’s one reason I was so surprised by the sheer lameness of this one.
“to understand the perspective of someone doesn’t mean that you endorse that perspective”
Certainly. But if you use hoorah-words like freedom and justice without any kind of qualification or elaboration, then you are doing more than simply understanding the perspective – you’re at least semi-endorsing it. That’s what hoorah-words do. A rhetoric-conscious guy like Eagleton is surely well aware of that.
“Certainly. But if you use hoorah-words like freedom and justice without any kind of qualification or elaboration, then you are doing more than simply understanding the perspective – you’re at least semi-endorsing it. That’s what hoorah-words do. A rhetoric-conscious guy like Eagleton is surely well aware of that.”
Would it have been better if he had put them in scare quotes?
No, it would have been better if he had qualified them.
Actually, scare quotes (for all their stylistic criminality) do serve a legitimate purpose when describing the use of a word or phrase by people who are operating with a definition which is very different from the commonly understood meaning. When someone who has a profoundly authoritarian political outlook uses a political term like “freedom” or “justice,” it damn well belongs in scare quotes – whether the authoritarianism is rooted in religious dogma [Christian or Muslim or …] or political ideology [facist or neoconservative or…]. Scare quotes are a great way to point out, as it was best phrased by the great screenwriter William Goldman, “I do not think that word means what you think it means.” (From “The Princess Bride,” for you non-film geeks.)
I use scare-quotes all the time – for various reasons – including the ‘scare’ reason of alerting people to the fact that I have some skepticism about the word. There are all kinds of good reasons for using scare quotes. But if Eagleton had used them for ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’ in that sentence – it would have made his meaning even more unclear than it already is. If he wanted to qualify the words in some way he would have had to do so explicitly and at more length than a couple of ”s – because that would have gone against the tenor of the rest of the piece.
“I guess Eagleton’s line of thought is not so unusual as I had imagined.”
Especially where I live, sandwiched between San Francisco and Berkeley. I’ve been involved in grassroots activism for a long time (and still am), but, like Christopher Hitchens, I was utterly appalled at the sneaking sympathy for Islamofascist terrorism I kept hearing among fellow leftists who really ought to know better. Romantic primitivism and occidentalism have infected and almost completely debilitated the far left in America today. Witness Michael Moore’s ecstatic encomium to the head-severing Fedayeen Saddam, whom he hailed as vanguards of The Revolution and the modern-day equivalents of the Minutemen.
Ophelia, do you think that one possible reason why Eagleton and (many) others are so impressed by the passion and commitment of suicide bombers, and think it must be in the service of justice and freedom, is some deep underlying moral subjectivism, ie the belief that moral claims just are validated by the sincerity and passion with which they’re held?
“Romantic primitivism and occidentalism”
Yep. If only they would hurry up and get over it…
Eve, yes, I think I do think that, or at least suspect it. But I suppose I also think that the belief is not entirely conscious – as you indicate via ‘deep underlying.’ Maybe I think it’s not so much a belief as an association – an association of moral validity with sincerity and passion – which then becomes a vague half-formed belief.
But then Eagleton et al. don’t usually hail the “sincerity and passion” of creepy homegrown White Power types, so they’re not entirely free of political ideology.
Curious literary note: Thirtyish and fortyish New Age hippie types I know sometimes cite Huxley’s Brave New World as a deadly accurate description of the real menace to humanity–the creation of a soulless happyland via modern technology. Whatever defies The Machine is helpful. (Pharmaceuticals are bad, but mushrooms, datura, and Chinese herbs are good. Gypsies are really cool cuz they live outside The System and make their own society. Hemp trousers will bring down The Man, just you wait and see.) Reading Huxley’s dystopian novel seems to have been a formative experience for them. They explicitly identify any anti-modern third worlder with Huxley’s hero, John the Savage. And they don’t think much of Orwell: he identified the wrong enemy and steers people in the wrong direction. (Hey, at least the people in Oceania weren’t decadent!)
I know. That’s why I said this bit –
“They can tell the difference (usually) when the passion and grievance are neo-Nazi or otherwise fascist in some familar way, but they seem to lose the ability when the fascism is in some way mixed up with postcolonialism.”
That is interesting. Mind you, I find parts of Huxley’s novel fairly haunting myself. But not to the point of rejecting the many joys of technology. Dave Weeden made a good point about that on Backword Dave a few days ago – having read some chump whining about science wanting to change the way we live – he said something like ‘Hey, it’s very cold outside, and several hours after sunset, and here I am reading.’ And his cat had been sick with something that would have been fatal in the recent past.
Yeah, right, I really wish I could be cold and rained on and hungry and dirty and unable to do much of anything after dark, even if printing had been invented.
Quite so. Just wanted to re-emphasize your point. Should have quoted you, though, since you said it better.
I like BNW, too. Just thought it interesting that that’s what got many of these people on the road to Hart & Negri et al.
When I first came across tat piece – reading the extract on B&W – I thought that you were all being more than a tad unfair; in that bit about
“The martyr bets his life on a future of justice and freedom; the suicide bomber bets your life on it.”
I thought it was patently obvious that what was meant that this is what the suicide bomber *believes* he is doing. And yes, I think that is fair to say – in the suicide bomber’s world view that is exactly what he’s doing (actually, it’s more about the soul than freedom, but that aside…). I also thought it seemed ludicrous to demand that the writer make that more clear – whether with scare quotes, explanations or whatever. Surely, I thought, it’s obvious? Demanding such signposting is comparable to those rather daft people who have been objecting to ‘Team America’ on the grounds that it’s neocon propaganda.
Of course, on reading the full article that fell apart; it’s clearly one of the worst instances of pseudo-liberal intellectual masturbation I’ve ever encountered.
Karl
“But then Eagleton et al. don’t usually hail the “sincerity and passion” of creepy homegrown White Power types, so they’re not entirely free of political ideology.”
No – absolutely – the very well-written piece I mentioned earlier was from New Left Review Winter 95/96 and was a thought-provoking review of a new academic tome on contemporary Northern Ireland politics. It nevertheless contained two assertions:
1 that the UK is a racist nation – full-stop – and,
2: that the northern Ireland struggle is purely one about the underclass fighting British colonisation. No pussyfooting there.. … at least these guys used to lay their cards on the table.
I am dreading the skin-crawling apologias by the pomos for the latest run of gangsterly misdeeds in NI… just watch the Guardian Comment section…
I think you (that is OB) are deliberately misreading Eagleton’s point about “Suicide bombers also die in the name of a better life for others”. He’s trying to say that people who believe in a cause enough to kill themselves (and others) for it must, well, really believe in it.
Martyrs, too, the people he’s trying to make a connection to, don’t necessarily have ‘objective good’ ideals behind them, either, they would like their strongly religious views promoted.
And, well, everyone likes justice and freedom, right, and every government believes it delivers on those claims? We just can’t agree on what they mean, even in the less fascist and higher educated places. The soldiers who have died in Iraq probably believe they are bringing justice and freedom there. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but to say it is cut and dried one way or the other seems ridiculous.
Mark
“He’s trying to say that people who believe in a cause enough to kill themselves (and others) for it must, well, really believe in it.”
Well, one, if that is what he’s trying to say, he’s doing a damn bad job of it. Which is odd, since he’s supposed to be something of an expert in saying things.
Two, my point is about what he did in fact say, not what he’s trying to say.
Three, why are people always so keen to say what people are ‘trying’ to say when the point is that they failed? That’s my point. Fish didn’t say what some of his interpreters said he meant to say, he said what he did say. Ditto Eagleton. That’s what I’m talking about – bad, stupid, careless, obfuscating uses of language. I really don’t care what they were trying to say. And anyway, both Eagleton and Fish are pretty skilled rhetoricians on the whole.
Four, if that is his point, it’s stupid. Obviously they really believe in it. We all know that. It’s not even a point worth making.
“And, well, everyone likes justice and freedom, right”
No. That, again, is my point. No. People assume everyone likes that, but that’s false. Some people do not like freedom, and don’t even claim to. Submission is hardly the same thing as freedom, is it.
And then there’s the additional complicating factor that ‘freedom’ can mean ‘freedom for me’ or ‘freedom for me and people like me’ and slavery for everyone else.
It’s simply an illusion that everyone likes freedom, or even justice. Part of my point in that comment was to point out the illusion, and the unqarranted assumption.
You don’t seriously think bin Laden is fighting for universal freedom do you?
“It’s not even a point worth making”
When has that ever stopped a Guardian column?
‘Well, one, if that is what he’s trying to say, he’s doing a damn bad job of it.’
No he didn’t. I read the original article and agree entirely with Mark. I think it takes an egregiously uncharitable reading to assert what you’ve asserted. In fact “damn bad job” is needless hyperbole.
‘Three, why are people always so keen to say what people are ‘trying’ to say when the point is that they failed? That’s my point. Fish didn’t say what some of his interpreters said he meant to say, he said what he did say. Ditto Eagleton. That’s what I’m talking about – bad, stupid, careless, obfuscating uses of language. I really don’t care what they were trying to say. And anyway, both Eagleton and Fish are pretty skilled rhetoricians on the whole.’
Your sentence “I really don’t care what they were trying to say” could willfully be used to falsely suggest any number of things about this comments section, just as you’ve attempted to willfully distinguish “trying to say” from “did say” in Mark’s comment to falsely suggest you have better knowledge of what Eagleton is trying to say.
‘Four, if that is his point, it’s stupid. Obviously they really believe in it. We all know that. It’s not even a point worth making.’
It isn’t the central point of the article, but it is a point in building his argument.
“We all know that”?! Who are you referring to when you use the term “we”?! How, exactly, do you know?
‘It’s simply an illusion that everyone likes freedom, or even justice. Part of my point in that comment was to point out the illusion, and the unqarranted assumption.’
You haven’t set out your definition of freedom. If your criticism of Eagleton held any water, you’d have to start from your definition. As it is, your definition is as implicit as Eagleton’s is, and would be easy to uncharitably mischaracterise.
Tigerbear,
Nonsense. If you will notice, I actually bothered to quote from Eagleton’s article. If you will notice, you did not. All you’ve done is make assertions. Your credibility so far is nill.
Furthermore…
“just as you’ve attempted to willfully distinguish “trying to say” from “did say” in Mark’s comment to falsely suggest you have better knowledge of what Eagleton is trying to say.”
That is such a mess of incomprehension it cries out for remark.
Are you seriously claiming that there is no legitimate distinction between trying to say something and actually saying it? If so, would you have actually said what you were trying to say if you had had a temporary glitch in hand-eye co-ordination that caused you to hit the key adjacent to the one you thought you were hitting and had thus typed gibberish?
And I am not trying to suggest I have a better comprehension of what Eagleton is trying to say – that is precisely what I am not trying to suggest. In fact that is what I explicitly disavowed. (You really ought to work on your reading comprehension skills, at least if you plan to take issue with what people actually say.) I am simply arguing (not ‘trying to suggest,’ which sounds pointlessly invidious) that there is a lot wrong with what he did in fact say. That’s not a particularly outlandish or unusual practice, you know. I’m not a mind reader, I don’t know or care what Eagleton was thinking, all I know is what he managed to put on the page. What is on the page has, in my view, much wrong with it. I gave quotations to show why. It’s quite simple really.
The context of “trying to say” is quite clear in Mark’s comment. Redefining in a different way extrinsically to the way he used it (as you did) by placing it in opposition to “did say” (Mark didn’t use the phrase in such an oppositional sense, and following him, neither did I) is uncharitable to him (and needlessly pedantic).
If I wanted to, I could extricate the line: “I really don’t care what they were trying to say”, and if I took the phrase “trying to say” in the way I believe Mark was using it, I could uncharitably mischaracterise your opinions.
I’d still like to know the answer to:
‘Four, if that is his point, it’s stupid. Obviously they really believe in it. We all know that. It’s not even a point worth making.’
Who are you referring to when you use the term “we”? How, exactly, do you know?
The reason I’d like to know is because it seems like poor writing on your part. Poor writing seems an odd way to criticise poor writing. I’m obviously a deeply inferior reader though, so any help you could give me in understanding the meaning of this line would be greatly appreciated.
chinese herbs are very helpful on my allergic rhinits*”