H.R.3458-7-31-09

I think it’s great that social networking isn’t split across many different platforms, even though I’m usually in favour of less centralized control.  Facebook, so long as it continues to provide more privacy features, allows what Piere Levy calls “totalization without control.”  That is, we can communicate with one another through and around any institutions, so long as they allow Facebook.  Now one might counter by saying that having only one major networking site makes it easier for governments to censor them, but I would argue that the easier access by so many others (others without much knowledge of how to use the internet), in so many free countries, outweighs its censorship in few countries, but only if their still remains other more spreadable and tougher to censor forms of social networking, and especially when Facebook can cross-platform with these other forms of social media.

What do you think?

One might look at this and say “So what?”  We all know both Megan Fox and Michael Bay are always in the spotlight based on their visual merits and not their intellectual ones (Bay blowing stuff up, Fox blowing…well…never mind, maybe that’s just my imagination).  But there’s a serious logical fallacy playing itself out in this confrontation – appeal to age.

I understand they aren’t arguing about something that has any real value, but still – when someone claims another person is wrong, or just shuns them away, because they think their own age makes them more authoritative on a claim – it is an insult to human reason.

I once had a similar experience.  I was arguing with a professor of mine about the existence of God.  Her arguing for, me arguing against.  As I pushed her on the subject I must have struck a mental brick wall, one which she would let no one beyond.  She knew I had her back against that wall and so she ended the argument by saying that since she was older she was more likely to be right.

Of course, I called her out on her appeal to age.  Unfortunately, she just remained silent, which continued into an agonizingly long awkward silence…

Childhood

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in 1969 in Somalia.  During her childhood and young adult life her family would move from Somalia to Saudi Arabia, to Ethiopia, and then to Kenya.  Although her father was a rather liberal political activist (by Somalian standards) she was raised under strict Sharia law, which led to a tormenting youth.  Her genitals were mutilated by female circumcision, she was not allowed outside of the house without a male, her sexuality belonged to the head of her family, she went through an unwanted arranged marriage, and she suffered the humiliation of losing her virginity on marriage night – the penis of a man was violently forced into her sewn-shut vagina.  She had no freedom and was subject to do all of the cleaning and cooking that her brother did not have to do, simply because he was male.  If she refused chores, or spoke out of line, she was beaten.  On one such occasion she disobeyed her Ma’alim- whom her mother had hired to teach her more about the Quran – by locking herself in her room.  The Ma’alim came back later and whipped her with a sharp stick, ending the assault with the smashing of her head into a wall, cracking her skull.  The next morning she was in too much pain to do chores so her mother beat her.  Several days later, in much pain, her head had swollen.  When taken to the hospital for immediate surgery the doctors said that if she had not received surgery that day then she would have surely died.  At school she learned only Islam, math, the Quran, and “all the evil things Jews have done and plan to do against the Muslims” (47 Hirsi Ali).  One of her teachers even beat her.  Suffice to say, her childhood was violent and lacked freedom, most of which was due to strict Sharia law.   Childhoods like hers were common among most other children she knew.

Religious Control of Knowledge

In her childhood Ali was taught nothing outside of Islam; everything she knew was viewed through a fundamentalist Muslim mindset.  It is clear that the clerics and Imams had control over what she read. This type of religious control of knowledge has been around since the start of religion.  It is no wonder that the development of the printing press brought about the banning of books by religious institutions. The first example of religious censorship of the printed word came in 1517 when Pope Leo X condemned Martin Luther’s Ninety Five Theses (15 Foerstel).  Then, in 1564 the Papacy set into motion its Index Librorum Prohibitorum, defining books which Catholics were not allowed to read nor print (15 Foerstel).  It has progressed into 1989 when Salman Rushdie was forced into hiding for publishing The Satanic Verses because Ayatolla Khomeini of Iran put a one million dollar bounty out to anyone who killed him.  Most recently, Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion was nearly banned in Turkey after Harun Yahya filed a complaint that it was insulting to Islam and Sherry Jones’ novel The Jewel of Medina was dropped by publishers Random House – the same company that published the Satanic Verses – for fear of violent Muslim reactions.

The banning of books in developing countries is an effective means of controlling knowledge because these countries lack a robust information society full of newspapers, magazines, television, and the internet.  How could a young girl like a Ayaan Hirsi Ali gain any new knowledge if she had no way of obtaining it?  The reading of books leads to new insights, ideas, and opinions.  It expands the mind to think outside of narrow mindsets.  That is, of course, if one is reading books with a view that is not within their dominant meaning structure.  The knowledge gained through reading leads to freedom, both philosophically and in real life situations.  Daniel Dennet describes this acquisition of freedom by getting his readers to imagine a straight line traveling across a page.  This line represents time.  If you have no new knowledge your line will continue straight, but as you gain knowledge new lines branch off of the main line.  It is now your choice which line you want to take.  As more knowledge is attained more branches emerge, thus leading to more choices, until your world of freedom looks like an immense tree with intertwining branches of possibility.

Escape to Freedom

In her young teens Hirsi Ali would finally be presented with new branches of knowledge when she attended a school in Kenya that had a library full of books written in English.
“Once I had learned to read English I discovered the school library.  If we were good, we were allowed to take books home…  We began with Nancy Drew adventures, stories of pluck and independence.  There was Enid Blighton, the Secret Seven, The Famous Five: tales of freedom, adventure, of equality between boys and girls, trust, and friendship” (64 Hirsi Ali).
This started a new path in her life – “An entire world of Western ideas began to take shape” (69 Hirsi Ali).  She started to become interested in experiencing the same romance, equality, and adventure she found embedded in her ragged paperbacks.
“All of these books, even the trashy ones, carried with them ideas – races were equal, women were equal to men – and concepts of freedom, struggle, and adventure that were new to me” (69 Hirsi Ali).

As she progressed into early adulthood Hirsi Ali would start to rebel and disobey her mom.  She went to cinemas and experienced new food.  She even secretly married a man she liked.  Her marriage was short lived as her father soon after arranged a marriage with a man he had met only for several minutes.  He was a Somali from Canada who she was set to marry in a weeks time.  She was utterly disgusted by her new husband to be.   After a short while he moved back to Canada and left her money for her flight to join him there.  Instead of a direct flight she stayed a few nights in Frankfurt, Germany with relatives.  She went out alone and roamed the streets – something she was never allowed to do back home.  She walked without a man at her side, without other males calling her names, and without the fear of being called a bad Muslim.  And she could go anywhere she wanted without restraint…she was free.

“I felt as though I had been thrown into another world, calm and orderly, as in the novels I’d read and certain films, but somehow I’d never really believed them before” (185 Hirsi Ali).

People had always told her that the rest of the world was dirty and filled with violence because it was not under Muslim rule.  She was amazed that they were not just wrong, they were completely wrong.  In fact, it was the opposite.  From her young teen years reading trashy romance and adventure novels that spoke of a beautiful world of passion, freedom, equality, and romance to these few days in Germany, Hirsi Ali had reached a climactic decision about her future.

“I could disappear here. I could escape it all, hide, and somehow make my own way, like someone in a book” (187 Hirsi Ali).

And so she did.  She packed her bags and boarded a train to Amsterdam to find Asylum in the Netherlands.

Death of Van Gogh

After a short stay in a refugee camp she received full Dutch citizenship in 1992 and stayed in municipal housing where she worked several menial labour jobs to save up for schooling.  After Hirsi Ali finished University she found interest in Dutch politics and won a position in 2003 in the Peoples’ Party for Freedom and Democracy. This same year she co-wrote and produced a short film with Theo Van Gogh (a descendent of Vincent Van Gogh) entitled Submission, which focused on the poor state of woman’s rights in Islam.  After the film aired on Dutch national television both Hirsi Ali and Van Gogh received death threats, which they both ignored.  In November of 2004, Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim radical in broad daylight.  After the murderer had shot Van Gogh in the back 8 times, then slit his throat, he stabbed a knife with a letter attached into his chest.  In this letter was a call for Ayaan Hirsi Ali to be murdered next.  She has been in hiding ever since.

Knowledge secures power.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s acquisition of freedom came from knowledge of that freedom.  She understood the importance of knowledge and attended university as soon as she could, where she solidified her view that the reading of ideas leads to empowerment.  She then used this knowledge – this kernel of information so important to the flourishing of a free and democratic society – and wrote an  autobiography entitled Infidel.  Like the condemned serpent and the heroic Prometheus, Hirsi Ali has stolen knowledge from her oppressors, empowered herself with this knowledge, and used it to teach others the value of knowledge.  I highly suggest you read Infidel.  It is a beautiful book that puts a voice to the values of freedom and knowledge.

A child’s life is easy.  They don’t have to work, but instead are given everything, like God gave Adam everything in the garden of Eden.  But there comes a time when a child needs to grow up, work to live, and take responsibility for actions.  The Tree of Life, and man’s fall from it, is a nifty symbol for maturing.  John Peter Lange goes so far as to say that taking responsibility for ones own actions is the central theme of Genesis 2-3.  “It was designed to bring out the necessary self-determination of a creature choosing freely, either for or against God, either for the God-willed good or the possible evil – and so to make perfect its independence” (206 Lange).  The ability for Adam and Eve to take responsibility for their own actions signals the death of innocence and birth into a world of free-will in which actions are judged by their consequences and justice is done to those who disobey.

It is because of the impact of this story on western civilization that I think it fails as an adequate and sustainable etiology for contemporary thought.  First of all, it has remained static as an etiology.  Society and its morals evolve as it needs to adapt to new circumstances.  It tries to explain the origin of the cultural norms of the time it was written.  For example, man blames woman for the fall, and God states that man would hold domain over woman.  Science has given us testable etiologies – real stories of where we came from and why we are the way we are.  Michael Shermer, in his short story “Genesis Revisited: a Scientific Creation Story” cleverly provides a more scientifically accurate creation account.  For example, “And God created the pongidids and hominids with 98 percent genetic similarity, naming two of them Adam and Eve, who were anatomically fully modern humans” (MichaelShermer.com).  There is still beauty in Genesis 2-3, but it can no longer be looked at as an etiology…as they are supposed to explain the way things are and came to be.  Since science has been more successful at explaining these things, the story of Adam and Eve and the Tree of Life has been relegated to the ranks of myth.  “A narrative expressing a profound psychological or religious truth that cannot be verified by historical inquiry or other scientific means” (G-30 Harris/Platzner).  To “J” the Yahwist Genesis 2-3 was an etiology, but to contemporary eyes it is a myth.

People come before Ideas.  Share this with everyone.

One in search of answers through eyes of fear, conspiracy, and negativity:

“Carissa Glenn, 18, told her family she was having repeated nightmares about a woman who had apparently hanged herself in the rented apartment.  Miss Glen, who had a history of sleepwalking episodes in which she acted out her dreams, was found dead after hanging herself in her bathroom in the middle of the night.”

Not only did she sleepwalk, but the autopsy reported that she had twice the legal driving limit of alcohol in her bloodstream at the time.  Adding extreme and unecessary fear of the supernatural only compounds the dreamlike state of sleepwalking, which effects must have been further compounded by the liquor.  This is truly a sad story.