We love Coca-Cola and they love death

[rug]

Review: Shiraz Maher's Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea



Islamic State's absolutism has antecedents in 20th Century communism and fascism

07/07/2016
By James Bloodworth

It can be comforting to assume that the enemies of the West are simply raving ideologues who think certain thoughts and as a consequence perform certain actions. There is after all seemingly a long tradition of it. Human perfection may be impossible, but the movements which strive for it are probably ineradicable. Death, as Saul Bellow put it, is ‘the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything’. Yet a sizeable number of human beings are always ready to believe that by smashing the mirror they can be rid of the darkness.

This sort of total solution promises to assemble the pieces of the jigsaw at one stroke. It is therefore perennially attractive to the type of intelligence that is always looking for ever-more complex ways to stop thinking. This is immediately discernible from the testimonies of ex-believers of one sort or another. The discovery of a complete ideology provides “an answer to every question”, as Arthur Koestler put it when describing the “light which poured in all directions” when he embraced communism.

For those like Koestler, the intoxicating philosophy of communism proved "scientifically" that "all things obey money", as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes. It retained the attachment to vicarious glory that characterised fascism, but it transferred it from the individual onto class. It replaced love for individuals with love for the human race.

The revolutionary process represented “justice at the service of future justice”, as Che Guevara put it. Murder was just if it saved the lives of future unborn children. Thus the people of Cuba would, according to Guevara, feel “completely happy and fulfilled” if they should “disappear from the face of the earth” because an atomic war had been unleashed in their names.

http://littleatoms.com/we-love-coca-cola-and-they-love-death

[Jim__]

1. "Better dead than red"

Remember that? Back in the 50s and 60s, that was a common chant at certain demonstrations in the US where people believed our anti-Soviet policies weren't strong enough. I'm not sure that chant represented an ideology, but it did state a belief that there were things in the world that were worth fighting and, possibly, dying for. I think it connects to Bloodworth's article in that he implies that that willingness to die, and in so doing to sacrifice the potential future lives of some unborn children to save other unborn children, is an aspect of ideological belief:

The revolutionary process represented “justice at the service of future justice”, as Che Guevara put it. Murder was just if it saved the lives of future unborn children. Thus the people of Cuba would, according to Guevara, feel “completely happy and fulfilled” if they should “disappear from the face of the earth” because an atomic war had been unleashed in their names.

It is an aspect of ideological belief, but it is not limited to that.

Most people believe that by improving certain social structures, we can improve the future of humanity, and different cultures have different beliefs, often directly contradictory beliefs, about which changes will lead to an improved future. At some point these contradictory beliefs can put groups in confrontations that at least appear to be critical to the survival of humanity. Such beliefs need not be ideological nor utopian. For instance, the west's opposition to the Soviet Union was not necessarily ideological - the west did not have a unified view of what would be the best future - but we were willing, under certain circumstances, to fight a nuclear war over this disagreement.

I agree with Bloodworth's diagnosis of the problem. We are willing to kill and die for our beliefs about the future. That willingness doesn't seem to be especially tied to ideological beliefs. He doesn't offer us any solution. Maybe there isn't any.

[rug]

2. I remember that very well.

The willingness to kill for a perceived better world while ignoring, or worse, accepting, the deaths of those being killed to achieve the better world has led to Dresden, Hiroshima and drones. Not to mention the millions of more mundane deaths resulting from social policies limiting people's access to food, shelter and work.

Camus wrote in The Rebel that "Every ideology is contrary to human psychology." I've never been able to disagree .