Commodity City (and the Malady of Islam)

'In the light of adverse politics and history, the surprise is not that modernity has been a tortuous experience for some Muslims, but that it has been adopted so widely and with such success.'
---C de Bellaigue.

After every barbaric act of violence one hears the usual calls, made in exasperation, one senses: when will Islam modernize, when will it have its Reformation, Enlightenment, etc., etc.

Over the last week Pierre ('Nomadics') has posted excerpts from the fascinating 'Malady of Islam'. It is hard not to agree that something is seriously wrong and that there is, in many quarters, the growth of conservatism, fundamentalism and extremism. It is also true to say that there's a political failure and in terms of economies and culture, too, there's nothing very positive to write home about. 

It is worth asking, therefore, what's gone wrong and to look at internal factors (including narrow readings of texts) for the decline independently of 'external factors' such as colonialism. One needs a cool and detached mind to do so and in an antagonistic climate, an age that is dominated by sound bytes, such reflection is unlikely to be forthcoming. Among the 'internal factors' one might, a la Gellner, look at urbanization, education, etc.

But the thing to note-and it's something that is never commented upon, for obvious reasons-is that lots of Muslims are already modern (which, incidentally, means that they also, now and then, struggle with modernity)without caring to call themselves modern.

You know, people fuck, fuck people over, laugh, work hard, read poetry,...to state the bleedin' obvious!

So, for example, to take one startling fact: in the land of the pure-unlike "democratic" India- most people vote for secular parties and not extremists. Totally corrupt, decadent and useless, but secular nevertheless. 

so, yeah, there's a need to "sweep your own backyard" as Meddeb says. Does that mean that 'the west' should also seriously think about the relation between modernity and mass violence (the Camps, the Trenches, the Gulags, the Bomb)? Ain't gonna happen, bro'.

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'Human activities, free from economic rationality, are at one with the time, movement and rhythm of life.'

--A. Gorz.

Think of all that plastic rubbish-trinkets and baubles-floating across southern seas, brought to you by a one-click, one-movement of your finger, a one tick of your mind, the desire welling up in you from god knows where and god knows which god. 

What is the shallowness of modern life but the weight of material things?

In the beginning man had infinite wants and limited resources. If that is true you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out you're sunk. But, of course, it's not a truth of human nature (the cynics today would add: there is no human nature). Instead, scarcity is, ironically, wheeled in in the face of opulence to keep the machine going since to talk of determinate needs- established by societal norms or ethical standards or religious values, or consistent with a picture of what it is to be a human being-is to introduce the possibility of self-limitation, which itself implies autonomy from a system that churns out endless desires and anxieties.

Enough is never enough. The american dream: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness! God forbid if we were ever to find happiness!

Austerity: finding joy in limitation, in a small-scale key. 

If we live in linear time then we are at a loss for words. Our accounting mentality means we count our losses. Of course, it's actually now worse than a linear view of progress since time itself is broken up, "atomized" and continuity or duration disbanded and denigrated so that fashion and innovation-the shock of the new-can create the space in which even more junk and profits can accumulate.

...

To connect the dots: there's a sneaking suspicion that at least part of the suspicion towards Islam (or religion in general)resides in its radical critique of capitalism and the capitalist mentality-which is to say, religion has always offered the resources or possibility of a stand against a system that has such a deleterious impact on human values and the environment (and the notion that these two can be separated is, ultimately, one of the root problems). There is no pure disembodied 'I' opposed to an empirical self: we are what we make of ourselves, here and now..and what we make includes what we give of ourselves, and how we connect with what is given to us.

Other beings are, to use an Islamic phrase, 'communities like us'. To say 'being' is already a step against the mechanical and instrumental view of nature.