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• Wednesday, January 7, 2009 09:48 PM

  @Derbig Mooser

  "And Islamists - including Hamas - are indeed in a war against modernity."

  Derbig: "If I am not mistaken (as I so often am) that is a perfect, in fact the classic, example of what's called "Orientalism".

  You are mistaken, as you say you so often are.

  Derbig: "So what the hell do you call a culture, or rather, an ideology, that seeks to return the Jews to their supposed Biblical glory- Futurist?"

  I regard any and every fundi-religious agenda that seeks to impose their fundi-religious ideology as a form of government as being a "war against modernity." That includes the agendas of Hamas and the Salafists (and yes, I am well aware of the distinctions in Islamist ideologies between the two), and the theocratic agendas of the Israeli fundi-Jewish right as well, including the fundi-wingnut Israeli religious settlers. And those of, for example, Christian Reconstructists as well.

  Derbig: "What do you call an ideology which posits that Jews cannot live fully with anybody else except jews, and must be ruled by a hodge-podge of religio-legal mish-mosh and corruption dispensed, of course only by Jews- post-modernist?"

  No. I call that ideology racist and anti-modernist.

  Derbig: "Gee, and what can we say about all those Christian Dominionists, and Rapturists, and Evangelicals? That they are eagerly embracing modernity?"

  No - especially the Dominionists and their ilk, who are the Christian version of the Islamists.

  Derbig: "What about all those "social conservatives" in the US? Are they embracing the latest information?"

  Again, no.

  Any more questions?

  —Publicola Read Publicola's other letters
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