We use "Empire" in the sense proposed by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri to designate a post-Cold War planetary capitalism with "no outside," [1] but we modulate their account to take greater consideration of the internal frictions wracking this order since the millennium. By Empire, we mean the global capitalist ascendancy of the early twenty-first century, a system administered and policed by a consortium of competitively collaborative states, among whom the US still clings, by virtue of its military might, to an increasingly fragile preeminence. This is a regime of biopower based on corporate exploitation of myriad types of labour, paid and unpaid, for the continuous enrichment of a planetary plutocracy. Empire is an order of extraordinary scope and depth. Yet it also is precarious, flush with power and wealth, yet close to chaos as it confronts a set of interlocking economic, ecological, energy, and epidemiological crises. Its governance is threatened by tensions between a declining US and a rising China which could either result in some super-capitalist accommodation, consolidating Empire, or split it into warring Eastern and Western blocs. Its massive inequalities catalyze resistances from below, some, reactionary and regressive, others, like the global justice and ecological movement, protagonists of a better alternative.

What makes virtual games' technocultural form exemplary of Empire is their identity with its key means of production, communication and destruction--the digital network. More than any previous media other than the book, virtual play is a direct offshoot of its society's crucial technology of power. Sprung from the military-industrial matrix that generated the computer and Internet, games are today a test ground for digital innovations and machinic subjectivities: online play worlds incubate artificial intelligences; consoles plug to grid computing systems; games are media of choice for experiments in neurobiological stimulation and brain driven telekinesis. And, once suspect as delinquent time waster, virtual play is increasingly understood by state and corporate managers as training populations for networked work, war and governability.

We examine the relation between games and Empire in terms of the virtual and the actual, conjugating this couplet with intentionally fuzzy logic in two distinct yet overlapping ways. The virtual is the digital, the on-screen world, as opposed to existence "IRL". But "virtual" also denotes potentiality; the manifold directions in which a given, actual, situation might develop. [2] The technological and ontological virtual are distinct and should never be conflated. [3] But they are related, through the practice of simulation. Computers create potential universes. They model, dynamically, what might be. Such simulation is vital to a power system engaged in the high-risk military, financial and corporate calculus required for globalized control. It is from such simulation that virtual games emerged, broke loose into ludic freedom--only to now be reintegrated into the assemblages of world capital, as a means of inducing the "flexible personality" [4] demanded by digital work, war and markets. Yet this ludic apprenticeship can generate capacities in excess of Empire's requirements. Just as the eighteenth-century novel was a textual apparatus generating the bourgeois character required by mercantile colonialism (but also capable of criticizing it), and twentieth-century cinema and television were integral to industrial consumerism (yet screened some of its darkest depictions), so, we suggest, virtual games are the exemplary media producing subjects for twenty-first century global hyper-capitalism but also, perhaps, of exodus from it.   more »

Ari Folman's semiautobiographical "Waltz With Bashir" is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars. It also was considered a potential nominee in the documentary and animation categories. I suppose you could call it an animated documentary by way of oral history, but it's best not to get caught up with labels concerning this film.

What begins as an introspective odyssey examining the effects of war on the young Israeli soldiers turns into a provocative exposé on the Sabra and Shatila massacre, an event that sent shock waves through Israelis who were made inadvertent collaborators. But the final word is not their emotional trauma, but the stark reality of the event itself.   more »

The Phalange party in Lebanon represents an extremist faction of Maronite Christians in Lebanon that was modeled under the fascist parties of Spain, Italy and Germany. They serve also as the militia arm of a movement that marries the self-determination of Maronite Christians to self-determination of the nation of Lebanon. In some ways the Phalangist party mirrors those of Hindu nationalist parties such as the RSS or VHP in India, both claiming a long history of suffering under occupation, both fascist, both wishing to unify God, Nation and Family under a militarist banner that preserves national purity.

Under the watchful eyes of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Military a Phalange militia committed one of the worst atrocities in the recent history of the Middle East the Sabra and Shatila massacres of many hundreds of Palistinian refugees, in revenge for the killing of their leader Bashir Gemayel.

The long struggle that the Maronites had for self determination, over some fifteen hundred years, in which they have suffered greatly at the hands of history has forged in them a strong national identity. While deserving much praise for their perseverance of identity as a “people”, the historical persistence of a collective identity, the inheritance of memory whose pain become ones own, is always a co-dependent arising with the “other” who one can demonize for inflicting suffering, the "other" on whom one can seek revenge.

A history of the Phalange party and the Maronite Christan community follows....   more »

Eric Hutchinson is a contributor to the University of Vermont's History Forum. In this literary analysis grounded in social history, he shows how Rushdie's hybrid text on creativity, mysticism, psychosis, orthodoxy and negotiation contains layers of self-fulfilling prophecy and opens up the aporetic division between subjective freedom and traditionally defended authoritarianism, a disturbing which runs like a subtext through our times.   more »

The contemporary history of cutural coercion, of which the response by religious zealots to Peter Heehs' The Lives of Sri Aurobindo may be seen as an instance, draws its legacy from Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa on Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses:

It's 20 years since Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced a death sentence on Salman Rushdie for 'insulting' Islam with his novel The Satanic Verses. The repercussions were profound - and are still being felt. Andrew Anthony traces the course of the affair, from book-burnings and firebombings to the dramatic impact it had on freedom of expression in a multicultural society:

Who would dare to write a book like The Satanic Verses nowadays? And if some brave or reckless author did dare, who would publish it? The signs in both cases are that no such writer or publisher is likely to appear, and for two reasons. The first and most obvious is fear. The Satanic Verses is a rich and complex literary novel, by turns ironic, fantastical and satirical. Despite what is often said, mostly by those who haven't read it, the book does not take direct aim at Islam or its prophet. Those sections that have caused the greatest controversy are contained within the dreams or nightmares of a character who is in the grip of psychosis. Which is to say that, even buried in the fevered subconscious of a disturbed character inside a work of fiction - a work of magical realism fiction! - there is no escape from literalist tyranny. Any sentence might turn out to be a death sentence. And few if any of even the boldest and most iconoclastic artists wish to run that risk.

The recent case of The Jewel of Medina, a work by Sherry Jones which is neither bold nor iconoclastic, exemplifies the problem. In 2007 the American publishers Random House bought the rights to this historical novel about the prophet Muhammad's wife Aisha. By all accounts the book is something of a cheesy romance. Jones herself believes it is a circumspect fiction which "portrays the prophet Muhammad as a gentle, compassionate, wise leader and man respectful toward women and his wives". But a professor of Middle Eastern studies named Denise Spellberg advised Random House that it might provoke violence. The publishers duly cancelled the publication.

"We stand firmly by our responsibility to support our authors and the free discussion of ideas, even those that may be construed as offensive by some," Random House explained in a statement. "However, a publisher must weigh that responsibility against others that it also bears, and in this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel."

This has become a familiar conceit in recent years: we defend the right of freedom of expression but prefer not to exercise it in situations that might endanger us. Random House publish Rushdie, and he was angered by what he saw as a capitulation to the threat of Islamic reprisals. "This is censorship by fear, and it sets a very bad precedent indeed," he said.

In Britain the book was taken up by the independent publisher, Gibson Square. But on 27 September last year the London home of Martin Rynja, Gibson Square's publisher, was firebombed. As things stand, the book's British publication is indefinitely postponed.

Nor is this self-censorship restricted to literature. Ramin Gray, associate director of the Royal Court Theatre, recently admitted that he would be reluctant to stage a play that was critical of Islam. "You would think twice," he said. "You'd have to take the play on its merits but given the time we're in, it's very hard because you'd worry that if you cause offence then the whole enterprise would become buried in a sea of controversy. It does make you tread carefully."

The expressed intention of [Khomeini's] fatwa was to defend and strengthen the clergy, and one of its effects in Britain has been to create a kind of pseudo-clergy, a class of Islamist intellectuals and militants who presume to speak not just for their co-religionists in Britain but 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. At the same time, in the late 80s and early 90s, another clergy of fundamentalist preachers, often refugees from despotic Middle Eastern regimes, began to attract a disaffected constituency that had been radicalised by The Satanic Verses protests. As Hirsi Ali put it to me: "The paradox in the UK with regard to freedom of expression is that most of the radical literature and most of the radical mosques moved from Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and established themselves in the liberal West, where there is freedom of religion and expression, with the bizarre purpose of destroying those freedoms."

In the 20 years since the fatwa, the parameters of cultural debate in Britain and elsewhere have undoubtedly narrowed. If the Islam of Khomeini and other fundamentalists has played a key role in redefining what is and is not acceptable, then it is not the only factor. Other religions have also got in on the censorship act. In 2004 the play Behzti (Dishonour) was cancelled at the Birmingham Rep after a riot by Sikh protesters on the opening night. Christian groups too have taken to organising more intimidating protests - though with less success - against shows and productions they deem offensive.

Taken together they are all part of a multicultural accommodation that has come to determine the terms of public discourse. In hindsight, The Satanic Verses was published at a turning point in progressive politics. Throughout much of the 20th century a battle had been waged against discriminating on the basis of race (The Satanic Verses itself was avowedly anti-racist) and class. In other words, those aspects of humanity that are biologically inherited or socially imposed. For a variety of reasons, including the fall of the Berlin Wall later on in 1989 and the emergence of minority group activism, a new identity politics emerged. Class and race were replaced or trumped by culture.

The emphasis moved to combating cultural discrimination. All cultures were deemed equal, and therefore all components of culture - religion, tradition, beliefs - had to be protected from critical appraisal. Obviously culture is socially inherited, but in a free society it is also a matter of freedom of choice. The liberty to change your beliefs, reject your traditions and question your religion is what distinguishes individuals from members of an enforced collective. Such liberty necessitates the discussion and expression of ideas that may be unpalatable to others. Increasingly, therefore, this has become a process that is actively discouraged.   more »

A two-day conference will be held Friday, September 11 and Saturday September 12 on the topic “Fundamentalism and the Future.” The conference will be at the California Institute of Integral studies in San Francisco, hosted by the Department of Asian and Comparative Religions. Registration is free. For details on the conference, location, and registration, please see http://fundamentalismandthefuture.com

The conference will cover the historical events that have led to the current international range of fundamentalist movements; the social psychology of fundamentalism, with a focus on the particular type as exemplified by Hindutva; the history and current state of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo; and finally a look at how the future may unfold.

Speakers at the conference include Michael Murphy, the co-founder of Esalen; Richard Hartz, a writer and speaker on yoga, and a resident of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry for almost three decades; Jim Ryan, a professor at CIIS, expert in Indian culture, and author of a recent encyclopedia of Hinduism; Debashish Banerji, a teacher of Asian art history and Indian spiritual culture, and co-founder of the webzine “Science, Culture, and Integral Yoga”; Savitra (to be confirmed), who lived in the Pondicherry Ashram and Auroville for 21 years, a frequent speaker, and the author of several books.

For more information on the conference, please see http://fundamentalismandthefuture.com. Articles and other materials related to the conference will be posted at the site as they become available. You may also contact:

David Hutchinson (dbhutchinson@ucdavis.edu)
Debashish Banerji (debbanerji@yahoo.com)
Rich Carlson (rcarlson@olypen.com)   more »

Thus Amos, unlike so many of the land-fixated commentators among his fellow countrymen, was one of the first to recognize that the settlements in the territories Israel has occupied since 1967 were a self-imposed catastrophe: "The settlements...have tied Israel's hands in any negotiation to achieve lasting peace.... [They] have only made it less secure."[2] That a country with the strongest military in its region, and with an unbroken string of armed victories behind it, should be so obsessed with the security risks of relinquishing a few square miles of land may seem odd indeed. But it speaks to the changes that have overtaken Elon's homeland in recent decades.

As he foresaw in 2003, Israeli insistence upon ruling over an Arab population that will eventually become a majority within the country's borders can only lead to a single authoritarian state encompassing two mutually hostile nations: one dominant, the other subservient. With what outcome? "If Israel persists in its current settlement policy,...the end result is more likely to resemble Zimbabwe than post-apartheid South Africa."[3] Many have since come to this depressing conclusion; I believe Amos was the first to make the point.

Amos wrote more in sorrow than anger. Many years ago, when few nonspecialists were even paying attention, he wrote despairingly of "the hu-man energies wasted for more than a generation on short-sighted settlement programs.... Think of what might have been achieved had the billions poured into the shifting sands of Sinai, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank, been spent on more useful causes."[4] Such misplaced efforts he attributed to what he called "the astonishing mediocrity of Israeli politicians." That was written in 2002. The incompetence and political cowardice of a generation of Israeli Labor statesmen, from the sainted Golda Meir to the egregious Shimon Peres, were already manifest. But there was worse to come: Amos Elon would live to see the resurrection of Benjamin Netanyahu and the obscene elevation to foreign minister of Avigdor Lieberman, sad confirmation of his assessment....   more »

Shlomo Fischer opened the conference by questioning the validity of the term "fundamentalism" when referring to radical religious Zionists. In particular, Fischer suggested that the defining text in the world of fundamentalism studies—the monumental five volumes of the Chicago Fundamentalism Project—may actually hinder more than help understanding religious extremism in and around Israel. Because the Chicago volumes sought to synthesize a massive amount of data, they had to be necessarily selective in both the questions they pursued and the data they included. This led the volumes to leave out significant material regarding the Zionism. For, as Fischer pointed out repeatedly, politics and religion are nothing if not local affairs. We cannot understand radical religious Zionism without paying close attention the peculiarities of small, sometimes disparate subgroups that nevertheless exert a political and religious influence beyond their numbers. This attention to peculiarity requires us also to pay attention to the constantly shifting nature of Zionist discourse. So called "Jewish Fundamentalism" is a moving target, changing with circumstance, re-inventing itself again and again in response to historical, political and social developments. This has caused the material about Zionism in the Chicago Fundamentalist Project to become quickly dated. Consider the way the Landscape has changed in the twelve years since these 5 volumes were published: Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated, the Oslo accords fell apart, the state of Israel initiated a nonviolent disengagement from Gaza, and, most recently, the Second Lebanon War (the 2006 Israel-Lebanon Conflict) occurred.   more »

At the core of much of the recent discussion and controversy in the Integral Yoga (IY) online community seems to lay the role of the mind and mental reasoning. Many statements from Sri Aurobindo and Mother could be quoted both praising the essential, enabling contributions of the mind, as well as criticizing the mind’s obstinate, obstructing features and liabilities. This dual nature of their commentary itself may point us in the right direction. It’s the particular use made of the mental faculty in a particular context that determines its helpful or harmful status.

Many quotes could be furnished where Sri Aurobindo and Mother state definitively that their teaching is a living spiritual path and not a set of fixed doctrines or dogmas to be religiously recited and referenced. But especially in documents that pertain to their own practice, in Sri Aurobindo’s case his Record of Yoga, in Mother’s case l'Agenda de Mère, and in other miscellaneous talks and letters by both of them, they exhibit a characteristic attitude and approach to mental formulation. This attitude is marked by a highly flexible and, one could even say, experimental approach to mental formulation of the vast spiritual experiences they passed through.

Considered in this light, the current Heehs controversy is perhaps best seen not as simply a flawed biography by a flawed ashramite who upset many devotees with his academic approach to evaluating Sri Aurobindo’s life. The controversy might also represent a stark and revealing light being cast upon the mental formations and constructions that have hardened among many associated with IY. All should be able to agree that the Mother’s approach is never a static one and she always seeks to propel us toward the future, breaking our comfortable habits of thinking and feeling as need be whenever our advance requires it. “her feet are rapid on the upward way.”   more »

Excellent interview and associated article from the New York Review that opens a way to understand present day Iran by tracing the genealogy of its apocalyptic Islamic ideology to its location in the Zoroastrian world view. The review of the book by Abbas Amanat and his interview sheds needed light on current events (rc)

"During the past decade the Jamkaran mosque near Qom in Iran has become one of the most visited Shiite shrines, rivaling Karbala and Kufa in Iraq as pilgrim destinations. Here thousands of believers pray for intercessions to their messiah—the Mahdi or Twelfth Imam—whose return they believe to be imminent. Written petitions are placed in the "well of the Lord of the Age," from which many believe the imam will emerge to bring about universal justice and peace. Six months after his surprise election to the Iranian presidency in June 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted that this momentous eschatological event would occur within two years. With the turmoil in neighboring Iraq, where Shiites continue to be attacked by Sunni extremists, expectations for the return retain their appeal.

While the Shiite faithful (along with their Jewish and Christian counterparts) are still awaiting their messiah, the Islamic Republic is investing heavily in the Jamkaran shrine, spending more than half a billion dollars on enlargements that rival those of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, with vast interior courtyards and facilities—including offices, research centers, cultural departments, slaughterhouses, and soup kitchens—not to mention the farms where Jamkaran raises its meat. In a country where the religious establishment dominates state institutions, Jamkaran's burgeoning bureaucracy seems set to outstrip that of the longer- established shrine complexes of Mashhad and Qom.

While external observers perceive the struggle in Iran between conservatives and moderates in political terms, the Islamic Republic's conflicting ideological currents also find expression in the age-old rhetoric of the apocalypse, which originated in the region more than two thousand years ago. As Abbas Amanat explains in Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shi'ism, the Jamkaran makeover was part of the campaign orchestrated by conservative clerics in Qom against the government of former President Mohammad Khatami and his reformist allies.

Unlike many academics, Amanat, a professor of history at Yale, is willing to venture into regions outside his specialty of Iranian studies, which makes his book particularly valuable, as it is informed by the knowledge—all too rare among Islamicists—that Islam is one variant in a cluster of religions rather than a subject to be treated on its own. Messianic expectations are fundamental to all the West Asian religions, articulating forces that are both dynamic and dangerous:

The vast number of visitors to Jamkaran demonstrates the resurgence of interest in the Mahdi among Iranians of all classes—including the affluent middle classes in the capital—and the triumph of the Islamic Republic in capitalizing on symbols of public piety.

Although these symbols, such as the Jamkaran shrine, are specific to Shiism, their appeal—not to mention their mobilizing power—is universal. As Amanat points out, apocalyptic movements have been motors of religious change throughout history. Christian origins are inseparable from the spirit of apocalypticism that consumed the Judeo-Hellenistic world in late antiquity. Muhammad's early mission cannot be explained without reference to the "apocalyptic admonitions, the foreseen calamities, and the terror of the Day of Judgement, apparent in the early suras [chapters] of the Qu'ran." Later examples—to name but a few—include Martin Luther's call for reforming the Catholic Church and Sabbatai Zevi's claim in the seventeenth century to be the Jewish messiah. The Mormon church, the most successful of the new American religions, was born in the millennial frenzy that swept through the "Burnt-Over District" of upstate New York in the 1830s. Amanat sees all these as conscious attempts to fulfill messianic visions conceived on the ancient models preserved in Zoroastrian and biblical scriptures.

In a brief but masterful compression of insights gained from readings of Norman Cohn, founding father of millennial studies, and other scholars in the field, Amanat reviews the dynamics of apocalyptic histories. On the positive side the anticipation of imminent divine judgment can be translated into a message of social justice, with individual choice replacing dogmas handed down by ancestors, tribes, or communities. Historically, apocalyptic movements tend to be socially inclusive, appealing especially to the deprived, marginalized, and dispossessed. The negative side is the demonization of perceived enemies in a world where the People of God—the saved remnant of humanity—see themselves as the sole bearers of divine wisdom or knowledge. The utopian project of realizing paradise—when the messiah's followers choose to enact the millennial scenario in real historical time—may be as devastating as the earthquakes, fires, plagues, and wars of apocalyptic imaginings.... (see article)   more »

"Unbeknownst even to some of its promoters, the creation of mental constructs . . . takes the place of attention to the advent of the Unpredictable. That is why the 'true' mystics are particularly suspicious and critical of what passes for 'presence'. They defend the inaccessibility they confront." - Michel de Certeau.

The writings of Michel de Certeau on mysticism are interdisciplinary, original and tantalizing. They draw on disciplines ranging from history, theology and spirituality to psychoanalysis, semiotics and cultural theory. While de Certeau concentrated on sixteenth and seventeenth-century French and Spanish spiritualities with their emphasis on 'spiritual experience', one of his most controversial views was that mysticism is not purely a matter of interiority but is a form of disruptive 'social practice'.

In a time of institutionalized comforts, of Integral Theory, Integral Religion and Integral Psychology, the caution of Michel de Certeau becomes more pressing than ever. De Certeau relates the rise of mysticism with social conditions which "possess" and displace experience within the language of orthodoxy. The science of 'mystics' he proposes is not so much a system of named experiences as a blueprint of praxis, a language of tactical retreat, a shifting map of recognized departures and social attitudes of refused identification. In this article, Philip Sheldrake, Vice-Principal and Academic Director of Saturn College, Salisbury and Honorary Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Wales, Lampeter, opens a window on de Certeau's studies and caveats on mysticism.   more »

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the foremost virtuoso of the lutelike sarod, whose dazzling technique and gift for melodic invention, often on display in concert with his brother-in-law Ravi Shankar, helped popularize North Indian classical music in the West, died on Thursday at his home in San Anselmo, Calif. He was 87. In this obituary from the New York Times, William Grimes provides an outline of this most extraordinary musician.   more »

Catholicism, history writing, cultural psychology or postcolonial hybridity - the passionate language of Michel de Certeau has opened up heterologies of contemporary interpretation and resistance to the regimes of institutional orthodoxy everywhere. In this introduction to his life and works in The New York Review of Books, Natalie Davis writes of the ways in which de Certeau worked to restore subjective agency and wholeness to the individual life within the pervasive circuits of postmodern technocratic power.   more »

June 16th 1904 is that faithful day in the life of Dublin marking the epochal birfurcation of narrative, given in the epiphanies of Stephen Dedalus & Leopold & Molly Bloom. The last lines of the 644 page turning story of Ulysses - a book that at times one does not read but rather, wades through - are the subject of this video; also known as the soliloquy of Molly Bloom.   more »

Several years ago the Esalen Institute sponsored a series of conferences on Fundamentalism. The next few post concern the conferences on Fundamentalism of the Abrahamic Faiths. First up Christian Fundamentalism.....

Hankins began by emphasizing the need to differentiate (in a way popular culture often fails to) evangelicals and fundamentalists. He joked that an evangelical is anyone who really likes Billy Graham, and a fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about something. More seriously, although there is a fair amount of truth in the joke, Hankins described fundamentalism as a late 19th and 20th century Christian reaction to the threat of theological modernism. Throughout the 19th century, as George Marsden has shown, most Anglophone Protestant Christians simply called themselves evangelicals, and this self-identification included the mainline denominations as well as new (holiness and premillennialist) revivalist groups. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, American evangelicalism had begun to polarize sharply between theological liberals and conservatives. Conservative Christians in this period found themselves increasingly troubled by two cultural phenomena. On the one hand, higher criticism imported from Germany had begun to question the integrity of the Scriptures by calling attention to literary techniques that suggested that many of the books of the Old and New Testaments were written far later than tradition had claimed, or by calling into question the presumed authorship of various books within the Bible (so, for example, the higher criticism denied that Moses authored Genesis through Deuteronomy, or more scandalously that a number of the New Testament letters attributed to Paul, such as 1 Timothy, were written by someone else). On the other hand, conservatives were troubled by some of the claims of modern science, particularly Darwin's claims that some saw as threatening or contradicting the Christian belief in God as Creator.[2] The central issue in both of these challenges was the question of authority: where does authority reside for the Christian church? Theological modernists reacted to higher criticism and the challenge of Darwinism by saying that authority ultimately resided in experience. Conservatives, however, felt that the authority of the church resided pre-eminently in her scriptures. As the 19th century drew to a close, the difference between the modernists and their emphasis on experience and the conservatives with their belief in the authority of scripture continued to widen and threatened to break.

The pre-history of the fundamentalist movement really gets underway with the extravagant publishing venture of Milton and Lyman Stewart, the millionaire brothers behind Union Oil Company of California (today known as UNOCAL). Between 1910 and 1915, the Stewarts commissioned and published 12 volumes known as The Fundamentals, which defended such positions as the virgin birth and the literal resurrection of Jesus, and attacked the assumptions of higher criticism. The Stewarts financed the project extravagantly so that the volumes could be distributed without charge to every pastor, missionary, theologian, Sunday school superintendent, college professor, and so on, throughout the English speaking world. Three million volumes were distributed in all. This bold and aggressive publishing campaign not only gave its name, but also bequeathed its character to the Fundamentalist movement that arose in its wake, which is why George Marsden describes Fundamentalism as the "militant defense of traditionalist Protestantism."

Hankins explained how World War I exasperated the divide within Christianity between theological modernists and the emerging Fundamentalist movement. Though it is not often remembered today, it was theological liberals and progressive Christians who championed the United States' involvement in World War I, while conservative (especially, pre-millennialist) Christians called for restraint. The horrors of the war however, radicalized the positions of everyone involved, and conservatives soon felt that they saw something far more insidious than a merely political conflict. They began to feel that Germany, which had once been the land of Luther, had degenerated under the influence of modernism, into an overly militaristic and Nietzschean nation. Traditionalists argued that even though the United States might win the land war, it was in danger of losing the battle with German culture and so they connected the triumph of theological liberalism (which had its roots in German higher criticism) with the cultural annihilation of America itself.   more »

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Once again, Pakistan is in crisis, with Waziristan the newest "most dangerous place" in the world. Islamabad can't control the escalating conflict, and the government is again run by an unpopular, incompetent and nepotistic civilian administration.

And again, Pakistan is going hat in hand to the IMF, Saudi Arabia and China to face off oil prices, food inflation, dwindling foreign exchange and declining terms of trade.

Tariq Ali has been warning of Pakistan's collapse for four decades. For those sins, his books have often been banned there, and "generals, corrupt politicians and bearded lunatics" dislike him in equal measure. In The Duel, Ali provides a gossip-filled, witty and polemical history, revealing, with perspicacity and verve, the flight into the abyss. ...   more »

Iran: Fundamentalism and the Future

Asked about the state of civil liberties in Iran, Ahmadinejad said Iranians enjoyed "absolute freedom" of speech.
"Don't worry about freedom in Iran," Ahmadinejad told reporters. "Newspapers come and go and reappear. Don't worry about it."   more »

Pakistan and India have been at war since 1948. There have been occasional flare-ups, pitched battles between the two armies, but mostly the war has taken the form of a guerrilla battle between the Indian army and Pakistani surrogates in Kashmir. In 2004 the two countries began a cautious peace process, but rather than ending, the war has since migrated to Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas on the Afghan border. ‘Safe havens’ for a reinvigorated Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida, the tribal areas are seen by the West as the ‘greatest threat’ to its security, as well as being the main cause of Western frustration with Pakistan. The reason is simple: the Pakistan army’s counterinsurgency strategy is not principally directed at the Taliban or even al-Qaida: the main enemy is India.   more »

Malhotra makes some good points, but he lacks restraint. Because the western scholarship on Hinduism he singles out is markedly psychoanalytic in nature, he feels it is appropriate to "reverse psychoanalyze" the critics in question. He speculates on the sexuality of these scholars in ways that are extremely distasteful at best, and libelous at worst. Here is an example of a particularly ugly passage from Malhotra:

1) Western women, such as the famous professor herself, who are suppressed by the prudish and male chauvinistic myths of the Abrahamic religions, find in their study of Hinduism a way to release their innermost latent vasanas, but they disguise this autobiography as a portrayal of the “other” (in this case superimposing their obsessions upon Hindu deities and saints). For example, here is Wendy acknowledging projecting her psychosis onto her scholarship:[lxxx] “Aldous Huxley once said that an intellectual was someone who had found something more interesting than sex; in Indology, an intellectual need not make that choice at all…. Is sex a euphemism for god? Or is god a euphemism for sex? Or both!” 2) American Lesbian and Gay women's vasanas, also suppressed by Abrahamic condemnation, seek private and public legitimacy, and therefore, interpret Indian texts for this autobiographical purpose. 3) Sexually abused Western women, seeking an outlet for anger, find in the Hindu Devi either a symbol of female violence or a symbol of male oppression -- another cultural superimposition

Ugh. To Mr. Malhotra: if you disagree with the arguments and methods of these scholars, debate them respectfully...   more »

In a recent post, Alok Pandey shows that he and Sraddhalu Ranade are in fact involved in the court cases.

More than that, Pandey's letter indicates that their intent in urging and drafting material for court cases was never a matter of “hurt sentiments,” but rather deliberate political maneuvering. They have been trying to change leadership at the Ashram through petition campaigns and court cases: “If [Peter] chooses to move out... the court cases might be dropped.”

Apparently both Pandey and Ranade consider court cases a legitimate method for removing a person from a position in the Ashram, and forcing a person to leave the Ashram itself.

Pandey: "And, yes, perhaps if he chooses to move out of the Ashram and stay in Auroville, where he has a number of admirers, or to some other place where he can follow the yoga in his own way, then, perhaps the court cases might be dropped." (http://www.thelivesofsriaurobindo.com/2009/06/shadow-and-after-by-alok-pandey.html)

Contrast this with Pandey's and Ranade's previous statements re court cases, e.g. in Ranade's "Open Letter to Auroville and Centres":

Court cases: Neither Alok nor I have the competence or the resources to handle court cases. Contrary to IYF's claims, neither of us is responsible for them, and neither do we have a say in their withdrawal.

The paradox is interesting: if they have no say in withdrawal of court cases, how can they lay down conditions for dropping them? On the other hand, if they have been involved in the cases from the beginning, are in touch with the lawyers, and have influence over the cases, as we have demonstrated, then it makes perfect sense.

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In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, "radical orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have proven themselves worthy adversaries--and have also shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed.

Žižek has long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century's greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ concerns nothing less than the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event—God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others.

Žižek begins, and Milbank answers, countering dialectics with "paradox." The debate centers on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation....   more »

A link from a cyber-buddy Michel Bauwens whose P2P foundation is cutting edge with respect to clearing an open source horizon for progressive social agency in a increasingly interconnected society forced to navigate the communication nodes and commercial portals of corportist networks on the world wide web

It occurs to me that we should perhaps refine the terminology we are broadly labeling as Fundamentalism. Spiritual Authoritarianism further nuances meaning here and I believe better describes certain events and persons with respect to the IY Community and The Lives of Sri Aurobindo...   more »