[lbo-talk] Hamid Dabashi on Ahmadinejad & Bollinger

[ravi]

On 12 Oct, 2007, at 0:55 AM, wrobert at uci.edu wrote:
>       I'm eventually going to get to responding to Yoshie's reading of
> Gramsci, but I'm substantially skeptical to the parallel between
> Iran and Venezuela.  It seems to operate on a set of shallow
> linkages between Ahmedijad and Chavez in order to gloss over the
> more substantial element of the Boliverian movement, the mass
> movement.  I'm am willing to be disabused of this notion, but I
> don't see anything parallel to this occurring within the Islamic
> Republic.
>
>> Some more thoughts, at random: M. Smith calls it the choice between
>> Ahmedinijad and Bollinger. In an earlier post, I cast it in different
>> terms, as a choice (for the "third world") between the Iran/Venezuela
>> model and the (Tom Friedman) India model.

My point is not to suggest a parallel between Iran and Venezuela but  
to contrast their [somewhat] old-fashioned resistance against the neo- 
lib approach of India. Yoshie (I think) used the word "populism" (to  
describe the former) which perhaps is the right word for it? As I  
have mentioned before, from my meagre understanding of Iranian  
history, it is not as if they have not attempted other models before  
and failed.

And this one takes me over the limit.

Dwayne:


> I'd like to pursue this element of your reasoning
> further.  Perhaps we could shorten the statement: to
> move beyond the religious impulse (or, at least,
> create thriving alternatives) we must know ourselves
> better.

Yes, but at the cost of sounding new-agey, I would say its not so  
much our-selves that we need to know better (enough with the Know  
Thyself already, is my motto ;-)) but that we need to know "we"  
better. What's the term someone used recently? Always-already? That's  
the nature of our collective existence, I think (I hate to get all  
Heidegger again!). So, to move (ourselves and others) beyond the  
religious impulse we need to give centrality in our thinking to this  
collective nature and the relationship and movements of its parts  
(ritualised today in religion, common decency, etc, etc).

Also, the other part of it, the whole thing about Dawkins and his  
approach, its more than just an issue of rudeness or arrogance. The  
reason we leftists (humanists) oppose
arrogance is not because its unbecoming (though as I tentative put  
forth in earlier passages, these mores -- "unbecoming", etc -- have  
more weight than we concede) but because it is unwarranted (and  
always will be). On this list or on PEN-L, I mentioned once that I  
had one of those personal "A ha!" moments when I heard a religious  
socialist say something which when rephrased gave me my mantra:  
"faith is not the opposite of doubt. certainty is." And valuing doubt  
is synonymous with fighting certainty. Faith is what permits us to  
practice doubt in the presence of reality.

I think I should go now?

	--ravi