Culture Clash

"Why Do They Hate Us?"  So asked the cover of Newsweek in the weeks after 9/11.  Most Americans avoided asking the question, since the very thought of addressing that issue smelled to some people like some sort masochistic attempt to rationalize the Manhattan massacre.  But it's an important question, and adults should know the difference between an explanation and an excuse.

The primary, most obvious, and explicitly pronounced (by bin Laden) justification for the attack, and the ideology that spawned it, is American foreign policy.  We have ignored that for 15 years.  How's that working out for us?  But there is a secondary reason for their hatred.

George W. Bush's answer was "they hate us for our freedoms".  President Bush was over-simplifying, as was his signature sin.  (When asked whether Iraq might descend into civil war in the absence of Saddam Hussein, Bush's response was, "why would they? They're all Muslims). 

But there was a heavy kernel of truth in Bush's corny phraseology.  The Islamic world (and not just the terrorists) do indeed harbor, at best, a deep antipathy for Western "freedom".  But what element or aspect of that freedom so offends the average Muslim?

The general Islamic critique of Western freedom is that it often degenerates into narcissism, materialism and unmoored sexuality, of all which cheapens and trivializes the dignity of the human being.  There is a LOT of truth to this.  The Islamic solution, of course, would violate the best tenets of Western Civilization by stripping the individual of most freedoms and liberties that we assume to be our birthright.

But just because the Islamic solution is unacceptable to us does not mean that their critique should not be honestly and seriously appraised.  There is a need for discretion in our culture.  Freedom exercised without restraint and without regard for its effects is, indeed, no freedom at all, but a soulless self-indulgence that we must guard against.

Perhaps the clearest example of this dynamic is the differing opinions on what is considered to be appropriate public attire, specifically for women.

In the West, we don't, and should not, dictate dress codes (other than banning public nudity).  But that does not mean that individuals should not regulate themselves.  In the Islamic world, dress codes are dictated but, and this is the most important and salient point here,  just because an Islamic woman covers most of her body from public view does not mean that she is bring forced to do so.

We know this because Islamic women who do not live in Islamic countries often choose to dress conservatively by Western standards.

Here is the broad-stroke assessment of female dress codes from the Islamic perspective: women in the West dress in a way that send the message that they wish to be seen as sexual objects.  By covering most of their bodies, Islamic women remove this from the equation, thereby making courtship and male-female relationships more genuine and stable.

There is a lot of truth to this.  And after all of the caveats about patriarchy, individual liberty, and freedom of expression are filtered out, some truth remains.  The culture that defines the West is the best that humans have yet contrived.  By reducing the power of the state and the clergy to dictate our personal behavior, we exalt the God-given value of each individual life by practicing free will.

But if we do not consider how our exercise of freedom as we define it affects others, we make a mockery of freedom and we cheapen it in the eyes of others. 

My 3-year old son is free.  He is free to touch a hot stove.  That does not mean that he should.  I am free.  I am free to eat McDonalds 4 times a day.  That does not mean that I should.  Absence of personal freedom is an insult to humans and to God.  But absence of discretion and moderation in the exercise of that freedom is just as bad.