The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Cultural evolution that didn't happen

And is now resisted.

Jihad vs. McWorld.

The West and the rest were alike in the 17th Century, but the West has since then been changed ever more profoundly by increasing secularization that has little affected the rest.


Use of child soldiers, corporal punishments, and beheading are examples.

Jessica Stern sees ISIS in the shadow cast by fascism and especially communism.

In the tradition of Hannah Arendt, she writes of "total institutions" and "totalitarianism."

Of course, it's not just Islam, though it is mostly Islam.


“The country has to stand united. Harmony, brotherhood and peace will lead us to development,” Modi said at an election rally for the forthcoming polls in the eastern state of Bihar.

Modi also implored people to ignore political leaders who have jumped on the issue to win votes along religious lines.

Several of Modi’s own ministers have stopped short of condemning the attack, fuelling concerns among religious minorities of an erosion of rights in the world’s biggest democracy and a strengthening of Hindu hardliners.

Cows are considered sacred by most Hindus in an officially secular India, whose millions of Muslims and other minorities eat beef as a source of protein.

India is the world’s biggest exporter of buffalo meat, an industry mainly run by Muslims.

Modi’s comments come just hours after legislators from his ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) punched and shoved an opposition Muslim member in a state parliament over eating beef.

Television footage showed several BJP legislators attacking Abdul Rashid in the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly, for holding a provocative “beef party”.

“No amount of condemnation can be enough for what happened today,” the state opposition leader, Omar Abdullah, told reporters outside the assembly in Srinagar.

“Trying to beat up a member; this is the first time I have ever seen something like this in any house,” said Abdullah, whose party walked out of the chamber over the attack.

“Do I assault everyone who eats pork or alcohol?”

Rashid served beef kebabs at the party this week in protest against a ban on killing and eating cows in India’s only Muslim-majority state.

The issue was ignited in the region after a court last month ordered that the long-standing but little-enforced prohibition be strictly implemented.

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