Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern

John Gray is staggeringly precient about the world economic system. Don't be misled by the Al Quaeda title, this is more about what it means to be modern. It is a pithy, and amazingly erudite, scan of the history of philosophic thought - in accessible language. Although rather too emphatic on some points, his knowledge is so prodigious he is entitled to the benefit of the doubt. What, one wants to know, is he saying right now about the banking implosion?

This book solidly refutes the widely disseminated arguement that al-Qaeda is a medieval, tribal organization. Gray is spot-on in his assessment. There are few organizations - violent or not - as modern as al-Qaeda. John Arquilla's and David Ronfeldt's works on networks support this. For people trying to understand the threat to the US, percieving our adversaries as 'in the stone age' isn't going to get us very far. This book was money well spent.

Arizona Sen. John McCain has a quality that is sadly lacking in the current Bush administration; he is willing to listen to 'Old Europe' with respect, even though he bluntly disagrees with many of its positions. This is the central theme of this book; if America cannot dominate the entire world, it is wise to listen to others with respect. Instead, Gray says Bush's ambition "to reshape the Middle East comes from the Christian fundamentalist belief that a major conflagration will fulfill biblical prophecies of a catastrophic conflict in the region. To the extent that it reflects this type of thinking, American foreign policy is itself fundamentalist." Gray directly challenges a modern American myth that "Western societies are governed by the belief that modernity is a single condition, everywhere the same and always benign." Instead, he says modernity also produces organizations such as al Qaeda, and thus if we are to defeat modern terrorism we must recognize it as a fully modern development. No one would accuse Bush of being a throwback to the Puritans; likewise, al Qaeda is not a throwback to the Middle Ages or some earlier time. The difficulty, Gray writes, is ". . . many Americans believe that all human beings are American under the skin. On the other hand, they have long viewed the world -- especially the Old World of Europe -- as corrupt, possibly beyond redemption." Thus, the ideal expressed by President Woodrow Wilson of exporting American ideas to Europe after World War I, and the subsequent isolationism of Republicans in Congress which lasted until Dec. 7, 1941. How valid is this? Well, Wilson sent the US Marines to Haiti with the gift of democracy in 1915; US forces stayed until 1934, providing Haiti with its most prosperous and peaceful era of the past century. After the Marines came home, Haiti collapsed into chaos and then a tyranny which lasted until 1986. President Bill Clinton sent US forces to Haiti in 1994, then pulled them out six months later. The success of America's long effort at "nation building" is reflected in today's ongoing headlines of Haitian horror. We live in a world of chaos. As long ago as Euripides, it was recognized that knowledge cannot undo fate and virtue gives no protection against disaster. Gray urges that we return to these values, and thus understand the complexity, diversity and tolerance of life. But he adds, "Though we can imagine such a world, it is hard to imagine anything resembling it coming about by design. The proselytising fury of faith -- religious and secular -- forbids any peaceful evolution. He says, "The most that humans can do is to be brave and resourceful, and expect to achieve little. Very likely we cannot revive this pagan view of things; but perhaps we can learn from it how to limit our hopes." It's a grim view of the future, something almost out of 'Brave New World.' Unfortunately, he supports his pessimism with clear, logical and frightening logic; in

John Gray has written a credible, immensely readable and remarkably perceptive account of modernity's inherent contradictions. Gray argues that the "modern" accounts for how "progress" has come to center the collective ambitions of diverse stakeholders. Indeed, for Gray, progress (the modern disposition itself) is a faith-based (though not always theological) journey waged by various utopians who seek to carve a brave new world out of what they perceive to be social chaos and moral degradation. The problem is that the various "moderns" of the past 200 years, most notably Marxists, neo-liberal adherents to the Western free market, and Islamist militants like Al Qaeda, all have radically divergent plans for bringing the ultimate "new world" into existence. Prospects for arriving at a global equanimity among these competing senses of modernity look bleak. The upshot of Gray's argument is that there can be more than one way to be modern and thus the West does the world a disservice by insisting that progressive social development must be ITS way or not at all. Indeed, Gray suggests that the most successful non-Western modernizing nations (e.g. Japan, China, and especially India) have been wise to preserve their own traditions even as they unlock the power of technology and free market enterprise in their culture. Anyone with an interest in political science and critical theory should read this book at once. Indeed anyone who enjoys lucid argumentation would be well-served to crack open this elegant and slim volume of thought. Highly recommended.

Gray is great at showing unexpected links between the so-called backward Al Queda and our 'modern' western world. He shows that both have the same roots.He doubts the current American idea of being THE source of universal civilisation. Several others went ahead: England in the 19th century, Spain in the 17th, and, who knows, China in the 21th century.The omnipresent human desire for perfection is the greatest danger to the modern world: it leads to the terror of the good intentions.Very readable!