a primer on Islam, democratic development, and philosophy

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One has to begin somewhere. So, I've used a very small amount of reliable material on Islam and democracy as basis for sketching a philosophical view of the theory-policy-activism relationship relative to the issue of Islam and democracy. I worked only with the summary statements of the conference and 2 research reports, and just that resulted in a relatively long discussion. If I had worked with the entirety of the conference materials and reports, I would be more confident of the result. As it stands, though, I believe it was a very worthwhile exercise, at least for exemplifying an approach to doing philosophy practically.

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Aug. 30

• The Project on Middle East Democracy

Can the U.N. at last be effectiveagainst violence?

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In complement to my pro-Israel stance in the Hezbollah-Israeli war, I need to say I am not an Israeli hawk. For many years, I was vocally biased for the Palestinian cause, but was increasingly disappointed by Palestinian leadership failures, and the last straw was Arafat's all-now-or-nothing abandonment of the Clinton effort in 2000—an immaturity that just got more extreme as Israel got more moderate in the following years. A basically bipartisan stance toward the peace process can include belief that one side has more work to do than the other.

multipolitan environmental engineering

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For a long time, I've claimed that humanity is increasingly prevailing in nature (intelligence of Earth) as a post-national lattice of metropolitan areas—expressing a post-classical legacy of the city-state (by which the transitory nation-state has always been anchored—Paris, London, New York, Berlin, etc). In fact, I argued this in the early 1990s, before Jürgen Habermas coined the notion of "postnational constellation."

Today, Los Angeles, London, New York, Seoul and 18 other cities joined forces in a project aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by pooling financial resources to that end. (Thanks, Bill Clinton.)

Such multipolitan activity signals a keynote of postmodern (postnational) humanity.

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Sept. 1

And this week, California leads the way for the U.S.

parenting as concerted cultivation

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[This is the passage about parenting dynamics from today’s other posting that is more focused on socioeconomic factors.]

Annette Laueau’s ethnographic Unequal Childhoods: class, race, and family life indicates in detail what parents of successful children do. She finds that successful children are far more communicatively engaged by their parents, for the sake of facilitating broad engagement of their children’s lives, than are the parents of unsuccessful children. This might seem unsurprising; but what’s interesting is what the parents of successful children do: They’re enmeshed in a syndrome, so to speak, that educes cognitive development and independence, whereas the parents of unsuccessful children tend to believe that letting their children have “freedom”—that “natural growth” takes care of itself—is good parenting.

a critical point in the fundamental war

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Fighting poverty through community-based human development

Had not Hizbollah attacked Israel, the news might be occupied with G8 follow-ups related to WTO resolutions that can complement the UN Millennium Goals’ and World Bank’s war against poverty in developing regions (and the Gates Foundation’s material solidarity with the WHO’s war against disease).

Meanwhile, “developed” nations have their ongoing war against poverty—well, it’s not exactly a war, is it?&#151in terms of underfunded public health services, social services, and education. (A “great” success of terrorism is to keep public attention distracted from valid struggles.)

How to be democratic

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Republicans (big R) dominate U.S. politics because they are more democratically organized than the Democrats. This is a reality also pertinent for progressives outside the U.S.

How can we facilitate corporate innovationfor local pollution control?

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To: The New York Times Subject: What "incentives"?, re: editorial "Look to the States for Cleaner Air"

Editor,

One would easily agree with you that "industry usually needs powerful incentives to make things happen," but what incentives are displayed in Governor Pataki's mercury control plan? The Pataki model is apparently the traditional statist challenge to industry to innovate in the face of fair regulation or leave the game, a virtue of liberalism, but no display of innovative incentivization. I want to see The New York Times give more focus to new ideas for incentivization for near-term local pollution problems.