A quote from an andrewsullivan.com reader
"I feel naïve for absorbing the idealistic, end-of-history notion that we humans are all universally alike, just yearning for some freedom. The people of the middle east are not just a bunch of good folks oppressed by brutal dictators. They are ridden with some very deep pathologies. We kid ourselves by thinking that they're just like us - only with a Saddam, or an Assad, or an Ahmadinejad."
I think this guy is right. The problem with the Muslim world is not merely that it is currently ruled by brutal tyrants. That would be quick to fix (c.f. post WWII Germany, Italy, Japan). The problem is that the cultures of the inhabitants are in general stagnant, intolerant of minorities and independent thought, and obsessed with conspiracy theories of their own victimhood.
It wasn't always so. A thousand years ago the Muslim world was open and welcoming to minorities, scientifically curious, and the source of great architecture, love poems, and mathematics. But it may take another thousand years (or at least a few hundred) to turn it back around, even assuming we knew where to push.
I think this guy is right. The problem with the Muslim world is not merely that it is currently ruled by brutal tyrants. That would be quick to fix (c.f. post WWII Germany, Italy, Japan). The problem is that the cultures of the inhabitants are in general stagnant, intolerant of minorities and independent thought, and obsessed with conspiracy theories of their own victimhood.
It wasn't always so. A thousand years ago the Muslim world was open and welcoming to minorities, scientifically curious, and the source of great architecture, love poems, and mathematics. But it may take another thousand years (or at least a few hundred) to turn it back around, even assuming we knew where to push.