The word "feudalism" evokes images of slavery: medieval serfdom, peasants bound to serve a class of landed gentry. By definition, feudalism was a form of slavery. In the modern world, "feudalism" is considered as dead as the age of knights that is associated with it. But perceptions can be misleading.
Feudalism was mainly concerned with two things: property, and freedom of movement. As land was considered property, so were the people who tilled the land of the person who owned the land. These "serfs", or slaves in other words, were bound to the landowner, and any attempts by serfs to flee their fate could be punishable by death.
The first part of the world that began to change this system was Europe, with the growth of the professional merchant class, skilled professions that allowed individuals freedom of property, movement and so on. The Republic Of Venice was an early medieval example of this. Gradually, more and more European states moved in this direction: the last major European power to formally abolish serfdom was the Russian Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century; over in North America around the same time, the southern states of the USA fought for secession from the USA in order to continue their own form of serfdom on African slaves and their descendants. They lost.
A land of milk and honey?
Karl Marx famously wrote about the path of feudalism to Capitalism, in the end equating the "satanic mills" to a form of "industrialised serfdom".
Industrialisation brought a transformation of society to those it affected. The serfdom of the land was transformed into the subservience to the factory. Proponents of Capitalism would argue that this was an inevitable stage of the process of mankind's advancement, and unless people wish to live in tree-houses and tilling the fields in an agrarian commune, this logic is hard to refute.
In a more basic way, feudalism was about power, who controlled what, and how. And this is where the argument for feudalism's death becomes more complicated.
In the 21st century, in 2014, who holds power, and how? In a great many cases, the way that nation-states are ran is really not so very different from five hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago, or more. Certainly, technology has changed life in many ways beyond recognition, but human nature is unchanged, and the nature of power is fundamentally unchanged also. This is a point that Jonathon Swift explained very well in the last part of his famous novel, "Gulliver's Travels", all the way back in the early 18th century. The TV series "Game Of Thrones" is famous across the world, but one of the main reasons is that human nature and the use of power is represented by the characters in a very accessible way for the viewer. In other words, medieval politics and power are fundamentally no different from the modern-day.
A handful of examples can easily express the point.
The UK is held up as an exemplar for the rest of the world to follow. As the mother of modern democracy (apologies, Greece...), the rule of law, and a sensible balance of power, an education system that is the envy of the world, and so on. And yet, this "exemplar" is one of the most feudalistic modern states in the developed world.
While the UK has no "serfs", its "citizens" are still legally subjects to the crown. The UK has no constitution. The British crown is one of the biggest landowners in the world. While the British royal family may well seem harmless enough, one half of the electoral system (The House Of Lords) still consists of individuals who are either from centuries-old landed gentry (i.e. landowners), or are there by the favour of a bygone government. The House Of Lords has few contemporaries in the developed world as a temple for feudal values. The British establishment also propagates itself through the UK's education system, which is one of the best methods in the developed world for maintaining the untouchable position of Britain's peculiarly-modern form of feudalism. This system has done wonders for preserving the elite, while the lot of the average Briton has suffered, especially since the financial crisis. Needless to say, like any feudalistic institutions, this system isn't even very efficient; it is simply is very good at doing the best for those in positions of power.
Aside from the UK, many of the most developed countries in Europe are still monarchies: in Scandinavia, Sweden, Denmark and Norway; the Low Countries are all monarchies; as is Spain. Yes, they are "constitutional monarchies", but while the power they wield is only theoretical, it tells us more about the psychology of the people themselves: they like having a monarch. The interesting question is "why?", and this tells us that while many people in the modern world are far more educated (and the world they live in technologically-advanced) they still want to believe in fairy tales.
Modern-day feudalism?
Crossing the pond, many political commentators like comparing the modern-day USA to the Roman Empire of the past. The "Land Of The Free". Few objective economists would argue that the USA is the most unequal nation-state in the developed world, and that is a result of the way it is managed. While health care is considered a human right in the rest of the developed world, in the USA it is considered something you can only have if you can afford it. While Obama's controversial health care reform has claimed to have helped (a little), any objective observer would look at the private health care system as a grossly-inefficient and amoral answer to the world superpower's health problems.
But the American model of running the country was never meant to be "fair": it was meant to be "laissez-faire". Ayn Rand was the most famous proponent of modern-day neoliberalism, which idolised the gains of the rich as a way to motivate the poor. The rich in the USA, in the last thirty years have reached a level of wealth so far from that of the average person that they may as well be considered aristocracy in their own right. No-one in the know seriously doubts that the elite of America are the ones who decide how the game of power is played every four years for the White House. The Koch brothers, who funded the "Tea Party", are simply the newest (and most polarising) set of characters on the scene.
While the USA rid itself of legal slavery, it advocated an economic model that created a new riddle: a slave may be fed and housed, but has no freedom; a freed slave has freedom, but no house nor food to eat. Since the the USA became an imperial power at the turn of the 20th century, it has been exporting this riddle across the world, spreading its own "riddle of freedom".
The USA's "riddle of freedom" was taken in by the UK under the tutelage of Margeret Thatcher, which is these days known as the "Anglo-Saxon Model" by some, and has been implemented ruthlessly by the Conservative government since 2010 under the excuse that "there is no alternative"(!). Since 1979, the UK has been ran like a multinational company, if symbolically headed by a feudalistic establishment: the asset-stripping mentality has turned the UK into a vulture market even for foreign governments.
Since 2008, in the Euro-zone, it's "Club Med" that are being treated to a similar kind of treatment. As Germany holds the purse-strings, it has the right to dictate the economic affairs of Southern Europe. It has already toppled governments in Greece and Italy to do so. While in the latter case, the sitting premier (Silvio Berlusconi) was hardly going to be missed by most Italians, it is hard to deny that the European Union itself is an unaccountable bureaucratic behemoth (not unlike empires of old) that seems to grow with ambition year-on-year. The EU's ambition has been laid bare with its efforts to bring Ukraine into the fold.
At the end of the Cold War, the "Anglo-Saxon Model" was exported to Russia and the former Communist bloc.
Some commentators have described Putin's Russia as a "modern feudal state", or worse. But in reality it was always likely that once the Soviet Union was gone, Russians would revert back to their old way of thinking. Modern Russia and the battle for who controlled the Kremlin in the 1990s became another version of the "Game Of Thrones" seen on TV. Putin was simply in the right place at the right time, and was the most effective player of that oldest of games: power. "Capitalism" in Russia simply became a battle for who controlled the most property, and who controlled the most had the most leverage (or so he hoped). The Kremlin is run as the supreme "court" that it has been for centuries, ruling the largest realm in the globe. Technology is just a detail; all freedom is relative.
A number of other post-Soviet states are also ran as "modern feudal states" in the same manner, with ruling families or oligarchies; come to think of it, almost all the the Middle East is run in such a manner. Given the blessing of oil, and what does an emir need to keep power over his modern-day feudal state than sprinkling a little of his wealth around? Give enough of the population enough money to afford an "iPad" or an off-road vehicle for the desert, and what would any person care about "democracy"? China is living proof of that logic, and both it and Russia are the two biggest countries in the world, by population and area respectively. The USA's dominance looks transient compared to the many centuries that these two states have thrived.
The third world (e.g. most of Africa) is hopelessly corrupt, inefficient and sunk deep in poverty. Investment by aid charities will not change that. Some say you get the government you deserve. But you cannot change human nature, and for all the technological advances made since the time of "real" feudalism, some people still want to live in a "real" feudal society (with "wifi", of course!). The establishment of a trans-national "caliphate" in the heart of the Middle East by the Islamic extremists of ISIS (regardless of how long it lasts) is a very definitive endorsement of that view. Feudalism and power struggles will be around in one form or another as long as people have a feudal mentality.
And that doesn't look like it will disappear very soon.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Psychopathy and seduction: how male and female psychopaths operate
Psychopaths, distinguished for their lack of empathy, are also identifiable by their use of seduction of the opposite sex to get what they want.
Most psychopaths are not violent instinctively; they are more likely to rely on their skills of manipulation, persuasion and cunning. They use society as a vehicle for their desires. While male psychopaths are far more numerous than female psychopaths, both sexes use their skills in different ways to get what they want.
Psychopaths are invariably narcissists to some degree, with whom they share the same perception of what the purpose of sex serves.
The pick-up artist
In the movie, "Magnolia", Tom Cruise plays the role of a masterful pick-up artist (PUA). This fictional character sums up the essence of the male psychopath as an amoral seducer. The archetypal PUA treats women as little more than toys to be played with, or pieces of meat to handle. As the Tom Cruise character explains, his purpose is to "seduce and destroy". And that it exactly what a PUA does: he seduces a woman, then destroys her psychologically.
Some of these PUAs may be born into it, others may be "made". Those that are "naturals" at this game are typically considered psychopaths, or at least score highly on the "psychopathy spectrum". Those who are "made" may well be sociopaths; moulded by a set of specific environmental circumstances to hate and degrade women as an object to be used.
The PUA may be found in all segments of society, from the lowest form of "trailer trash" (or "sink estate", to use a British comparison) to the pinnacle of high society. While their circumstances may vary, their effect on the opposite sex is same: they leave behind a string of women who feel abused and psychologically worse-off (at best); in the worst-case scenario, these men leave a string of illegitimate children and broken homes. PUAs thrive because (when they are from the right background) their actions are deemed socially-excusable by many parts of society (high-jinx, and all that) and may also be covered up, or (when they are from the wrong background), many parts of society dismiss their behaviour as inevitable (what could you expect from the likes of them?).
In this way, PUAs are an embedded part of human society. It would even be wrong to suggest that this is a "Western" problem, for such behaviour exists in other cultures too, in a different variation (more on that later).
The "heartbreaker"
Female versions of the PUAs also exist in society, but while their modus operandi looks similar, their motivation is very different.
The "heartbreakers" in question in inspired by the movie of the same same (with Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt). While this movie is only a comic example, there are many real-life examples of women who have used their looks to get what they want.
But what do these women want? While the PUA usually follows his whim to have sex with whoever he wants simply for the hell of it, the female "heartbreaker" is well aware of her own vulnerability as the "weaker sex". For this reason, these types of women use the promise of sex as a means to an end: to gain material and psychological attachment from a financially-secure male.
An infamous example in the USA is Anna-Nicole Smith. While there is not enough evidence to suggest that she was a psychopath, she certainly more than qualifies for the criteria of being a "heartbreaker", or to be blunt, a female leech. Her marriage to a very old oil tycoon was, by any reasonable standards, only for the enormous riches she hoped to gain from his will. It was for this reason that the tycoon's family had a dispute with her after his death.
In this sense, the "PUA" and the female leech have a very different motivation in life - the PUA seeks sex because he enjoys sex (no matter how superficially), and the pleasure of "conquest". By contrast, the "female leech" treats sex in the same way as she would doing the laundry; a chore to be done for the benefits of what lies after it, rather than for the pleasure of the act itself.
Sex and all its delights
Some people may well recognise the type described above: for instance, many men in the West are drawn to marrying women from the former Soviet Union (Ukraine, for example), or women from South-east Asia (Thailand, for example). It is beyond reasonable doubt that (the majority of) the women from those types of countries choose to marry overweight, middle-aged Western men for reasons other than the pleasure of enjoying sexual congress with them. These women also exist (in another manner of speaking) in the West: the men they gain succour from are called "sugar daddies".
However, the situation above (and its resolution) would be perfectly rational to the women described: to them, there is no question about which is better: endure sex with a man they don't love but gain a lifestyle beyond their imagining; or remain in poverty for the rest of their lives. In this sense, these women may be described as having a sociopath-like view of the world: to them, "love" is an alien and meaningless word in a relationship. Perhaps they once knew what it felt like, but they have "learnt" how to dismiss this emotion as an inconvenient distraction from the pursuit of survival. As reaching beyond the limits of poverty is their main goal, if they can reach beyond poverty by marrying a man they have no feelings for, then their goal is achieved.
This also brings up the psychology of those women (and men) who are involved "professionally" in the sex industry. Porn actors and actresses, by definition, need to have an emotion-free attitude to sex in order to do their jobs. The same is true of prostitutes. While the sex industry is rife with criminality, and prostitution known as a racket ran by many criminal gangs, it would be fair to venture that at least some of the women who enter that line of work must have a desensitized attitude to sex, and a distant relationship to men as a whole, regardless of the sorry circumstances that led them to enter that line of work. A vicious circle exists in this kind of environment, where men treat women as sex objects, and consequently, women treat men as mobile ATMs.
This last point - the distant and objectifying relationship between the genders - is also true of many conservative societies in the developing world. Arranged marriages are, by definition, an act lacking in empathy for the betrothed. The expectation of genuine "love" from the spouses in such society is practically nil. "Love" doesn't enter the equation: what matters is "obligation" and "duty" to the family (meaning the expectation of the betrothed's parents). In this way, children are born into loveless marriages every minute and hour around the world.
This leaves men and women in such societies to become sexually frustrated. The "PUAs" of this kind of society may well seek out adulterous relationships if their culture does not allow a multiple number of wives to satisfy him. Prostitution of course exists in these societies, too, though it would be hidden.
As for the women, in such societies their concerns are on the lowest rung of priority. This explains why some of them take suicide and self-harm as the only way to break out of this form of life-long psychological torture.
Most psychopaths are not violent instinctively; they are more likely to rely on their skills of manipulation, persuasion and cunning. They use society as a vehicle for their desires. While male psychopaths are far more numerous than female psychopaths, both sexes use their skills in different ways to get what they want.
Psychopaths are invariably narcissists to some degree, with whom they share the same perception of what the purpose of sex serves.
The pick-up artist
In the movie, "Magnolia", Tom Cruise plays the role of a masterful pick-up artist (PUA). This fictional character sums up the essence of the male psychopath as an amoral seducer. The archetypal PUA treats women as little more than toys to be played with, or pieces of meat to handle. As the Tom Cruise character explains, his purpose is to "seduce and destroy". And that it exactly what a PUA does: he seduces a woman, then destroys her psychologically.
Some of these PUAs may be born into it, others may be "made". Those that are "naturals" at this game are typically considered psychopaths, or at least score highly on the "psychopathy spectrum". Those who are "made" may well be sociopaths; moulded by a set of specific environmental circumstances to hate and degrade women as an object to be used.
The PUA may be found in all segments of society, from the lowest form of "trailer trash" (or "sink estate", to use a British comparison) to the pinnacle of high society. While their circumstances may vary, their effect on the opposite sex is same: they leave behind a string of women who feel abused and psychologically worse-off (at best); in the worst-case scenario, these men leave a string of illegitimate children and broken homes. PUAs thrive because (when they are from the right background) their actions are deemed socially-excusable by many parts of society (high-jinx, and all that) and may also be covered up, or (when they are from the wrong background), many parts of society dismiss their behaviour as inevitable (what could you expect from the likes of them?).
In this way, PUAs are an embedded part of human society. It would even be wrong to suggest that this is a "Western" problem, for such behaviour exists in other cultures too, in a different variation (more on that later).
The "heartbreaker"
Female versions of the PUAs also exist in society, but while their modus operandi looks similar, their motivation is very different.
The "heartbreakers" in question in inspired by the movie of the same same (with Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt). While this movie is only a comic example, there are many real-life examples of women who have used their looks to get what they want.
But what do these women want? While the PUA usually follows his whim to have sex with whoever he wants simply for the hell of it, the female "heartbreaker" is well aware of her own vulnerability as the "weaker sex". For this reason, these types of women use the promise of sex as a means to an end: to gain material and psychological attachment from a financially-secure male.
An infamous example in the USA is Anna-Nicole Smith. While there is not enough evidence to suggest that she was a psychopath, she certainly more than qualifies for the criteria of being a "heartbreaker", or to be blunt, a female leech. Her marriage to a very old oil tycoon was, by any reasonable standards, only for the enormous riches she hoped to gain from his will. It was for this reason that the tycoon's family had a dispute with her after his death.
In this sense, the "PUA" and the female leech have a very different motivation in life - the PUA seeks sex because he enjoys sex (no matter how superficially), and the pleasure of "conquest". By contrast, the "female leech" treats sex in the same way as she would doing the laundry; a chore to be done for the benefits of what lies after it, rather than for the pleasure of the act itself.
Sex and all its delights
Some people may well recognise the type described above: for instance, many men in the West are drawn to marrying women from the former Soviet Union (Ukraine, for example), or women from South-east Asia (Thailand, for example). It is beyond reasonable doubt that (the majority of) the women from those types of countries choose to marry overweight, middle-aged Western men for reasons other than the pleasure of enjoying sexual congress with them. These women also exist (in another manner of speaking) in the West: the men they gain succour from are called "sugar daddies".
However, the situation above (and its resolution) would be perfectly rational to the women described: to them, there is no question about which is better: endure sex with a man they don't love but gain a lifestyle beyond their imagining; or remain in poverty for the rest of their lives. In this sense, these women may be described as having a sociopath-like view of the world: to them, "love" is an alien and meaningless word in a relationship. Perhaps they once knew what it felt like, but they have "learnt" how to dismiss this emotion as an inconvenient distraction from the pursuit of survival. As reaching beyond the limits of poverty is their main goal, if they can reach beyond poverty by marrying a man they have no feelings for, then their goal is achieved.
This also brings up the psychology of those women (and men) who are involved "professionally" in the sex industry. Porn actors and actresses, by definition, need to have an emotion-free attitude to sex in order to do their jobs. The same is true of prostitutes. While the sex industry is rife with criminality, and prostitution known as a racket ran by many criminal gangs, it would be fair to venture that at least some of the women who enter that line of work must have a desensitized attitude to sex, and a distant relationship to men as a whole, regardless of the sorry circumstances that led them to enter that line of work. A vicious circle exists in this kind of environment, where men treat women as sex objects, and consequently, women treat men as mobile ATMs.
This last point - the distant and objectifying relationship between the genders - is also true of many conservative societies in the developing world. Arranged marriages are, by definition, an act lacking in empathy for the betrothed. The expectation of genuine "love" from the spouses in such society is practically nil. "Love" doesn't enter the equation: what matters is "obligation" and "duty" to the family (meaning the expectation of the betrothed's parents). In this way, children are born into loveless marriages every minute and hour around the world.
This leaves men and women in such societies to become sexually frustrated. The "PUAs" of this kind of society may well seek out adulterous relationships if their culture does not allow a multiple number of wives to satisfy him. Prostitution of course exists in these societies, too, though it would be hidden.
As for the women, in such societies their concerns are on the lowest rung of priority. This explains why some of them take suicide and self-harm as the only way to break out of this form of life-long psychological torture.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
American foreign policy, the Ukraine Crisis and ISIS in Iraq: is nihilism the "new normal"?
Nature abhors a vacuum.
If you look through periods of history over the last two thousand years or so, every so often you see periods of time when the predominant power in a region loses its influence. This may be through internal dissent or strife, economic overstretch, or a lack of will to govern.
Historians often call these blips in history "periods of transition", between one state of affairs and another. This is when the "dialectic" of the time is in dispute, before another narrative appears that fuses together the old and the new.
A short history of nearly everything
Pretensions aside, history is full of these examples. Alexander The Great conquered the Middle East and beyond due as much to the relative weakness of other powers at the time as his own organisation. His Greek-speaking empire fragmented after his death, whose division of power bases lead in time to the rise of Rome.
Rome then became a victim of its own success, when it was financially overwhelmed by the inefficiency of its state and the many tribes that occupied the empire from the Eurasian steppe; what we call today "imperial over-stretch".
The result of this was the so-called "Dark Ages", when the remainder of the Roman Empire in the East morphed in the thousand-year Byzantine Empire, while the Western half of Europe became a patchwork of weak and fluid national entities until the largest and most stable part became, in time, the Holy Roman Empire.
The weakness and fluidity of the "Dark Ages" was one factor for the rise of Islam, which was fortunate to have a good sense of timing. Islam conquered the Middle East, North Africa and the Iberian peninsula due to the relative weakness of the other main powers at that time: in the Middle East and North Africa, the Byzantines were weakened from fighting a long war with Persia. The Muslim Arabs took full advantage. Pushing west, the Arabs crossed into Iberia and pushed north, over the Pyrenees until they were pushed back in the middle of France, and left to consolidate their position in modern-day Spin for the next five hundred years.
Skipping forward, the spread of the Mongol Empire (more about them here) was also due to key factors such as the relative weakness of their rivals at the time. The Mongols quickly overwhelmed the embryonic Russian state, and got as far as Eastern and Central Europe, devastating half of the continent and wiping out the armies put before it. Only the untimely (but for Europe, fortunate) death of the Mongol khan put a halt to the advance. With the death of the khan, the Mongols became pre-occupied with the battle for succession, and Europe was never again a serious priority for them. Instead, Asia and the Middle East bore the brunt of their attention.
In time, the Mongols also lost their pre-eminence. The story of the next five hundred years, from the end of Mongol rule in China towards the end of the 14th century (which coincided with the renaissance in Europe) to the end of the 19th century (which coincided with the rise of the modern democratic state), we see a common pattern. We see the rise and fall of imperial powers like waves in the sea. And we see the rise of new powers happening on the back of the weakness of others.
Stepping into the breach
When the influence of an imperial power (or state actor, to use a modern term) recedes like a wave, it leaves an empty space; a stretch of virgin beach, if you like, ready to be inhabited by a new set of occupiers. In 2014, the two events of the year so far have been the Ukraine Crisis and, more recently, the sudden rise to power of ISIS in the Middle East, an al-Qaeda-inspired extremist force.
The factors that led to the Ukraine Crisis include, as always, the relative weakness of the imperial actor, which is exploited by another (opportunistic) power. In the case of Ukraine, the "imperial actor" was jointly the USA and the EU; on an economic level the EU was driving for Ukraine to enter under its wing, while on a political and diplomatic level, the USA saw a chance to bring Ukraine closer to its orbit.
The problem here was the weakness of both the EU and the USA's position. They had misread (and underestimated) Russia's position (and therefore response). Due to the weakness of both the EU and the USA, they failed to back up their rhetoric with firm actions; relying on the power of threats alone, their actions turned out to be predictably toothless. Ukraine now has a weak central government supported by a toothless West.
It is the weakness of the EU and the USA that is responsible for Russia's response. Putin correctly calculated that the the West lacked the collective will to follow up its words with actions. The West is now at least partly to blame for encouraging the Ukrainian opposition into a position that requires a forceful Russian response.
Now Ukraine is divided in almost the same manner as the USA was back its Civil War, with a separatist region fighting against a government of the north. In this narrative, Kiev is the new Washington, with Donetsk acting as the "southern capital". By a ironic twist of fate, the southern separatists even have a flag that closely resembles that of the old Confederacy, and call their unified "state" the "Confederation of New Russia". This "CNR" is bankrolled and militarily supported by Russia, in the same way that France supported the Americans during the War of Independence. The old Confederacy never got the real support from Britain or others that would have given it a fighting chance during the civil war; the modern-day CNR, however, stands a much better chance of frustrating and wearing-down Kiev through sheer attrition and a mounting cost in blood and treasure, with the support of Russia. Kiev cannot afford a war in the long-term. Russia can.
In the war-zone of east Ukraine, it is the drip-drip of military casualties that may wear down Kiev over time. Moscow's support for the separatists is covert, but consistent. Moscow looks unlikely to back down from its covert military support as long as the West is weak. In the psychology of the Kremlin, if Ukraine is weak, then the West is weak. This gives Moscow all the reason to continue doing what it is doing; the weakness of Kiev demonstrates the strength of Moscow, with Russia stepping into the breach left behind by the West's geo-political weakness.
The army of Islam
The Arab Spring has had many consequences. The most worrying (yet predictable) is the increased power that Islamic extremism has across the the Middle East. The dictatorial states of the Middle East are generally awful, but brought (imposed) stability to the region, to the benefit of the West. In many cases, most of all Syria and Iraq, that stability is effectively destroyed.
The Syrian Civil War is now more than three years old. Few people predicted it would last this long, including this writer. There is now a kind of "unstable stability" with Syria, with the government controlling roughly the south, centre and the west, the pro-Western Sunni rebels controlling the north, and the Sunni Muslim extremists controlling the east. The war is now bogged-down into a stalemate of attrition, with neither side looking close to making any significant advances for the foreseeable future.
Except for the extremists. ISIS, an al-Qaeda-inspired militia, has now evolved from being a "mere" terror group into something like an army. The breakneck speed with which they took control of Mosul, Iraq's biggest city in the north, and a swathe of Sunni-inhabited territory across northern and western Iraq, seemed to come out of the blue. As a result of this, ISIS now control a "de facto" state encompassing eastern Syria, and northern and western Iraq, straddling both sides of the Euphrates valley for hundreds of miles.
One of the most stunning successes was looting Mosul's banks after they took the city; in what must surely be the biggest collective bank robbery in history, ISIS wiped Mosul's banks clean of half a billion dollars in gold and money.
This event compares historically with how the Bolsheviks financed their agenda with bank robberies and other means in the years before they came to power; the most famous was the 1907 Tbilisi robbery in broad daylight in what is now Freedom Square, orchestrated by Stalin (more on his early years here). That robbery was the largest ever at that time.
Their success in Iraq is due to the weakness of support for the government in Sunni-inhabited areas of Iraq. The USA military left Iraq more than two years ago, to be defended by an army comprised of Shias, for the government comprised of Shias. While Kurds more-or-less run their own affairs in their own territory in the north, the Sunni are left powerless, and at the whim of the Shia-led government. ISIS has now stepped into this breach, with evidence that former Baathist officers had done some kind of deal with ISIS, and may also account for the swelling of ISIS's ranks in Iraq. This would also explain why there was no resistance to ISIS taking control of many Sunni-inhabited cities. In other words, the Sunnis of Iraq now have an army of their own to match the "government" Shia army, and the Kurdish peshmergas.
The ingredients are all there for a full-blown civil war like in Syria.
Where does this leave American foreign policy?
Obama's strategy after the reign of George W Bush had been to repair diplomacy and restore America's reputation as a "peacemaker" rather than a warmonger.
Ignoring the ratcheting-up of the "drone wars" under Obama's watch, it's hard for other "state actors" to ignore the impression that America has now become more consumed by internal politics and introspection (given the rise of The Tea Party - see here and here), and that Obama sees the USA's relative decline as inevitable given the rise of China.
Putting this into consideration, the result is a moral "free-for-all". The UN has become an open joke among the more belligerent powers of the world, to be used as a theatre more than a diplomatic space. With the relative isolationism of the USA under Obama's watch (and likely to continue under his successor, regardless of which party they are from), the world resembles those periods of transition in history gone by, where other powers race to fill in the space left behind by the receding imperial power.
On the evidence so far, Russia, China and Islamic extremists seem to be the beneficiaries of this.
If you look through periods of history over the last two thousand years or so, every so often you see periods of time when the predominant power in a region loses its influence. This may be through internal dissent or strife, economic overstretch, or a lack of will to govern.
Historians often call these blips in history "periods of transition", between one state of affairs and another. This is when the "dialectic" of the time is in dispute, before another narrative appears that fuses together the old and the new.
A short history of nearly everything
Pretensions aside, history is full of these examples. Alexander The Great conquered the Middle East and beyond due as much to the relative weakness of other powers at the time as his own organisation. His Greek-speaking empire fragmented after his death, whose division of power bases lead in time to the rise of Rome.
Rome then became a victim of its own success, when it was financially overwhelmed by the inefficiency of its state and the many tribes that occupied the empire from the Eurasian steppe; what we call today "imperial over-stretch".
The result of this was the so-called "Dark Ages", when the remainder of the Roman Empire in the East morphed in the thousand-year Byzantine Empire, while the Western half of Europe became a patchwork of weak and fluid national entities until the largest and most stable part became, in time, the Holy Roman Empire.
The weakness and fluidity of the "Dark Ages" was one factor for the rise of Islam, which was fortunate to have a good sense of timing. Islam conquered the Middle East, North Africa and the Iberian peninsula due to the relative weakness of the other main powers at that time: in the Middle East and North Africa, the Byzantines were weakened from fighting a long war with Persia. The Muslim Arabs took full advantage. Pushing west, the Arabs crossed into Iberia and pushed north, over the Pyrenees until they were pushed back in the middle of France, and left to consolidate their position in modern-day Spin for the next five hundred years.
Skipping forward, the spread of the Mongol Empire (more about them here) was also due to key factors such as the relative weakness of their rivals at the time. The Mongols quickly overwhelmed the embryonic Russian state, and got as far as Eastern and Central Europe, devastating half of the continent and wiping out the armies put before it. Only the untimely (but for Europe, fortunate) death of the Mongol khan put a halt to the advance. With the death of the khan, the Mongols became pre-occupied with the battle for succession, and Europe was never again a serious priority for them. Instead, Asia and the Middle East bore the brunt of their attention.
In time, the Mongols also lost their pre-eminence. The story of the next five hundred years, from the end of Mongol rule in China towards the end of the 14th century (which coincided with the renaissance in Europe) to the end of the 19th century (which coincided with the rise of the modern democratic state), we see a common pattern. We see the rise and fall of imperial powers like waves in the sea. And we see the rise of new powers happening on the back of the weakness of others.
Stepping into the breach
When the influence of an imperial power (or state actor, to use a modern term) recedes like a wave, it leaves an empty space; a stretch of virgin beach, if you like, ready to be inhabited by a new set of occupiers. In 2014, the two events of the year so far have been the Ukraine Crisis and, more recently, the sudden rise to power of ISIS in the Middle East, an al-Qaeda-inspired extremist force.
The factors that led to the Ukraine Crisis include, as always, the relative weakness of the imperial actor, which is exploited by another (opportunistic) power. In the case of Ukraine, the "imperial actor" was jointly the USA and the EU; on an economic level the EU was driving for Ukraine to enter under its wing, while on a political and diplomatic level, the USA saw a chance to bring Ukraine closer to its orbit.
The problem here was the weakness of both the EU and the USA's position. They had misread (and underestimated) Russia's position (and therefore response). Due to the weakness of both the EU and the USA, they failed to back up their rhetoric with firm actions; relying on the power of threats alone, their actions turned out to be predictably toothless. Ukraine now has a weak central government supported by a toothless West.
It is the weakness of the EU and the USA that is responsible for Russia's response. Putin correctly calculated that the the West lacked the collective will to follow up its words with actions. The West is now at least partly to blame for encouraging the Ukrainian opposition into a position that requires a forceful Russian response.
Now Ukraine is divided in almost the same manner as the USA was back its Civil War, with a separatist region fighting against a government of the north. In this narrative, Kiev is the new Washington, with Donetsk acting as the "southern capital". By a ironic twist of fate, the southern separatists even have a flag that closely resembles that of the old Confederacy, and call their unified "state" the "Confederation of New Russia". This "CNR" is bankrolled and militarily supported by Russia, in the same way that France supported the Americans during the War of Independence. The old Confederacy never got the real support from Britain or others that would have given it a fighting chance during the civil war; the modern-day CNR, however, stands a much better chance of frustrating and wearing-down Kiev through sheer attrition and a mounting cost in blood and treasure, with the support of Russia. Kiev cannot afford a war in the long-term. Russia can.
In the war-zone of east Ukraine, it is the drip-drip of military casualties that may wear down Kiev over time. Moscow's support for the separatists is covert, but consistent. Moscow looks unlikely to back down from its covert military support as long as the West is weak. In the psychology of the Kremlin, if Ukraine is weak, then the West is weak. This gives Moscow all the reason to continue doing what it is doing; the weakness of Kiev demonstrates the strength of Moscow, with Russia stepping into the breach left behind by the West's geo-political weakness.
The army of Islam
The Arab Spring has had many consequences. The most worrying (yet predictable) is the increased power that Islamic extremism has across the the Middle East. The dictatorial states of the Middle East are generally awful, but brought (imposed) stability to the region, to the benefit of the West. In many cases, most of all Syria and Iraq, that stability is effectively destroyed.
The Syrian Civil War is now more than three years old. Few people predicted it would last this long, including this writer. There is now a kind of "unstable stability" with Syria, with the government controlling roughly the south, centre and the west, the pro-Western Sunni rebels controlling the north, and the Sunni Muslim extremists controlling the east. The war is now bogged-down into a stalemate of attrition, with neither side looking close to making any significant advances for the foreseeable future.
Except for the extremists. ISIS, an al-Qaeda-inspired militia, has now evolved from being a "mere" terror group into something like an army. The breakneck speed with which they took control of Mosul, Iraq's biggest city in the north, and a swathe of Sunni-inhabited territory across northern and western Iraq, seemed to come out of the blue. As a result of this, ISIS now control a "de facto" state encompassing eastern Syria, and northern and western Iraq, straddling both sides of the Euphrates valley for hundreds of miles.
One of the most stunning successes was looting Mosul's banks after they took the city; in what must surely be the biggest collective bank robbery in history, ISIS wiped Mosul's banks clean of half a billion dollars in gold and money.
This event compares historically with how the Bolsheviks financed their agenda with bank robberies and other means in the years before they came to power; the most famous was the 1907 Tbilisi robbery in broad daylight in what is now Freedom Square, orchestrated by Stalin (more on his early years here). That robbery was the largest ever at that time.
Their success in Iraq is due to the weakness of support for the government in Sunni-inhabited areas of Iraq. The USA military left Iraq more than two years ago, to be defended by an army comprised of Shias, for the government comprised of Shias. While Kurds more-or-less run their own affairs in their own territory in the north, the Sunni are left powerless, and at the whim of the Shia-led government. ISIS has now stepped into this breach, with evidence that former Baathist officers had done some kind of deal with ISIS, and may also account for the swelling of ISIS's ranks in Iraq. This would also explain why there was no resistance to ISIS taking control of many Sunni-inhabited cities. In other words, the Sunnis of Iraq now have an army of their own to match the "government" Shia army, and the Kurdish peshmergas.
The ingredients are all there for a full-blown civil war like in Syria.
Where does this leave American foreign policy?
Obama's strategy after the reign of George W Bush had been to repair diplomacy and restore America's reputation as a "peacemaker" rather than a warmonger.
Ignoring the ratcheting-up of the "drone wars" under Obama's watch, it's hard for other "state actors" to ignore the impression that America has now become more consumed by internal politics and introspection (given the rise of The Tea Party - see here and here), and that Obama sees the USA's relative decline as inevitable given the rise of China.
Putting this into consideration, the result is a moral "free-for-all". The UN has become an open joke among the more belligerent powers of the world, to be used as a theatre more than a diplomatic space. With the relative isolationism of the USA under Obama's watch (and likely to continue under his successor, regardless of which party they are from), the world resembles those periods of transition in history gone by, where other powers race to fill in the space left behind by the receding imperial power.
On the evidence so far, Russia, China and Islamic extremists seem to be the beneficiaries of this.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Psychopathy, lack of empathy, and Capitalism
One of the key characteristics of psychopaths is their lack of empathy. What do we mean when we talk about "empathy"?
Empathy is generally understood to be when a person understands how another person feels psychologically and emotionally, and responds in a constructive way to those feelings. This definition follows from the thinking of leading British psychologist, Simon Baron Cohen of Cambridge University (a cousin of the famous comedy actor, Sasha). In his book, "Zero Degrees Of Empathy", Simon Baron Cohen talks about the importance of empathy in human society, what happens when it is eroded, examples of psychological disorders that create a lack of empathy, and its scientific basis.
Zero Degrees Of Society
An article by George Monbiot talks about the relationship between conservatism and how core values are shaped by our social environment. I just talked about psychological disorders that create a lack of empathy: the most famous example is psychopathy (more on its key attributes here and here), but this also includes Narcissism. But social environment can also create a lack of empathy itself, as Simon Baron Cohen (SBC) also mentioned in the book mentioned earlier.
A famous example SBC talked about was the Nazis. In the right social environment, people begin to lose their sense of empathy. Scientific evidence has suggested that highly-stressful environments can have the effect of eroding the part of the brain responsible for empathy; over a period of time (such as during war, extreme deprivation etc) people begin to think more about themselves than the lives of others. Over time, others came begin to be thought of as objects rather than people with their own feelings and lives. In this way, people who lose their empathy can be called sociopaths. Psychopaths are people who have been born that way through biological and genetic factors; sociopaths are made that way over time by their environment.
The Nazis are a famous example of what happens when a society as a whole loses its empathy: people with a lack of empathy have no regard for those who they see as "enemies" (as Nazis saw the Jews); similarly, people with a lack of empathy have no regard for the suffering of strangers.
Continuing on the last point, it is generally understood that a society that treats those less fortunate than themselves with ignorance or worse has some kind of failing at its heart. To be "humane", almost by definition, is to have empathy for those who you know nothing about: it is why "charity" exists. Looking at it from an economic angle, it the reason why people willingly pay taxes; as was once said, taxes are the price of civilisation. Without taxes, government wouldn't be able to financially function, and likewise, government wouldn't be able to provide collective services to society as a whole.
How to be a sociopath
Of course, there are people in human society who do not believe that taxes are "the price of civilisation", and do not believe that government should provide collective services. From a psychological point of view, these people appear to have a severe lack of empathy.
These people are generally today called "economic liberals", "neoliberals", or "conservatives". Modern-day Neoliberalism has its roots in the thinking of Ayn Rand, who developed a philosophy called "Objectivism". The key value in this philosophy can be summarised as "the virtue of selfishness" (also the name of one of Rand's most famous books). Conventional morality (in effect, what we understand as "empathy"), is turned on its head: to act against your own interests is illogical, even evil. Likewise, "charity" is treated with contempt, as a concept that simply encourages indolence and reliance on others. As far as Rand was concerned, government should exist simply to provide security and enforce rule of law; all else was the provide of the individual.
It is this aim that modern-day neo-liberals, from the "Tea Party" in the USA, to the Conservative and Ukip parties in the UK, and the Liberal parties in Australia and Canada, ultimately look towards.
As these people see it, the financial crisis was not the result of a broken and utterly corrupt "neo-liberal" financial system, but the fault of government spending too much on society. Again, this is turning a conventional understanding of recent history on its head, blaming the lower half of society for the ills of society overall. Like sociopaths, these people find a moral justification for declaring economic war on the bottom half of society. Poverty is the enemy; therefore, poor people must be treated worse in order to encourage them out of poverty. It a "sociopath government" way of applying the principle of "tough love".
In any case, the result is a widening inequality of society. Like the psychopath, the "neoliberals" talk of inequality being a natural consequence of society, forgetting that the most equal societies in the world are also the most stable, and happiest.
In such a situation, it is not surprising that societies ruled by the "neo-liberal" consensus are more unequal, more unstable, and more stressful.
After the fall of Communism, the same philosophy was applied to the former Soviet Bloc. The result has generally been the same, if not worse: inequality skyrocketing, government services often failing in their most basic functions, and an increasingly dystopian appearance of society. While on the surface "neo-liberal" economies appear richer, once you peel off the golden facade, you see the broken and ragged mass of individuals that have been left behind to fend for themselves. This is the result of the lack of empathy embedded into the philosophy of modern-day Capitalism.
Rich people and psychopaths flourish under such conditions. Mass communication and consumerism is the golden skin that covers over the grinding reality for most people who live in "neo-liberal" societies; in many ways, with the strange destruction of privacy in the 21st century, modern-day "neoliberalism" and globalisation resemble a form of ideological tyranny. As Capitalism encourages people to see themselves as individuals first, the result is that society as a whole becomes a forgotten concept, a sea of individuals thinking like Margaret Thatcher that "there is no such thing as society". Well, if the government does less and less for you, how can you think that "society" exists? And if "society" doesn't exist, why would you give a thought to others, when there is nothing in it for you?
In such conditions, what proof would you have that there is such a thing as "humanity"? In such conditions, it is no wonder that psychopaths are attracted to careers like big business and politics; that's where all the money is.
(Update: Tuesday, 8 July
A recently-published study, described here, explains how the wealthier a person is, the more likely their levels of empathy will be eroded. In this case, the richer you are, the less likely you are to empathize with those worse-off than you, and society in general. While, of course, there are many exceptions to the rule, taken as a whole, it is not difficult to understand the psychology. The experiment described in the link demonstrates how those at the top end of society are statistically less likely to contribute to charity, behave in a more aggressive and entitled way, and have less empathy and instinctive kindness to relate to people's problems and lives)
Empathy is generally understood to be when a person understands how another person feels psychologically and emotionally, and responds in a constructive way to those feelings. This definition follows from the thinking of leading British psychologist, Simon Baron Cohen of Cambridge University (a cousin of the famous comedy actor, Sasha). In his book, "Zero Degrees Of Empathy", Simon Baron Cohen talks about the importance of empathy in human society, what happens when it is eroded, examples of psychological disorders that create a lack of empathy, and its scientific basis.
Zero Degrees Of Society
An article by George Monbiot talks about the relationship between conservatism and how core values are shaped by our social environment. I just talked about psychological disorders that create a lack of empathy: the most famous example is psychopathy (more on its key attributes here and here), but this also includes Narcissism. But social environment can also create a lack of empathy itself, as Simon Baron Cohen (SBC) also mentioned in the book mentioned earlier.
A famous example SBC talked about was the Nazis. In the right social environment, people begin to lose their sense of empathy. Scientific evidence has suggested that highly-stressful environments can have the effect of eroding the part of the brain responsible for empathy; over a period of time (such as during war, extreme deprivation etc) people begin to think more about themselves than the lives of others. Over time, others came begin to be thought of as objects rather than people with their own feelings and lives. In this way, people who lose their empathy can be called sociopaths. Psychopaths are people who have been born that way through biological and genetic factors; sociopaths are made that way over time by their environment.
The Nazis are a famous example of what happens when a society as a whole loses its empathy: people with a lack of empathy have no regard for those who they see as "enemies" (as Nazis saw the Jews); similarly, people with a lack of empathy have no regard for the suffering of strangers.
Continuing on the last point, it is generally understood that a society that treats those less fortunate than themselves with ignorance or worse has some kind of failing at its heart. To be "humane", almost by definition, is to have empathy for those who you know nothing about: it is why "charity" exists. Looking at it from an economic angle, it the reason why people willingly pay taxes; as was once said, taxes are the price of civilisation. Without taxes, government wouldn't be able to financially function, and likewise, government wouldn't be able to provide collective services to society as a whole.
How to be a sociopath
Of course, there are people in human society who do not believe that taxes are "the price of civilisation", and do not believe that government should provide collective services. From a psychological point of view, these people appear to have a severe lack of empathy.
These people are generally today called "economic liberals", "neoliberals", or "conservatives". Modern-day Neoliberalism has its roots in the thinking of Ayn Rand, who developed a philosophy called "Objectivism". The key value in this philosophy can be summarised as "the virtue of selfishness" (also the name of one of Rand's most famous books). Conventional morality (in effect, what we understand as "empathy"), is turned on its head: to act against your own interests is illogical, even evil. Likewise, "charity" is treated with contempt, as a concept that simply encourages indolence and reliance on others. As far as Rand was concerned, government should exist simply to provide security and enforce rule of law; all else was the provide of the individual.
It is this aim that modern-day neo-liberals, from the "Tea Party" in the USA, to the Conservative and Ukip parties in the UK, and the Liberal parties in Australia and Canada, ultimately look towards.
As these people see it, the financial crisis was not the result of a broken and utterly corrupt "neo-liberal" financial system, but the fault of government spending too much on society. Again, this is turning a conventional understanding of recent history on its head, blaming the lower half of society for the ills of society overall. Like sociopaths, these people find a moral justification for declaring economic war on the bottom half of society. Poverty is the enemy; therefore, poor people must be treated worse in order to encourage them out of poverty. It a "sociopath government" way of applying the principle of "tough love".
In any case, the result is a widening inequality of society. Like the psychopath, the "neoliberals" talk of inequality being a natural consequence of society, forgetting that the most equal societies in the world are also the most stable, and happiest.
In such a situation, it is not surprising that societies ruled by the "neo-liberal" consensus are more unequal, more unstable, and more stressful.
After the fall of Communism, the same philosophy was applied to the former Soviet Bloc. The result has generally been the same, if not worse: inequality skyrocketing, government services often failing in their most basic functions, and an increasingly dystopian appearance of society. While on the surface "neo-liberal" economies appear richer, once you peel off the golden facade, you see the broken and ragged mass of individuals that have been left behind to fend for themselves. This is the result of the lack of empathy embedded into the philosophy of modern-day Capitalism.
Rich people and psychopaths flourish under such conditions. Mass communication and consumerism is the golden skin that covers over the grinding reality for most people who live in "neo-liberal" societies; in many ways, with the strange destruction of privacy in the 21st century, modern-day "neoliberalism" and globalisation resemble a form of ideological tyranny. As Capitalism encourages people to see themselves as individuals first, the result is that society as a whole becomes a forgotten concept, a sea of individuals thinking like Margaret Thatcher that "there is no such thing as society". Well, if the government does less and less for you, how can you think that "society" exists? And if "society" doesn't exist, why would you give a thought to others, when there is nothing in it for you?
In such conditions, what proof would you have that there is such a thing as "humanity"? In such conditions, it is no wonder that psychopaths are attracted to careers like big business and politics; that's where all the money is.
(Update: Tuesday, 8 July
A recently-published study, described here, explains how the wealthier a person is, the more likely their levels of empathy will be eroded. In this case, the richer you are, the less likely you are to empathize with those worse-off than you, and society in general. While, of course, there are many exceptions to the rule, taken as a whole, it is not difficult to understand the psychology. The experiment described in the link demonstrates how those at the top end of society are statistically less likely to contribute to charity, behave in a more aggressive and entitled way, and have less empathy and instinctive kindness to relate to people's problems and lives)
Friday, June 6, 2014
Ukip and the Newark by-election: the Conservatives bask in the glow of their own self-delusion
So, the Conservatives won the Newark by-election. The fact that this is surprising at all is a sign of the times. Given that Newark is one of Tories' safest seats, it should not be a surprise that the Tories held on to it.
Nevertheless, some Tories are eager to talk-up their by-election victory as though it was a stunning result in the face of almost insurmountable odds. They are either living in a state of supreme self-delusion, sounding like a group of swivel-eyed loons (ha ha), or they are so supremely stupid they believe wholeheartedly their own propaganda.
The evidence they use to defend their (desperate) glee is that it is the first time that the Conservatives have won a by-election victory since 1989. Following this "logic", because the Conservatives went on to win the following 1992 election, the same could be true of the general election next year.
Another point the Conservatives would highlight is the decline of the Labour vote in the by-election; as the Conservatives would argue, hardly a good indicator for an opposition with less than a year to a national election. Given that Labour won the seat in 1997 (more on that later), the Tories are keen to emphasize how far Labour are now from getting it back.
Thirdly, they might also be encouraged by the organised nature of the Conservative local campaign (more on that later); when the Conservatives are organised, they can win local support on the ground. This would give a psychological boost to the party machine, which has suffered from a series of self-inflicted setbacks in recent years.
Lastly, as the party leadership are keen to say, the Newark by-election may well mark a "high water mark" for the purple tide that Ukip has created in the last eighteen months.
Nothing to see here...
That may well be the angle that Conservative Central Office is spinning. Certainly, Ukip's big names looked quite deflated after the media-driven (and partly Ukip-driven) hype that they might cause a huge upset. Seen from this way, the Newark by-election has knocked the Ukip band-wagon off its run of success; but the effect is more psychological than political in real terms.
To be fair to Ukip and Nigel Farage, they never said they stood a serious chance of winning; apart from the talk of the "people's army", Farage was smart enough to read the political runes, the lay of the political landscape, and knew that this was a battle they could never really hope to win. A smart leader chooses his battles. Farage wisely kept his powder dry, and didn't seriously commit a great amount of resources to the by-election campaign.
Talk of the Conservatives bursting the Ukip balloon is self-delusional nonsense. In many ways, what we can learn from Newark is that in many ways it confirms points that this writer said the other week: that in safe Tory territory, Ukip are likely to become the real opposition, pushing Labour into third; the converse can be said in safe Labour territory, where Ukip would likely push the Tories into third. The Newark result fits into this pattern.
It is in the marginals, and especially in those areas where Ukip already have a large presence locally, that they have a very serious chance of winning seats in Westminster. But Farage already knows this, as do the other major parties.
How to read between the lines
What the "real" things that can be gleaned from the Newark by-election are as follows:
First, the Conservatives won the by-election with their majority more than cut in half, from 16,000 to 7,000. This is a drop of almost nine per cent, which is only slightly less than average of ten-and-half per cent in other by-elections in this parliament. In other words, the by-election result roughly followed the pattern for the Tories throughout this parliament, softened slightly because it was already a very safe Tory seat. In other words, the swing was nothing extra-ordinary for the Tories compared to other results; therefore, to make any further analysis (and optimistic predictions for next year) based on this victory would be seriously misunderstand the result. It hasn't stopped many from trying, though.
Second, the Conservatives won the by-election in a very safe seat after using unprecedented numbers of Conservative activists and MPs. Even the Prime Minister came twice. Although we can't know for sure how much effect this had on getting out the vote, this tells us more about the level of paranoia and panic in the Conservative Party there is about Ukip than it does about how well-organised they can be. This brings comparisons with how the Russian Tsar used millions of men as "cannon-fodder" to overwhelm the Germans by sheer force of numbers in the trenches of World War One: it isn't a sign a organisation, it's a sign of desperation.
The Conservatives will not be able to repeat the same tactic across every constituency in the country come next year. The depletion of the party numbers and activists on the ground will start to show glaringly come April next year.
Third, the relative decline of the Labour vote doesn't mean that the Conservatives are a better bet for staying on in Downing Street beyond May 2015. Conservatives have pointed out that Labour's share of the vote is nowhere near what it needed to be in order to win the seat, as they did in 1997. As political historians will recall, that was the year Labour won with a majority of 179 seats. In other words, if the Conservatives are saying that in order for Labour to show they are on course to win the general election next year they have to win Newark, they are showing how little they understand about the mathematical reality of Westminster politics. If Labour had won in Newark yesterday (or come close), it would have meant that the Conservatives would be facing a meltdown next year. No sane person is predicting that. All the polls are currently predicting either a small Labour majority, or Labour as the largest party in a hung parliament. However, those poll "predictions" are based on methods that are undone by the unprecedented effect of Ukip.
As we are now effectively in a "four-party" electoral system, the current polling methodology is not a very accurate way of predicting the result of the next election. The only that we can say is that due to the way the current electoral boundaries are drawn, and the diversionary effect of Ukip on the Conservative vote, the Conservatives have their work cut out to win outright in 2015.
Fourth, Ukip were the victim of a new electoral phenomenon, the "anti-Ukip tactical vote", which seems to have benefitted the Tories. The question is whether this is a one-off phenomenon i.e. that some people in Newark didn't want to have the "honour" of electing Ukip's first Westminster MP. Come the general election, any "anti-Ukip tactical vote" may have some effect in some areas; then again, it may not be a serious factor at all. No-one knows for sure.
Finally, it would be crazy to write-off Ukip's fortunes simply because they failed to win a very safe Conservative seat in a by-election. The Newark by-election itself was a one-off; the first time in twenty-five years that the Conservatives had had a by-election in a very safe Conservative seat.
Putting the figures in perspective, in Newark, Ukip received ten thousand votes, and almost 26 per cent of the vote; this is only a bit less than what they received in the Eastleigh by-election early last year (eleven thousand votes and almost 28 per cent of the vote). These two percentages fall between what Ukip received in the European elections just last month (winning 27.5 per cent of the vote, and being the leading party).
The trend is clear; Ukip have a solid base of support across large parts of England, and in some areas it will likely be large enough to win a seat outright (depending on the extent of any theoretical "anti-Ukip" tactical vote - though my guess is that this will be highly dependent on how much voters in particular constituencies are willing to vote "anti-Ukip" in a general election, which is a form of anti-democratic "rigging" anyway).
So what's the big deal? Ukip have very clear plan, and no-one can seriously doubt their chances of gaining their first set of MPs next year in Westminster. There may be only a handful of them in Westminster next year, but the momentum is on Ukip's side. Too many people have already seen what Ukip are about and like it. The rest of Westminster have yet to adapt to that.
But that is the problem that Ukip have brought to the political game: in England now, no-one really knows anything anymore. We are in politically-uncharted territory.
Nevertheless, some Tories are eager to talk-up their by-election victory as though it was a stunning result in the face of almost insurmountable odds. They are either living in a state of supreme self-delusion, sounding like a group of swivel-eyed loons (ha ha), or they are so supremely stupid they believe wholeheartedly their own propaganda.
The evidence they use to defend their (desperate) glee is that it is the first time that the Conservatives have won a by-election victory since 1989. Following this "logic", because the Conservatives went on to win the following 1992 election, the same could be true of the general election next year.
Another point the Conservatives would highlight is the decline of the Labour vote in the by-election; as the Conservatives would argue, hardly a good indicator for an opposition with less than a year to a national election. Given that Labour won the seat in 1997 (more on that later), the Tories are keen to emphasize how far Labour are now from getting it back.
Thirdly, they might also be encouraged by the organised nature of the Conservative local campaign (more on that later); when the Conservatives are organised, they can win local support on the ground. This would give a psychological boost to the party machine, which has suffered from a series of self-inflicted setbacks in recent years.
Lastly, as the party leadership are keen to say, the Newark by-election may well mark a "high water mark" for the purple tide that Ukip has created in the last eighteen months.
Nothing to see here...
That may well be the angle that Conservative Central Office is spinning. Certainly, Ukip's big names looked quite deflated after the media-driven (and partly Ukip-driven) hype that they might cause a huge upset. Seen from this way, the Newark by-election has knocked the Ukip band-wagon off its run of success; but the effect is more psychological than political in real terms.
To be fair to Ukip and Nigel Farage, they never said they stood a serious chance of winning; apart from the talk of the "people's army", Farage was smart enough to read the political runes, the lay of the political landscape, and knew that this was a battle they could never really hope to win. A smart leader chooses his battles. Farage wisely kept his powder dry, and didn't seriously commit a great amount of resources to the by-election campaign.
Talk of the Conservatives bursting the Ukip balloon is self-delusional nonsense. In many ways, what we can learn from Newark is that in many ways it confirms points that this writer said the other week: that in safe Tory territory, Ukip are likely to become the real opposition, pushing Labour into third; the converse can be said in safe Labour territory, where Ukip would likely push the Tories into third. The Newark result fits into this pattern.
It is in the marginals, and especially in those areas where Ukip already have a large presence locally, that they have a very serious chance of winning seats in Westminster. But Farage already knows this, as do the other major parties.
How to read between the lines
What the "real" things that can be gleaned from the Newark by-election are as follows:
First, the Conservatives won the by-election with their majority more than cut in half, from 16,000 to 7,000. This is a drop of almost nine per cent, which is only slightly less than average of ten-and-half per cent in other by-elections in this parliament. In other words, the by-election result roughly followed the pattern for the Tories throughout this parliament, softened slightly because it was already a very safe Tory seat. In other words, the swing was nothing extra-ordinary for the Tories compared to other results; therefore, to make any further analysis (and optimistic predictions for next year) based on this victory would be seriously misunderstand the result. It hasn't stopped many from trying, though.
Second, the Conservatives won the by-election in a very safe seat after using unprecedented numbers of Conservative activists and MPs. Even the Prime Minister came twice. Although we can't know for sure how much effect this had on getting out the vote, this tells us more about the level of paranoia and panic in the Conservative Party there is about Ukip than it does about how well-organised they can be. This brings comparisons with how the Russian Tsar used millions of men as "cannon-fodder" to overwhelm the Germans by sheer force of numbers in the trenches of World War One: it isn't a sign a organisation, it's a sign of desperation.
The Conservatives will not be able to repeat the same tactic across every constituency in the country come next year. The depletion of the party numbers and activists on the ground will start to show glaringly come April next year.
Third, the relative decline of the Labour vote doesn't mean that the Conservatives are a better bet for staying on in Downing Street beyond May 2015. Conservatives have pointed out that Labour's share of the vote is nowhere near what it needed to be in order to win the seat, as they did in 1997. As political historians will recall, that was the year Labour won with a majority of 179 seats. In other words, if the Conservatives are saying that in order for Labour to show they are on course to win the general election next year they have to win Newark, they are showing how little they understand about the mathematical reality of Westminster politics. If Labour had won in Newark yesterday (or come close), it would have meant that the Conservatives would be facing a meltdown next year. No sane person is predicting that. All the polls are currently predicting either a small Labour majority, or Labour as the largest party in a hung parliament. However, those poll "predictions" are based on methods that are undone by the unprecedented effect of Ukip.
As we are now effectively in a "four-party" electoral system, the current polling methodology is not a very accurate way of predicting the result of the next election. The only that we can say is that due to the way the current electoral boundaries are drawn, and the diversionary effect of Ukip on the Conservative vote, the Conservatives have their work cut out to win outright in 2015.
Fourth, Ukip were the victim of a new electoral phenomenon, the "anti-Ukip tactical vote", which seems to have benefitted the Tories. The question is whether this is a one-off phenomenon i.e. that some people in Newark didn't want to have the "honour" of electing Ukip's first Westminster MP. Come the general election, any "anti-Ukip tactical vote" may have some effect in some areas; then again, it may not be a serious factor at all. No-one knows for sure.
Finally, it would be crazy to write-off Ukip's fortunes simply because they failed to win a very safe Conservative seat in a by-election. The Newark by-election itself was a one-off; the first time in twenty-five years that the Conservatives had had a by-election in a very safe Conservative seat.
Putting the figures in perspective, in Newark, Ukip received ten thousand votes, and almost 26 per cent of the vote; this is only a bit less than what they received in the Eastleigh by-election early last year (eleven thousand votes and almost 28 per cent of the vote). These two percentages fall between what Ukip received in the European elections just last month (winning 27.5 per cent of the vote, and being the leading party).
The trend is clear; Ukip have a solid base of support across large parts of England, and in some areas it will likely be large enough to win a seat outright (depending on the extent of any theoretical "anti-Ukip" tactical vote - though my guess is that this will be highly dependent on how much voters in particular constituencies are willing to vote "anti-Ukip" in a general election, which is a form of anti-democratic "rigging" anyway).
So what's the big deal? Ukip have very clear plan, and no-one can seriously doubt their chances of gaining their first set of MPs next year in Westminster. There may be only a handful of them in Westminster next year, but the momentum is on Ukip's side. Too many people have already seen what Ukip are about and like it. The rest of Westminster have yet to adapt to that.
But that is the problem that Ukip have brought to the political game: in England now, no-one really knows anything anymore. We are in politically-uncharted territory.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Islam, Christianity and Paganism: the pagan origins of world's two biggest religions
The three major monotheistic faiths of the world (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have clear, historical ties to each other; particular, Christianity sees itself as a "superior" successor to Judaism, while Islam sees itself as "superior" to both Christianity and Judaism.
Judaism is the oldest of the three, with its roots in the stories of Moses, the exile from Egypt, the visions and revelation at Mount Sinai, and so on. The God of the Jews is therefore a product of the circumstances of its adherents; a God of the desert that wreaks righteous destruction on the polytheistic Egyptians, for example.
But what of Judaism's successors?
Zeus, or the Sun-God?
Christianity's religious symbolism is a natural by-product of the culture and circumstances of the day. It has been well-documented (and easy to find on the internet) that much of Christian symbolism stems from a combination of Egyptian, Roman and Greek influences.
For example, the importance of Christ's birthday coinciding with the winter solstice, and the coming of the "three kings". This fits in with an ancient Egyptian fable of the importance of Orion during the winter solstice: Orion's belt at its lowest point is level with the horizon at this time of year in that time of year. The "three kings" thus arrived from heaven, after spending the rest of the year in the stellar plane. The belief in Christ as the "son of God" also has parallels in Egyptian religious symbolism, as well as in other pagan Middle Eastern religions.
Early Christianity was an underground religion in the Roman Empire for its first few centuries. There were no "churches" as we know them today; adherents either used caves or catacombs as impromptu places to worship their faith, with only richer people of faith building converted chapels in rooms of their villas. Interestingly, when Christ was portrayed in artistic form in these early years, he was usually shown to have an uncanny likeness to Alexander The Great; with curly hair, head tipped to one side, with a smooth-skinned (almost child-like) face and carrying a staff. These were his "hallmarks". An alternative version is that he was seen as an alternative to Apollo, the Sun-God, and that the symbolism of worshiping the "Sun-God" as the primary source of religious power on earth. In those early centuries, many Christian converts were still hedging their bets, and it comes as no surprise that Christians saw the need to drape their faith in familiar pagan symbolism that wooed the waverers (more on that tactic later).
Christianity became the official faith of the Roman Empire with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine on his death bed in the middle 4th century. However, prior to that he made public his advocacy of Christianity throughout the empire, if not publicly declaring his faith. His moment of "revelation" came in battle, when he was fighting in a civil war to secure his position, at the battle of Milvian Bridge. Here he saw the "light of God" in the sky, seeing it as a sign that God was on his side. Still, he hedged his bets, using the battle to declare "Sol Invictus" (the undefeated Sun) as his official motto. The worship of the Sun as God-figure is found in a multitude of pagan belief systems (such as "the Logos" of the Greek philosophers), historically borrowed by Christianity.
During his reign as emperor, one of his most important decisions was to make churches public buildings, no longer hidden from view. Here, Constantine borrowed from existing Roman structural design. Roman magistrates' courts were known as "basilicas"; Constantine simply copied the design, but moved the entrance from the middle of the longer wall, to the middle of one of the end walls, thus changing the perspective for the building's purpose to emphasize its length.
Finally, Constantine presided over the changing of the understood face of Christ; from that resemblance to Alexander/Apollo, to the bearded face of Zeus/Jupiter. It is this image that has stood (barring cultural modifications) ever since.
There are plenty more pagan links with Christianity, but for the sake of brevity, this will suffice. Now, we can look at Christianity's "successor"...
The cube in the desert
Islam's holiest site, which every Muslim prays in the direction of, is the "Kaaba" ("Cube" in Arabic). What is it, and what does it represent?
According to Islam, the Kaaba was a cube-shaped stone structure built by Abraham as a temple to God (Allah). But by Mohammed's time, it had become a temple for the many gods that the local tribes worshiped (as many as there were days in the year). Mohammed's role was then to restore the Kaaba to its original purpose; so the temple was cleared of the many idols, and had a mosque built around it. Centuries later, after many modifications and extensions of the mosque (and rebuilding of the Kaaba after floods), this is the structure that Muslims pray towards. According to Islam, the Kaaba is older the the temple in Jerusalem, and thus the oldest temple devoted to God (Allah).
That is the official version; the evidence shows something very different.
For Mohammed's version of events to be true (i.e. that the Kaaba is older the the Temple Of Solomon in Jerusalem), the Kaaba would have had to have been built around two thousand years before Christ. However, (as we see here), Mohammed himself seems to contradict this point. Besides, respected authorities on the topic (see the previous link) seem clear the the Kaaba was a relatively contemporary building in Mecca at the time of Mohammed's birth.
The fact that it is still standing at all (and wasn't destroyed completely as a pagan temple) was probably due to an act of compromise to cultural sensitivities by Mohammed. There is also evidence that there were other "Kaabas" in the Arabian peninsula at the time of Mohammed, albeit not made of stone, but wood, for example.
Another important feature of the Kaaba is the "black stone", embedded in one of the outside corners of the wall. This is recognised as a fragment of a meteorite that descended to earth in ancient times, close to Mecca. Of all the idols existing in the Kaaba before Islam, this one alone was retained by Mohammed. Pre-Islamic Arabs had a tradition of kissing the Black Stone; this "pagan" tradition has continued in Islam, and is an important feature of the "Hajj".
The pagan history of the Kaaba, and the meteorite fragment revered in its wall, seem to jar badly with Islam as a religion so seemingly hostile to the concept of idolatry. And yet Muslims today emphasize that they are not praying to the "Kaaba" itself, let alone to the meteorite fragment within its walls, but instead use the building a worldwide point of reference that all Muslims can relate to, uniting them.
The Moon-God?
Apart from the Kaaba, the symbolism of Islam also features many other parallels to other (pagan) faiths. The major deity that the Pre-Islamic Arabs worshiped was the Moon-God, Hubal. This was a deity whose idol had a human form (probably from red agate), but whose right hand was gold. Seven arrows were used for the purposes of divination before the idol during rituals.
As anyone knows, the crescent moon is integral to the symbolism of Islam. Every mosque in Islam has a crescent moon at its highest point; the crescent moon is the most famous symbol of Islam. Does this mean that the "Moon-God" was replaced by "Allah"?
Muslims vehemently refute this, and it is clear that the use of the moon as symbol was probably not a direct form of replacing Hubal with "Allah"; in battle at the battle of Badr, his enemy Abu Sufyan evoked Hubal with the words: "O Hubal, be high", to which the Prophet replied: "Allah is greater". Is this where Mohammed also got the inspiration for Islam's most famous verse?
From this we can make an educated guess that the use of the moon as the primary symbol in Islam may have been partially to assuage local Arab pagans with some familiar imagery, while yet claiming that "Allah" is higher than Hubal.
Furthermore, the use of the moon is also an essential part of a Muslim's practical life: it is needed to calculate the correct time to pray (more on that in a moment). It was for this very practical reason that the early Muslims became such expert astronomers compared to their contemporaries.
Other aspects of Islamic rituals also have parallels to other faiths.
The importance of praying five times a day (and ablution beforehand) predates Islam. Zoroastrianism uses this ritual as part of its sun-worship (though they pray in the direction of the sun, wherever it is in the sky at the time). However, in Mohammed's day, the Pre-Islamic Arabs would pray in the direction of Mecca.
An essential part of the "hajj" is the seven-times circumambulation around the Kaaba. Again, this ritual of passing seven times around an object of veneration predated Islam. Pre-Islamic Arabs did the same around the Kaaba, only in order to please Hubal instead. This ritual is also practiced in Hinduism; a faith older than Islam. In the Hindu marriage rite of "Satphere", the couple pass seven times around a fire, where religious phrases are recited, the same concept as in Islam.
There are other rituals, such as that of "Ihram", which is another Pre-Islamic ritual involving washing as wearing "Ihram" clothes to enter Mecca. A final example is the seven-times walk between Safa and Marwa mountains close to Mecca, which was another Pre-Islamic ritual retained by Mohammed for the "hajj".
So as we can see, both Christianity and Islam as replete with pagan symbolism.
It is no surprise that both faiths would have needed to adapt to the social and cultural rituals and circumstances of the time in order to flourish; it allowed waverers of the time to have their cake and eat it.
The irony here is that Christianity chooses the symbolism of the sun as its religious banner; Islam, on the other hand, sides with the moon. No wonder the two don't get on.
The sad truth is that while the pagan origins of Christianity can be debated in Christian societies without seriously expecting to receive physical harm or threats (except perhaps for parts of the Evangelical USA, or Africa), the same cannot be said of large elements of Muslim society. This is something that Muslims have to an extent brought onto themselves, by moderate (and progressive) Muslims refusing to tackle the problem of the growth of Radical Islam in the last thirty years.
Radical Islam sees any debate within the faith (such as of the pagan origins of some Islamic rituals) to be worthy of a death sentence, or a severe punishment at best; go to Pakistan, for example, and see what happens, if you try to discuss the pagan origin of some key Islamic rituals. Only a very brave (or foolhardy) soul would do so. It is no wonder that Islam has such a poor image with the rest of humanity.
Herein lies the problem with many aspects of religion; it is immune to debate.
Judaism is the oldest of the three, with its roots in the stories of Moses, the exile from Egypt, the visions and revelation at Mount Sinai, and so on. The God of the Jews is therefore a product of the circumstances of its adherents; a God of the desert that wreaks righteous destruction on the polytheistic Egyptians, for example.
But what of Judaism's successors?
Zeus, or the Sun-God?
Christianity's religious symbolism is a natural by-product of the culture and circumstances of the day. It has been well-documented (and easy to find on the internet) that much of Christian symbolism stems from a combination of Egyptian, Roman and Greek influences.
For example, the importance of Christ's birthday coinciding with the winter solstice, and the coming of the "three kings". This fits in with an ancient Egyptian fable of the importance of Orion during the winter solstice: Orion's belt at its lowest point is level with the horizon at this time of year in that time of year. The "three kings" thus arrived from heaven, after spending the rest of the year in the stellar plane. The belief in Christ as the "son of God" also has parallels in Egyptian religious symbolism, as well as in other pagan Middle Eastern religions.
Early Christianity was an underground religion in the Roman Empire for its first few centuries. There were no "churches" as we know them today; adherents either used caves or catacombs as impromptu places to worship their faith, with only richer people of faith building converted chapels in rooms of their villas. Interestingly, when Christ was portrayed in artistic form in these early years, he was usually shown to have an uncanny likeness to Alexander The Great; with curly hair, head tipped to one side, with a smooth-skinned (almost child-like) face and carrying a staff. These were his "hallmarks". An alternative version is that he was seen as an alternative to Apollo, the Sun-God, and that the symbolism of worshiping the "Sun-God" as the primary source of religious power on earth. In those early centuries, many Christian converts were still hedging their bets, and it comes as no surprise that Christians saw the need to drape their faith in familiar pagan symbolism that wooed the waverers (more on that tactic later).
Christianity became the official faith of the Roman Empire with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine on his death bed in the middle 4th century. However, prior to that he made public his advocacy of Christianity throughout the empire, if not publicly declaring his faith. His moment of "revelation" came in battle, when he was fighting in a civil war to secure his position, at the battle of Milvian Bridge. Here he saw the "light of God" in the sky, seeing it as a sign that God was on his side. Still, he hedged his bets, using the battle to declare "Sol Invictus" (the undefeated Sun) as his official motto. The worship of the Sun as God-figure is found in a multitude of pagan belief systems (such as "the Logos" of the Greek philosophers), historically borrowed by Christianity.
During his reign as emperor, one of his most important decisions was to make churches public buildings, no longer hidden from view. Here, Constantine borrowed from existing Roman structural design. Roman magistrates' courts were known as "basilicas"; Constantine simply copied the design, but moved the entrance from the middle of the longer wall, to the middle of one of the end walls, thus changing the perspective for the building's purpose to emphasize its length.
Finally, Constantine presided over the changing of the understood face of Christ; from that resemblance to Alexander/Apollo, to the bearded face of Zeus/Jupiter. It is this image that has stood (barring cultural modifications) ever since.
There are plenty more pagan links with Christianity, but for the sake of brevity, this will suffice. Now, we can look at Christianity's "successor"...
The cube in the desert
Islam's holiest site, which every Muslim prays in the direction of, is the "Kaaba" ("Cube" in Arabic). What is it, and what does it represent?
According to Islam, the Kaaba was a cube-shaped stone structure built by Abraham as a temple to God (Allah). But by Mohammed's time, it had become a temple for the many gods that the local tribes worshiped (as many as there were days in the year). Mohammed's role was then to restore the Kaaba to its original purpose; so the temple was cleared of the many idols, and had a mosque built around it. Centuries later, after many modifications and extensions of the mosque (and rebuilding of the Kaaba after floods), this is the structure that Muslims pray towards. According to Islam, the Kaaba is older the the temple in Jerusalem, and thus the oldest temple devoted to God (Allah).
That is the official version; the evidence shows something very different.
For Mohammed's version of events to be true (i.e. that the Kaaba is older the the Temple Of Solomon in Jerusalem), the Kaaba would have had to have been built around two thousand years before Christ. However, (as we see here), Mohammed himself seems to contradict this point. Besides, respected authorities on the topic (see the previous link) seem clear the the Kaaba was a relatively contemporary building in Mecca at the time of Mohammed's birth.
The fact that it is still standing at all (and wasn't destroyed completely as a pagan temple) was probably due to an act of compromise to cultural sensitivities by Mohammed. There is also evidence that there were other "Kaabas" in the Arabian peninsula at the time of Mohammed, albeit not made of stone, but wood, for example.
Another important feature of the Kaaba is the "black stone", embedded in one of the outside corners of the wall. This is recognised as a fragment of a meteorite that descended to earth in ancient times, close to Mecca. Of all the idols existing in the Kaaba before Islam, this one alone was retained by Mohammed. Pre-Islamic Arabs had a tradition of kissing the Black Stone; this "pagan" tradition has continued in Islam, and is an important feature of the "Hajj".
The pagan history of the Kaaba, and the meteorite fragment revered in its wall, seem to jar badly with Islam as a religion so seemingly hostile to the concept of idolatry. And yet Muslims today emphasize that they are not praying to the "Kaaba" itself, let alone to the meteorite fragment within its walls, but instead use the building a worldwide point of reference that all Muslims can relate to, uniting them.
The Moon-God?
Apart from the Kaaba, the symbolism of Islam also features many other parallels to other (pagan) faiths. The major deity that the Pre-Islamic Arabs worshiped was the Moon-God, Hubal. This was a deity whose idol had a human form (probably from red agate), but whose right hand was gold. Seven arrows were used for the purposes of divination before the idol during rituals.
As anyone knows, the crescent moon is integral to the symbolism of Islam. Every mosque in Islam has a crescent moon at its highest point; the crescent moon is the most famous symbol of Islam. Does this mean that the "Moon-God" was replaced by "Allah"?
Muslims vehemently refute this, and it is clear that the use of the moon as symbol was probably not a direct form of replacing Hubal with "Allah"; in battle at the battle of Badr, his enemy Abu Sufyan evoked Hubal with the words: "O Hubal, be high", to which the Prophet replied: "Allah is greater". Is this where Mohammed also got the inspiration for Islam's most famous verse?
From this we can make an educated guess that the use of the moon as the primary symbol in Islam may have been partially to assuage local Arab pagans with some familiar imagery, while yet claiming that "Allah" is higher than Hubal.
Furthermore, the use of the moon is also an essential part of a Muslim's practical life: it is needed to calculate the correct time to pray (more on that in a moment). It was for this very practical reason that the early Muslims became such expert astronomers compared to their contemporaries.
Other aspects of Islamic rituals also have parallels to other faiths.
The importance of praying five times a day (and ablution beforehand) predates Islam. Zoroastrianism uses this ritual as part of its sun-worship (though they pray in the direction of the sun, wherever it is in the sky at the time). However, in Mohammed's day, the Pre-Islamic Arabs would pray in the direction of Mecca.
An essential part of the "hajj" is the seven-times circumambulation around the Kaaba. Again, this ritual of passing seven times around an object of veneration predated Islam. Pre-Islamic Arabs did the same around the Kaaba, only in order to please Hubal instead. This ritual is also practiced in Hinduism; a faith older than Islam. In the Hindu marriage rite of "Satphere", the couple pass seven times around a fire, where religious phrases are recited, the same concept as in Islam.
There are other rituals, such as that of "Ihram", which is another Pre-Islamic ritual involving washing as wearing "Ihram" clothes to enter Mecca. A final example is the seven-times walk between Safa and Marwa mountains close to Mecca, which was another Pre-Islamic ritual retained by Mohammed for the "hajj".
So as we can see, both Christianity and Islam as replete with pagan symbolism.
It is no surprise that both faiths would have needed to adapt to the social and cultural rituals and circumstances of the time in order to flourish; it allowed waverers of the time to have their cake and eat it.
The irony here is that Christianity chooses the symbolism of the sun as its religious banner; Islam, on the other hand, sides with the moon. No wonder the two don't get on.
The sad truth is that while the pagan origins of Christianity can be debated in Christian societies without seriously expecting to receive physical harm or threats (except perhaps for parts of the Evangelical USA, or Africa), the same cannot be said of large elements of Muslim society. This is something that Muslims have to an extent brought onto themselves, by moderate (and progressive) Muslims refusing to tackle the problem of the growth of Radical Islam in the last thirty years.
Radical Islam sees any debate within the faith (such as of the pagan origins of some Islamic rituals) to be worthy of a death sentence, or a severe punishment at best; go to Pakistan, for example, and see what happens, if you try to discuss the pagan origin of some key Islamic rituals. Only a very brave (or foolhardy) soul would do so. It is no wonder that Islam has such a poor image with the rest of humanity.
Herein lies the problem with many aspects of religion; it is immune to debate.
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