Dinesh D'Souza: he knows more than I do

D'souza is a pure blabberhead. Somebody tell him his style isn't working. But, if he continues to do what he wants to do...is going to shoot himself in the foot...that is, if hasn't done so already.

I'll bet this clown had his Hoover Institution flunkies write and research half his book. He didn't properly vet it (intellectually lazy) so now he's in cover up mode.

I love his line about knowing Islam because he grew up in India. We have many Indian posters here who testify about how most Hindus take too accommodating a stance on Islam. That they maintain self comforting illusions about it. Haven't there been two recent Jihadist railway attacks in India? It was hardly news here in USA though many were murdered

You know, I'm a bit worried about the kid. He's in **so far** over his head.

Its not "Mr. Science", its "Dr. Science".

BTW this is a four parter from D'Souza. Does he get paid by the word? So stay tuned. His critics they are numerous. So he will self justify in four acts. How many acts did Shakespeare need to get his point across? I sure hope DD wrote this by himself instead of farming it out. He has a brand name that demands new product

"... the angry men of the Right have drawn their daggers against me ..."

Et tu, Robert?

Here, it sounds cooler to say "Robert" with the French pronounciation.

Yeah yeah yeah Dinesh.

No doubt you live sleep and breath islam, you preening fool.

You have been judged and been found wanting, If you insist on staying on the stage, get into comedy. Then you will most likely be able to amuse and not harm us.

pronunciation

Having grown up in a country, India, that has 200 million Muslims — nearly as many as in the entire Middle East — and having studied the leading thinkers of radical Islam (Sayyid Qutb, Ayatollah Khomeini, Maulana Mawdudi, Ali Shariati, and so on), I have more than a passing familiarity with Islam and its practitioners — a lot more than they do, in fact.

I see a little 3rd world oneupmanship here. That a white American cannot know Islam better than the authentic 3rd worlder who had to live among Muslims. Does D'Souza know Arabic? Robert Spencer does and can beat the pants off D'Souza in any Koran competition. Hadith too

Is DD even aware of the Muslim claim that to understand the Koran it must be read in Arabic?

Dinesh immigrated to America at age 16.

But I (Dinesh D'Souza) am a native of Mumbai, India. I grew up in a multireligious and multicultural world where Hindu, Muslim and Christian influences were closely integrated. I am from one of the oldest Christian families in India. I learned English as well as two native Indian languages. From childhood I was exposed both to Western ideas, imported into India through the British, as well as non-Western ideas and influences. (from Powerline)

Being from one of the oldest Christian families, my guess is his family was quite well to do. Also sophisticated & Westernized enough to send him to America at age 16 to be educated. Thus I doubt he associated much with Muslims over there.

His India claim to fame is breathing in the atmospherics of Islam (Hugh's phrase)

DD'S has waded out in what he took to be a pond named "Islam," thinking the bottom would remain sandy and either flat or gently sloping. But it turned out to be a subject for which generalizations and flippancy would not due, a subject that had to be written about only after careful study, and careful study did not mean spending some time with Bernard Lewis alone, but with dozens and dozens of careful Western students of Islam. There is not the slightest evidence, not bibliographical nor otherwise, that D'Souza understands what he had to do to adequately prepare himself for this task, nor any sign since, as he lashes out cheaply against his detractors, that he is willing to admit that he had not learned enough, and wrote and now speaks about things that he simply has not given enough thought, or enough study. Lucubrations by lamplight are not part of the lecture-tour, not part of the grasping for money, money, money that feeds his comically vulgar, even Veneeringly vulgar, -- existence, in the description of his San Diego Xanadu, and don't overlook the leopard-print wall-to-wall carpet in what is optimistically described as his "study."

He can't admit, forthrightly, he has been wrong, and has furthermore been dangerously misleading. He can't. It would spoil his pitch, spoil his reputtion, lessen the only thing that appears to matter to him: those "best-sellers," those well-paid lecture tours, that website on which Dinesh D'Souza touts Dinesh D'Souza, and of course that Jaguar, and that pool, and that manicured lawn, and that leopard-print wall-to-wall carpet in the "study."

For those who don't follow the links, D'Souza's book is berated on both National Review's website and also in their print edition. In fact, I don't think he's had a positive review anywhere in the conservative press (standing by to see what American Spectator, with the shadow of Grover Norquist in the background, has to say).

Go get 'em, lad!

The learning curve is sometimes steeper for some. D'Sourza has a monmumental ego, and instead of simply backing off and rethinking, he'd rather salvage his image instead of even answering the issues and the facts.

One wonders with all the obvious Jihadism by Islam around the world- 400 muslims were killed by muslims this last week alone in Iraq- if D'Souza is even able to accept any of this. Some people need a false sense of security in the rational, and forget that for some, like those in Jihad, there is nothing of the Judeochristian values that accepts those restrictions on thought or action.

Someone posted this about Winston Churchill

You may come to the moment when...
In Rivers of Africa (1893), Winston Churchill observed:

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you with only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is not hope of victory at all, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

I also note that drudge posted an unearthed archive letter of Churchills's from 1937 where they headlined an article by Churchill thus' Jews 'partly responsible' for their troubles: Churchill'.

But the article itself shows not the pejorative assertion but the mundane notion that Jews in England were different- in the sense that they weren't totally acting and or looking like everyone else, but he noted... Churchill praised Jews as "sober, industrious, law-abiding" and urged Britons to stand up for the race against persecution.

"There is no virtue in a tame acquiescence in evil. To protest against cruelty and wrong, and to strive to end them, is the mark of a man," he wrote.

So Winston Churchill was capable of mundane inexactitudes- such as he wrote in that 1937 article...""It would be easy to ascribe it to the wickedness of the persecutors, but that does not fit all the facts," the article read.

"It exists even in lands, like Great Britain and the United States, where Jew and Gentile are equal in the eyes of the law and where large numbers of Jews have found not only asylum, but opportunity.

"These facts must be faced in any analysis of anti-Semitism. They should be pondered especially by the Jews themselves.

"For it may be that, unwittingly, they are inviting persecution -- that they have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer."

The article adds: "The central fact which dominates the relations of Jew and non-Jew is that the Jew is 'different'.

And all I can say, is he sure found out what evil was, and knew what it was.

However, he didn't perhaps understand, that there is nothing wrong in being somewhat 'different' particularly, when the ideas of justice, morality, charity, the weak bein helped by the strong, the young helping the old, universal education, and of course that greatest of overlooked virtues- non compulsion against anyone else, and a history to back that up for 3000 yrs showed the historical worthiness of the ideas.

Yes... people do have to learn. Even the greatest have to learn.

D'Souza is a self aggrandizing fool, who responds with viscious discourtesy, pretension as to his own knowledge base, and all to promote his 'value system' nonsense ending the jihadists reign.

Mark

It's pretty obvious that Dinesh D'Souza is incapable of engaging in any serious type of debate on the issue of Islam since he hasn't the foggiest knowledge about the subject. I expect him to engage in his usual snipe attacks on Robert with the hope (from his POV) that he can score a few cheap points. With regard to Dinesh's assertion that all is hunky-dory in India wrt muslims/Islam please ask him why, in that case, are muslims in the only muslim-majority state in India, demanding a separate Islamic State for themselves. Ask him why have over 300,000 Kashmiri Hindus been driven out of Kashmir. Also ask him why is it that, next to possibly Israel, India has had the most number of Islamic terrorist attacks including the bombing of the Mumbai (Bombay) stock exchange as far back as 1993 or the attack on the Indian Parliament in Dec 2001. Does he attribute all these attacks also to the 'loose' Western morals or Hollywood lifestyles?

I would avoid getting into a protracted argument with Dinesh about verses in the Old Testament vs. Koran (since it just ends up wasting time on a red-herring argument on Dinesh's part). Just simply ask Dinesh that it makes no sense to discuss the OT since we don't have people anywhere lopping other peoples heads while drawing inspiration from the OT. The fact that the jehadists themselves are quite proud of pointing to the Koran and the life of Muhhammad as their source of inspiration for their jehadist activities of blowing themeselves and other people up, or lopping the heads of innocent captives. Also ask Dinesh why is it that while some ordinary muslims might be questioning the sanctioning of such jehadic violence by Islam's core teachings, how come the vast majority of the Islamic clergy (i.e. the ones who have clearly more in-depth knowledge of the Koran and of Islam) sides fully with the jehadists and keeps issuing fatwas against those who dare oppose the jehadists. How come we never see a fatwa by the Islamic clergy against a Bin Laden or a Zawahiri?

He lived in a country with 200 million Muslims!

So do we. Or at least it seems that way... FOr all the press and attention they demand, one would think they are the majority in this still Christian country.

D'Souza's handful of conservative books, combined with his conservative-sponsored business and campus lectures, have generated extensive liberal criticism. They also have made him fabulously wealthy.

According to an April 2005 issue of The San Diego Reader:

"Since Dartmouth, the conservative fray has been quite remunerative for D'Souza. Six years ago, he and his wife bought their home in Fairbanks Ranch (California). The nearly 8000-square-foot house has six bedrooms, seven and a half baths, and a four-car garage, where they keep their maroon 1992 Jaguar XJS. A circular drive fronts the French country stone house. The cathedral-like front room, with its full-length mirrors and tapestries, has an 18th-century French decor of (veneered) golden maple burl furniture. The slick floors echo like a museum as one walks through. In his office, there's wall-to-wall leopard-print carpet; floor-to-ceiling bookcases are stocked with titles in history, politics, and philosophy. The view out back features a bright blue pool and the arboretum-like landscape."[1].

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dinesh_D'Souza

Dennisw says--- I wonder how many illegal aliens he employs to maintain his Ponderosa spread?

There's a word for people like D'Souza........... trolls.

And what kind of conservatives is he used to hanging out with? Not any sort I know. He spent too much time in a library with his oversized head stuffed in books and dreaming about being a "Western Man" to know what "busting one's balls" is all about. When you do or say something stupid (like write and publish his horrible book) your friends (aka Conservatives) will bust your balls, and do so ruthlessly. If you continue to be unaware of or deny that you commited any blunder, the busting of balls will continue and may even increase in intensity until you take a look in the mirror.

He calls some of the criticisms and attacks on his book "petulant," yet throughout the whole article he is the one whining and sulking like a child about the simple fact that not all his conservative "buddies" are rallying around him and cheering on their New Best Guy while he takes it to the liberals. That wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to have been given a parade, some awards, and slaps on the back from ALL conservatives.....all the while telling him what he REALLY wants to hear, what he so desperately wants to hear again and again, "Wow Dinesh, you're a REAL American, your a REAL Western Man."

Well he's not getting that, and now he's crying about it.

National Review is now being run by some serious pansies, physically and intellectually. I know grandmothers that could break Rich Lowry.

PHOTO of a "1992 Jaguar XJS" D'Souza sports one of these but perhaps not a convertible

http://www.nationalautoshopper.com/images-autos-for-sale/4136-1_th.jpg

Nota bene:

The objection is not to ownership of a Jaguar. The objection is to someone endangering his own society, and the country to which he has come to settle, by a superficial and highly misleading treatment of Islam, and when caught out, merely flailing at his critics instead of doing the decent thing, which would be to carefully retreat into his study, do what he should have done before and not after issuing his little book, and then emerging with a mea maxima culpa to be delivered urbi et orbi. After all, all kinds of people, not all of them lying, issue all kinds of apologies for their behavior.

Dinesh D'Souza owes everyone an apology for his scholarly malfeasance. And the reasons for that malfeasance, and his inability to admit to it, is that he doesn't want to do anything that would puncture a hole in his necessary armor of Podsnapian self-satisfaction. For that would change the dynamics of Dinesh D'Souza, Bright Young Conservative and -- don't ever forget it, because he doesn't -- the author of Four, count them Four, New York Times Best-Sellers.

He has, through all of this, definitely earned one thing. He has earned our contempt.

Im pretty sure he lived in a country with 2,000,001 Muslims

--Once in an Intellectually Lazy Lifetime--

And you may find yourself living in a palatial mansion
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a 1992 Jaguar XJS
And you may find yourself in a leopard print study
With a beautiful American wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

Letting the days go by/conservatives putting me down
Letting the days go by/dollars flowing underground
Into the ozone again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/dollars flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
How do I work my shuck and jive?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that larger, more ostentatious Jaguar?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my marvy manse!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful American wife!

It is also interesting to note that there is a difference between the Biblical recording of events in the Old Testament and the calls to action found in the Qur'an.

Hugh
If he D'Souza had any class he would have gotten an older Jag with their classic lines and wood trimmed dashboard. He's obviously loaded enough to afford a good mechanic to maintain its engine and tranny. I wonder if his wife has a leopard skin pill box hat to compliment his study

LOL. Nice one, Dennisw. Too bad you can't have the Talking Head's music to go along with the wordings.

DennisW:

Ah yes, a leopard-skin pillbox hat.

Perhaps someone, someday, can say to the wearer:

Well, you look so pretty in it
Honey, can I jump on it sometime?
Yes, I just wanna see
If it's really that expensive kind
You know it balances on your head
Just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat

Cordially
Robert Spencer (but you can call me "Zimmy")

Mr D should answer a few simple questions:

1. Does he know that muslims follow the Koran verbatim - they cannot re-interpret or question its 7th century Bedouin Arab tribal injunctions, however out of date and however much out-of-sync with modern susceptibilities these may be?

2. Does he know that the Koran enjoins upon muslims to kill, convert or subjugate the Infidels? That this remains their mandate even in the 21st century?

3. Does he know of ANY country in the world, where muslims are living in peace either with themselves or others?

Having committed himself to propagating a contrarian, but clearly and demonstrably absurd and false argument, he is now jockeying around desperately for a way to save face by ad hominems.

Little does he realise the danger of helping the jihad by lulling America, in fact, the West, into a confused sense of guilt-ridden complacency.

It is also interesting to note that there is a difference between the Biblical recording of events in the Old Testament and the calls to action found in the Qur'an.

The violence in the Old Testament is perpetuated by a number of the major Hebrew figures. There is no demand upon Jews to slavishly emulate the life of (for example) King David including his violence. The major Jewish figures have flaws, are not called perfect human beings. Jews and Christians learn from them, do not copy them note for note, the exact opposite of Muslims who have only one major figure in Koran and Hadith. Muhammad is presented as the perfect man who lead the perfect life. Muslims are called upon to slavishly copy this awful mans awful life.

They claim Mohamed's 7th century Arabian life should be emulated because it is applicable to all times and all places. No such claim is made about the Hebrew prophets. Who battled pagan tribes engaged in human sacrifice. Hmmm... sounds a bit like Cortez and the Aztecs

modern susceptibilities? uh.. sensibilities.

Mr Spencer-
"But you're gonna have to serve somebody."

So make it a wise choice. Don't pick a false prophet.

Dennis,

No worries.

Well, you're on your own, you always were,
In a land of wolves and thieves.
Don't put your hope in ungodly men
Or be a slave to what somebody else believes.

(Even Bernard Lewis.)

Yrs
R

Mr. Spencer
You could also beat the pants off D'Souza in any Dylan recitation competition

Lies, damn lies and statistics... Since when does India have 200m Muslims? Even Indonesia doesn't have that many.

In the San Diego Reader article that Special Guest cited yesterday, D'Souza states:

If I had remained in India, I would probably have lived my entire existence within a one-mile radius of where I was born. I would undoubtedly have married a woman of my identical religious, socioeconomic, and cultural background. I would almost certainly have become a medical doctor, an engineer, or a software programmer. I would have socialized within my ethnic community and had cordial relations, but few friends, outside that group. I would have a whole set of opinions that could be predicted in advance; indeed, they would not be very different from what my father believed, or his father before him. In sum, my destiny would to a large degree have been given to me...

Nonetheless, he's supposed to be the expert. Dinesh, if I were you, I'd start by learing how to count. I recognize that not knowing hasn't prevented you from getting your XJS.

D'Souza is but a Muslim puppet on a string.....with just about as much brain power...

Watch the Islamic clerics pull the strings...see D'Souza dance.....

Thanks, Dennis. And to Dinesh D'Souza I say:

"The writing's on the wall, come read it, come see what it say."

Yrs
R

"Having grown up in a country, India, that has 200 million Muslims — nearly as many as in the entire Middle East — and having studied the leading thinkers of radical Islam (Sayyid Qutb, Ayatollah Khomeini, Maulana Mawdudi, Ali Shariati, and so on), I have more than a passing familiarity with Islam and its practitioners — a lot more than they do, in fact."

This is such a specious argument it doesn't even deserve criticizing. Imagine a Lapland esquimo who, after having lived among Christians for 16 years, claims he knows Christianity well enough though he never read or studied the Bible or any of the immense sources of Christian theology and thought.
Infantile. Silly. Cuckoo.

Who we are is essentially the result of two forces, our environment and how we react to it.

Who DD wants everyone to believe he is, has been defined by his own reactions to Mr. Spencer.

That is why the professional consistent actions of a gentleman, like Mr. Spencer, conflicts with DD. DD fights to keep his facade alive, when there is not much structure to support it. (Like walking behind a movie set.)

Side note: Well said dennisw.

ovidius_naso :

"..imagine a Lapland esquimo..."

That would be difficult.

Except a possible Eskimo tourist there have never been Eskimo people in Scandinavia.

cheers,

"Nota bene:

The objection is not to ownership of a Jaguar. The objection is to someone endangering his own society, and the country to which he has come to settle,"

Well said, Hugh. I'm partial to Jaguar myself--there's something charming in those smooth lines; most cars these days look like mini-tanks--though I don't have one and I probably never will.

What's despicable about DD is the treason against the country that has given him so much. For that is what his book comes down to.

dennisw

"The major Jewish figures have flaws, are not called perfect human beings. Jews and Christians learn from them, do not copy them note for note"

Exactly. The writings of the Church Fathers abound in harsh moral commentary on the Biblical kings and their subjects, to say nothing about the fact that, in that, the Church Fathers were only following in the footsteps of the Jewish Prophets.

thomas.h

Ha ha! That's precisely the man I was talking about!
Thanks and cheers.

I think Dinesh found a spiel someone wanted to hear. A comforting (to some) 'spin' on things. He is HIMSELF a prime example of moral bankruptcy - 'bright' young things who confuse something 'sellable' with something 'true'.

It was fun seeing Colbert nail Dinesh on the issue of 'the cultural left causing 9-11'

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/17/colbert-nails-dinesh-dsouza/

Wow.....he is now admitting his work flawed and wrong, but he is trying to learn.

Mr. Spencer, D'Souza like all Indian males are passive and feminine in nature. His entire persona is reacting like that of a female. Vetting of his work is now savage attacks and daggers.

He is defeated and knows it. His words are now the blubbering of Indian tears upon a page.

I would simply make the point to Double D this:

If living in a nation of 200 million Muslims and having read Islamic writings makes him an expert, so then living in America with 200 million cows and having eaten corn must then also make him cow.

Mr. Spencer, you are a kind hearted person, but I advocate that you firmly take Mr. D'Souza to the intellectual woodshed and finish his chastisement in a gentlemanly fashion as that is what he requires for the first time in life. Otherwise he will regroup and be the intellectual bully he has gotten away with for his entire existence.

Lame Cherry, as an Indian (and quite proud of my heritage) I find your remarks about Indians extremely distasteful. It is fine to criticize individuals such as Dilip D'Souza, but that should not be used as an excuse to tarnish a whole country.

Bah!

"What I say may be flawed or wrongheaded, and I am happy to learn from my mistakes, but why the savagery of the attacks? What heresy have I committed that the angry men of the Right have drawn their daggers against me?"
-D'Souza

Robert,

He appears to be teetering a bit. This is about as good as an admission of error on his part, that you or anyone else are likely to receive. Methinks it is time to pin him down with your foot planted firmly on his neck, once and for all.

He has proven himself unqualified to speak of Islam, but will most assuredly be expecting the standard attacks, even though they all are warranted. A bit of creativity on your part at the debate, keeping him off balance, will serve you well.

All the best,

awake

Dinesh D'Souza should not be castigated as an "Indian." That's absurd. He is an example, rather, of a universal human type, the thrusting self-promoter, crossed with the pontificating pundit who pretends he's something a bit more: a "student" or even a "scholar" of this or that.

And the word "pundit" used in the posting above is now an English word, fully naturalized, but it comes from the Sanskrit "pandita" (a learned man), via Hindi. Nehru used to be called, not entirely without reason, Pandit Nehru.

The problem is that our pundits are so seldom pandits. Vaporings are not enough now that the old self-assured (and sometimes well-educated elites) are gone.

D.D'S. is a mere pundit. Only pundits who are also pandits, from now on, will do.

Lame Cherry: "D'Souza like all Indian males are passive and feminine in nature"

Now where did that come from? How many of the billion plus Indians have you met? Even if you take the 160m muslims out that leaves a lot of infidels fighting by your side. You don't shoot all your fellow soldiers because one of them has deserted and scurried across to the enemy.

Lame Cherry:

They're right. Lay off Indian men, please. Non-Indian anti-jihadists can only hope to attain to the fearlessness of lions like Babu Suseelan and Narain Kataria.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Having grown up in a country with more than 200 Americans, more in fact than anywhere else in the world, I believe I have more than a passing knowledge of American pop culture and its consumers... more in fact than Mr. D'Souza does.

That is why I take issue with the core element in Mr. D'Souza's thesis: American "pop" culture is decadent, a negative influence in the world and the reason why "anti-Americanism" is on the rise around the world.

The opposite is actually true. The young men and women who stood down Warsaw Pact tanks in Eastern Europe did so because they wanted the freedoms Americans had. How did they know about those freedoms? American "pop" culture. The protestors in Tiananmen Square found inspiration in American culture and believed their best protection was the presence of cameras from American satellite news channels.

If Mr. D'Souza was correct -- if American culture led to "anti-Americanism" among the traditional masses of the Middle East -- the mullahs in Iran and the princes of Arabia would be rushing to install satellite television dishes on every house, every school and every mosque in their lands. They are not. These oppressors know the minute the young people in their societies see American freedom they will point to their televisions and say, "That is what I want, and I will not wait until you die to get it!"

Of course, many elements of our culture deserve criticism. Too many individuals pursue profit by appealing to prurience and voyeurism. But abuse of cultural freedom is not a valid criticism of the freedom itself, only a comment on the character of the abusers. One can, like Mr. D'Souza does, "cherry-pick" vulgar rap lyrics, violent movies, or pornographic materials to make American seem a decadent materialist society. Soviet apparatchiks could run graduate seminars for Islamists on how to do it. Or they could just recommend Mr. D'Souza's book.

"Dinesh D'Souza should not be castigated as an "Indian." That's absurd. He is an example, rather, of a universal human type, the thrusting self-promoter":

a little of Philemon, a touch of Celse, another of Menippe; in a word, not an "honnete homme."

"Dinesh D'Souza should not be castigated as an "Indian." That's absurd. He is an example, rather, of a universal human type, the thrusting self-promoter":

a little of Philemon, a touch of Celse, another of Menippe; in two words, not an "honnete homme."

Marcus Aurelius wrote, "When you run into someone else's shamelessness, ask yourself this, 'Is a world without shamelessness possible?' No. Then don't ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of them."

BTW, Mr. Spencer -- being included in a critique with Victor Davis Hanson is quite a compliment. Keep defending Western Civilization!

teachingmyown

I couldn't have said it better.

D'Souza's characteristics are not typical of all Indian men. Eunuchs only make up a small percentage of all men, and that includes all Indian men.

a little of Philemon, a touch of Celse, another of Menippe; in two words, not an "honnete homme."
Posted by: ovidius_naso

For ignoramuses (and too lazy to do my own research) like moi can you please amplify on this?

Razdan

Ingnoramuses? Not more so than myself in the geography of Esquimos or Indian history (tried to remember any to prove Lame-Cherry wrong, and couldn't) or Rogers and Astaire movies ( a painful lapse, trust me) simple math or you name it.

You'll find those strange names as universal types (the self-promoter, the ass-kisser, the perpetual dissembler, the fame-seeker, etc.) in the 17th cent. French writer, La Bruyere's, book Les Caracteres (approx. translation: The Human Types). Brilliant and true, then and now, but don't tell anyone in the humanities today, or you'll be damned as an "essentialist."
Beware, though, that you might find yourself somewhere in there, probably not much, but shades of you, like I have, but it's so much fun that you'll get over it.
Best,
o_n

First off,
portugese did a bad job converting d souza.... aiming for catholic shooting for muslim haha

secondly,

you don't have to live with nazis to know their evils. it did not take americans to live in germany to realize hitler was a fanatic.

thirdly,

only 100-120 million muslims in india including DD haha

Razdan

One omre thing: "honnete homme" (honest/upright man) was the ideal against which everyone was measured in that mindset, and no matter how you would split the notion, and deconstruct it to death, as many are wont to do these days, one recognizes an honest man when one sees him. And DD is not one, no matter what else he is.

This is the same tool who, in an exchange with Srdja Trifkovic, couldn't tell him how the surahs in the Qur'an are arranged. This is a must read:

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/newsviews.cgi/Neoconservatives/Dinesh_the_Lying_Ch.html?seemore=y

Dinesh D'Souza may soon find that he and his patron saint Bernard Lewis are not in agreement.

Lewis spoke last week at an AEI event honoring him, on the subject of "Europe and Islam."

While there were things in Lewis' talk that would annoy JW/DW principals and readers, there were many things that struck me as dead-on, and contrary to D'Souza.

In particular, Lewis spoke in ways that suggest to me that he reckons that the current terrorist movement in Islam is a 3rd jihad, to be compared with 1st great jihad of the 7-8th centuries and the 2nd great jihad of the Ottoman period. That's a very JW/DW-ish kind of observation. The whole tenor of the talk was somber, and his concluding remarks were downright pessimistic. Again, D'Souza and Lewis are not in agreement. Perhaps Dinesh will deign to correct the great man.

The 3rd jihad remarks strike me as a huge admission, and one that I think D'Souza could not make without destroying his position, since he refuses to admit that the jihadists are mainstream by the standards of historical Islam.

C-Span2/BookTV aired this Saturday evening. Here is a link to the announcement; I can't see the video from my machine.

http://www.booktv.org/General/index.asp?segID=8003&schedID=479

Does anyone have a way of inviting Prof. Lewis to himself review D'Souza's book? That may be what it takes to finally shut D'Souza down.

Thanks, ovidius_naso for filling me in on the background to your quote. That's what I love so much about JW. There's always something new to learn here. Now I just can't wait to get my hands on La Bruyere's book 'Les Caracteres'. Hopefully, an English translation is available somewhere.

La Bruyere's "Characters" can be traced back to Theophrastus, who first offered his onwn "Characters about 2300 years ago.

At Wikipedia (to be shunned for many things, but useful for some other things) the following types in Theophrastus are listed:

The Insincere Man (Eironeia)
The Flatterer (Kolakeia)
The Garrulous Man (Adoleschia)
The Boor (Agroikia)
The Complaisant Man (Areskeia)
The Man without Moral Feeling (Aponoia)
The Talkative Man (Lalia)
The Fabricator (Logopoiia)
The Shamelessly Greedy Man (Anaischuntia)
The Pennypincher (Mikrologia)
The Offensive Man (Bdeluria)
The Hapless Man (Akairia)
The Officious Man (Periergia)
The Absent-Minded Man (Anaisthesia)
The Unsociable Man (Authadeia)
The Superstitious Man (Deisidaimonia)
The Faultfinder (Mempsimoiria)
The Suspicious Man (Apistia)
The Repulsive Man (Duschereia)
The Unpleasant Man (Aedia)
The Man of Petty Ambition (Mikrophilotimia)
The Stingy Man (Aneleutheria)
The Show-Off (Alazoneia)
The Arrogant Man (Huperephania)
The Coward (Deilia)
The Oligarchical Man (Oligarchia)
The Late Learner (Opsimathia)
The Slanderer (Kakologia)
The Lover of Bad Company (Philoponeria)
The Basely Covetous Man (Aischrokerdeia)

The English equivalent would be Sir Thomas Overbury, who limned occupational as well as character types: i.e., not only "The Miser" but also "The Merchant" or "The Maidservant." [I'm making these up, but they give an idea].

You choose one or more from the list above that you think might best fit the case of DD'S. What about "Microphilotimia" -- The Man of Petty Ambition?

Non-Indian anti-jihadists can only hope to attain to the fearlessness of lions like Babu Suseelan and Narain Kataria.
Cordially Robert Spencer

Robert notes "One other thing: in this NR piece D'Souza says offhandedly: "The Koran, like the Old Testament, has a number of passages recommending peace and others celebrating the massacre of the enemies of God.""

Yes, but "peace" in Islam means something quite different.

"At its core, Islam is a religious mission to all humanity. Muslims are religiously obliged to disseminate the Islamic faith throughout the world. "We have sent you forth to all mankind" (Q. 34:28). If non-Muslims submit to conversion or subjugation, this call (da'wa) can be pursued peacefully. If they do not, Muslims are obliged to wage war against them. In Islam, peace requires that non-Muslims submit to the call of Islam, either by converting or by accepting the status of a religious minority (dhimmi) and paying the imposed poll tax, jizya. World peace, the final stage of the da'wa, is reached only with the conversion or submission of all mankind to Islam...Muslims believe that expansion through war is not aggression but a fulfillment of the Qur'anic command to spread Islam as a way to peace. The resort to force to disseminate Islam is not war (harb), a word that is used only to describe the use of force by non-Muslims. Islamic wars are not hurub (the plural of harb) but rather futuhat, acts of "opening" the world to Islam and expressing Islamic jihad. Relations between dar al-Islam, the home of peace, and dar al-harb, the world of unbelievers, nevertheless take place in a state of war, according to the Qur'an and to the authoritative commentaries of Islamic jurists. Unbelievers who stand in the way, creating obstacles for the da'wa, are blamed for this state of war, for the da'wa can be pursued peacefully if others submit to it. In other words, those who resist Islam cause wars and are responsible for them. Only when Muslim power is weak is "temporary truce" (hudna) allowed (Islamic jurists differ on the definition of "temporary").” [12]

[12] Tibi, Bassam. (1996). War and Peace in Islam, in Terry Nardin (ed.) The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives. (pp. 129-131). Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.

"Fearlessness" by this or that warrior is not the only virtue. Traditionally tolerant, easygoing India has acquired a false reputation, in the West, spread especially by Muslims or collaborators, sometimes unwitting or merely fashionable, with Islam, who deliberately damage the reputations of all those who possess a strong sense of outrage, and resentment, about what the Muslim conquerors and invaders did to the people, the monuments, the civilization of India before Islam arrived, with all of its grim consequences. They do this by attributing to them, but not to Muslims themselves, what is called "communalism." But the only true supremacists in India, or that threaten India's tolerant and easygoing ways, are Muslim supremacists.

All kinds of non-Hindus rise without comment to the top, from a Sikh president to a Muslim-for-identification-purposes Muslim heading India's nuclear program, to General J. F. R. Jacob, a descendant of Bagdadi Jews who was the head of the Indian army during the successful 1971 war against Pakistan.

That may be more impressive to some than this or that fabled warrior. There are, of course, plenty of those fabled warriors in Indian history. The Sikhs, for example. And the Kshatriya warrior caste, in Hinduism. And what, after all, is the Mahabharata itself about if not fabled warriors, engaged in endless warfare?

Hugh

"Microphilotimia" gives me a particular kick since it's all over 18th and 19th centuries Greek-infused Romanian lettres as "filotimie" = a show of generosity and munifiscence, an oily and smooth good will behind which hides the eternal predator/arriviste. Can't count the number of "caracteres" in Romanian lit that have come out of that type, and so many others that the Greeks inherited from Theophrastus, and those types still inhabit Romania, massively, as if most people there were still stuck in time, when the Greeks in the Phanar quarter of Istanbul gained/bought livelihoods and power in the Romanian Principalities, and set the tone, the fashions, and the "cultured" language.

I've inherited some of that language, and I love it, but I'd never call my lover--or my shrink--psychi mou. It's just too sweet.

Hugh
I've just read your note about Theophrastus (I had no idea about his taxonomy; my French edition of La Bruyere, which comes with a translation of T, doesn't mention them) in The Iconoclast, and I can't stop laughing. It's the first time I've seen them (the only echo was microphylotimia, as I've said) and my "little Greek" is tickled.
Mind you, the suffix -ia denotes the abstract notion, not the members of the category, so
agroikia is not the boor, but boorishness, behaving like a peasant, farmer, a simpleton.

So here's my 2 penny-worth of pseudo-Cratylos etymology:

Adoleschia==speeking like an American college freshman, with an endless flow of "I'm like, why can't you understand, and she's like, you're like a looser," so I gather it's a species of juvenile verbal incontinence, with an angry, rebellious edge.

They had it back then, in Greece? How cool is it?

Never thought this website would feel a breeze Ex Ponto, or offer a melancholy hint of "Tristia" (Ovid or Mandelshtam, take your pick), but there is said to be a certain bridge on the Black Sea, and if you stand at one end of that bridge long enough, everyone you know in the whole wide world will eventually pass by.

This website may be trying to become that bridge. We better keep an eye on it.

Hugh:

Speaking of the Black Sea, the barbarous Euxine, land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, I think I see Tertullian passing over that bridge now. Do you remember what he said about the heretic Marcion? It puts even the most poison-penned of modern polemicists to shame -- "I know more than you do" indeed:

Pontus, qui dicitur Euxinus, natura negatur, nomine illuditur. Ceterum hospitalem Pontum nec de situ aestimes; ita ab humanioribus fretis nostris quasi quodam barbariae suae pudore secessit. Gentes ferocissimae inhabitant; si tamen habitatur in plaustro. Sedes incerta, vita cruda, libido promiscua et plurimum nuda, etiam cum abscondunt, suspensis de iugo pharetris indicibus, ne temere qui intercedat. Ita nec armis suis erubescunt. Parentum cadavera cum pecudibus caesa convivio convorant. Qui non ita decesserint ut escatiles fuerint, maledicta mors est. Nec feminae sexu mitigantur secundum pudorem; ubera excludunt, pensum securibus faciunt, malunt militare quam nubere. Duritia de caelo quoque. Dies nunquam patens, sol nunquam libens, unus aër nebula, totus annus hibernum, omne quod flaverit aquilo est. Liquores ignibus redeunt, amnes glacie negantur, montes pruina exaggerantur. Omnia torpent, omnia rigent; nihil illic nisi feritas calet, illa scilicet quae fabulas scenis dedit de sacrificiis Taurorum et amoribus Colchorum et crucibus Caucasorum. Sed nihil tam barbarum ac triste apud Pontum quam quod illic Marcion natus est, Scytha tetrior, Hamaxobio instabilior, Massageta inhumanior, Amazona audacior, nubilo obscurior, hieme frigidior, gelu fragilior, Istro fallacior, Caucaso abruptior.

Isn't that magnificent? It still gives me the shivers. And Marcion -- what could he have possibly said in reply?

Yours
Robert

I'm not a Latin from Manhattan. Not a Forty-Second-Streeter. But I see the Euxine mentioned toward the end. I'll take your word for it.

Hugh:

Very well, then. Here it is again, rendered in the blunt tongue of the Saxons:

Pontus, which is called the Euxine, is self-contradictory in its nature, and deceptive in its name. As you would not consider it hospitable from its situation, so is it severed from our more civilized waters by a certain stigma that attaches to its barbarity. The fiercest nations inhabit it, if indeed it can be called habitation, when life is passed in wagons. They have no fixed home; their life has no germ of civilization; they indulge their libidinous desires without restraint, and for the most part go naked. Moreover, when they gratify secret lust, they hang up their quivers on their car-yokes, to warn off the curious and rash observer. Thus without a blush do they prostitute their weapons of war. The dead bodies of their parents they cut up with their sheep, and devour at their feasts. They who have not died so as to become food for others are thought to have died an accursed death. Their women are not by their sex softened to modesty. They uncover the breast, from which they suspend their battle-axes, and prefer warfare to marriage. In their climate, too, there is the same rude nature. Daytime is never clear, the sun never cheerful; the sky is always cloudy; the whole year is wintry; the only wind that blows is the angry North. Waters melt only by fires; their rivers flow not by reason of the ice; their mountains are covered with heaps of snow. All things are torpid, all stiff with cold. Nothing there has the glow of life, but that ferocity which has given to scenic plays their stories of the sacrifices of the Taurians, and the loves of the Colchians, and the torments of the Caucasus. Nothing, however, in Pontus is so barbarous and sad as the fact that Marcion was born there, fouler than any Scythian, more roving than the wagon-life of the Sarmatian, more inhuman than the Massagete, more audacious than an Amazon, darker than the cloud, colder than its winter, more brittle than its ice, more deceitful than the Ister, more craggy than Caucasus.

Capisce?

Yrs
Robert

Kinda. It's deep. That Euxine Sea.

Hugh:

Come on.

Just listen: "Scytha tetrior, Hamaxobio instabilior, Massageta inhumanior, Amazona audacior, nubilo obscurior, hieme frigidior, gelu fragilior, Istro fallacior, Caucaso abruptior."

You don't need to know Latin to hear it.

R

(looking at Robert and Hugh)

Eh?

Yes, you're right.

It's as with Bossuet. You don't have to be a devout Catholic, you don't have to even like Bossuet, to enjoy the sonorities of the "Oraisons funebres." But some of those proper names need brushing up on. I'll try. Tomorrow.

Say -- doesn't that sound like a movie with Susan Hayward?

Hugh:

No, Olivia de Havilland.

Yrs
R

Regarding Narain Kataria

He is a Sindhi who got ethnic cleansed by his muslim neighbors in 1947
And once he got to India, he has maintained a deep and abiding hatred of islam

He then got involved in BJP type activities both in India and in the USA

He has seen islam up close and knows
I - Intolerance
S - Slaughter
L - Looting
A - Arson
M - Molestation ( Rape ) of kafir women

Hugh

Talking of Saint Petersburg prowlers and lovers:
thanks for mentioning, the other day, on some thread, Nabokov's "Speak, Memory"--le sans pareille, the most beautiful book written in English in the last century--that would have given Jdanov a heart attack, had he not been dead by then.

The ability to see two learned scholars of Islam, Robert and Hugh, interact on this site, delving occasionally into a realm outside of Islam and jihad, (usually well-above my simplistic head), touching on music, art, literature, cinema and sometimes, bad old cars is quite refreshing.

It is a pleasant respite from the collective task....oh the onerous task, at hand.

Because I'm half a world away I always get to the posts late but this assertion that the qur'an can only be understood in Arabic really gets to me.
When I lived in Saudi Arabia the local imams were giving away beautiful qur'ans....English language, printed in London. This was to try to get gullible Westerners to convert of course.
If it can't be translated why do they bother because they can't have it both ways..........oh, of course they can, they're muslims.
Marilyn

Olivia de Havilland? The eponymous airplane girl? No.

Susan Hayward is in "I'll Cry Tomorrow." From a book by Lillian Roth. Not Lillian Ross, author of "Movie" and "Talk Stories" and "Vertical and Horizontal."

Susan Hayward in the movie. From the book by Lillian Roth.

And another thing.

About that translation:

Did you have a little help?

What the hell am I doing up at this hour? I need my beauty sleep.

Hugh:

I really thought you meant Vivian Leigh, and so figured that Olivia de Havilland would be the apposite riposte.

Re the translation: some help, yes, as I am rusty after years of disuse of that most compact and expressive of tongues.

Yrs
R

Here's another version of the begining of ADVERSUS MARCIONEM by Ernest Evans:

"The sea called Euxine, or hospitable, is belied by its nature and put to ridicule by its name. Even its situation would prevent you from reckoning Pontus hospitable: as though ashamed of its own barbarism it has set itself at a distance from our more civilized waters. Strange tribes inhabit it—if indeed living in a wagon can
be called inhabiting.1 These have no certain dwelling-place: their life is uncouth: their sexual activity is promiscuous, and for the
most part unhidden even when they hide it: they advertise it by hanging a quiver on the yoke of the wagon, so that none may inadvertently break in. So little respect have they for their weapons
of war. They carve up their fathers' corpses along with mutton, to gulp down at banquets. If any die in a condition not good for eating, their death is a disgrace. Women also have lost the gentle-ness, along with the modesty, of their sex. They display their breasts, they do their house-work with battle-axes, they prefer
fighting to matrimonial duty. There is sternness also in the climate—never broad daylight, the sun always niggardly, the only air they have is fog, the whole year is winter, every wind
that blows is the north wind. Water becomes water only by heat-ing: rivers are no rivers, only ice: mountains are piled high up with snow: all is torpid, everything stark. Savagery is there the only thing warm—such savagery as has provided the theatre with tales of Tauric sacrifices, Colchian love-affairs, and Cauca-
sian crucifixions.

Even so, the most barbarous and melancholy thing about Pontus is that Marcion was born there, more uncouth than a Scythian, more unsettled than a Wagon-dweller, more un-civilized than a Massagete, with more effrontery than an Amazon,
darker than fog, colder than winter, more brittle than ice, more treacherous than the Danube, more precipitous than Caucasus."

Marcion, who tried to use his own wealth to effectively buy the Church, to get it to accept his attempt to sever Cristianity from its roots in Judaism, gave his name to the "Marcionist heresy" which has been used cleverly by apologists for Islam, pushing the line that Christianity has nothing to do with Judaism in order to promote their own anti-Israel agenda, and to better fool unwary Christians into believing that any worry over what Islam is all about is simply caused by those "warmongering Jews" -- this is all almost a verbatim repetition of what was done by Nazi agents, to keep the West deaf, dumb and blind until it was too late, by appealing to the most unpleasant mental pathologies of Western man.

Anyway, Tertullian gave Marcion no quarter. And no quarter should be given those promoting Marcionism (see the discussion of this in Bat Ye'or's "Eurabia") in order to weaken the understanding of, and resolve to confront, the menace of Islam, not merely to Western Christians, but to non-Muslims everywhere in the world.

Oh, so you are up. Nobody here but us chickens, then. Sometimes you must feel, as I do, like the blear-eyed man in the ad: "Time to make the donuts."

playing the "i grew up in India" card all the time when the name gives it all away - obviously of Portugese descent - almost certainly from Goa.

The Goans - as they will happily tell you "are not Indians" - and they also go out of their way to make Moslems and Hindus unwelcome within their society ...

There is 1 (one) Moslem family in the village where I stay - and most of the Hindus are cheap imported labour ...

There are more Moslems in London than there are in Goa ...

ovidius naso--

If you look through the JW archives, or at NER, you'll find other appreciative mentions of Nabokov, not limited to "Speak, Memory."

OK - I checked and although he has a Goan name he was "born in Mumbai" - hardly surprising since it is only 8 hours from Goa and has a large and thriving expat community of Goans. There is no information about where his family came from, what they were doing in Mumbai, nor how rich they were. The fact that he is now in the USA suggests that they weren't "landless peasants" or "day laborers" like a huge percentage of Indians ...

If he grew up in Mumbai he will be familiar with the things I have witnessed in Mumbai also - the young moslems in moslem barrios openly taking heroin, and the number of whorehouses that charge a months laborers' wages for prostitutes ...

I would also, respectfully suggest, that anyone growing up Christian in India is not truly Indian in the way that Hindus and Moslems are. There is a disconnection between the feelings of christians in India and the sense of continuity of history that both Hindus and Moslems display ...

I know - I have been to a country with 200 millions Moslems - several times - which is why I know damned well that the Ordinary Decent Moslems (ODMs) just want to get on with their lives ..

Hugh:

Evans' translation is better. But it is the string of comparatives at the end that I think are most effective, and those really work only in Latin.

Your point about Marcionism is very well taken. It is startling to see the fantasies of this old scoundrel revived at this late date.

As for "time to make the doughnuts," sometimes I think, someday there will be a day on which there is nothing to report about jihad activity. Alas, it hasn't come yet.

What are you doing up? Posting at 3:30AM and then at 5:30AM makes me think you have been up pacing all night, chainsmoking, pacing, assailing the seasons and mourning the ripe renown that made many a name so fragrant.

Get some sleep.

Yrs
R

All during my childhood, boyhood, and youth (sounds like a title by Tolstoy -- why by god I think it is a title by Tolstoy) I heard frequent mention, as aptly applying to me, of this poem Miniver Cheevy. And now that I am grown and come to man's estate (well, I hope I did), I'm hearing about Miniver Cheevy all over again. I really must read this poem.

I would also, respectfully suggest, that anyone growing up Christian in India is not truly Indian in the way that Hindus and Moslems are. There is a disconnection between the feelings of christians in India and the sense of continuity of history that both Hindus and Moslems display ...

One can argue that they don't have the numbers, but there's a lot more than that. For starters, the Brits never tried to pull off what the Moghuls and earlier sultans did - try and eliminate Hinduism. If DD were to make all the assertions he's making about the Brits, instead of the Muslims, he'd be correct.

Infidel Pride:

"For instance, take cricket matches - how many Christians would cheer South Africa, Australia, England or any of the other 'Christian' countries that play India? OTOH, you see Muslims cheering Pakistan regularly, particularly against India"

Good point and well taken.

The only problem is that last time I was in Mysore I spent an afternoon in a Moslem house in the Moslem neighbourhood watching Pakistan vs India on television ...

The talk was all of the cricket - a good shot was a good shot regardless of the nationality of the team involved - as we sat and sipped cardoman tea and ... watched cricket ...

I talked to the guys in the shop all afternoon - they were happy that this was a test match without the "Pakistan vs India" vibe that had poisoned so many matches and led to riots in the past

..

events like these are why I have hopes for "Ordinary Decent Moslems" even though I announce that "I Will Not Submit" ...