That's the thing, this tribal stuff pops up all over, it's emergent regardless of "nurture" - it can be either be suppressed or weaponized by "nurture". So it's more fundamental, natural, evolutionary, whatever. And humans don't have the monopoly on it.
Okay, I take your point. But still, the three Abrahamic "tribes," with their geographic spread, are spilling disproportionately more blood in that weaponization - and doing it for explicitly religious reasons, which was the author's point in the OP you minimized to start all of this.
And it all traces back to a handful of metaphysically atrocious claims in the Bible's Torah. Reduce their cultural sway and it seems plausible you'd reduce that "emergence."
Nobody's denying aggressive instincts exist in individuals, tribes, and non-primates, or that they're "more fundamental, natural, evolutionary." Nature produces malign seeds. Cultures can water them or uproot them.
We've gone far enough. I see your point about nature - it's self-evident, really. Equally so, to me, is the role of genocidal "divinely-revealed" religions that exacerbate it. And that's culture.
"doing it for explicitly religious reasons" just doesn't make sense and, as I said, a distraction - there are far and away too many significantly important non-religious factors (land, resources, outside meddling, etc) for middle east factional conflict that are waved away through this framing. If religion was such a factor, ISIS would not be suicide bombing Iran before other more obvious religiously motivated targets and Israel would have zero chance of diplomatic ties with SA and Egypt before Iran - it just doesn't hold water. It only applies as far as motivating the mob as needed, not the real power brokers.
Your list of other motivations is also valid. But the "land" claim goes back to Isaac and Ishmael, and are explicitly cited by Israeli cabinet officials to justify the genocide in Gaza.
ISIS is indeed motivated by "outside meddling" by the US, but the Sunni/Shiite split goes back to a dispute in the Qur'an following Mohammad's death.
So again, I agree: nothing is simple and everything is "over-determined," not just caused by one factor. But I have to say you evince a strong resistance to the cultural/religious factor as central to that mix.
No, the land is conquered because the ethnostate needs room to first exist, then expand, and the natives on it are causing trouble because they got kicked off land already. It doesn't ultimately make any difference what claims exist in BCE or CE on that land, in scriptures or UN mandates/resolutions or anything else, the state will move to take it and make any excuse it can to do so. This is playing out now in real-time.
"explicitly cited by Israeli cabinet officials to justify the genocide in Gaza" to motivate the normy peasantry that identifies with that mythic story - you will notice this is never the justification outside of its own identified community (eg western nations, UN, etc) because it's a spell to which outsiders are generally immune (certain evangelicals and AIPAC sluts excluded). Outsiders get lines like "the only liberal democracy" and "we love the gays" and "we are western, not psycho terrorist arabs" BS. All of it is BS.
It does evince my resistance because you seem to me to be reducing far too much into the religious/cultural(as pertains to a group's religious texts) factor as a fundamental root cause, which isn't productive for comprehending the fundamental forces at work. It's great to be aware of it, but it's not as fundamental as you seem to make it out to be. It's a secondary factor that's exploited to achieve more fundamental tribal aims that undergird any religious/cultural concerns.
Do you have a source that really synthesizes and brings home the idea that these non-"non-theistic" factors are really a significant fundamental outside of coercing the masses to support a movement? I'd like to check it out.
I grant your point in my first sentence, and conclude by granting the multiple factors "over-determining" the mess that again, essentially grants your points.
Your first word in response to my counter-point is "no." You claim I'm "reducing" when I'm only contending that religion is indeed central to the mix. On the contrary, I still see you as resisting - "excluding" or "defending" - Abrahamic religions far more than my alleged "reducing" things to it.
Case in point: you bring up the very real examples of US evangelicals and AIPAC to concede my point, but then dismiss them as unrepresentative and thus not an issue. AIPAC funds the lawmakers, and voters have elected many evangelicals to Congress (Mike Johnson is a great case in point).
And this claim gets things historically backwards: "[Religion]'s a secondary factor that's exploited to achieve more fundamental tribal aims that undergird any religious/cultural concerns." Logically, the tribes, from early Israel to Christian cults in Rome to Mohammad's sect in Arabia, *were formed on the basis of precisely these religious narratives.*
Analysts call "Greater Israel" not an "ethno-state," but an "ethno-religious state" for good reason. God signed an eternal and Torah-based real estate deal with them in the Bronze Age, and that's central - not exclusively, but still central - to their current ideology.
FWIW, I think at some point we're just going to have to "agree to disagree." Though I really don't disagree with the other factors you adduce. I've enjoyed the dialogue, but it seems pretty clear not much more is going to come from it.
We're double threading it. I have to maintain my position. I salute your patience.
Evangelicals and AIPAC sluts are being coerced wholly by religion in the first case and religion and/or money in the second by a power that at the same time is using nonreligious propaganda to sell itself to other factions. Thus it's not evidence of any mythic story as a fundamental mover, it's used to exploit. (even if I stated it badly the first time)
Analysts just as likely refer to it as an ethnoreligious state because that's it's main method of organizing and rationalizing itself to those who buy into the messianic mythos. The early planners of the project in their writings don't seem to be interested at all in what the F Yahweh allotted to Isaac or Ishmael. They wanted someplace to escape to and thrive, even if it was Argentina - basic. It began from something fundamental, but utilized the religious/cultural mythos to motivate the plebs to move there and die for it. Nothing has changed that I can tell - it's largely about thriving/money/power and getting the normies to go out and die for it - same as it ever was.
fwiw I'm glad to learn the factoid about no history of genocide with confucianism and jainism - if life someday makes room for a spiritual dedication again jainism was top of the list for me to have a stroll with
That's the thing, this tribal stuff pops up all over, it's emergent regardless of "nurture" - it can be either be suppressed or weaponized by "nurture". So it's more fundamental, natural, evolutionary, whatever. And humans don't have the monopoly on it.
Okay, I take your point. But still, the three Abrahamic "tribes," with their geographic spread, are spilling disproportionately more blood in that weaponization - and doing it for explicitly religious reasons, which was the author's point in the OP you minimized to start all of this.
And it all traces back to a handful of metaphysically atrocious claims in the Bible's Torah. Reduce their cultural sway and it seems plausible you'd reduce that "emergence."
Nobody's denying aggressive instincts exist in individuals, tribes, and non-primates, or that they're "more fundamental, natural, evolutionary." Nature produces malign seeds. Cultures can water them or uproot them.
We've gone far enough. I see your point about nature - it's self-evident, really. Equally so, to me, is the role of genocidal "divinely-revealed" religions that exacerbate it. And that's culture.
"doing it for explicitly religious reasons" just doesn't make sense and, as I said, a distraction - there are far and away too many significantly important non-religious factors (land, resources, outside meddling, etc) for middle east factional conflict that are waved away through this framing. If religion was such a factor, ISIS would not be suicide bombing Iran before other more obvious religiously motivated targets and Israel would have zero chance of diplomatic ties with SA and Egypt before Iran - it just doesn't hold water. It only applies as far as motivating the mob as needed, not the real power brokers.
Your list of other motivations is also valid. But the "land" claim goes back to Isaac and Ishmael, and are explicitly cited by Israeli cabinet officials to justify the genocide in Gaza.
ISIS is indeed motivated by "outside meddling" by the US, but the Sunni/Shiite split goes back to a dispute in the Qur'an following Mohammad's death.
So again, I agree: nothing is simple and everything is "over-determined," not just caused by one factor. But I have to say you evince a strong resistance to the cultural/religious factor as central to that mix.
No, the land is conquered because the ethnostate needs room to first exist, then expand, and the natives on it are causing trouble because they got kicked off land already. It doesn't ultimately make any difference what claims exist in BCE or CE on that land, in scriptures or UN mandates/resolutions or anything else, the state will move to take it and make any excuse it can to do so. This is playing out now in real-time.
"explicitly cited by Israeli cabinet officials to justify the genocide in Gaza" to motivate the normy peasantry that identifies with that mythic story - you will notice this is never the justification outside of its own identified community (eg western nations, UN, etc) because it's a spell to which outsiders are generally immune (certain evangelicals and AIPAC sluts excluded). Outsiders get lines like "the only liberal democracy" and "we love the gays" and "we are western, not psycho terrorist arabs" BS. All of it is BS.
It does evince my resistance because you seem to me to be reducing far too much into the religious/cultural(as pertains to a group's religious texts) factor as a fundamental root cause, which isn't productive for comprehending the fundamental forces at work. It's great to be aware of it, but it's not as fundamental as you seem to make it out to be. It's a secondary factor that's exploited to achieve more fundamental tribal aims that undergird any religious/cultural concerns.
Do you have a source that really synthesizes and brings home the idea that these non-"non-theistic" factors are really a significant fundamental outside of coercing the masses to support a movement? I'd like to check it out.
I grant your point in my first sentence, and conclude by granting the multiple factors "over-determining" the mess that again, essentially grants your points.
Your first word in response to my counter-point is "no." You claim I'm "reducing" when I'm only contending that religion is indeed central to the mix. On the contrary, I still see you as resisting - "excluding" or "defending" - Abrahamic religions far more than my alleged "reducing" things to it.
Case in point: you bring up the very real examples of US evangelicals and AIPAC to concede my point, but then dismiss them as unrepresentative and thus not an issue. AIPAC funds the lawmakers, and voters have elected many evangelicals to Congress (Mike Johnson is a great case in point).
And this claim gets things historically backwards: "[Religion]'s a secondary factor that's exploited to achieve more fundamental tribal aims that undergird any religious/cultural concerns." Logically, the tribes, from early Israel to Christian cults in Rome to Mohammad's sect in Arabia, *were formed on the basis of precisely these religious narratives.*
Analysts call "Greater Israel" not an "ethno-state," but an "ethno-religious state" for good reason. God signed an eternal and Torah-based real estate deal with them in the Bronze Age, and that's central - not exclusively, but still central - to their current ideology.
FWIW, I think at some point we're just going to have to "agree to disagree." Though I really don't disagree with the other factors you adduce. I've enjoyed the dialogue, but it seems pretty clear not much more is going to come from it.
We're double threading it. I have to maintain my position. I salute your patience.
Evangelicals and AIPAC sluts are being coerced wholly by religion in the first case and religion and/or money in the second by a power that at the same time is using nonreligious propaganda to sell itself to other factions. Thus it's not evidence of any mythic story as a fundamental mover, it's used to exploit. (even if I stated it badly the first time)
Analysts just as likely refer to it as an ethnoreligious state because that's it's main method of organizing and rationalizing itself to those who buy into the messianic mythos. The early planners of the project in their writings don't seem to be interested at all in what the F Yahweh allotted to Isaac or Ishmael. They wanted someplace to escape to and thrive, even if it was Argentina - basic. It began from something fundamental, but utilized the religious/cultural mythos to motivate the plebs to move there and die for it. Nothing has changed that I can tell - it's largely about thriving/money/power and getting the normies to go out and die for it - same as it ever was.
fwiw I'm glad to learn the factoid about no history of genocide with confucianism and jainism - if life someday makes room for a spiritual dedication again jainism was top of the list for me to have a stroll with