Whistling in the wind

Submitted by Gary Newman (Israel), Aug 27, 2002 at 11:08

Dr. Pipes,

I enjoy your artilcles immensely, not just for the information and insight that they provide but for the tone of stable, imaginative and multi-disciplinary thought that they imply. ..

Nevertheless I feel the need to caution you from what Americans call "whistling in the wind". In this article's (entitled "Islam's Future") attempt to assure me that the conflict between East and West (Islam vis a vis all the rest, if you wish) will ultimately be resolved by the superiority of Western logic, efficiency and what we like to call "success", I vainly searched for any evidence that "our way will win". Even though all parties are convinced that "God is on his side", no one REALLY knows.

I see this contest as an eternal dialectic in whcih a Darwinian survival of the fittest will not necessarily produce a "better" culture. There will be always be winners, who sooner or later will be overcome or seduced into assimilation by subsequent winners.

It would be nice to know the timetable for all of this (What will I live to see?), because it will all be irrelevant (to me anyway) after I'm gone.

Dr. Pipes, I would appreciate your response, either in a personal e-mail or in a future article (which I hopefully would receive in e-mail). Perhaps you DO see something that I don't -- something that would make me feel true hope that the world as we know it is not going down the drain. The Earth will survive; the question is: Who will live to see it and enjoy it?

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