So if the lingo was, say Ebonics, a fair criticism would be that it is not internally constant. (However, a Valley Girl speaking Ebonics might be pretty funny.) But the point was that an internal constancy is desirable. If I see an inconsistency I have a big problem.

Right. Like I said, I'm willing to judge movies based on their own internal conventions; I just want them consistently applied. For instance, when the Kevin Costner Robin Hood came out, people criticized him for not having a British accent. That in and of itself doesn't bother me, any more than a movie set in medieval times having people who speak in conventional times doesn't bother me. What made that Robin Hood weird was that some people had British accents, some had inconsistent British accents, and some had none. That bugged me. Likewise, if in a movie you have some characters who speak in modern slang but some who speak like era-appropriate people, that's a problem, to my lights.

But maybe, as well, you’re missing the point that ‘truth in film,’ as it were (and I’m not original in this; see Bazin, Deleuze), isn’t simply propositional or plot-driven. There are all sorts of different aesthetic phenomenological manifolds going on … often I don’t really care about plot at all, and many great films don’t care so much about it either.

I respect that. I just think that there's got to be some sort of artistic tradeoff to be had and, often enough, there is none. But that's a good point and well taken.

The point being, that the Ottomans represent the natural evolution of an initially far more radical ideology. With power, with responsibility, with hegemony, came a liberalization and moderation that has since dissipated in the Arab world--in part due to the collapse of the Ottoman rule and the subsequent rise in nationalism. Hence we can see nationalism inflaming a more radical Islamism and the two working in tandem, fanning each others' flames.

I disagree, Roque. At one point the Ottoman's ruled the region, with their own brand of Islamism, and they were able to trade and dialogue with the West. In some respects, the very moderation of the Ottoman Islamism was what made them great and lasting. It also proves that such a society can exist, and could exist again.

So, essentially you’re saying that they will not negotiate their Islamist world view any more than we would our Western–and we cannot dialogue with them until they have given that up.

Correct

They live in their world, and we in ours. We can meet at the same table with two world views and find either common ground or not.

You can say this because this is part of your Western, liberal worldview. They don't share this belief. According to Islamic law, any negotiation with the infidel is carried out by deceit and its goal is just to buy time for rearming and reorganizing. An example is the use of the word, "cease fire" to describe the situation in Gaza. Western sources translate the Arabic term, hudna, as cease fire because this benefits Hamas. They never talk about a cease fire, which is… ceasing to fire, a truce, etc. They only talk about a hudna, which is a "lull" in the fighting.

But what would this "common ground" consist of? Something like freedom of trade? How about respect for individual rights? How about just simply "live and let live?" None of this can be acceptable to the Islamist worldview. In fact, it's practically the same situation as what existed before they declared war on us by their suicide attacks and fatwahs. Before that, we were just buying and selling stuff over there in a peaceful way. The point is, they have a globalizing worldview and so do we. There's only one world. Therefore someone's got to lose. I want it to be them.

They cannot be negotiated with insofar as their Islamicism—just as we cannot be negotiated with insofar as our Western values. The point of Roy’s piece and your agreement with it is to legitimize Hamas. This cannot happen as long as they adhere to their Islamist world view.

So, essentially you're saying that they will not negotiate their Islamist world view any more than we would our Western--and we cannot dialogue with them until they have given that up.

So...you're saying, in so many words, we can't dialogue ever because they will never give up their world view, and that is a world view that we can never dialogue with. I disagree entirely. They live in their world, and we in ours. We can meet at the same table with two world views and find either common ground or not. How will we know until it's actually attempted?

And keep everything open and transparent. Demand accountability, unlike the debacle with Arafat and his cronies...Require more transparency then we do of our own financial system...

The piece I link to is by one of the most prominent proponents of dialogue with Hamas and of the thesis that we should negotiate with them. Roy is an established scholar of the world of Islam, and this article was published today, which is why I chose this article to link to.

I don't know if you've ever read any of his books or are otherwise familiar with him. But it's interesting that you're repeating his thesis here: "there is a major distinction between jihadists waging war for a global caliphate and nationalists like Hamas." The point of my critique is that this is a distinction without a difference. The call for the global caliphate is nothing but a propaganda ploy by al Qaida. I don't know if any other Islamist groups adhere to this, or even if al Qaida does. What I do know—and supported by referring to Bassam Tibi (another established scholar of this problem) is that Islamists want to establish "the realization of (Islamic) peace … for the entire humanity." This does not mean some kind of world government, i.e., the "global caliphate." Roy is wrong. You are wrong. All Islamists are… well… Islamists. They cannot be negotiated with insofar as their Islamicism—just as we cannot be negotiated with insofar as our Western values. The point of Roy's piece and your agreement with it is to legitimize Hamas. This cannot happen as long as they adhere to their Islamist world view.

Bob, Dreher's "crunchy con" theme is sort of granola-conservatives--think socially conservative hippies. I think my take is slightly more practical than Rod's because he advocates such a move toward pre-modernism, whereas Scott and myself and others advocate more of a balanced approach.

Islamists you can talk to - International Herald Tribune by Oliver Roy

This would be the "essential distinction" that Roy is pushing:

There is nothing to negotiate with the global jihadists, but the Islamo-nationalist movements simply cannot be ignored or suppressed.

The "war on terror" during the Bush years has blurred this essential distinction by merging all the armed opponents to U.S.-supported governments under the label of terrorism. The concept of a "war on terror" has thwarted any political approach to the conflicts in favor of an elusive military victory.

Roy wants us to believe that Bush is responsible for assuming that Islamists share the same goals, while correctly criticizing Bush for using the label, "war on terror." Yes, we all know by now that "terror" is a tactic and that war cannot be waged against a tactic. But Roy uses this observation for an unusual bait-and-switch. Not all Islamists advocate the violent jihad—terror. Not all terrorists are Islamists. But how does he get from here to the idea that Hamas will negotiate in good faith? He says,

Hamas is nothing else than the traditional Palestinian nationalism with an Islamic garb.

There is no further support for this assertion in the rest of the article. We're supposed to believe this is true just because Roy says it is. He continues to obfuscate the issue:

Where a political approach has been tried, it has worked. The relative success of the surge in Iraq is based on the implicit rejection of the official doctrine of the "war on terror": Local armed insurgents were recognized as political actors with more or less a legitimate agenda, thus separating them from the foreign-based global militants who did not give a damn about Iraqi national interests.

Aside from the snide qualifier, "relative," to describe the pacification of the world's most violent region, Roy assumes that the Sunni tribe in Iraq are Islamists, who turned against al Qaida because they "did not give a damn about Iraqi national interests." Where is the evidence that the Sunni tribes share the Islamist ideology? All the evidence shows that they do not—they are Muslims but not Islamists.

So… the basic mistakes of mislabeling the war and of thinking that all Islamists are terrorists leads to the unwarranted labeling of Hamas as a nationalist movement. Roy's audience will jump at this so as to legitimize Hamas. Nationalism is a foundation of Western values and it is integral to Western globalization, so it goes without saying that we should negotiate with nationalist movements. But Roy is pushing his own false "merging," which is much more dangerous than Bush's: he is "merging" Muslim nationalists with non violent Islamists. Of course we can and should negotiate with Muslim nationalists—we negotiate with the PA, don't we? But Muslim nationalists—like the Sunni tribes—are not Islamists.

But is it true that Islamists can be divided into globalized vs. nationalist movements?

Here's a scholar who says "no:"

Islamists state "al-Islam huwa al-hall/Islam is the solution." In this context the nominal nation-states in the world of Islam stand in conflict with the inherited dichotomous religion-base division of the world into the house/abode of Islam/dar al-Islam and the house of unbelievers/dar al-kuffar or house of war/dar al-harb. This dichotomy is based on a Weltanschaauung/worldview not supported by political structures. But now these states are also exposed to the demand of Islamists to be replaced by a divine order of an "Islamic state" consonant with the Islamic worldview. […] The call for global jihad is not simply terrorism. It is a call against the nation state in current world affairs. In Qutb's book Islam and World Peace we read that the goal of political Islam is "to defeat any power on earth that prevents the mapping of the world under the 'call to Islam/da'wa.'" This is the contemporary definition of Islamic global proselytization. Jihadism attaches this da'wa to military action heralding the context of religion and world politics in a bid for a remaking of the world.

The succinct phrase by Qutb for determining the Islamic uprising reads:

Islam needs a comprehensive revolution … being a jihad prescribed on Muslims to lead this revolution to success for establishing the 'Hakimiyyat Allah/rule of God' In short, jihad envisions a world revolution/thawra alamiyya… for the realization of (Islamic) peace … for the entire humanity … These are the outlines for world peace in Islam … This does not mean to avoid war/qital at any price … Islam is a permanent jihad which well not cease until Allah's mission rules the world.

In fact, this declaration of an Islamic world revolution is tantamount to a declaration of war on the present world order an is therefore, regardlss of what it claims, most definitely not a message of peace, eneither of global Islamic-Western relation nor for Europe's relations with its Islamic diaspora.

Therefore, not all Islamists are violent jihadists, i.e., are not terrorists. But all Islamists share the goal world revolution to establish the so-called rule of God.

Even if Hamas wants control over Palestine, and so can be confused with a nationalist movement in the Western style and even if it does renounce violent jihad/terror, they will never renounce their most basic goal because this is part of their worldview. Nobody will ever negotiate their worldview—we won't do it either. This is why there's a war on: there are two globalizing worldviews and only one world. The Islamists must be defeated or we will be.

I too was troubled by the Joker supposedly being an agent of choas, a 'man without a plan' pulling off such intricately, impossibly detailed convoluted plans. But then I caught the movie again and I think a different take on the Joker makes better sense.

Forget about the Joker's speech to Dent. It's his final speech that reveals his true nature. The Joker is like the Devil in the Book of Job. You recall the Devil tried to break Job by tormenting him with an array of horrors. Horrors so unlikely to all happen at once that they are almost totally implausible. I think this is what the Joker is about in The Dark Knight. He pushes and tests Batman, Dent and the people of Gotham by constantly upping the ante.

When I saw the movie I was struck with how realistic it seemed. Many seens took place during the day where Batman and his gizmos look kind of silly. Gotham isn't the semi-fantastic city from the first movie or the movies in the 1990's but a pretty real looking city. The reaction to the Joker isn't all that unrealistic as you make it out. In the real world who would have expected the Joker to not only plant a bomb inside one of his cronies but also to be able to time the arrest of himself and his crony just right so that the bomb would spring him from jail? Like the Devil, the Joker's torments are realistic in the sense that we can imagine a terrorist or criminal doing any one or a few of them but there is something borderline supernatural in his ability to gather all the torments together and keep inflicting them on the victim. There's a moment when you imagine the people of Gotham saying 'no way' as they hear not only has the Joker escaped but planted a bomb in a hospital...wait blew up a hospital but now will blow up two giant ferries filled with people! How did Job feel when he suddenly woke up with oozing sores AFTER his wife died, his kids died, his livestock died, his house burned etc.

Unlike Job, the Joker is pushing multiple people. Batman mostly passes, resisting the temptation to violate his rule against killing the criminals he fights. Dent fails, allowing himself to be sold on the idea that his committment to justice was just an illusion and the world is nothing more than meaningless chance. The people of Gotham pass after both its criminals and citizens decide they will not murder others to save their own lives.

Your comment on internal consistency in movies is so to the point. I recently recommended Tropic Thunder to a buddy. I said it was very funny, which to me it is, but even though it could be called stupid, I did not see any inconsistency within it's story. And besides Tom Cruse is a treasury, the last bit with him dancing by himself is something I wont soon forget.

Keith, I think marijuana would no longer be a gateway drug simply due to the elimination of the dealer from the sale. The dealer is often a purveyor of more than merely weed--often offering harder drugs, or knowing of connections to other dealers who might be able to provide those other drugs. This is essentially why alcohol is not really a gateway drug. If it were illegal, however, the booze pusher might very well also push coke, LSD, or worse...

Chris--excellent post. I hadn't even considered the rise of a state-cartel, but it's an interesting notion to be sure...