Quote from a Pre-PC Leftist

Here’s a wonderful quote from Bertrand Russell on Arabic philosophy:

"Arabic philosophy is not important as original thought. Men like Avicenna and Averroes are essentially commentators. Speaking generally, the views of the more scientific philosophers come from Aristotle and the Neoplatonists in logic and metaphysics, from Galen in medicine, from Greek and Indian sources in mathematics and astronomy, and among mystics religious philosophy has also an admixture of old Persian beliefs. Writers in Arabic showed some originality in mathematics and in chemistry – in the latter case, as an incidental result of alchemical researches. Mohammedan civilization in its great days was admirable in the arts and in many technical ways, but it showed no capacity for independent speculation in theoretical matters. Its importance, which must not be underrated, is as a transmitter. Between ancient and modern European civilization, the dark ages intervened. The Mohammedans and the Byzantines, while lacking the intellectual energy required for innovation, preserved the apparatus of civilization – education, books, and learned leisure. Both stimulated the West when it emerged rom barbarism – the Mohammedans chiefly in the thirteenth century, the Byzantines chiefly in the fifteenth. In each case the stimulus produced new thought better than any produced by the transmitters – in the one case scholasticism, in the other the Renaissance (which however had other causes also)." [A History of Western Philosophy, p. 427]

Russell had no multicultural or cultural relativist tendencies. He plainly declared in the first sentence that Arabic philosophy was unoriginal. He obviously saw it as nothing but a bridge between the ancient Greeks and Romans and modern Europeans, all of whom he rated as superior to it. He used the word Mohammedan, which has become anathema for the stupidest of reasons. (See below.) And finally, in the chapter from which this passage is taken, there is no tiresome salute to medieval Spain as an amazingly egalitarian culture of Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

As for the word “Mohammedan,” we are told that Muslims object to this because it entails that they regard Muhammad as a God. But it doesn’t. The word is no different in grammatical form from the word Lutheran, and Lutherans do not worship Luther as a God, nor does anyone think that they do, nor does anyone regard that word as entailing that they do.

In a previous post (here), I observed that leftists had given certain groups what is in effect a blank check, one such group being Muslims. Giving a group a blank check may seem like a great idea to leftists, but it isn’t. And one such reason it is not is that it is similar to spoiling a child. Giving in to its every whim doesn’t really help the child grow up, plus it develops a personality that repels people. Likewise, giving in to the Muslims’ every whim doesn’t help them at all in economic and other sorts of development, plus it makes them arrogant, which repels people. Instead of giving in on this point, leftists should have said firmly that they were wrong and that the word Mohammedan did not have that implication, anymore than the word Lutheran has a similar implication.