Kontextmaschine

29th May 2015

Post with 46 notes

The cultural characteristics attached to “Islam” in the West are a great example of memetic drift.

When Europe was dominated by civilly warring Christianity while the Ottomans maintained their polyglot, polyfaith empire, Islam was associated with humanism and tolerance. Which is why Freemasonry adopted Islamic imagery for their secret society of freethinkers.

As recently as the 1950s, Islamic culture was associated with gender fluidity, homosexuality, and acceptance of sexual deviance. (To this day, Islamic Morocco is known for its openness to pederastic sex tourism.)

And yet, who today…?

Of course what it really was was the shift from the Ottomans expending resources to put forth near eastern culture, specifically Anatolian, as equivalent to Islam so as to enhance their power; to the Saudis doing the same with middle eastern, specifically Arabian culture.

If there’s any first mover here it’s the maritime culture/desert culture distinction.