Considering that both Christianity and Islam are off-spring of the monotheistic Judaic religion, one would almost think we were back in the days of Cain and Abel, when jealousy led to the latter's slaying and the charged question, "am I my brother's keeper" was raised to reverberate down through the ages. And still brothers don't automatically get along.
Who's fault is that?
Was it the fault of the Creator who, for some inexplicable reason, appeared to favor the sacrifice of a lamb, rather than an offering of the fruits of the earth? Or was that just Cain's story and he stuck to it, blaming someone else for having offed his brother over such a silly thing? Jealousy and a habit of shirking responsibility for our own mistakes are all too human flaws, and with us still, despite the best efforts of the Christian and Islamic faiths to reform both expectations and results. Men are quick to hate each other, not as a consequence of competition for a common good, but rather as a result of the conflict between the impulse to dominate and to resist being subordinate. For some reason, the reality that all men are not only brothers but are created equal does not always satisfy. Certainly, the recent inventors of the "islamofascist" tag for people, whom they hardly understand, have no desire to recognize their brotherhood either in fact or in faith. The suggestion that there might be just as good a reason to apply the christofascist tag to them probably comes as a shock.
But, what's a fascist, anyway?
A fasces is a bundle of sticks that's obviously stronger than one stick by itself. More recently, the groups in Italy and Germany, who identified themselves as fascists in the decades before World War II, have been identified with and supportive of the non-state corporations, as opposed to a society organized around the common ownership of assets and resources (communistic) or individual rights (democratic). That there is strength in numbers is indisputable; that the individual needs to be trimmed to match all the others, as the inclusion of the axe suggests, is what makes fascism repulsive.
And yet, that's exactly what the neocons in the United States are promoting--the dominance of a group whose members attain distinction by submitting to an authoritarian regime that's entitled to make and solely responsible for all decisions. So, although I'm not personally versed in the organization of the theocratic state under the direction of Islam, to the extent that the Iranian state controls both natural resources and production, it would seem that the antagonism directed at Iran is prompted, at least in part, by a jealous awareness of powers that the U.S. leadership, according to the Constitution, can't employ.
It's not the first time.
Looking back to the time when "godless communist" regimes were considered a menace and a threat by the West, it now seems obvious that the objections had less to do with the godlessness of the system (which is actually consistent with the principle that church and state should be separate), than with the perception that the centralized authoritarian state (heavy on planning and production controls) was something worth attaining, if only the commitment to equal rights and popular government could be overcome. Which is why, subsequent to the collapse of the totalitarian soviet state, there's been a concerted effort in the United States to erect a new version of the totalitarian state, which incorporates the best of the strategies--the shield of the theocratic myth, which assigns all authority (and all responsibility) to a godhead; the privilege of the private corporation (practically accountable to no-one); and the facade of the individual's right to participate in the civil process by selecting the (irresponsible) ruling authority at the ballot box. Jealousy and a lust for power has brought us to the present, the Bush/Cheney administration.
So, what's the matter with Iran?
Why is Iran being characterized as Islamofascist, as if that were a bad thing? After all, isn't a theocratic authoritarian state exactly like what the Christofascists want to set up in the New World to promote order around the globe? Wouldn't it make sense to partner with Iran, as a model of how it's done? You'd think, but you'd be wrong. Because, you see, Iran is the modern Abel, the fellow whose peripatetic life-style as a herder represented a challenge to Cain the agriculturalist and antecedent of civilization, whose punishment--to roam the earth and enjoy the settled life only from time to time--frustrates the impulse to dominate, even now.
Wherefore the impulse to dominate?
I think it's related to how our brains work. Memory, which we do share with other creatures, combined with the ability to move from place to place, makes it desirable that other things and people stay in place because that makes them easier to find again. Humans have a preference for permanence, except when they themselves initiate some change. And, to keep other humans from wandering off at will, they can either resort to restraints or bribes--i.e. enhanced benefits for staying put.
Memory may also account for our ambivalence about failure and success. Indeed, without memory we'd likely have no awareness of failure or success. But, there's a draw-back. Remembered failure, if it isn't fatal (as mistaking one mushroom for another might well be), is likely to inhibit future action, even as success prompts repetition, until boredom prompts us to make some change. So, we like success and avoid failure. And the intervention of authority not only insures success, but mitigates the negative effect of failure. That is, if we can blame someone else for giving bad directions, we're more likely to adjust and try again. Authority, in short, has a positive effect--unless, as so many other human attributes are liable to do, it becomes malignantly transformed into the abusive exercise of power we recognize as authoritarian rule.
Reconciling the impulse to dominate with the impulse to roam freely--i.e. individual liberty.
While the impulse to dominate by exercising authority is obviously supported by the benefits of submission (the ability to abdicate individual responsibility for failure or success, the down-side to the bargain involved in trading autonomy for obedience is the loss of liberty. If "Obedience to the law is freedom" from responsibility, it's also the loss of choice and self-direction, which those who would impose that condition justify on the grounds that self-directed human behavior is inherently bad. In other words, the original sin wasn't one of disobedience, a violation of a directive, but of making a choice to ignore a directive and, accepting responsibility, act on one's own direction, regardless of the potential consequence.
You could call it "courting failure." Which probably prompts the observation that, for some reason, large segments of the American population have become failure averse (as evidenced by their submission to religious leaders and their assurance that obedience is a guarantee of being always right), even as large segments of the American industrial, commercial and financial sectors seem to have adopted a strategy of "failure by design." It's ironic and a puzzlement.
How did a nation of adventurers become afraid and addicted to failure?
Is there an undercurrent of insecurity--the result of having been, for the most part, rejected by their countries of origin--which accounts for the American addiction to demonstrating their superiority by the use of force, rather than the force of their example? Or is the impulse towards global domination just another example of hierarchical christianity run amok?