Great explanation of where islam is now compared to the West
Re: Stranger Than We Can Imagine by John Higgs, page 312, 313
SNIP............
In alchemy, there is a process known as solve et coagula. Solve means the process of reductionism or analysis; the reducing of a substance to its indivisible components. ...............This is equivalent to taking a pocket watch to pieces in order to understand completely how it works,....... Coagula is the reassembly of the pocket-watch in a perfected, or at least improved, form. It is the equivalent of synthesis as opposed to that of analysis.
In cultural terms, the individualism of the twentieth century can be likened to the process of solve taken to its logical end. Everything was isolated, and in isolation it was understood.
The network (internet) allows the process of coagula. Things are being reconnected, but with transparency and understanding that we did not have before the process of solve. Things are still liberated enough to be recombined into wild postmodern culture such as Super Mario Bros. But this can be done now with a sense of purpose and intention that was perhaps lacking before (in post modernism).
This does not mean, of course, that the hierarchies of the past or the individualism of the twentieth century are not still alive and kicking. Like all old ideas, they refuse to go gently and instead attempt to tear down what threatens them. Corporations are still machines for hovering up wealth. Political power and financial power are still ignoring what the scientists of the world are screaming at them. Many non-Western states, particularly in the Islamic world, did not reject the hierarchical model and are finding the arrival of networks, without the buffer of a period of free individualism, to be painful.......They have not undergone the difficult period of individualism which taught us how to deal with those who have different perspectives. The violence associated with absolutist views in a networked world, when seen in this light, seems almost inevitable.
.............SNIP
