Is prescience in the eye of the beholder? You decide. Dinner conversation among the film producers and local intelligentsia drifts from <\/P> “Secularization,” said the editor, “will mean nothing without tolerance. What we want from “How is that?” said the second producer.<\/P> “Because it will leave each religion prey to its own fanatics. It will strip each religion of its <\/P> Seems like a bulls-eye to me. Can the paradox of the U.S. dilemma be made any clearer Is prescience in the eye of the beholder? You decide. “The Silver Castle,” a novel by my favorite literary critic, Clive James, tells the story of a waif from the Bombay slums who dreams of becoming a movie star. Toward the end of the novel — which, by the way, was published in 1996 — there’s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-5K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nnovel by my favorite literary critic, Clive James, tells the story of a waif from the Bombay
\nslums who dreams of becoming a movie star. Toward the end of the novel — which, by the
\nway, was published in 1996 — there’s a dinner party at the home of a ravishing actress who has
\nreached the pinnacle of Bollywood success. <\/P>
\n
\nOliver Stone’s “JFK” to hero worship to Gandhi and, inevitably, focuses on the future of India. A
\nnewspaper editor, who becomes the center of this set piece, then gets into a discussion
\nabout western influence with a couple of the producers.<\/P>
\n
\n<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n“Surely now we have the greatest opportunity we have ever had,” said the
\nfirst producer. “Secularization. A free market. At last we can grow.”
\n
\n
\nthe West is their tolerance <\/EM>for belief, not their lack of belief. Under the old
\nEmpire the British left recruitment for the army to the tribes and castes, and look what happened.
\nThe movement towards tolerance was nipped in the bud. With bayonets. And now this new
\nsecularization is the biggest threat to tolerance there has ever been.”<\/P>
\n
\n
\nreasonable people and leave only the mad bombers who really have had only one religion all
\nalong. That is fundamentalism. Whose only expression is terror. The biggest threat we face. The
\ngreat world threat of the next century, and it is already here.”<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nas we try to build a secular Iraqi democracy without unleashing the religious fanatics?
\nNow, with the
\nlife<\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/EM><\/A> (so it can apply to Baghdad what it learns from a
\nscreening of “The Battle of Algiers”), anyone for setting up a Pentagon reading room?
\nSuggestions for titles are welcome.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"