zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — actually the exam is daily, ongoing — and we’re not scoring very high marks ]
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Unpolarized light vibrates in any planes:

A light wave that is vibrating in more than one plane is referred to as unpolarized light. Light emitted by the sun, by a lamp in the classroom, or by a candle flame is unpolarized light. Such light waves are created by electric charges that vibrate in a variety of directions, thus creating an electromagnetic wave that vibrates in a variety of directions. This concept of unpolarized light is rather difficult to visualize. In general, it is helpful to picture unpolarized light as a wave that has an average of half its vibrations in a horizontal plane and half of its vibrations in a vertical plane.

Polarized light vibrates in only one plane:

It is possible to transform unpolarized light into polarized light. Polarized light waves are light waves in which the vibrations occur in a single plane. The process of transforming unpolarized light into polarized light is known as polarization.

The most common method of polarization involves the use of a Polaroid filter. Polaroid filters are made of a special material that is capable of blocking one of the two planes of vibration of an electromagnetic wave. .. In this sense, a Polaroid serves as a device that filters out one-half of the vibrations upon transmission of the light through the filter. When unpolarized light is transmitted through a Polaroid filter, it emerges with one-half the intensity and with vibrations in a single plane; it emerges as polarized light.

This works either way — so to speak, either vertically, or horizontally — though not, by definition, both at once. Ohh, and there’s paradox involved:

Read the whole lesson at The Physics Classroom: Polarization — and memorize, remember?

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Ali Soufan notices polarization in our political sphere wrt events we label or do not label terrorist:

Big difference in how President Trump reacted to the London Bridge and #Charlottesville car attacks.

— Ali H. Soufan (@Ali_H_Soufan) August 12, 2017

NPR likewise:

When Is It "Terrorism"? How The Media Covers Attacks By Muslim Perpetrators https://t.co/KSI9oLlUi0

— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) June 20, 2017

Tim Furnish sees this polarization as avoiding mention of Islamic influence when it is clearly present:

#Charlottesville driver's car was still accelerating when "terrorism" alleged. But shouting "Allahu Akbar" & killing folks never called that

— Dr. Timothy Furnish (@Occidentaljihad) August 12, 2017

And then there’s this:

Uproar over #CharlottesvilleKKK & Jew-hate, but you all yawned last week when it was Muslim imams calling for Armageddon against Jews https://t.co/dYDUCRNyYy

— SHIREEN QUDOSI (@ShireenQudosi) August 12, 2017

Sebastian Gorka told MSNBC

https://t.co/HIMMGEOxOP"..shouts Allahu Akbar as they're..stabbing a police officer, it’s..clear it’s not..case..the mafia robbing a bank..”

— I. Ryan (@EttasPlace) August 9, 2017

Gorka in full:

Sometimes an attack is unequivocally clear for what it is. When somebody shouts ALlahu Akbar as they’re stabbing a police officer, it’s pretty clear it’s not a case of the mafia robbing a bank, wouldn’t you say so?

Eh?

White House Official Gorka Claims Right Wing Attacks Are ‘Fake,’ but Data Show Something Different https://t.co/2rCas2fOKf

— Anthony Lemieux (@aflemieux) August 9, 2017

Vox is oppositely polarized to Gorka et alii:

Trump is quick to blame Muslims for terror attacks. He's slow when Muslims are the victims. https://t.co/gFH8Hv4srE

— Vox (@voxdotcom) June 6, 2017

As, indeed, am I.

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Incientally, all you special ops types with cool shades:

For lightweight, functional shades that protect your eyes in any lighting situation, Oakley has designed the SI Flak Jacket. Featuring an innovative 8.75 base lens curvature for optimal peripheral vision, these sunglasses provide side eye protection as well as a maximal field of view. The stress-resistant O-Matter frame found in many Oakley tactical models is lightweight, ergonomic and will not succumb to the pressures of constant wear and travel. The Plutonite polycarbonate lenses fully filter out harmful UVA, UVB, UVC and blue light up to 400 nm for maximum sun protection. Oakley also has included an Iridium coating on the lenses which reduces glare in extremely bright light. For adaptability in any environment, the lenses are easily interchangeable. « less

Take heed:

Polarization has a wealth of other applications besides their use in glare-reducing sunglasses.

Like — in USian politics?

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Okay, time for the test. Sample question:

Answer:

A. Referring to the above question, the glare is the result of a large concentration of light aligned parallel to the water surface. To block such plane-polarized light, a filter with a vertically aligned polarization axis must be used.

[found by Lynn C. Rees]

Searching for items on Willard Sidney Kellett (1876-1962), my second cousin twice removed, I found this story in the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, dateline December 23, 1940:

My eyes drifted to this story on another bruising collision, found on the same page:

UPI war expert Mason was a member of that generation of Americans who elevated this nation to global numero uno, displacing the decrepit Old Enemy:

J. W. T. (Joseph Warren Teets) Mason (1879-1941) was an American who devoted himself to the study of Eastern philosophy and religion. Born on January 3, 1879 in Newburgh, New York, Mason graduated from New York University and decided to become a journalist to follow in his father’s footstep[s]. He worked for the Scripps McRae Press Association as its London Editor, and when the company merged into the United Press Associations in 1907, he became the European Manager. A year after the appointment at the United Press, however, he resigned from the post and returned to the United States. In the following years, he worked for the Daily Express as the New York Editor (1908-1931), specifically as the war writer during the World War I. After the War, he also worked for the United Press as the foreign affairs writer (1918-30). While he was in Europe on his job, he became acquainted with famous philosophers, such as Henri Bergson, Benedetto Croce, and F. C. S. Schiller. He also met Japanese diplomats Suematsu Kenshu and Hayashi Gonsuke, who introduced him to Japanese Shinto, the native religion of Japan, and Confucianism. His interest in Eastern civilization grew, and he published two books, Creative East (1926) in New York and Creative Freedom (1928) in London.

Although he had been already acquainted with many Japanese officials, scholars, and priests both in and out of Japan, a visit to Japan was not realized until 1932. During his stay in Japan, he attended many Shinto ceremonies and lectured on Japanese religions and cultures all over in Japan. He published Kaminagara no michi (1933) (English language edition, The Meaning of Shinto, was published in New York in 1935) and The Spirit of Shinto Mythology (1939) in Tokyo. He was a member of many associations including the Meiji Japan Society, the Asiatic Society of Japan, and the Kyoto Buddhist Association. Although the year he departed Japan is unknown, he died in New York on May 13, 1941.

Mason, whose death preceded Pearl Harbor by seven months, accurately forecasts factors that led to later “axis” defeat:

• “long endurance of America”? Check.
• “shipbuilding and defense production” sped up in wartime by “psychological pressure to unprecedented levels”? Check.
• “fearful risk of complete defeat by extending the war”? Check.

Mason’s forecast is overly generous to “Tokio”. It claims it’s “scarcely” possible that Japan could be drawn into war by “axis arguments based on desperate hopes”. Mason’s forecast is equally overly generous to Berlin in claiming it’s “scarcely” likely it had reached a “state of mental outlook” that would lead to war with the United States. Mason’s working definition of “scarcely” seems to equal one year, plus or minus a few weeks.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Mason’s Japanese acquaintances were among those Japanese who “can be realistic”. Americans often see foreign things through interlocutor eyes with enough shared tics to completely veil the alien. However, Mason’s qualified use of can reflects some awareness that the Japanese did not have to be realistic, at least according to Masonic definitions rooted in American notions of what is realistic under conditions of scarcely. Some Japanese knew that Japan’s chances of victory in a Materialschlacht with the reigning Master of More were materially non-existent. Cue ominous music, background to yet another seemingly prophetic incantation of Yamamoto Isoroku’s supposed quote.

Yamamoto’s supposed compliment is popular in this country, land of the “sleeping giant”. It’s a meditation on our own awesomeness, like listening to the sound of one back slapping. This sketchy acknowledgment impressed some later Americans so much that they sometimes elevate Yamamoto to honorary American, in consciousness if not de jure. Yamamoto was a reverse Mason: he spent time in America. He must have known he would lose as far back as 1919. Tojo and friends must be blockheads if they don’t listen to their Yamamotos and preemptively surrender to American awesomeness.

But some foreign observers were realists even by Masonic standards. They saw American “moral aggression”, felt its potency, and saw that their only realistic counter was to scale up to American economies of scale, even if the scaling up was a gamble on the sleeping giant staying asleep while they carved out American beating lebensraums out of some promising part of Eurasia. Adam Tooze has argued that, after 1916, American power was so overwhelming that other global polities that aspired to greatness were de facto international insurgents against American dominion and its Masons. A Japanese “who can be very realistic” was someone like Lt. Col. Kanji Ishiwara, Imperial Japanese Army. He gambled that Japan could carve its American beating lebensraum out of China, allowing teeny Japan to materially go toe to toe with the American colossus before the colossus scarcely knew what hit it. Ishiwara gambled, a gamble that fathered a cascade of gambles toppling towards Hiroshima.

For Ishiwara, there had to be a shortage of Masons that could see what he or his German mentors were up to as they tried lebensrauming Eurasia if his gamble was to succeed. Unfortunately for Ishiwara, there were enough Masons, some even deigning to write columns read in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and other outposts of America’s trend-setting lebensraum, to frustrate Ishiwaran insurgents of the mid-20th century. These Masons of a new order knew what was up with Ishiwara and ilk. This made Ishiwaran projects unrealistic. For Ishiwara and friends, nemesis was spelled Willard Sidney Kellett: they were cruising for his bruising.

[ by Charles Cameron — bearing in mind Ian McEwan’s comment, “General Sisi or Isis — the palindrome is apt” ]
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President Sisi speaks at al-Azhar

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President Sisi of Egypt made a remarkable speech to the assmbled dignitaries of al-Azhar the other day. The Coptic Christian scholar Raymond Ibrahim has a translation of the relevant section:

I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing — and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!

That thinking — I am not saying “religion” but “thinking” — that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!

Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants — that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!

I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema — Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.

All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.

I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost — and it is being lost by our own hands.

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Let me first draw a few relevant distinctions in regards to an Islamic Revolution (Sisi’s term), Reformation (cf Luther) or Enlightenment (cf Voltaire):

there is what Sisi would like to see

there is what Sisi would like to communicate

there is what various schools of Islam think Sisi intends

there is what we would like to think Sisi wants to communicate

there is what we would like to think Sisi would like to see

there is what we ourselves would like to see

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Mark Movsesian at First Things offers this caution:

Some are praising Sisi for his bravery. That’s certainly one way to look at it. When Sisi calls for rethinking “the corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years,” he may be advocating something quite dramatic, indeed. For centuries, most Islamic law scholars—though not all—have held that “the gate of ijtihad,” or independent legal reasoning, has closed, that fiqh has reached perfection and cannot be developed further. If Sisi is calling for the gate to open, and if fiqh scholars at a place like Al Azhar heed the call, that would be a truly radical step, one that would send shock waves throughout the Islamic world.

We’ll have to wait and see. Early reports are sometimes misleading? there are subtexts, religious and political, that outsiders can miss. Which texts and ideas does Sisi mean, exactly?

That last comment in particular encapsulates my own response to Sisi’s speech. When Sisi speaks of “that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries” is he referring to the Qur’an? I am certain he is not. The ahadith of Bukhari? I strongly doubt it. The accumulated corpus of fiqh? That would be my guess.

Perhaps someone with access to the original of Sisi’s speech can clarify these matters.

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In any case, it is worth noting that Sisi is not the first to make such a call.

Prof. Ali Khan‘s paper, The Reopening of the Islamic Code: The Second Era of Ijtihad, opens with the observation:

For more than a hundred years now, an accord has gradually emerged among Muslim scholars that Islamic classical jurisprudence (fiqh) must be reformulated to meet the needs of Muslim communities

In more detail:

Mainstream Muslim scholars and jurists from across the world seem to have reached a near-consensus that, although the Basic Code cannot be abandoned, it must be re-interpreted to establish legal systems that respect classical fiqh but also incorporate change. This evolutionary call — “that history, as a continuous movement in time, is a genuinely creative movement and not a movement whose path is already determined” — is made to extract Muslims from historical stalemate and expose them to ceaseless dynamism. Every day, in the words of the Quran, shines with new splendor, majesty and freshness.

What, in Khan’s view, comnstitutes the Basic Code?

This article is founded on a fundamental premise that the Quran and the Sunna constitute the immutable Basic Code, which should be kept separate from ever-evolving interpretive law (fiqh).

Khan notes:

Muslims have at least three options with respect to the Basic Code. First, they privatize faith, embrace secularism, and divorce lawmaking from the Basic Code. Second, they alter the text of the Basic Code to meet modern needs. Third, they accept the Basic Code as a permanent guide for individual and social life but see the Code as a flexible and evolutionary source.

He then comments:

The first option has been tried but the confrontation with religious forces opposing secularism has often maligned the secular state. The second option is unacceptable to all Islamic communities. The third option seems to be the most suitable alternative for the material and spiritual development of the Muslim world.

I hope that provides some background to Sisi’s remarks…

Another formulation of what we might look for from a renewal of Islamic scholarship comes from Bassam Tibi:

To me religious belief in Islam is, as Sufi Muslims put it, “love of God,” not a political ideology of hatred. .. In my heart, therefore, I am a Sufi, but in my mind I subscribe to ‘aql/”reason”, and in this I follow the Islamic rationalism of Ibn Rushd/Averroes. Moreover, I read Islamic scripture, as any other, in the light of history, a practice I learned from the work of the great Islamic philosopher of history Ibn Khaldun. The Islamic source most pertinent to the intellectual framework of this book is the ideal of al-madina al-fadila/”the perfect state”, as outlined in the great thought of the Islamic political philosopher al-Farabi.

And there’s plenty of reading to follow up on there…

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Older even than my beloved Oxford —

A lecture in al-Azhar mosque, Cairo, 12 December 2011. Photo credit: Tom Heneghan

A lecture at al-Azhar, undated postcard, image credit Postcard Memory Palace

— the tradition of Islamic scholarship at al-Azhar has been with us beyond than a thousand years.