Religious Factors v. Cultural Evolution in Conflict

Photo courtesy of Martha Lou Perritti

This part of an email exchange I had with a former Georgetown professor and author.  The seminar this stemmed from what was part of a college "Arab Spring" series.  Thought it might get a few people thinking about some larger questions.  I've omitted an early part of the email that isn't terribly relevant to the actual question - it was just a quick personal bio.

If I get any comments or maybe, lots of comments (crosses fingers), I'l contact him again and ask if he doesn't mind a reproduction of his answer, name, and link to personal website.

As an aside, the thrust of this question dealt with pre-Islamic society, not post-.

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Now, on to the question - and I hope that you understand that I'm not making a moral judgement on the following; just what I consider a realistic observation.  Rather than viewing the East/West dichotomy in terms of religion (or perhaps, in conjunction with religion) would it be more productive, in your view, to examine the issue as one of a conflict between cultures that have evolved from tribal/herding backgrounds versus those that primarily developed as agricultural societies?  The connection to religion is not unimportant in this view, it just isn't the sole focus.  Christianity took firmest root in Europe and America which, prior to the industrial revolution, were distinctly agricultural societies.  Islam, however, spread through the Middle East - an area with a very strong tradition of tribalism (in the ten month Defense Language Institute-sponsored language/culture course that I completed, my instructor could recite 17 generations of paternal lineage in Iraq - he emigrated to the US after assisting the USMC with combat interpretation).  I'm absolutely certain that I'm not the first to posit this thesis, but I believe that social science generally accepts that herding/tribal cultures have moved along radically different paths than farming/agricultural based societies.  Simple herding-based societies tend to be more competitive and aggressive than agricultural ones (on a small scale; I don't mean to imply that as a statement on international politics).  The reasoning is rather simple - cattle and such require a large amount of grass to feed on, and when the local supply is exhausted, shepherds typically pack up and move to a new area.  This creates an opportunity for frequent conflict (if your animals are eating food on what I consider my land, I'm likely to fight you for control of it) and renders many interactions zero-sum.  Additionally, while it is unlikely that you will sneak onto my farm and steal 50 acres of wheat in the dead of night, shepherds have to constantly guard against thieves.  It seems that agricultural societies had the opportunity and incentive to establish villages and towns (or their precursors), reward consensus, and develop basic democratic traditions; all of which are rather antithetical to the various incentives in a herding/tribal society.  I believe various historians have examined the tribal vs. agricultural issue (Victor Davis Hanson, perhaps?), but I'm not sure how many have made the intellectual jump to the potential present connection.  Africa, parts of Latin America, and many southern Asian regions have similar traditions and have evolved similarly.  The Middle East may be unique in the sense that we have rather vital interests there, and that Arab-Muslims have attacked America in the most extreme fashion, but the much of the cultural DNA appears similar in the above-named regions.  Use of meals as political ("small "p" sense) tools is common across these areas, by way of example.

To tie all this back to my bio, some of the soldiers who grasped the concepts concerning the importance of family/clan/tribe in Iraqi society presented during our military training were from Kentucky and West Virginia (frequently with little more academic achievement than GEDs).  That sounds a bit strange, given prevailing stereotypes, but it makes perfect sense.  Both areas were/are hosts to what I consider American tribalism (recall the violent Hatfield-McCoy feud that lasted decades).  The common Arab adage "Me against my brother; me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother and my cousin against everyone else" fits neatly into the worldview they were raised in - and hence, they immediately saw the parallels and acted accordingly.  My New Hampshire-born, college-educated classmate had incredible difficulty understanding why tribalism played such a huge role in Iraq - he had never been subjected to anything remotely analogous.  While this is all anecdotal, I do believe that it is rather telling, and an interesting observation, as well.

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Open commentary.  Just don't be vulgar, abusive, or an @**hat in any other way to anyone else who deigns to voice an opinion.