TED Talks - Noah Feldman: Politics and Religion Are Technologies

An old (2003) but interesting TED Talk -- Noah Feldman: Politics and religion are technologies.

Noah Feldman makes a searing case that both politics and religion -- whatever their differences -- are similar technologies, designed to efficiently connect and manage any group of people.

As Islam becomes a more powerful cultural force throughout the world, Noah Feldman studies the ways that Islamic law intersects with Western-style democracy. A law professor at Harvard and a contributing editor at the New York Times Magazine, Feldman recently wrote a much-discussed think piece about how Shariah law might be made to work within the British court system. His nuanced argument lays out the rigorous roots of Shariah justice (yes, it is more than the Western caricature of stoning women and cutting off thieving hands), and his conclusions have drawn admiration and criticism. But he's never less than fearlessly honest -- as in another piece for the Times Magazine, where he exposes a troubling strain of anti-Muslim sentiment, both outspoken and implied, in modern Europe.

Feldman is an adjunct fellow at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent book is The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State.

Tags: TED Talks, Noah Feldman, Politics and Religion Are Technologies, Politics, Religion, Psychology, technology, Islam, Democracy