No Dialogue with Mullahs

"There was no dialogue between the philosophes and the Vatican in the eighteenth century, and there is not going to be one between the mullahs of the Islamic world and the demo¬cratic West. The Vatican in the eighteenth century had its own best interests in mind, and the mullahs have theirs. They no more want to be displaced from their positions of power than the Catholic hierarchy did (or does). With luck, the educated middle class of the Islamic countries will bring about an Islamic Enlightenment, but this enlightenment will not have anything much to do with a “dialogue with Islam.”

A dialogue between American State philosopher Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo from page 72 Columbia University Press, New York.