In a recent post, Silence!, we remarked upon the indictment of an Austrian politician, Susanne Winter, for her having suggested that there might have been a whiff of sexual impropriety in the Prophet Mohammed’s taking of the six-year-old Aisha as his wife (though to his credit, he did not consummate the marriage until she was nine). We first learned of the story by way of the website Gates of Vienna, which exists for the purpose of reporting on the current phase of the “very old war” between Islam and the West.
In our post we remarked on what appears to be, in Europe, a “withering of essential Western liberties under the steady pressure of Islamism”, and in the comment thread we asked why this might be so. Our reader Deogolwulf declared that Europe had become a “madhouse”, an assessment that, in light of recent developments, scarcely seems excessive. Next we were joined by one of the Gates of Vienna’s co-authors, Dymphna, who offered the following:
Europe is a madhouse because it bought into the fallacy that the summum bonum is “tolerance.’ This means:
- Equality of outcomes trumps equalilty of opportunity.
- No culture is better than another ”” except for a select few (all Western) which are inherently evil.
- Preferring your own culture or family is a grievous sin. Prima facie evidence of racism.
- And, yes, the religion of Tolerance does have sins, both mortal and venial.
- Mortal sin: postulating the existence of standards of any sort.
- Venial sin: supporting competitive anything.
- Free will does not exist, thus no one is ever held responsible for his or her actions. Racist xenophobes are an exception to this rule.
- You are a racist if someone says you are.
- If you’re not a racist, then you are at least a Nazi. Because I say so, that’s why.
- The state is the solver of problems.
- What is right is what feels good, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.
- What is wrong is whatever makes someone else feel bad.
- Requesting reasonable rhetorical rules for civil discourse is a sign of racism, competitive urges, and seeking standards.
Looking at this summary of the many suicidal absurdities of contemporary European political “philosophy”, the deeper question is: why should this be so? How did the once-proud nations of Europe come to such a sorry pass? I hate to think that it is due to the advancement of secularism, but might it be so? Or is it, perhaps, a reactionary aversion to confrontation, arising from the exhaustion of the continent by two world wars?
6 Comments
I agree with much of Dymphna’s list, and I think the possible answers that you give to the deeper question are very interesting indeed. The trouble is, any answer we give as to the deeper question of the condition of Europe, no matter how historically sound or clearly traced, is likely to displease a great many of us, since part of the answer is likely to be found at the same source as the ideas upon which we look kindly, and as such, is likely to provoke a great deal of hostility. I think Grayling’s reaction to the “canard” that totalitarianism has its roots in the Enlightenment is indicative of this. He seems to wish to construct a fantasy version of the Enlightenment in which the emancipation of the expression of ideas in that age could lead only to the ideas in the present age with which he agrees. The strangeness of this view is compounded by the oddity which takes Marxism and totalitarianism out of the rationalist and radical current of the Enlightenment – though no doubt these developments found inspiration also in Rousseau, who was broadly from the anti-rationalist current of the Enlightenment – and also which takes the pluralism of latter-day liberalism out of the anti-rationalist current which arose as a reaction (a counter-Enlightenment, if you follow Isaiah Berlin’s terminology) to the universal systemising of the rationalists. The point is that the Age of Enlightenment was a great mess of ideas. (Indeed, it is doubtful whether our sensitive modern liberal, who likes to claim sole inheritance of the Enlightenment, as well as tolerance of plurality, would tolerate many of the opinions of the men of the Enlightenment. A good test is to utter at a dinner party the various opinions of Voltaire as if they were one’s own; one is likely to be kicked out as a “Nazi”.) Anyway, I have rambled off track. In short, and to utter what is really a banality: the problem of Europe’s condition lies with the corruption of European thought in large part by the various political ideologies that have have robbed it of its sense of proportion, even of its sense of reality, and lent it a taste for “insane optimism”, as Burckhardt called it, thoroughgoing mendacity, and an instinct for power.
Thanks for this insightful comment, D. This is very much the sort of thing I was getting at, and I think it is wrong, anyway, to look for a single cause. I do think that the devastation of war is at least part of the story; an aversion to conflict resulting from the horrors of WWI was itself a major factor in the runup to WWII.
I do think also that some of the blame can be laid at the feet of secularism. Among the many “blessings” of religion is how clearly it allows the circle of demarcation to be drawn between Us and Them (with consistently sanguinary results throughout recorded history). A radical secularism has removed this ancient cultural feature with surprising suddenness, and I think that an excessive and unexamined rebound has resulted in which it is now a grave secular sin to see anyone as “Other” — regardless of their manifesting a malevolent purpose, explicitly declared.
Agreed, there are many strands to the story. Of the devastation of war, which, as you suggest, has played a significant part, we also find that ideologues have taken advantage. In the knowledge of the devastation of modern war, everyone is much more easily persuaded that his own aversion or cowardice in the face of any opponent is in fact prudence or tolerance.
An old friend and ex-colleague who co-blogged with me for a very interesting period informed me tonight about this particular blog, and also about Deogolwulf’s.
You are looking for a cause of the will to race-replacement in the West. So here’s the fruit of a lifetime of contemplation on this and related issues.
There are three authors of our present and, potentially, final crisis. These are Jewish ethnic aggression, the anti-national internationalism of our power elites, and the nature and trajectory of liberalism (in the English sense of the word, not the American sense).
When one understands how this trinity marries together, most everything else slips into place.
I would hasten to add that Gates of Vienna is a very limited learning resource with no metapolitical understanding, no tolerance of the discussion of Jewish ethnocentrism, and an unhealthy concentration on the Islam issue. I commend you to seek knowledge elsewhere.
Guessedworker, I wonder in what sort of terms your friend described this and Deogolwulf’s website.
My impression is that while you and I do appear to agree in a broad sense that we indeed face serious cultural threats, I suspect that our thoughts are quite dissimilar regarding what the root of the problem is, what an acceptable resolution would be, and even, I am afraid, what “we” means.
Guessedworker, firstly, I cannot see how the greater Islamic influence in Europe fits Jewish ethnic interests; secondly, it is naturally in the interests of internationalism that the differences between nations be reduced, just as it has been in the interests of nationalism that the differences and particularities within nations be reduced. One-size-fits-all is useful for an efficiency of power, and that goes for power on any scale. That internationalism is a continuation of a uniforming trend as a function of the efficiency of power, I greet with no surprise — yet if I were to learn that it is driven primarily by ethnic aggression, Jewish or otherwise, I admit I would be astonished. But, if, in looking for a fundament of internationalism, you were to talk of the kind of individual self-interest that seeks the maximum scope for wealth and power for itself to the degree that overrides all considerations of, say, local, civic or ethnic identity, or concern for the preservation of cultural particularities, then you might have a point, though it might prove difficult to find the Jews uniquely to blame.