From Jihad Watch:
Should We Envy Evil?
Honest, self-critical people, and political or religious groups that are inherently open to feedback and self-correction, are in the long run much stronger and more effective than those who are brittle, defensive, and bitter. This is perhaps the greatest lesson of Western history, which we can draw from examining the track records of contrasting political systems: the rigid, autocratic centralism of the Spanish monarchy after 1492 versus the creaky, law-bound, parliament-shackled government of England; the monolithically Sunni Ottoman Empire versus the contentious, divided West (torn continually between skepticism and dogma); the Nazi and then the Soviet empire versus the Western Allies and NATO.
It is also a fact we observe in everyday life: While short term success can attend the ruthlessness of the office sociopath who does not feel himself bound by moral strictures (who lacks, in fact, the conscience that would tell him when he violated them), in the long run most such people will alienate enough coworkers and create such an ugly track record that they will land in dead-end jobs or even jail. The Bernie Madoffs of this world, who coast along from triumph to triumph for decades without being caught, are really quite rare. Much more often, such miscreants implode before they can build a billion-dollar pyramid scheme; they typically lack the patience and respect for rivals required for simple prudence, and hence they tend to overplay their hands.
All this is worth remembering whenever we find ourselves flummoxed, even enraged, over the liberty with which Muslims can dodge the implications of their beliefs, the murderous statements of their leaders, the cruel actions of their co-religionists in Islamic states (not just throughout history but over the past few weeks), and still have the brazenness to demand of Westerners the very tolerance which they openly admit they hold in contempt. Reading of Muslims working our Common Law justice system--which they would replace with sharia courts--and demanding the rights their religion denies all others, is enough to sometimes tempt us to envy, and even emulate their ruthlessness. We see the Muslim presence in the West growing larger, harder, and sharper-edged, and regret our the very suppleness and subtlety that make our own greatness possible.
And indeed, it is possible to take such virtues too far; multiculturalism itself is a heresy that seizes a piece of the Western truth of self-criticism and objectivity, then applies it only inward: Only Western truths are relative, time-bound, and suspect; only whites, Americans, Christians, and Jews should be subject to the caustic hermeneutic of suspicion. We must nurture a thousand vipers like Voltaire within our midst--but never presume to cast a critical eye at the Other. We may tolerate the occasional apostate from Islam like Ibn Warraq, but to embrace him and welcome him would seem like cultural imperialism; perhaps we should not even bother to protect him against the murderous intentions of his former co-religionists. Who are we to judge that the Muslim "value-system" which decrees death for apostates is wrong? Isn't that putting ourselves up on a pedestal? This morbid extension of Western openness to the point of masochism is the vice I referred to some weeks ago as "xenomania," an irrational preference for the alien over the native, for strangers over one's neighbors--all out of a sick, distorted sense of "objectivity" and "justice." (In fact, something much darker is usually going on; one has old grudges against one's neighbor, and is free to imagine the stranger entirely innocent.)
All this is true, but we shouldn't let it drive us to remake ourselves in the image of our enemies. We should moderate, but celebrate, the virtues that distinguish our civilization from its enemies. The West did not defeat Communism by creating a mirror-image police state--as William F. Buckley famously warned us we might have to--in order to wage the Cold War. On the other hand, we didn't celebrate the end of the Second World War the way we did the end of the First--by bringing all our troops home, dissolving our army, and hiding behind the "barrier" of our oceans. No, we did have to emulate some of the toughness of our opponent, to infiltrate Communist meetings, to arm ourselves in self-defense.
But the Cold War West that outproduced and outlasted its mortal enemy preserved its basic openness, and thereby remained more attractive than the alternative. Conversely, right-wing dictatorships that justified their tyrannical practices by appeals to anti- Communism proved themselves quite brittle and vulnerable. No wonder that Marxists like Italy's Red Brigade committed acts of public terror, the better to bring on harsh reprisals--in the hope (as their internal documents reveal) that their governments would actually become fascist, and thereby alienate the populace and speed the Revolution. (The slogan of the Italian Communists was the unforgettable, "Il peggiore, il migliore" or "The worse it gets, the better it is.")
So as we battle the xenomania of our enemies, the cluelessness of our fellow citizens, it's essential we keep our hands clean and our hearts set on the Good we actually love--rather than just the evils we abhor. I feel that the anti-jihad movement has, on the whole, an amazing track record of doing exactly this. One of our greatest weapons against those who lazily sling charges like "racism" at opponents of Islam is precisely our deep concern for victims of jihad in foreign countries, even its Muslim victims. Ironically, we bang the drum about blacks and Asians murdered by foreign jihadis--while Western multiculturalists lazily wave us off, as if all those "foreign" victims didn't matter. Our house Muslims, our pet imams would never do that to us. Who cares that Boko Haram is slaughtering Africans for attending non-Muslim schools; isn't Daisy Khan meeting Mayor Bloomberg for tea at the Frick? We're safe over here, and our culture is so overpowering, even redemptive, that followers of a totalitarian religion are magically made over into pacifists simply by breathing our free air. This haughty, short-sighted presumption masquerading as liberal tolerance is really plain, narrow selfishness. Those who really care more about seeming tolerant to their tenure committee or leftist friends than they do about Pakistani Christians on death row for blasphemy are the last people who should be flinging charges of "racism" or "bigotry." We should hold their carefully pedicured feet to the fire--as this site does, every day.
Posted by Roland Shirk on February 5, 2011 3:00 AM
Should We Envy Evil?
Honest, self-critical people, and political or religious groups that are inherently open to feedback and self-correction, are in the long run much stronger and more effective than those who are brittle, defensive, and bitter. This is perhaps the greatest lesson of Western history, which we can draw from examining the track records of contrasting political systems: the rigid, autocratic centralism of the Spanish monarchy after 1492 versus the creaky, law-bound, parliament-shackled government of England; the monolithically Sunni Ottoman Empire versus the contentious, divided West (torn continually between skepticism and dogma); the Nazi and then the Soviet empire versus the Western Allies and NATO.
It is also a fact we observe in everyday life: While short term success can attend the ruthlessness of the office sociopath who does not feel himself bound by moral strictures (who lacks, in fact, the conscience that would tell him when he violated them), in the long run most such people will alienate enough coworkers and create such an ugly track record that they will land in dead-end jobs or even jail. The Bernie Madoffs of this world, who coast along from triumph to triumph for decades without being caught, are really quite rare. Much more often, such miscreants implode before they can build a billion-dollar pyramid scheme; they typically lack the patience and respect for rivals required for simple prudence, and hence they tend to overplay their hands.
All this is worth remembering whenever we find ourselves flummoxed, even enraged, over the liberty with which Muslims can dodge the implications of their beliefs, the murderous statements of their leaders, the cruel actions of their co-religionists in Islamic states (not just throughout history but over the past few weeks), and still have the brazenness to demand of Westerners the very tolerance which they openly admit they hold in contempt. Reading of Muslims working our Common Law justice system--which they would replace with sharia courts--and demanding the rights their religion denies all others, is enough to sometimes tempt us to envy, and even emulate their ruthlessness. We see the Muslim presence in the West growing larger, harder, and sharper-edged, and regret our the very suppleness and subtlety that make our own greatness possible.
And indeed, it is possible to take such virtues too far; multiculturalism itself is a heresy that seizes a piece of the Western truth of self-criticism and objectivity, then applies it only inward: Only Western truths are relative, time-bound, and suspect; only whites, Americans, Christians, and Jews should be subject to the caustic hermeneutic of suspicion. We must nurture a thousand vipers like Voltaire within our midst--but never presume to cast a critical eye at the Other. We may tolerate the occasional apostate from Islam like Ibn Warraq, but to embrace him and welcome him would seem like cultural imperialism; perhaps we should not even bother to protect him against the murderous intentions of his former co-religionists. Who are we to judge that the Muslim "value-system" which decrees death for apostates is wrong? Isn't that putting ourselves up on a pedestal? This morbid extension of Western openness to the point of masochism is the vice I referred to some weeks ago as "xenomania," an irrational preference for the alien over the native, for strangers over one's neighbors--all out of a sick, distorted sense of "objectivity" and "justice." (In fact, something much darker is usually going on; one has old grudges against one's neighbor, and is free to imagine the stranger entirely innocent.)
All this is true, but we shouldn't let it drive us to remake ourselves in the image of our enemies. We should moderate, but celebrate, the virtues that distinguish our civilization from its enemies. The West did not defeat Communism by creating a mirror-image police state--as William F. Buckley famously warned us we might have to--in order to wage the Cold War. On the other hand, we didn't celebrate the end of the Second World War the way we did the end of the First--by bringing all our troops home, dissolving our army, and hiding behind the "barrier" of our oceans. No, we did have to emulate some of the toughness of our opponent, to infiltrate Communist meetings, to arm ourselves in self-defense.
But the Cold War West that outproduced and outlasted its mortal enemy preserved its basic openness, and thereby remained more attractive than the alternative. Conversely, right-wing dictatorships that justified their tyrannical practices by appeals to anti- Communism proved themselves quite brittle and vulnerable. No wonder that Marxists like Italy's Red Brigade committed acts of public terror, the better to bring on harsh reprisals--in the hope (as their internal documents reveal) that their governments would actually become fascist, and thereby alienate the populace and speed the Revolution. (The slogan of the Italian Communists was the unforgettable, "Il peggiore, il migliore" or "The worse it gets, the better it is.")
So as we battle the xenomania of our enemies, the cluelessness of our fellow citizens, it's essential we keep our hands clean and our hearts set on the Good we actually love--rather than just the evils we abhor. I feel that the anti-jihad movement has, on the whole, an amazing track record of doing exactly this. One of our greatest weapons against those who lazily sling charges like "racism" at opponents of Islam is precisely our deep concern for victims of jihad in foreign countries, even its Muslim victims. Ironically, we bang the drum about blacks and Asians murdered by foreign jihadis--while Western multiculturalists lazily wave us off, as if all those "foreign" victims didn't matter. Our house Muslims, our pet imams would never do that to us. Who cares that Boko Haram is slaughtering Africans for attending non-Muslim schools; isn't Daisy Khan meeting Mayor Bloomberg for tea at the Frick? We're safe over here, and our culture is so overpowering, even redemptive, that followers of a totalitarian religion are magically made over into pacifists simply by breathing our free air. This haughty, short-sighted presumption masquerading as liberal tolerance is really plain, narrow selfishness. Those who really care more about seeming tolerant to their tenure committee or leftist friends than they do about Pakistani Christians on death row for blasphemy are the last people who should be flinging charges of "racism" or "bigotry." We should hold their carefully pedicured feet to the fire--as this site does, every day.
Posted by Roland Shirk on February 5, 2011 3:00 AM
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