The Case of the Asymptotic Cigar: Jihad Watch

Jihad Watch is excellent website for many reasons:

1) it’s like a daily AP news wire of news stories that illustrate the problem of Islam

2) it’s also a daily publication of editorials from various sources about various aspects of the problem of Islam

3) and finally, it functions as a kind of daily ‘town meeting’ for visitors—regulars and newcomers alike—to engage with the site: in the ‘Comments’ section to each official posting, these visitors will put in their two cents worth, or expound either emotionally or intellectually (or both) at greater length, or construct analyses of the news stories and editorials, or offer sometimes important informational addendums and links that amplify the main postings, or engage in discussions or arguments—mostly constructive—with each other. Beyond that, on a more informal level, these visitors (who hail from all parts of the world, from Australia to India to Europe to England to America) will participate in a social atmosphere that is conducive to mutual encouragement in a world that is not only increasingly frightening and dangerous due to the metastatic pullulation of barbaric Muslims, but also a world that is outrageously frustrating in the general failure of comprehension for the direct connection which ‘Jihad Watchers’ see between Islam and terrorism.

In its ‘town meeting’ function, I’ve found Jihad Watch to be—from my observation of it and participation in it over the past three years—remarkably civil, constructive and illuminating.
This is due in great part to the mostly judicious censorship exercized by the Director, Robert Spencer, and his Vice-President, Hugh Fitzgerald, and probably also by others who volunteer as editors. At times, Spencer’s blade errs on being Draconian, and he has cut into living flesh and bone that is part of the humanity of the give-and-take of disagreement, which if allowed to vent can sometimes generate constructive fecundity; but in the final analysis, I forgive him for this, as all worthwhile projects have their collateral damage.

The other reason why the ‘town meeting’ aspect of Jihad Watch is so vibrant and mature is, one must conclude, due to the individuals who participate in it. Spencer and Co. have too often failed to appreciate this unofficial wing that has come to form an integral part of his site (indeed, a couple of times he has threatened to shut the ‘Comments’ section down because of a couple of bad apples; and when he did decide, after all, to retain it, the observer got the distinct impression that he was only begrudgingly tolerating our continued presence there, and that we had better ‘behave’—or else!). This is not to say that Jihad Watchers in the capacity of their town hall have been perfect, day in and day out. There have been some flakes, there have been some simple-minded comments, there have been some distracting degenerations into petty disputes. All in all, though, it is an exemplary social experiment and a valuable outlet for politically frustrated men and women.

But that—as David Letterman likes to say—is not why you called. I am here today to speak to one particular angle of Jihad Watch, which I have termed The Case of the Asymptotic Cigar. The word asymptotic essentially means “coming closer and closer to being complete, but never quite getting there”. There is one interesting level on which the official position of Jihad Watch (as distinct from the unofficial attitudes and moods of its ‘town meeting’ population) exemplifies the familiar metaphor of “close, but no cigar”.

The reason I use the word asymptotic is not merely because I think the word is cool and I like indulging in big words—I plead guilty, on both counts. But more pertinently, I use it because it has been used a few times by the remarkably erudite and perceptive co-contributor at Jihad Watch, Hugh Fitzgerald, whose many essays there over the years have impressed readers with their breadth and depth of historical knowledge and cultural and literary sophistication. It is not so much Mr. Fitzgerald’s mere use of the word asymptotic that is significant; it is the precise context of his use of it. What is asymptotic, according to Mr. Fitzgerald, is the learning curve of mainstream analysts and commentators when they regard the problem of Islam. The best of the lot, Mr. Fitzgerald has noticed, keep seeming to come closer and closer to seeing that the problem is Islam, and not some detachable part leaves Islam blameless. But even the best of the lot never quite get to the logical conclusion.

I find it odd, therefore, that Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Spencer have shown themselves to be guilty of this very same asymptote: in statements they have made within one or another essay—as well as in interchanges they have condescended to have with a couple of members of the hoi polloi in the general population of the ‘town meeting’—they have made clear that they do not wish to condemn Islam qua Islam. Their argument seems to be two-pronged, and the two prongs seem liable to contradiction:

1) Islam considered as a whole contains a few innocuous or even good parts, and therefore, since condemning Islam as a whole would necessarily entail condemning those few innocuous parts—and Heaven forbid that we should do that—we can’t condemn Islam qua Islam;

2) on a more pragmatic level, condemning Islam as a whole would make it even harder (as if it isn’t already hard enough!) for the mission of Jihad Watch to gain traction and attract followers.

I have (under a pseudonym in the Comments section at Jihad Watch) tried to counter-argue my case, which boils down to this:

1) Islam is not merely an inert whole, which can be picked apart, and whose condemnation can submit to a selective cherrypicking process. Islam is an organic whole: a system. As such, all parts that function dynamically in its orbit contribute to the system. They cannot be detached from the system, except in an abstract sense. If a system is founded on corrupt and evil principles—as Messrs. Spencer and Fitzgerald agree Islam is—and if a system is deemed to continue to pursue those corrupt and evil principles—as Messrs. Spencer and Fitzgerald agree characterizes what is going on throughout the Muslim world today—then that system as a whole is the appropriate object of the condemnation, and we do not even bother to make cherrypicking distinctions about parts within that system that may, or may not, be innocuous or even good.

2) On the more pragmatic level, I agree that condemning Islam as a whole would alienate the PC idiots—but their threshhold for becoming alienated is abnormally low and hypersensitive: the slightest indication that a person is reasonably criticizing (not even condemning) a major feature of Islam (and not even Islam as a whole) arouses the warning antennae of the PC idiot, followed by an immediate rejection of that criticism and denigration of it as “Islamophobic” and/or “racist”. Frankly, I wouldn’t allow the pathological hypersensitivity of the PC idiot to determine our articulation of the problem of Islam.

Messrs. Spencer and Fitzgerald seem to be wanting to have their cake (to continue to condemn most of Islam) while eating it too (avoiding the opprobrium of the “Islamophobic” and/or “racist” charge that they are damning all of Islam, and all Muslims).

At the end of the day, however, Messrs. Spencer and Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch are, in their capacity as stewards of a formidable forum (and not just some lone voice) that tackles this paramount problem of Islam, the closest thing to a cigar that exists on the Net—or outside of the Net. And for that I am asymptotically grateful.

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And if that better day ever comes when we the West will be able to arrive at the consensus that Islam as a whole must be condemned—and not one or another detachable part we have surgically removed in the hopeless project of saving a supposedly healthy body from its cancer—as we collectively come to the conclusion that Islam itself is the cancer and those few Muslims who can escape its totalitarian disease as apostates are the few healthy cells that can be rescued: then, and only then, will I be able to sit back and light up and smoke the whole cigar to celebrate.