Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Sorta Kinda Anti-Western Westerner: “Gnosticism Lite”



My previous essay on the phenomenon of the anti-Western Westerner concentrated on the more virulently and malignantly pathological type.

At various points in recent Western history this more extreme type infected the Body Politic with mass movements that caused enormous mayhem and misery
the French Revolution and its Napoleonic aftermath; the Communist Revolution of Russia and ensuing attempts to spread that “Revolution” globally; and the Nazi-Fascist nexus of Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito.

These represent the more dramatic and horrifying face of modern Gnostic Utopianism, but because of their aggressiveness and their grotesqueness, the surrounding Western polities, relatively healthier in noetic culture, coalesced to put a stop to them, mostly through sheer military force.

There has been another type of anti-Western Westerner, however, whose Gnostic-Utopian form is far less noxious, and whose subculture therefore has been able not only to survive, but in fact to become the dominant culture: Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism (PC MC).

PC MC has had to give up blatant power in order to become dominant and mainstream in a more insidious way. Its mainstream dominance, therefore, is paradoxical: it is simultaneously far less powerful than the power of a Gnostic-Utopian tyranny, such as under Stalin or Hitler; but on the other hand it permeates society far more broadly and deeply by virtue of a kind of atomized dispersion of sociopolitical gas, as it were, suffusing the atmospherics of society and culture. This is why the Soviet Union collapsed so easily: its Communist system had always been imposed too starkly and externally. The majority of the people had never really
“converted”, had never really become true believers. And this is why PC MC is so difficult to disentangle and dismantle, because its subtle tendrils reach deeply into the psychic entrails of the hearts and minds of the majority of Westerners: the majority of Westerners are, in fact, true believers in PC MC. It is not imposed from without by force; it has taken over their very marrow, like a cancer.

A major part of the reason why PC MC is able to
“convert” people so successfully—i.e., so deeply, and in such mass numbers—is that PC MC is not all bad. It mixes the good and the bad in such an incoherent and complex integration, that therefore, in effect, the bad becomes not only part of the good: the bad becomes good. Or, another way to look at it is that, in PC MC, the good is taken to such excess, and/or it is twisted to such an extent, that it becomes bad.

The bad and good of PC MC involves many different clusters of distinct issues. Let us take the one issue that most concerns this blog: Reverse Racism.

Analysis:

I.
The Reverse Racism dogma of the PC MC paradigm has two complementary sides to it:

1) Romanticization of the Third World
Noble Savage

2) Morbidly excessive self-criticism of Western civilization.

II. The good components of this dogma are not difficult to detect:

1) the virtue of a self-transcending interest in others outside one
s culture, and concomitant extension of ethical rights to others outside one's culture

2) the virtue of being open to self-criticism, by which
ones mistakes can be better uncovered, excessive arrogance and obsession with perfection is avoided, and true progress is made.

III. The bad components of the dogma develop out of taking these virtues to excess:

1) Other cultures become exempt from criticism, or worse yet, are even raised to superiority above one
s own culture, even though those other cultures contravene in various ways and degrees the virtues of ones own culture which one otherwise supports and cherishes

2) One
s own culture is criticized to such excess it becomes denigration and vilification, incoherently juxtaposed to the continued retention of certain virtues that originate in ones own culture or which at least can be argued to have been most maximally nourished and developed in ones own culture compared with other cultures.

When we examine the features under III.1-2 more closely, we notice a remarkable pathology at work
a pathology borne of the necessity to twist facts and truth into incoherent knots in order to sustain the original irrational axioms. Perhaps the queerest incoherency arises from the fact that the sociopolitical culture that nourishes such a high degree of interest in the non-Western Other on the one hand, and concomitantly with that also nourishes such a high degree of self-criticism of the West paradoxicallyyet clearly all the samemanifests a cultural strength and sophistication that is arguably superior to non-Western cultures. Thus, the Western Gnostic is trying to have it both ways, is trying to have his cake and eat it too.

This elementary incoherency requires a relative degree of existential alienation on the part of the Westerner. At the extreme end of the spectrum, the alienation tries to find the outlet of, let us say, sociopolitical escape from the West: Revolution. And this revolutionary escape may take either the form of anarchistic/nihilistic destruction for destruction
s sake (i.e., the revolutionary has no concrete plans for sociopolitical reconstruction after the Revolution is successful), or the form of a vision for the transfiguration of society after Revolution. This extreme alienation was manifested in the French Revolution of the 18th century and its Napoleonic aftermath, as well as the Communist Revolutions, German Nazism, and some of the various Fascist movements that wrought such havoc in the 20th century.

Less extreme are the Leftists and their varying degrees of
Socialism short of Communist Revolution. A curious dynamic occurs when the pathology becomes less extreme. The more extreme Western Gnostic has the advantage of a more elegant logic and, coupled with that, a less torturous incoherency of action: his anti-Westernism need not become mired in the paradoxical incoherencies that arise from the continuation of the polar tension in his psyche (and in his concrete sociopolitical existence) between Westernism and anti-Westernismat least insofar as he can plunge into his psychic, intellectual and sociopolitical act of expatriation from the West, through Revolution.

But the less extreme Western Gnostics do not have this advantage, for, to one degree or another, they maintain a Western connection, a Western identity, a Western dependency
that has to be upheld in an unavoidable contradiction with their antipathy to the West. Of course, we are not dealing here with the Westerner who wants to improve the West through constructive criticism. We are dealing with a pathology of excess that moves beyond constructive criticism, toward a darker and less coherent hatred, which is a self-hatred for the West of which the Westerner is a part, and at the same time shares the Gnostic pathos of a contemptus mundi, which is more or less a state of rebellion against the Cosmos, insofar as an individuals sociopolitico-cultural canopy (in the sense of Peter Berger) is, or mediates, the Cosmos for that individual. For any given Westerner, the West is his Cosmos. Insofar as, and to the degree that, the Western man is anti-Western, then, he is also Gnostic.

As we have noted in previous essays, there is a spectrum of degrees of modern Gnosticism. To simplify that phenomenon for our purposes here, the spectrum may be boiled down to three phases or forms:

1) Revolutionary

2) Leftist

3) Politically Correct Multi-Culturalist.

The masses who are PC MC
the majority throughout the Westoccupy a kind of psychological limbo in the paradoxical dynamic of Western anti-Westernism we have been analyzingfor of all pathologies to date in this regard, they indulge in the lowest degree of anti-Westernism. Thus, their self-contradiction is warmer and fuzzier, yet more convoluted in pretzel logic to the degree that they retain the pathological excess of Western self-criticism combined with its undetachable obverse, the Reverse-Racist romanticization of non-white non-Westerners. The logical convolutions of incoherency become acute when the PC MC defense of Islam and Muslims comes to relief.

An unavoidable concomitant to this incoherency is a degree of parasitism on the West. Parasitism is a component of all forms of Gnosticism, though the most extreme forms try their damndest to cut the cord of dependency on the Cosmos they loathe
most dramatically, as we have discussed above, through the act of violent Revolution and then the attempts at sociopolitical transformation after that. Even in those most extreme forms, of course, history has shown they cannot entirely free themselves of parasitism (e.g., the Communist elites living private lives of material luxury recreating the Capitalist system (or worse the feudal system prior to Capitalism) they are supposed to be utterly opposing). The PC MC majority in a sense is the least parasitic, insofar as it is the least anti-Western. But again, this is a casuistically contextual issue, not a general principle. When the case of the problem of an Islam Redivivus is considered, then the problem of the parasitism of the PC MC majority becomes augmented.

With regard to the pressing issue of protecting the West from the menace of Islam, individuals of the PC MC majority can only sustain their incoherencies through a combination of

a) a disingenuous suspension of the contradiction between Western dependency and the anti-Western subtext of their central beliefs, through the belief that their anti-Westernism is actually pro-Western in the sense of truly constructive or
patriotic even though it is based in a watered down version of the more virulent anti-Westernism of Gnostic Utopianism;

b) an intellectually lazy and emotionally fortified ability to sustain logical contradictions and incoherencies;

and

c) an indoctrination in the interlocking axioms of the PC MC paradigm which employ indefinite suspension of logical contradictions as a central tactic.

Conclusion:

The problem of the menace of Islam
precisely due to the fact that most Muslims are non-white non-Westernerspresents a major challenge to the PC MC mindset, since the PC MC paradigm hinges on the dogma of Reverse Racism.

If individuals beholden to the PC MC paradigm were to truly think through their position with regard to Islam, and not simply let the paradigm do their thinking for them, they would experience the dilemma of a choice that, in our time, has to be made by every Westerner: to stand for the West and its classical liberal values and therefore against Islam and against all Muslims who support Islam
or to stand against the West and support the Islamic invasion of the West.

In this case, there is no middle ground, even though PC MC offers the most seductive illusion of just such a middle ground.

13 comments:

Nobody said...

A major part of the reason why PC MC is able to “convert” people so successfully—i.e., so deeply, and in such mass numbers—is that PC MC is not all bad. It mixes the good and the bad in such an incoherent and complex integration, that therefore, in effect, the bad becomes not only part of the good: the bad becomes good. Or, another way to look at it is that, in PC MC, the good is taken to such excess, and/or it is twisted to such an extent, that it becomes bad.

Sounds like Islam to me

Hesperado said...

nobody,

On a superficially structural level, Islam resembles PC MC in the way they pervert the good and use it to advance the bad.

However, the major difference between the two is that PC MC is able to "convert" far more genuinely good and reasonably intelligent people, whereas Islam requires a more subversive process of fanatical brainwashing and complex deceit, as well as a vast sociological pool of pathological people.

The problem with PC MC is not its perniciousness -- it is its relative goodness and reasonableness: this is what enables it to grab a hold of so many people's consciences. In fact, there is nothing really pernicious about PC MC (whereas Islam is solidly and massively pernicious). PC MC has a pernicious effect, which is a consequence of its paradigm that enables a large-scale obstruction to criticizing the menace of Islam. And this obstruction would not be able to have such a dominant and mainstream traction throughout the West, were PC MC overall a bad system.

The mass numbers of Muslim true believers has not been accomplished by subtle duping (as many in the anti-Jihad camp seem to feel out of wishful thinking -- that most Muslims are at heart good people who have been duped by an extremist minority of "clerics" etc.), but seems to reflect a deep disease in Muslim culture itself and among Muslims themselves.

On the contrary, PC MC are not diseased, at least not in the same way.

The precise dynamic I am trying to get across, both here in this comment, and in the essay itself (if not throughout most of the essays on this entire blog), is the dynamic of a paradoxical bifurcating vector:

The more that an injurious paradigm can have genuine traction among masses of relatively healthy people's hearts & minds--

<---->

the less pernicious, the less bad, the less irrational it can be.

The underlying assumption here is that the West is, at bottom, noetically healthy (but not perfect of course). Therefore, any explanation for PC MC which would posit some generalized disease founders, I think. The trick with explaining why the West is so blind with regard to Islam is not to find the explanation that will damn the West (and from there will detach a segment -- a saved "remnant" who will abandon ship and seek some new civilization apart from the West they see as rotten to the core: a position that with supreme irony mirrors that of their nemeses, the hard-core Leftists and the Muslims), but an explanation that solves the conundrum of how a healthy body can be exhibiting signs & symptoms of disease.

Nobody said...

Erich:The mass numbers of Muslim true believers has not been accomplished by subtle duping (as many in the anti-Jihad camp seem to feel out of wishful thinking -- that most Muslims are at heart good people who have been duped by an extremist minority of "clerics" etc.), but seems to reflect a deep disease in Muslim culture itself and among Muslims themselves

I agree with this, but that wasn't what I was describing when I equated Islam with PC MC. Rather, I was thinking about those who are lured into Islam by dawa, such as the abrahamic faiths, the 5 pillars piety which most PC MC would use to equate with equivalent displays of piety in their respective religions (such as going to church on Sundays). Essentially, here, the seemingly good parts of Islam (sure, one can argue what's so good about compulsory charity, or excessive and mandatory prayer) are used to lure unsuspecting infidels into the camp, and after they have been absorbed and digested, the ugly parts are slowly fed into them. That's what I was thinking when I made that equivalence, although you are right that there is that innocence about PCMC that makes it so attractive. In fact, some of us who are not PCMC about Islam may be PCMC about other topics - to varying degrees.

Erich: The trick with explaining why the West is so blind with regard to Islam is not to find the explanation that will damn the West (and from there will detach a segment -- a saved "remnant" who will abandon ship and seek some new civilization apart from the West they see as rotten to the core: a position that with supreme irony mirrors that of their nemeses, the hard-core Leftists and the Muslims), but an explanation that solves the conundrum of how a healthy body can be exhibiting signs & symptoms of disease.

This I'm not getting. You mean to say that despite seeing the West on an unending self-destructive behavior, those who recognize that the West has not even a modicum of recognition of the threat it faces, let alone a survival plan, have a moral obligation not to detach themselves from the West and seek a new alternate civilization that can be home to them, but instead go down with the ship?

So in a hypothetical, let's say that a Lebanon like situation arises in a country like, say, Norway, and Norwegians start converting to Islam. Would a Norwegian, who is then repulsed by the situation, owe it to either convert to Islam, die or accept dhimmi status? If he assesses the situation in the West at large, and wanted to move to a place like, say, Solomon Islands, would you blame him?

I think everybody would have to assess such situations for themselves and act accordingly.

Afonso Henriques said...

Erich, I don't know how old you are neither how much educated you are but you have talent.

However, while I recognise some truth in what you say and a "considerable amount" of validity (sorry for this "foreign" English) I think I cannot agree with your thesis.

No. Yes. No...
"For any given Westerner, the West is his Cosmos."
That's the problem, nobody sees it this way. The cosmos of the West is the world.
The Westerner stupidly believes that it is wrong to protect himself, that no culture should be prefered. In a way, he tries to play God, loving all beings equally.

Afonso Henriques said...

"To simplify that phenomenon for our purposes here, the spectrum may be boiled down to three phases or forms:

1) Revolutionary
2) Leftist
3) Politically Correct Multi-Culturalist."

Well, I have to tell you that I see things in a very different way. That, in fact, is not that different.

Imagine an Occult Power (America, the Devil, the Jews, the Russians, the Illuminati, Me, you name it!) that wants to destroy, not the West - which I believe even you will have an hard time to properly qualify/describe/identify - but "European Culture".

It has passed by three phases:
1) Revolution
2) Cultural Leftism
3) Cultural Extreem-Leftism (PC MC)

What happened? What's the reason. To my eyes it is simple. They can only do what they can. When they have power to make Revolutions, they do it (1789, 1917, etc.);

When they have a power to implement in the people "cultural leftism", they do it (American independences, rise of Communism in Europe lower strata, Bolivarianism in Latin America, etc.)

When they controle something well enough, they will try to "turn the people against each other" (Anti Western Westerner) as we've seen in Koln, in the European Union, in the Castillan tentatives to control Portugal and Aragon (Catalonia), in the Reds against Whites in Russia, in the...

you see, I got a bit lost but that (PC-MC) is just a mean not an end. The mean is to cause a break in the defenses of a given Civilisation. The occult forces do it because they have the power to do so.

Afonso Henriques said...

"A major part of the reason why PC MC is able to “convert” people so successfully—i.e., so deeply, and in such mass numbers—is that PC MC is not all bad. It mixes the good and the bad in such an incoherent and complex integration"

So have done all the other "ideologies". But Christianity, Christianity has no flaws...

Hesperado said...

nobody,

I wrote: "The trick with explaining why the West is so blind with regard to Islam is not to find the explanation that will damn the West (and from there will detach a segment -- a saved "remnant" who will abandon ship and seek some new civilization apart from the West they see as rotten to the core: a position that with supreme irony mirrors that of their nemeses, the hard-core Leftists and the Muslims), but an explanation that solves the conundrum of how a healthy body can be exhibiting signs & symptoms of disease."

You responded: "This I'm not getting. You mean to say that despite seeing the West on an unending self-destructive behavior, those who recognize that the West has not even a modicum of recognition of the threat it faces, let alone a survival plan, have a moral obligation not to detach themselves from the West and seek a new alternate civilization that can be home to them, but instead go down with the ship?"

Well, of course I don't mean Westerners should go down with a West that would be certainly sinking to its doom. My stance is that the West will not fall: Muslims will not be able to conquer the West. It's a matter of faith & hope, based upon reasonable inferences, such as the disparity between Western superiority and Islamic inferiority.

Sure, Muslims in the decades ahead will be able to wreak a lot of damage, dislocation and deaths in various places throughout the West -- meanwhile insinuating themselves more and more into our tissues to spread tentacles or islands of hostile and unjust privilege.

But two factors will, in my view, serve to prevent the logical conclusion (actual conquest) to that steady Islamic incursion:

1) as mentioned above, Western superiority -- a superiority I think many underestimate in its sheer richness, complexity, solidity and sophistication, this juxtaposed with the remarkable inferiority of Islamic culture: Muslims can swagger and bluster or alternately deviously machinate, but they are hollow men with a hollow culture that sooner or later will deflate when confronted with our superiority.

Which leads me to the second factor:

2) For all its faults, the modern West is thoroughly secularized and classically liberal, and sooner or later, the more that Islam interpenetrates with the West, there will be a tipping point where even the majority of PC idiots will wake up and choose to defend the West. The problem is not that they never will; the problem is mainly that they are taking an irrationally long time getting to that realization -- and will consequently have to be forced to that conclusion through brute contact with Muslims, which will unfortunately likely have to entail many Muslim attacks, many deaths and destruction of infrastructure on our side, and many different demonstrations of Muslim hostility to liberal & secular values. The problem as I see it is not that the PC idiots will not wake up -- it is that they will take a ridiculous amount of time waking up which will involve ultimately unnecessary damage on our side. (Again, PC idiots are the majority of the problem, only a small minority in my estimation are the hard-core Leftists who will never wake up and will at the tipping point where Islamic reality becomes clear (as opposed to now where its still murky in the public conscious) choose to join the Muslims.)

Another consideration people sometimes forget: The West in the last 200 years has undergone horrendous political-societal catastrophes that resulted in mass carnage and destruction: the French Revolution and its Napoleonic conclusion; the Communist Revolution in Russia and ensuing decades of global aggression and subversion based on spreading that Revolution; and the Nazi-Fascist disease that burst into a cataclysmic assault upon the West through World War 2.

The moral of these crises that is often overlooked is that in each of these three cases, the surrounding West rallied their forces to successfully fight and subdue these major bouts of sociopolitical disease that had flared up in terrible violence. In two of those crises, the West rallied because of "hot war" challenges (Napoleon's launching of invasions to try to conquer Europe and Russia; Hitler's even worse expansionism). In those two cases, we also saw periods of temporary muddle-headed appeasement among many Westerners which delayed the appropriate counter-attack, but did not, in the end, undermine its overarching success.

In the third case, Communism throughout the 20th century, we have seen the West divided from the beginning, with sympathizers and opponents, though the opponents were more sociopolitically domminant from the 1920s through to the late 60s, when PC began to become dominant. However, even with PC fairly well established in its dominance by the 1980s, you had exceptions to the rule: Ronald Reagan, who enjoyed considerable support and who was one major force among many instrumental in finally bringing down Soviet Communism.

All this shows me that the West has been through horrible divisions and horrible challenges before, and has risen and rallied to purge itself of diseases that have erupted from within its Body Politic. This does not mean the challenge we face now is not formidable -- nor that it is not in some ways unique and not comparable to those earlier challenges. It just means there is no reason to lose hope yet.

"So in a hypothetical, let's say that a Lebanon like situation arises in a country like, say, Norway, and Norwegians start converting to Islam. Would a Norwegian, who is then repulsed by the situation, owe it to either convert to Islam, die or accept dhimmi status? If he assesses the situation in the West at large, and wanted to move to a place like, say, Solomon Islands, would you blame him?"

One problem with your hypothetical is that you are only considering one country, whereas I am speaking of the West as a whole. Again, to hark back to one of the West's great crises, entire nations within the West succumbed to the disease of the Nazi-Fascist axis -- Germany to internal military coup (on the back of a democratic election), Holland and France by military invasion, Italy to a populist revolution strong-armed by fascist thuggery, etc. But again, ultimately, the West rallied its health and put down this horrible inflammation.

Hesperado said...

afonso,

Thanks again for all your comments. You raise so many interesting points, I may not have time to get to most of them for a while.

One thing you wrote:

"Imagine an Occult Power (America, the Devil, the Jews, the Russians, the Illuminati, Me, you name it!) that wants to destroy, not the West - which I believe even you will have an hard time to properly qualify/describe/identify - but "European Culture". "

I would rather call this "occult power" by the term "modern Gnosticism". I don't think it's useful to identify the others in your list as *the* culprit. This isn't a matter of an organization, but of a systemic pathology that can infect across ideological/cultural borders.

Your reappraisal of my list of stages --

"It has passed by three phases:
1) Revolution
2) Cultural Leftism
3) Cultural Extreem-Leftism (PC MC)"

I'd have two points to make:

1) I would not identify "PC MC" with "Cultural Extreme Leftism". I use "PC MC" to denote a profound dilution of Leftism. Here's an analogy: imagine that many people don't like to drink strong black coffee because they don't like the taste and they think caffeine is bad for them. Now you put lots of milk, water and sugar in the coffee and these people will more likely drink it and like it, also if you don't tell them it's coffee.

Leftism = strong black coffee.

PC MC = strong black coffee diluted with lots of milk and sugar. There is less caffeine because the milk & water have displaced much of the coffee -- plus the sugar makes it more palatable to people put off from straight Leftism.

My point is that PC MC is in fact less pernicious than Leftism, ideologically. But it still has bad effects on society (mainly in preventing us from recognizing the menace of Islam and then taking appropriate actions from that) -- but these bad effects are easily swallowed by the majority of the people because it is diluted, seems good for you, and tastes good.

Afonso Henriques said...

I don't think it is so much diluted.

What I think is that it is "a bigger octopus" that influences more people. It has nothing to do with kindness but simply to the fact that it is easier to tolerate another people than to actively participate in a revolution (arisking your very own life) or becoming a leftist which traditionally did implied "to go against what is established".

PC MC does not asks much from you. Just asks you to ignore the people different from you in the streets.

This "thesis" of mine also explain one mistery: That is the reason why the greater proponents of multiculturalism are the ones who have to deal less with the ethnic minorities. It's easier for them to ignore them.

Of course, there are also the others who see the other as part of the group due to a brother who married with an ethnic, of having growing with "ethnics", etc. but the ones who are pushing for multiculturalism, are the ones who rarely have to interact - positevely or negatively - with a minority member.

That permits them to ignore the problem better or not to be aware of their existance.

Another interesting debate is the preception of "the other". It is very different in Europe and in America and I think it varies greately from person to person. But that's another debate...

Hesperado said...

afonso,

"I don't think it is so much diluted.
What I think is that it is "a bigger octopus" that influences more people."

But my point is precisely that PC MC would not be able to influence the majority of people, if it were not diluted!

The stronger flavor of Leftism is an obvious pathology of fanatical utopianism. Unless it is your contention that the vast majority of Westerners are diseased, then we have to conclude that the only way they can be influenced and turn into "true believers" is for the ideology to be watered down and sweetened.

I believe the vast majority of Westerners are healthy, not diseased. Since "healthy" does not mean they are perfect, being healthy does not render them immune from adopting stupid beliefs over time, nor of succumbing to "group think" about sociopolitical issues, etc. But being sociopolitically healthy does mean they have a resistance to supporting the more virulent pathologies of Gnosticism. Again, we do have cases in the recent history of the West where large masses of Westerners succumbed to diseased pathology (e.g., Germans during the 1930s to the end of the war; French during the ghastly French Revolution -- not all Germans and not all French, but sufficiently large populations to be disturbing). However, the larger deeper moral of those episodes is that they were aberrations in the larger Body Politic of the West: they were a cancer that affected one part, one organ, and the Body as a whole of the West, being healthy, rose up and fought and destroyed those pathologies.

Islam, on the other hand, is normatively diseased. For Islamic societies, health is the aberration, not the norm.

Afonso Henriques said...

"Again, we do have cases in the recent history of the West where large masses of Westerners succumbed to diseased pathology (e.g., Germans during the 1930s to the end of the war; French during the ghastly French Revolution -- not all Germans and not all French, but sufficiently large populations to be disturbing). However, the larger deeper moral of those episodes is that they were aberrations in the larger Body Politic of the West: they were a cancer that affected one part, one organ, and the Body as a whole of the West, being healthy, rose up and fought and destroyed those pathologies."

You see,
I've already stated my opinion. Regarding this, I tend to see History as a consequence of logical consequences.

And you have to be aware that both the French and the Germans had no other option. They were so pushed that they had to respond *in extremis*.
I also do not thinh that scenes like this are "not normal".

For instance, Nazism, if you can be cold enough to look at it in this way, was only "abnormal" or "horrifically horrifical" due to the massacre of the Jews. Excepting this...

By the other way, the French Revolution opened a great pandora box, a box that still today punches us in the face. But, it was also not abnormal.

"Islam, on the other hand, is normatively diseased. For Islamic societies, health is the aberration, not the norm."

Don't get me wrong, I'm only expression my opinions freely but I think you suffer from some kind of Euro-centrism or severe anti islamism.

You see, the muslims like being muslims. It is one of the greater civilisations on Earth. It cannot be "eternally diseased". I do believe it is way more haealtier than us.

Take this example: concerning what happened in Koln you say that we as a Civilisation are not "diseased", the muslims are conquering territory in Europe (Kosovo), are controling our governments (little it is, but is as they can), dishonour/take our women, beat our children, rob our eldery to their own profit and you say they are the ones diseased.

The great criminals (Bin Laden) are not diseased, they are intelligent people who decided to serve another alternative cause. So, you cannot confuse health with morality. By the way, go to the Dubai, United Arab Emirates and then go to Paris. Who's diseased?

Bye.

Hesperado said...

afonso,

Thanks for clarifying your position.

"By the way, go to the Dubai, United Arab Emirates and then go to Paris. Who's diseased?"

I never said the West was perfect.
In fact, its successful resistance against the bewitching fantasy of perfection is precisely one of the main qualities that makes it better.

To answer your question, I'd say it's a difference between neurosis and psychosis. Paris is neurotic; Muslim cities are psychotic.

"You see, the muslims like being muslims. It is one of the greater civilisations on Earth. It cannot be "eternally diseased". I do believe it is way more haealtier than us."

Then what's stopping you from jumping ship and joining Islam?

B322 said...

I like the phrasing under "The good components of this dogma are not difficult to detect".

To me, the good portion of PC MC is sort of the same thing as why it is sometimes good to "play devil's advocate" in discussions with people who are a little too sure of their opinions. The devil's advocate skewers dogma and cant and demands humility.

Thus, going beyond the good parts of PC MC, to the full-on PC dictatorship we roast our young people in at college, is like going from the devil's advocate's office to Hell. Silly as it is, I like that analogy.