Correction: Christian Wildersianism at Jihad Watch

In my previous post, I characterized the relative hopefulness implicit in investing Muslims with humanity (and thus sentimentalizing their plight as "victims" of their own Islam), which we find in Robert Spencer and his right-hand editor Marisol at Jihad Watch, as "Christian Wilsonianism".

A more apt term would have been "Christian Wildersianism".

Wildersianism is a term I coined to denote a particular species of Wilsonianism, after the latter has gone through a mutation, even as some of its substance is retained, from within the anti-Islam movement.

Wilsonianism historically represents the transition of classical liberalism as it bifurcated beginning in the 19th century into the two parallel and often intersecting processes of Leftism and PC MC.

Characteristics of Wildersianism include:

1) an apodictic assumption that all Muslims are human

2) an apodictic assumption that "human" refers to the innate capacity for secularization and Westernization (both of which, in turn, are deemed to be harmonious with, if not substantial developments of, Judaeo-Christianity)

3) a tendency toward sentimentalist concern for non-Westerners in their plight of suffering life without the benefit of Western society

4) a tendency therefore, flowing from 3, to want to help the Third World masses by (pace 2) helping their "inner Westerner" to flower -- this often entailing immigration into the West for a better life

5) a growing recognition of the horror and terror of Islam

6) a semi-conscious resistance to 5, stemming from a semi-conscious awareness that as 5 increases in literacy, our Western reason logically moves to a collective condemnation of all Muslims as the basis for rational policies we must enact against them in the interest of protecting our societies from them.

It is, of course, particularly in 5 where the Wildersian differs from the Wilsonian.

And, unfortunately, it is in 6 (further informed by 1-4) where the Wildersian effectively tends to perpetuate the flawed mentality of the Wilsonian.

Insofar as Geert Wilders (eponymous for my term) does not wear his Christianity on his sleeve (if indeed he is even Christian at all), the term Christian Wildersianism denotes a variant of which he remains a co-architect dependent upon the Judaeo-Christian values that informed classical liberalism in the first place.

I forgot one more characteristic of the Wildersian -- shared by many of them (including Spencer, Geller, Marisol, and many of the hoi ochloi who populate the Jihad Watch comments threads):

7) a tendency to cultivate incoherence as the way out of the contradiction between 5 and 6.

Incoherence in this context means essentially stalling the conclusion to which logic leads. The Wildersian may sound like he's tough on Islam, but at the core of his message is an incoherent distinction between

a) the lethal perniciousness of Islam

and

b) Muslims

-- ever trying to maintain the untenable assumption that "I am not against Muslims, I only oppose Islam", and its closely related axiom that "most Muslims are good people" (i.e., are not really following Islam; i.e., their "inner Westerner" is a stronger force than is Islam upon their assumed conscience -- but it will need our help to flower).

A perfect example of this attitude was articulated a while back by one Jihad Watch reader, "Spot on":

My gut tells me that most Muslims would run away from Islam if their was no Shariah enforcement mechanism to punish them and no Madrassa schools to indoctrinate them.

The distinction between the asymptotic Wildersian and the PC MC, then, we see to be one merely of degree, not of quality. To the degree that the Wildersian is smart enough to notice and assimilate the horrible data about Muslims, his incoherence increases, because of the tension we noted above in 6. This tension cannot be sustained forever (though Spencer shows remarkable resiliency in that regard), and sooner or later the Wildersian will have to collapse back into the PC MC conscience that continues to nag him; or he will have to move forward toward the holistic position. The unfortunate problem here is that, as with the PC MC, most Wildersians will probably not evolve thus of their own reasonable accord, but will be forced to change due to events impinging upon them from without -- and that more likely than not in the form of horrific attacks upon us by Muslims in the coming decades, which could have been prevented had more of us heeded the dictates of our reason.

Further Reading:

Wildersianism and the "inner Westerner" inside Muslims

Wildersianism (the new Wilsonianism) and the distinction between Islam and Muslims