I kid, of course, when I call it "Austeritis". For one thing, I really should call it "Hesperaditis", since I have been afflicted with this symptom of lucid frustration for longer than I have been reading Lawrence Auster. Auster, however, has become known among his readers for thematically and frequently expressing frustration at individuals in the still inchoate anti-Islam movement who complain copiously and regularly about Islam, but never seem to have any concrete proposals about what we as a society can do about the problem.
And, with rare exceptions, those few who do proffer concrete proposals invariably couch them in terms that are a) incoherent, and b) strangely out of synch with the magnitude of the problem as they themselves seem to depict it. (The one exception to this I can think of is Daniel Pipes, whose limp-wristed and fantasy-based proposals are quite in synch with his limp-wristedly fantasy-based conception of the magnitude of the problem.)
Ironically, I find Auster himself to be one of those few whose concrete proposals are oddly out of synch with his otherwise comprehensive grasp of the problem (which I have analyzed at length in my essay An Iron Veil).
At any rate, to get to my little attack of Austeritis this morning.
It hit me just after my first cup of coffee, as I read through the comments of Jihad Watchers expressing their indignity, ire and irritation at yet another instance of a Muslim holding up a flight by praying in the aisle of a plane that was just about to take off (in this case, an Air Malta flight leaving Heathrow Airport), and then refusing to get back to his seat when asked by the flight staff. As my eyes scanned from comment to comment, it dawned on me. All these Jihad Watchers are bitching about Muslims -- mostly with appropriate insights and anger at the problem this particular Muslim encapsulates in a microcosm: but they never have any specific concrete proposals about what to do about it.
And when they do take stabs in the general direction of pragmatic policy, it tends to be pathetically out of touch with the magnitude of the problem as their own bitching itself seems to convey. Auster has conjectured that this odd asymmetry between the magnitude of the problem and the prescription for the problem reflects an ultimate fatalism about the problem that effectively -- even if the person doesn't intend this effect -- surrenders to the inevitable victory of Muslim over a doomed West. I wouldn't disagree, even though I see a Muslim victory as impossible, given the astronomic disparity between Muslim culture and Western culture on all levels.
More importantly and broadly, I see such pathetic and ill-argued, often incoherent proposals -- as well as the more frequent lack of any proposals at all amid routine bitching about the problem -- as indicative of a retention of PC MC within the subculture and the psychology of those who have otherwise woken up to the danger of Islam.
It is this retention of PC MC (which I denote as the asymptotic tendency) which psychologically inhibits them from logically extrapolating from the data about Islam and about Muslims to the logical solution. And what makes the asymptotic person a unique curiosity is that he tends to express a paradox between the magnitude of the problem and the comparatively inadequate prescriptions to solve that problem. And here's where it gets interesting (if exceedingly annoying): The more that the asymptotic person learns with an open mind and intelligence about the horror of Islam, the more incoherent he becomes about the solution -- because, semi-consciously, he knows that logically he must advocate proposals that psychologically he recoils from. And usually that revulsion derives from the PC MC still in his system, which incoherently and impertinently equates any collective action against Muslims with genocide, or with the "slippery slope" on the inexorable way to genocide.
3 comments:
Lefties are right to think about slippery slopes. I find it's just impossible to convince them that gravity pulls down hill. (Silly kids tend to think it pulls up!)
I tell them, "Kids, acceptance of other ways of thinking is fine, but beware that it's a slippery slope to multiculturalism. Best to be tolerant of different ways of thinking and acting that happen in other places, or you'll slip right down into multicult, anarcho-tyranny, and dhimmitude."
They say, "But if draw the line, we'll slip right up the hill to forced marches, lines of unfed Muslims marched for days at a time, no rest, tons dying exhaustion, the survivors forced out of the west at the points of a thousand bayonets!"
I think this refusal to admit that Islam has no place here in the West is just too tough for many to swallow at the present.
Like modern Europe we have no cultural memories of the dreaded Ottoman Turk to mobilize the populace.
Another problem is that we are deep in the thrall of political correctness and multiculturalism. We're dealing with at least 40 years of being bombarded in the media and higher education with the toxic meme that people are the same everywhere and want the same thing.
I think this refusal to admit that Islam has no place here in the West is just too tough for many to swallow at the present. - rod1963
True and concise, but let me look at the phrase:
"... Islam has no place here in the West ..."
It's actually a pretty moderate phrase when you look at it. In contrast, BNP leader Nick Griffin calls it a "wicked faith" and you can figure out from there that he thinks it has no place in the West.
It's hardly an insult to lions to say they have no place in the tiger exhibit. That the multicult is offended by that sort of statement shows how much power they have, but it may also imply that they actually need all that power. Once people start thing of Islam and the West as just plain different animals that need different places, the multicult will have no reply except to squall and gnash its teeth.
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