The Hesperado Glossary

I've used many terms in my essays over the years -- terms that may not be familiar to most readers either because I coined them, or I took someone's coinage and refashioned it for my analytical purposes, or I used some extant term in a way different from the norm.  What follows is a still incomplete list of the most important terms.  I will continue to add terms as the days and weeks go along.  I thought I'd give my readers a preview:

The Problem of the Problem

Also known as the "secondary Problem" -- it refers to the West's inability to deal with the "primary Problem" (Islam).  The "tertiary Problem" (the Problem of the Problem of the Problem) then denotes the deficiencies of the Counter-Jihad in dealing with either the secondary problem or the primary problem (or both).

PC MC

An acronym standing for "Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism/ist".  It denotes the worldview and paradigm of those who promote and/or enable the secondary Problem (cf. The Problem of the Problem).  The use of this term would be a redundant synonym for "Leftist" (or "liberal") if Leftists (or liberals) were the only promoters and/or enablers of the secondary Problem.  However, it has become clear to me over the years that innumerable non-Leftists (or non-liberals) throughout the West are also enablers, and sometimes promoters, of the secondary Problem.  A new term, then, became necessary to denote this broader sociopolitical & cultural phenomenon in the West, whereby not only Leftists, but also most Centrists and Conservatives -- as well as the Comfortably Apolitical (cf. same) -- tend to defend Muslims in various ways from the thoroughgoing opprobrium and suspicion they rationally deserve.

Asymptotic

I was inspired to use this term by parenthetical remarks Hugh Fitzgerald had made years ago, where he denoted essentially the same phenomenon as I do, though he never developed it as fully, nor used it as widely to include some individuals in the Counter-Jihad, as I have.  This term denotes those who are in the Counter-Jihad and who therefore are supposed to be free of PC MC (cf. same) nevertheless exhibiting various signs & symptoms of PC MC.  Since PC MC is recognized as the reason why the West remains myopic to the problem of Islam, it becomes strange when someone in the Counter-Jihad exhibits signs & symptoms of it.  Nevertheless, I have seen this countless times, among Counter-Jihad civilians and among leadership -- leading me to conclude that PC MC is just that blandly insidious, or just that widely dispersed in our modern Western societies, that it even seeps into the Counter-Jihad.  Its points of entry are the hearts & minds of the Counter-Jihad individuals who cannot fully exorcise themselves of certain PC MC feelings or axioms they feel and think, all revolving around the twin shibboleths of PC MC -- an irrationally excessive cultivation of two main virtues of our Judaeo-Christian Graeco-Roman Western civilization: 1) self-criticism, and 2) an interest in, and concern for the welfare of, the Other.

The Comfortably Apolitical

The unfortunately stubborn terminology of "Left" and "Right" in pop poli sci exerts an unavoidable influence on us, much as we would like to attain the lofty peaks of intellectual transcendence achieved by those (e.g., Hugh Fitzgerald, Eric Voegelin) who disdain such terminology.  Rather than scrap the terms, perhaps one can at least massage some nuance into the polarity, beyond the by now traditional "Centrist" (whose meaning is amusingly compromised by such observations as "the Center has shifted Leftward").  My term PC MC attempts to do this (see the definition on the glossary list).  So too, though from a different angle, my term the "Comfortably Apolitical".  By this I denote what seems to be a vast and otherwise sociologically diverse swath of a demographic of people who are the political equivalent of the agnostic:  they just live their lives with all its joys and sorrows (or, more often, its less grandiose-sounding good times and bad times, good moments and annoying moments) largely indifferent to politics, and thus rather irresponsibly, but harmlessly perhaps, parasitical upon benefits derived from the same system they don't care to think about in their daily life.  This political class, I maintain, is the unique fruit of modern Western progress -- in a sense, a vast and amorphous efflux from the unique sociopolitical phenomenon of what used to be called the Middle Class Bourgeoisie (later rechristened the "Yuppie").  Their significance for my glossary is that as seemingly insouciant as they are about politics, they nevertheless seem to have absorbed the PC MC worldview to the extent that they tend to be more or less as reflexively defensive of Muslims as their more politically aware fellow citizens on the "Left" and "Right" and in the "Center".  They also are significant insofar as they point to a subtler sociocultural landscape than one that insists on "Left" and "Right" (which insistence then often leads to ignoring how many on the "Right" are PC MC about Islam).

Cacophemism

Basically the opposite of a “euphemism”.  A cacophemism is a term to highlight a deleterious distinction in order to distinguish from a supposedly benign norm: thus the “extremist” in the phrase “Muslim extremist” creates a category safe to condemn -- and thus by obvious implication protects all the Muslims Who Just Wanna Have s Sandwich (in Ben Affleck’s immortally asinine words) from any substantive criticism (let alone the condemnation they so richly deserve).  (Also see:  Another asymptotic cacophemism to add to the “-ist” list.)

[To be continued...]