Equivalencism

In the past, I've taken a couple of stabs at this subtopic of the Problem of the Problem (where the primary problem is, of course, Islam, and the secondary problem is the West's persisting, maddening myopia to that primary problem).  The two essays are:

The Fruit Salad of Equivalencism

and

Christians and Muslims: Apples and Oranges?

In those essays, I covered a lot of ground on this subtopic of Equivalencism, but it seems necessary to lay down some general guidelines about it.

First, I remind the reader what Equivalencism is: It is my term for the tendency to respond to the problem of Islam by dragging all other religions (usually evil white Christianity, of course) into the discussion, to be corralled together as all approximately equally problematic.  This, needless to say, pertains only for those who consider that Islam is problematic at all.  Years ago, I may have thanked Allah for such small favors; but I've grown weary of the maddeningly incremental learning curve on this problem by mainstream Westerners.

So we don't cut the Equivalencists slack just because they concede that Islam is a problem at all.  Why are we so unforgiving? Not only because Islam is at least 1,000 times worse than any other religion or ideology on the planet (and 1,000 is very generous -- more like a million times worse); but more importantly because its worseness threatens the very survival of our civilization.

Why would a reasonably intelligent person think Islam is "not much worse" than all other religions (especially evil white Christianity, of course), when the evidence indicates the contrary to a staggering degree?  Not just to a modest or slight degree, but to a monstrously astronomic degree of disparity.  Even worse, why would millions upon millions of Westerners routinely and persistently manifest this Equivalencist spasm?

I've been down this road before, many a time.  The reader could take a look at my essay Quantum Ignorance, for example, or dozens of others that try to answer, or at least plumb, this question.

What I've surmised is that it's not a conspiracy theory that answers the question; nor is it stupidity (since millions who think this way are reasonably, relatively intelligent), nor greed (since it is not plausible that millions who think this way would knowingly betray their civilization for money).

What's left?  I can't say for sure, other than it is, as I've said more times than I care to count, a cultural development of a change in worldview throughout the West, based upon an aberrant elevation of politically correct multiculturalism to a degree no longer reasonable.  Since this is not a conspiracy theory, and since this cannot explained by mass stupidity or greed, it must be an organic development out of the West itself.

I suppose all suicides -- whether individual, communal, or civilizational -- are such.  Organic developments out of the self.

How can we reverse this disastrous train wreck unfolding before our eyes in slow-Mo?  Well, one way I can say for sure how not to reverse it is to fail to see it for what it is.  Congrats to the two Mainstreams -- the broadly diffuse Western Mainstream and the microscopic, struggling Counter-Jihad Mainstream -- for not only failing to see it for what it is, but for feeling smug about that failure.