My OperaIslamism As A Virus
Saturday, August 26, 2006 6:06:06 AM
The Baron looks at the evolution of thought into Islamism, finds a beginning strand in the French Revolution, Rousseau, and Karl Marx. How to prevent infection with the Islamist virus? Knowledge and facing reality, baby.
What hurt our immune systems? ESR says Soviet disinformation and destructive memes are a factor (not that I have never been able to find any other information on Raymond's claims; he is a smart guy, but I would expect others to have written on this topic).
Revolutionary socialism arms the Islamists and disarms the West.
Update: fixed ESR link.
The bottom line is that a deadly and destructive virus will inevitably destroy its host, or be destroyed by a host’s newly-evolved defenses.
It’s an open question as to how much death and havoc Islamic virulence will cause before this process runs its course. But the inner logic of the pathogenic system compels such an outcome; we can reassure ourselves with the knowledge that the virus will not be around for long.
What hurt our immune systems? ESR says Soviet disinformation and destructive memes are a factor (not that I have never been able to find any other information on Raymond's claims; he is a smart guy, but I would expect others to have written on this topic).
There is no truth, only competing agendas.
- All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
- There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
- The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
- Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
- The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
- For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
- When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.
Revolutionary socialism arms the Islamists and disarms the West.
Update: fixed ESR link.
operamaxmuller # Saturday, August 26, 2006 11:45:57 AM
Did a search. A lot of blogs quoting that! It's a keeper.
Don't know which one you got it from.
Good stuff!
Chriscbjohnso # Saturday, August 26, 2006 12:20:41 PM
Edward Piercyedwardpiercy # Saturday, August 26, 2006 5:39:12 PM
And speaking of that, I don't think any of my teachers would support the line that not making value statements about different cultures excludes opposing acts where that culture infringes or harms other cultures (i.e. terrorism) -- Ok, maybe the socialist teacher I had would -- but the other three would not. That's a 3:1 ratio, which is a lot more solid than America's current 51-49 split over just about everything in the universe.
Radical Islam is a neo-medieval philosophy that opposes cultural relativism. That's the problem. They don't know when to just live and let live. No, it is a proselytizing type of philosophy.
One of the intersting things about RI though is that it is an integrated system of beliefs that seeks (and often achieves) a great deal of integration in society. Wheras the West (and the East in come cases) are composed of pluralitic societies. And we should look at that for a minute. What that means is that we are naturally going to be arguing amongst ourselves more and maybe in the whole thing we make some mistakes while we hold our debates. RI, however, doesn't have that problem. It's that old "it's easier to get a street patched in a dictatorship than in a republic" thing. So the advantage short-term goes to RI.
Now we could just shift ourselves to that kind of society also, and there are those who actually think that would be a good idea. My view is that pluralism is contemporary, not medieval, and it is the current mode and the mode of the future as well, and is what most of the people on the planet want.
Just a quick reference back to one of your other posts today. Yes, I do think it's the old polarity come back. In the cold war it was Communism/Capitalism-Democracy. Not it's Democracy-Pluralism/Radical Islam-Monoculturalism. But that's they way it usually is in the world. Dualities like that have been around down through history.
Remember the Peloponesiam war? Athens-Democarcy/Sparta-Military Dictatorship. And so on and so forth.
Chriscbjohnso # Saturday, August 26, 2006 6:33:51 PM
And I finally understood some of the intricacies of Jeff Goldstein's posts on literary deconstruction.
I think it is safe to say that even if the teachers did not condone terrorism, they would have still excused it in some way. Whether it is the current mania of blaming Israel, the Iraq War, presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, or whatever cause they think of tomorrow. It is the old bigotry of low expectations. The poor Arabs don't know any better than to kill innocents because of the latest grievance.