Europe and the Jihad
The shortsighted sneer.
By Paul J Cella Posted in War — Comments (55) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Janissaries Patrol Smryna, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, 1828
It is fashionable on the American Right to sneer at the weakness of Europe. I leave aside for a moment my opinion of the moral character of that sneering, for it is not fit for polite company. Instead I want to emphasize what seems to me even more important: namely, its shortsightedness.
First, it is vitally important to understand that Europe’s weakness is spiritual in nature. She knows not who she is, and has lost all sense of purpose. Ideas once thought to be the bedrock of her civilization — the primary duty of passing on the heritage of Christendom to one’s children, for example — are not merely rejected, but rejected and forgotten. Spiritually, Europe is dying. But her material resources are largely untouched.
Or, as Belloc put it 70 years ago, when he spoke of the grave mistake of supposing “that the East has finally fallen before the West, that Islam is now enslaved — to our political and economic power at any rate if not to our philosophy. It is not so. Islam essentially survives.” It survives because “its religion is intact; therefore its material strength may return. Our religion is in peril, and who can be confident in the continued skill, let alone the continued obedience, of those who make and work our machines?”
Read on.
This is a hard lesson for us, whose minds are so penetrated by materialism. Matter is fleeting; it is the spirit that animates.
The Turks, during their long and brilliant career of conquest and subjugation, enslaved both Rome and Greece. No: not Rome the city; Rome the Empire, and Greece the incubator of European civilization. And the slavery was a ruthless exploitation of the two most storied societies ever made by men. The Turks, through the terrible institution of the devsirme, transformed young Greek boys into their most disciplined and fearsome troops; they constructed the world’s most formidable navy with the indispensable aid of Italian renegades; even their sultans were often the offspring of Greek beauties taken into the harem. The immense human and material resources of Greece and Rome became, like an avenging angel, for centuries the agents of doom for the West.
I wonder what sort of sneer my sneering friends will have when, in their quiet old age they sit and watch their children struggle to formulate a foreign policy that must now contend with the industrial capacity of the Rhineland churning out tanks for our enemies. I wonder if France will look so comical as an adversary when her spiritual enervation has been replaced by the marching might of fanaticism. Who can be confident in the continued skill, let alone the continued obedience, of those who make and work our machines? More closely in time, I wonder what a young Belgian or Italian, suddenly waking to the menace of Islam, which in his blindness he ignored — what he will think when he wakes and turns for succor to American Conservatives, and is greeted by snicker like that of Mark Steyn who in his recent book tells us (as he has told us before) that soon Belgium and Italy will be nothing but “designations for a piece of real estate.” I remember what succor we gave to the Danes when the fiery eyes of the Jihad were turned on them. It was meager.
Now some may answer that I am conjuring nightmares. Please God let it be so. But I can only say what I believe to be true. And I believe it a true probability that what the Jihad did with the vast resources of Byzantine civilization it can do again with European civilization.
My friend Lee Harris has a forthcoming essay, which is part of a forthcoming book, that asks, with the callousness of the materialist clinician: why would Muslims ever abandon their institution of Jihad, the most brutally effective imperial institution ever conceived by man? Why? From an evolutionary perspective, there is, in terms of its capacity to assimilate and exploit, nothing like it in all the world. Why would a people ever abandon it?
Now I am not a materialist; which means that I believe that even the most formidable material force can be opposed and defeated by a moral force. Whether we can muster such a moral force remains an open question. It is a certainty, however, that we cannot if cannot think clearly enough about the Jihad to say that, indeed, it must be opposed morally.
I repeat then what I have said before: the doctrine of Jihad is wicked, and must be opposed with all the moral and material force we can muster; opposed without apology, and with an ultimate aim of extirpation.
[A similar point, applying a shrewd analogy, is made here by Josh Trevino.]
« We need more COIN in the Afghan realm — Comments (0) | Picture of the Day: Why are these buildings still standing? — Comments (13) »
Europe and the Jihad 55 Comments (0 topical, 55 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Do you think Islam is capable of supporting an industrial economy?
I'm not sure, but I am quite sure that it is capable of exploiting the resources of European dhimmis, who are capable of supporting an industrial economy.
The slaves will run the machines, man, and many of them will grow rich and powerful from it.
The danger is not that Islam will conquer the world . . .; the danger is that the collapse of Islam with drag the rest of us into a holocaust with it.
That certainly is a danger. The Jihad need only destroy our delicate systems of order to complete its primary work.
___________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Re: I'm not sure, but I am quite sure that it is capable of exploiting the resources of European dhimmis, who are capable of supporting an industrial economy.
I see no willingess in Europe to play that role, and certainly no possibility that Islam could conquer Europe outright as the Turks conquered Byzantium (the Turks had armies, generals, weapons, a successful trading economy, all the necessary prerequisites for military success; Islam cannot even defend its own borders). And even if Europe and the US continue to drift apart (by no means a foregone conclusion) I suspect Europe would more likely ally with Russia and/or China if it sought to enter into an anti-American coalition. Other than oil (and again that isn't going to last) the Islamic world has nothing to offer.
does not occur at the end of a bayonet. Ask MEChA.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
Nevertheless, the economic might of the West is such that Islam would scarcely be able to bring about its complete ruination in less than a few generations' time. And in that bleak interval, Islam could well manifest its capabilities as one of the greatest engines of destruction mankind has yet conceived, reducing an already degraded civilization to a state of low barbarism and servility.
For my part, I find the occasional conservative sneering over the decadence and deracination of Europe mystifying; it seems to be little more than a species of self-alienation, coupled with a "morality" of strength oddly symmetrical with that of Islam itself, as though our love for our own heritage ought to be conditioned by an appraisal of the temporal power of its historical representatives.
My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.
It does not follow therefore that we want to see them destroyed.
It also does not follow that there is anything we can do about their fate other than take in some refugees.
They are dying of slow suicide and are at any rate, not likely to heed the warnings of American conservatives.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
They are dying of slow suicide and are at any rate, not likely to heed the warnings of American conservatives.
Warnings like what? "Accomodate yourself to the coming dhimmitude, for you have earned it"?
_________________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
my heart bleeds for my own, would you understand that I intended to communicate much, much more than a certain indifference towards the Other - Islam - opposed to our civilization?
I wish the evil of dhimmitude upon no man, and save my sneers for the ideologues, sophisters, mountebanks, and rhetorical masturbators who, ensconced in their dream-world of universal longings, refuse to tend to the security of the homeland in the manner necessitated by the threat and disseminate the delusion that we can only be safe if we labour to actualize the hitherto imperceptible desire of the Other to cease to be the Other by becoming Us.
My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.
Europe has offended so many on the Right (and the non-European West generally) that the natural reaction is to ridicule the cradle of our civilization. The deeper implications for why Europe behaves as it does isn't a consideration any longer; the gut reaction trumps any reasoned response. It is human nature.
The irony is that many Americans who react viscerally to the slow death of a great civilization fail to apprehend it has already reached our own shores. The attempts to explain why is will be different here are the intellectual equivalent of the sneer. Bush's claims that "(fill in the blank) is our friend" and "Islam is a religion of peace" sound remarkably like Blair's similar blandishments as he set the United Kingdom on the same destructive course to be found on the European mainland. Both leaders may have questionable motives, but we have to bear in mind they tend to believe such naive assertions to one degree or another. The only hope is a new generation of realistic leaders who actually understand the true nature of jihad and why importation of it represents eventual cultural and even physical suicide.
Nonetheless, I look forward to Steyn's book. Although I agree with you about his tendency toward ridicule, he also points out the every day realities and banalities that show how this battle, sometimes fought far from home, can be lost at home.
... when we are no subjected to trite hanargues about the "universal longing for freedom", the "divine gift of freedom in the hearts of all men", the "religion of peace", and so on - each of these phrases standing as a euphemism for the civilization-killing universalism that precludes a recognition of the historical and religious particularity, not only of our own civilization, but of that of our enemies, which particularities render them as immiscible as, say, water and sodium.
We will not only be prepared to labour for the survival of everything our civilization has been, but deserving of success in that endeavour, once we have cast off the leaden carapace of the delusion of value-universalism, according to which the diversity of human civilizational and religious forms are mere ephemera of more fundamental longings, mere accidents upon the substance of life of no greater consequences than differences of cuisine.
My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.
system, by which I mean, not so much the Constitutional architecture of our political order, but the political morality which has risen to dominance in the decades since the conclusion of WWII, seems uniquely configured to preclude substantive discussion of questions of cultural and civilizational difference. We are likely to be subjected to those cloying harangues for years to come, barring the occurrence of some grim atrocity.
My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ shall speak with the voice of them that weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are truly as nothing.
with self-loathing that now acknowledges another cultural relativism, one that portrays the West as inferior for some reason or another. The West's pathetic response to the "cartoon riots" is a metaphor for this new stage in our decine that poses as maturation.
I need to borrow your harp, I fear.
I know you're poking at me, at least in part, and if so, I think you're mistaking sorrow for a sneer. Perhaps I, and others, simply hide our sorrow with sneers, for that's the only comfortable way to express them.
As you noted Europe's problem is uniquely spiritual, and I, for one, question whether that particular ship can be righted. I have better long-term hope for the continent of Africa, I'm afraid.
"We could find a speck of dust and scribble down our life stories..." - The Refreshments
I see these kinds of apocalyptic predictions about Europe from time to time here, and was wondering what underlies them. That is, I understand the facts of immigration and (likely dubious) demographic projections, but so what? It seems that there are several missing steps between this and "dhimmitude." Is there some kind of primer, some kind of respected study of this matter that explains *how* this kind of transformation will happen (let alone in my lifetime)? I'm not trying to be annoying, I just genuinely don't understand the proposed chain of events that will lead to, say, Europe being part of some Caliphate...
(Incidentally, I consider myself a materialist (in the philosophical sense, of course), and am pretty confused by the line "Now I am not a materialist; which means that I believe that even the most formidable material force can be opposed and defeated by a moral force." -- in what sense is a materialist not permitted to accept morality or "moral force"?)
clearly an answer to your dilemma would take more time than either of us has.
Short Form:
1. The birthrate among "native" Europeans is well below the replacement rate --- the "native" population is shrinking not growing.
2. The birthrate among Muslim immigrants/decendents is well above the replacement rate --- the "exotic" population is growing very, very fast.
3. Muslim immigrants/decendants are not assimilating in any meaningful way, due both to "native" bias and Muslim refusal to integrate.
4. Muslim immigrants/decendants are becoming more Islamic not less and more Muslims are being radicalized more easily as they perceive themselves unwelcome in Europe.
5. Muslims are demanding that they be given special consideration for their religion.
6. "Native" Europeans are beginning to see the end game and the ones that are paying attention do not like it.
One of two things will happen: Muslims will eventually emerge as the dominant force in Europe or "native" Europeans will rise up deal with it. In either case the result will not be pretty. If you are over 45 it probably won't happen in your lifetime but it will happen in the lifetime of your children. It sounds like you are a member of the "school of they aren't really serious about this stuff", a school with some distinguished alumni including Neville Chamberlain.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
Well, I imagine the discussion between someone like me and someone who is genuinely worried about these things would quickly get more detailed and nuanced than would make sense to carry on here. That's kinda why I asked for a link to a respected write-up on this kind of thing. I didn't mean to be coy about not knowing how this "takeover" could happen -- I've heard arguments like yours made -- but I still can't imagine the middle steps.
Let me put it this way: through immigration (which is already slowing) and higher birthrates (it isn't at all clear that these will remain), Muslims are growing faster than most other, established groups in Europe. Their assimilation/radicalization rate is a trick issue -- some countries are better at assimilating new populations than others. It might be instructive to find out why some countries have bigger problems than others. It would also be essential in these studies to focus on the assimilation issue -- we must somehow control for poverty and other issues which are nothing new, yet still tied up the greater social problems of Europe. In short, you need good statistics to back up claims like these.
But still! Even if I grant you all these things for the sake of argument, I still don't get the middle-game. So, there's gonna be more of them. Maybe they won't integrate. Maybe they'll want special treatment. Where's the takeover? At what point will they rule us? At what point will we start wearing hijabs? Now, try to imagine some point at which Muslim lawmakers push for some kind of Sharia in Europe -- what do you imagine happening? What would the reaction be?
Finally, it's certainly fair to point out that many people laughed off real threats; Chamberlain was one. But how many people panic over threats that aren't real? Keep in mind also that I'm not saying "do nothing" -- I just want to get clearer on what everyone seems so worried about.
Their assimilation/radicalization rate is a trick issue -- some countries are better at assimilating new populations than others.
I doubt that we will know when "the day" arrives --- like most cultural changes we will make up one morning and realize its upon us. But knowing "the day" is meaningless in my view, its the end result that matters, not the steps along the way.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
I meant to say "tricky" issue -- trick issue makes it sound like I'm far less charitable there than I meant...
But there are gonna be fixed points -- take the point where the legislator is debating Sharia legislation...
Google up "sharia law Canada" or "sharia law Holland". Or "honor killings". Or visit LGF or "Gates of Vienna" or any of the other web sites paying attention to this stuff.
And look back a few days on RedState and read about the fourteen year old girl arrested in the UK for asking to be placed in a class with English speakers. That is the mindset of the people running the West, not the neo-Nazi's that liberals always imagine to be just over the horizon.
You're whistling past the graveyard on this.
Look, there will always be annecdotes that will support your position; I am specifically *not* looking for the case of the 14 year old girl in the UK.
The cases of Sharia law you cite are not at all what I was talking about. I've found reference to Sharia as voluntary binding arbitration in Ontario (which doesn't at all seem scary, and Jews have as well) and a minister in Holland saying that he'd be OK with Sharia if the majority instated it (which just sounds like a straightforward understanding of constitutionless democracy).
I am specifically *not* looking for the case of the 14 year old girl in the UK.
Any reason why not? You argued that the West has it within itself the fortitude to smite down Islam if it proves to be a problem. The evidence, that is to say, the anecdotes, indicate that their first instinct is to punish anyone who seems to say a bad word about it.
You seem to be moving the goalposts here. I now gather that the only evidence you will accept of a problem is when sharia is actually voted in as the law of the land in some Western country. (Perhaps not even then, since it would be democratic)
Rather than me firing shots into the dark, why don't you indicate what would be evidence of a problem in your eyes.
"The evidence, that is to say, the anecdotes, indicate that [society's] first instinct is to punish anyone who seems to say a bad word about it."
I just don't know how you could generalize to that statement. Maybe we're just getting back to the annecdotes/data distinction; in that case, take the mere presence of this debate to be a competiting annecdote.
I don't know why you think I'm moving the goalposts here. I had a very specific kind of thing in mind with respect to the "middle game" of an Islamic takeover. I gave you a very concrete example of it -- a debate over imposing Sharia in the legistlature of some Western country.
Your examples do not move me, because they do not even seem close to that. One example is of a province who has a particular form of binding arbitrartion -- that's just not in the same neighborhood. What is repulsive about Sharia is not that some people choose to follow it, but rather that it is imposed on all under its jurisdiction. Another example involves a politician saying that he would support the will of the people to decide their laws -- again, just not in the same neighborhood. (And to answer your point, a western country instituting Sharia by popular vote *would* count as the tipping point for me. But some politician saying that he would go along with the will of the majority is simply irrelevant to this.)
So you are saying that the tipping point will be when a Western legislature seriously discusses making sharia the law of the land. To me, it would seem rather pointless to start worrying at that point. The time to head problems off is in their infancy, not when faced with the choice of sharia or civil war.
One example is of a province who has a particular form of binding arbitrartion -- that's just not in the same neighborhood. What is repulsive about Sharia is not that some people choose to follow it, but rather that it is imposed on all under its jurisdiction.
I don't think you read the links very carefully. The "juristiction" of sharia is over all Muslims. They can try to opt out if they like, but the penalty is often quite severe. "Binding arbitration" is another way of saying that the iman's word is law on those he is dealing with.
Yes, the tipping point to worry about Islamic takeover is when people start publically considering an Islamic takeover. That seems like a fairly obvious statement to me. Now, you might think that we should start acting before then -- and that may be fair -- but it's important to be clear about how bad things should be before you take drastic action. The Canadian law, for instace
Are we talking about the same law? For instance, from this article, I got:
"Participation under the Arbitration Act is voluntary, though critics say Muslim women can be pressured in participating."
Which is a problem -- obviously -- but it's not like all Muslims in Ontario get justice from their imams. Just the opposite, it's an opt-in system.
And later:
"[P]eople are free to appeal decisions in a traditional court."
And, on top of all that, the tone of the article made it clear that the law was unpopular and was going to change.
Perhaps the best source for understanding the European dhimmitude is The Brussels Journal. Right here, for example, we learn that almost half the of the members of the the largest party in the Brussels regional parliament are Muslims; that, earlier this year during the Muslims feast Eid-al-Adha, 20,000 sheep were slaughtered in Brussels, in defiance of Belgian law, under which even culling your own chickens in illegal; that a Socialist member of parliament "wants to demolish the monument commemorating the 1915 Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenian Christian civilians."
In short, the Socialist party in the European capital is, right before our eyes, turning into an Islamic party.
For more a in-depth source, look to the works of Bat Ye'or, particularly her The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam. Even more broadly, to really get a sense of what dhimmitude is, you must acquaint yourself with a part of history that is largely ignored in the West: Byzantine history. You must take it upon yourself to discover exactly what happened to a great civilization like the Second Rome which was a Greek Christian Empire, when Islam conquered her.
________________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Their assimilation/radicalization rate is a trick issue -- some countries are better at assimilating new populations than others.
First, your statement seems to presume that it is the responsibility of the existing population to assimilate the newcomer. Does the newcomer not have an equal responsibility to assimilate?
Given that I'd be interested in a list of those European countries that you think are doing a "better" job of assimilation and those where the Muslims are doing a good job as assimilating themselves. I submit these will be very, very short lists.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
I'm not ready to give you this list, because I don't have the data. But I do know that some countries have had manifest problems (obviously, the Dutch and French come to mind), while others haven't, in spite of taking in a great number of immigrants. Canada, Switzerland, Britain, Germany, and so on come to mind. Each of these countries may have some problems, obviously, but a) not on the same scale as the paradigm cases, and b) not obviously greater troubles than would be caused by the basic socioeconomic factors.
That's all rough and approximate. I might revise my list if I could get the kinds of statistics I alluded to above. I'm just trying to avoid argument by annecdote.
You consider the Muslim situation in Britain and Germany to be positives? Even after the July 7 Underground attacks and the significant support for such actions among Muslims in Britain? Even after the exposure of the planned train attacks in Germany and the ongoing low level violence (studiously avoided in the western press) and surveys indicating 2/3 of "native" Germans actually fear Islam and Muslims? Britain and Germany are hardly what I would call positive cases of assimilation.
As to Switzerland Muslim presence is not as pervasive in Switzerland --- its a whole lot harder to obtain residence let alone citizenship in Switzerland. Canada is only now beginning to see the problem that has plauged continental Europe.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
I've read some pretty conflicting surveys related to the beliefs of Muslims in Britain about the attacks. A solid majority were opposed to them. Maybe more supported them than would make me comfortable, but obviously this is still a culture in transition. We've had our share of racial violence in this country, with very vocal majorities advocating (and often practicing) violence. I don't yet see how this is different in kind from the racial tensions we've gone through here.
you are dreaming. Time will tell but I do not see it ending well no matter what happens.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
Re: 1. The birthrate among "native" Europeans is well below the replacement rate --- the "native" population is shrinking not growing.
2. The birthrate among Muslim immigrants/decendents is well above the replacement rate --- the "exotic" population is growing very, very fast.
The short answer to this is that trees do not grow up to the sky. There is absolutely no reason to expect that birth rates or immigration rates will remain ectched in stone. And remember that once upon a time some gloomy people thought trends favored the old Soviet Union; they were wrong.
Moreover demography is not destiny. Athens stood off Persia and Macedonia conquered Persia. For that matter, Israel does quite well at keeping the Islamic menace at bay despite its location and the existence of a huge Arab minority in its borders.
... but oen has to have some sort of basis on which to make projections. Could the "native" birthrate pickup? Sure it could but its been declining for 40 years so there is no reason to base projections on a turnaround. Could the Muslim birthrate decline? Sure it could but there is no reason to assume it will. In order for that to happen there would have to be major changes in the Muslim population becoming more "European" and, based on the ongoing conflcits, there does not appear to be any evidence that's happening.
There is going to be a clash. I personally doubt that "native" Europeans are going to sit back and watch their societies by Islam, no matter how much their leaders may want to avoid confrontation. The stage is being set for a backlash, and given the history of Europe it probably won't be pretty.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
To quote the swordsman from The Princess Bride,
"I do not think that word means what you think it means."
Materialism is the belief that there are no "real" things outside of that which you can touch, taste, smell, hear, or see. As such, a "moral force" is at best an illusion since it does not "really" exist*. Granted, modern atomic theory throws some serious challenges to the concept of "reality" as it exists within the concept of materialsim, but while they may invalidate the theory, they don't change what the theory purports.
*If you like the allegory of the cave, and believe that the materialists are walking in the sunlight, the people who believe in "moral force" would be the ones chained to the rocks before the fire in the cave.
I'd hate to throw this back at you, but I don't think it means what *you* think it means. Perhaps you're thinking about a very specific kind of eliminitive materialism.
When I say that I'm a materialist, I mean something like "all properties supervene on micro-physical properties." In other words, physics will ideally explain everything/everything can be reduced to physics. Nobody believes that only things that you can touch, taste, etc. exist, because then you wouldn't believe in electrons -- no materialist that I can think of wants that.
All that said, moral force can fit with physics just fine. Unless I'm mis-understanding what is meant by that (which is obviously a good possibility) -- I took it to mean a kind of psychological drive to perform actions in accord with some strongly-held moral principle. Moral principles (whatever they will be) supervene on states of the world.
I don't think your analogy to the cave analogy is really apt here.
They are equating that Marxist, and Darwinist(as in social Darwinism) way of thinking in which there is no place for the spiritual side of man, and in which morality is determined by an intellectual elite with no thought to tradition.
That, most of us believe, makes Europe more susceptible to the
strong beliefs and motivation of the Islamics.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
If that's what you mean by materialism, that's fine. I'm not sure if I'd be a materialist under this definition -- I'm an atheist, but I'm not sure how that bears on what you mean by 'spiritual'. I don't think that morality is determined by anyone -- I think moral truths are discovered, not created. I think tradition is a useful guide, insofar as dead people have already given this some though and were pretty smart, but of course that's not the end of the story.
All this still seems to be a side issue. The claim was that materialism does not allow us to act from some kind of moral force. Even under the materialism you describe, we could act under moral force (as I understand it), even if the intellectual elite "decide" what's moral.
(One that, admittedly, I opened up.)
I do not see how a true materialist can really accept something called a "moral force." He believes that matter is the final reality, and so a moral force can only be the material manifestation of men acting on psychological epiphenomena of their brain activity; in short, it can only be an illusion.
However, from your answers here it appears to me that you are not really a materialist in this sense. You say you "think moral truths are discovered," which means perforce that you believe in a transcendent moral order.
There is a second kind of material, though; who believes that, as Oakeshott put it, "matter is primary and mind is derivative." Perhaps you fall in this category. Even here, however, positing a "moral force" as something grounded in reality is a difficult matter.
In short, I think I am on firm ground in assuming materialism and the acknowledgement of moral force are in a real tension.
_____________
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
I suspect I'd fall into your second kind of materialism. That is to say (and I think this relates to the link I put up earlier to illustrate my objection to eliminitive materialism) that I do believe that minds exist, I believe in mental states and beliefs and desires and the like. I just believe that they are ultimately cashed out in broadly physicalist terms. I do not believe that psychological or mental states are epiphenomenal; I believe that we really do act on our beliefs, desires, moral obligations (more on them in a minute); I just search for some kind of physical reduction of these things.
Nonetheless, I think that a solid, objective (ie, mind-independet) moral order can be defended on this view. That is, I can be a naturalist about ethical truths -- ethics reduces to physical terms as well. Things really are right and wrong, good and bad -- but by these terms, I mean something like "promotes pleasure and avoids pain" or "leads to people having their desires satisfied" or something very roughly like that -- and, as I've said, I think I can accomodate pleasure and desires in my system. From here, I understand moral force just as the formation of desires to act in acordance with the dictates of morality (ie, maximizing utility or something like that)
Be it in science, communism, "the rationality of man", socialism, fascism, Islam, Nihilism, Christianity, etc.
Don't assume that the next evil "ism" in Europe will be Islamofascism. We can only know that a spiritually dead people will fall for most anything. The ism's the Europeans accepted in the 20th century should serve as a warning.
Europe and the West are in spiritual and moral turmoil. The future is uncertain, but it certainly appears to be bleak. This kind of situation has vary rarely succumbed to something good.
What you are probably seeing is the death of a society and a way of life, and sadly it was the most promising culture that man ever developed.
...is not an Islamist takeover of Europe, per se; it's what will arise in response to an attempted (or perceived) takeover. If their current cultural model won't fix Western Europe's twin problems of low birthrate and failed assimilation, the populace will look for a cultural model that can, or at least claim to.
Unfortunately, they already know of one; equally unfortunately, most of the people who survived the last time it was tried are dying of old age.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
I completely agree here. Part of why I'm so skeptical about a kind of Islamic "takeover" is that, even if some takeover were to be attempted (which I'm not ready to grant), Europe would notice, and do something (potentially quite drastic) to stop it.
And here's where people start hand-waving about how they won't be able to respond due to their "spirits being sapped by generations of cultural relativism." I'm just not sure what to say to these people. Cultural relativism is a bogeyman. It scarcely exists. Insofar as it does it exist, it doesn't follow that you ought to submit to someone else's will. But, obviously, that's a whole other discussion...
I observe that in response to the Danish cartoons, we are chastised for our intolerance, and no major MSM agent in the US would print the same cartoons in order to protect free speech.
I observe that less than five years after being told we are again one nation and we will never forget what happened on 9/11:
* the NYT, the WP, and most of the rest of the MSM undermine the war on terror by publishing leaked information about our most effective tools in the GWoT. More troubling, there are no investigations, and no one even looking to file treason charges against those who clearly aide and abet the enemy.
* the Democrat party advocates cutting and running (albeit under different names) for the primary front in the GWoT.
* I observe also that some Republicans are succombing to the same meme as the Democrats.
I observe that the French, following riots that should have been summarily put down, instead put down the man who would have responded correctly.
I could continue, but there isn't much point. I don't speculate about what "the root cause" of the sapped spirit is, I only note that it is already been sapped. And that does not bode well for the future of this fight.
But this is just a laundry list of complaints about how some people are handling terrorism. I don't see anything about a sapped spirit -- the people who p"undermine our war on terror" do so because they think they're safeguarding our freedoms -- maybe they're wrong, but you can't chalk that up to a lack of spirit. People who advocate leaving Iraq do so because they think we should not have gone in there in the first place, or because we're not doing any good there -- again, no weak spirit. The French riots and Danish riots are big questions, to be sure, but surely there's room to argue that the proper way to deal with riots is not brutal supression.
Obviously, all these points are highly debatable. But all that I'm saying is that someone can disagree with any of your complaints, but not demonstrate a "sapped spirit." They think they're doing the right thing -- sometimes you do the right thing by courage, sometimes by expediency or prudence -- but how can you blame their motives as such?
The reason I called it hand-wavey was because I don't even know what you mean by sapped spirit. A hard heart? Should we have hard hearts? The drive to do what we think is right? But doesn't the NYT have that?
If what you say is true, that it scarcely exists, I would be greatly relieved. Do you believe that we can compare cultures, or religious beliefs or moral conceptions or political ideologies and draw firm conclusions about where one is better than another? If so, do you assert that point and find others readily willing to pursue a dialogue with the expectation of reaching an agreed conclusion that one person's or group's view is clearly more right than the others? And an acceptance of all the consequences of that?
In my experience, the bulk of people fall back on the idea that these things are indeterminable and tolerance demands that we grant to the 'other' that they are just as 'right' as they claim to be. That doesn't leave much 'spirit' for fighting to overcome the 'other', because the only basis is getting ones own arbitrary way. At least not much relative to the notion of fighting to preserve what is actually right.
On your other thread of why worry about Europe. Jihad can be waged by demographics in democracies. As AKP's PM in Turkey, Mr. Edrogan, once said: "Democracy is like a streetcar, You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off." What's he talking about? "Thank God Almighty, I am a servant of the Shariah." Michael Rubin has an interesting article in 10/19 WSJ identifying ways in which the AKP is working from within Turkey's democracy to Islamasize Turkish laws. Parallel it to a majority Muslim Europe. I can email it if you wish.
John E.
Erdogan is not a democrat, he's an Islamist using the infamous 'one man, one vote, one time' formula for dominance.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
The facts Rubin cites sure seem to back that up. That folks at State don't want to entertain that is also very disturbing. Is it foolish to hope that elections will turn the AKP out before they get the institutions on their side? Will the Turkish military step in? What can be fairly expected from US policy? There will be nothing left of the democracy agenda if Turkey turns Islamist. And a policy of isolating the Islamists will also look unachievable. That drum that Tbone beats will sound a lot louder. I suppose that is what you forsee as well.
John E.
As you no doubt know the Turkish military has always taken their role as protectors of the constitution seriously. They have stepped several times when the country has been in danger of drifting from the constitution (whether military intervention in an democracy is good or bad is left for another time :-). But I've seen news reports that some Trukish officers are concerned that Erdogan has taken steps to replace many senior officers with Islamist sympathizers in an effort to prevent the military from acting.
Certainly could be interesting.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
Thanks for the contribution. I disagree with the thrust of what you write, but I'm glad you raised the issue.
And again, great painting.
"During my lifetime, most of the problems the world has faced have come from mainland Europe, and the solutions from outside it." - Thatcher
With the horrors of WW-I fresh in his mind, Yeats wrote "The Second Coming" in 1921:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
This thread puts me in a distinctly Yeatsian mood. I do wonder, longer-term, how "something" can be defeated by "nothing," morally. Old Europe is today a pretty good moral approximation of "nothing," and yet it obviously serves as the principle inspiration for the American left.
Bellinghamster
A policy of isolating Islamism certainly requires positive successful action in Europe. Our differences loom large because we accentuate them. But we have a lot more in common with Europe than the rest of the world. Our fates are intertwined and our efforts need to be rallied.
I still don't see how isolating it is sufficient but I can see that it is necessary. So you;ve raised my awareness on another strategic point that demands recognition (our attitude toward Europe).
John E.
The rise of Islamo-Fascism puts conservatives in a very tough position. After all, it's legalized prostitution, gambling, marijuana, tolerance for Gays and such that the Muslims are rampaging against, from Amsterdam to Copehagen to the south of France.
Paris recently banned topless sunbathing on the Seine in response to Muslim protests.
Only libertarians like the brave (deceased) Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, stood up to the Islamo-Fascists. But the libertarians can't do this alone.
Unless, conservatives, specifically US conservatives, lose their unexplicalbe opposition to social liberties like legalized gambling, prostitution and marijuana, and align with libertarians against those Muslim prudes who want to outlaw such activities all across Europe, we will never be able to win this fight.
Eric Dondero
www.mainstreamlibertarian.com
Re: I wonder what sort of sneer my sneering friends will have when, in their quiet old age they sit and watch their children struggle to formulate a foreign policy that must now contend with the industrial capacity of the Rhineland churning out tanks for our enemies.
Do you think Islam is capable of supporting an industrial economy? A religion that condemned even medieval science as heretical because it could not handle the notion of natural cause and effect, which only just admitted to a Copernican solar system twenty five years ago, which rejects the rudiemnts of a modern financial system, which has replaced once-vibrant market traditions with corruption and patronage, does not strike me as capable of sustaining a modern technological economy on its own.
I've said this repeatedly, but I will say it again. As a culture Islam is doomed-- unless it can seriously reform its ways. It has no resources other than oil and people-- the former is finite and the latter Islam wastes with an extravagance that makes the Prodigal Son look like a miser. The danger is not that Islam will conquer the world (or even some part of the world not currently in its embrace); the danger is that the collapse of Islam with drag the rest of us into a holocaust with it.