Posted on 01/14/2015 12:33:18 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
For the last few decades, Western civilization has been attempting to avoid the difficult levels of thought-analysis,synthesis,and most of all,evaluation. No one wants to be the one to point a finger and say, “That’s just wrong.” For one thing, as we learned from Charlie Hebdo, doing so can get you killed. But we also know that repercussions can take other forms as well--job loss,lawsuits,public ridicule,and personal rejection(I don’t have as many friends as I used to). We have been basking in the luxury of sloppy, pseudo-intellectual mock thinking and it may cost us everything. The horrors of 9/11,the Boston bombing,the Fort Hood shooting,and the Paris massacre demand that civilized people adjust their thinking about two closely-related ideas:multiculturalism and compromise.
As a long-time veteran of public schools I can speak to the influence of multiculturalism in our education systems. It appears to be the result of our attempt to rid the public square of Christian influence and replace it with a purely human credo;rather than teach students to discern good from bad in the biblical sense, we’ve taken the easy road and decided to go with “tolerance” also known as “multiculturalism.” If nothing is truly bad,then we can all skip down the road together,holding hands and singing "People of the World". No judgment,no shame;no shame,no retaliation;no retaliation, no war. That’s the dream.
That works just fine as long as the cultures we have to deal with are not noticeably different from our own. Western societies, steeped for so many centuries in the Christian worldview,can live side-by-side without the necessity for repudiation,but throw in a mindset that has rejected biblical justice since Isaac and Ishmael,Jacob and Esau,and we have a different challenge:if we don’t wake from this Prozac-laced,guilt-ridden haze and realize that not all cultures can be safely welcomed, we will lose it all.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
It is all part of what Bruckner calls “the enchanting music of departure.” Its siren call is seductive but also supremely mendacious. Indeed, the messy reality of the primitive world—its squalor and poverty, its penchant for cannibalism, slavery, gratuitous cruelty, and superstition—are carefully edited out of the picture. In their place we find a species of Rousseauvian sentimentality. Rousseau is the patron saint of Third Worldism. “Ignoring the real human race entirely,” Rousseau wrote in a passage Bruckner quotes from the Confessions, “I imagined perfect beings, with heavenly virtue and beauty, so sure in their friendship, so tender and faithful, that I could never find anyone like them in the real world.” The beings with whom Rousseau populated his fantasy life are exported to exotic lands by the Third Worldist. As Rousseau discovered, the unreality of the scenario, far from being an impediment to moral smugness, was an invaluable asset. Reality, after all, has a way of impinging upon fantasy, clipping its wings, limiting its exuberance. So much the worse, then, for reality. As Bruckner notes, in this romance adepts “were not looking for a real world but the negation of their own. . . . An eternal vision is projected on these nations that has nothing to do with their real history.”
............Sandall does not mention William Henry’s In Defense of Elitism (1994)—another unfairly neglected book—but his argument in The Culture Cult reinforces Henry’s accurate, if politically incorrect, observation that
the simple fact [is] that some people are better than others—smarter, harder working, more learned, more productive, harder to replace. Some ideas are better than others, some values more enduring, some works of art more universal. Some cultures, though we dare not say it, are more accomplished than others and therefore more worthy of study. Every corner of the human race may have something to contribute. That does not mean that all contributions are equal. . . . It is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the moon as to put a bone in your nose.
Henry’s quip about the bone in the nose elicited the expected quota of outrage from culture-cultists. But the outrage missed the serious and, ultimately, the deeply humane point of the observation. What Sandall calls romantic primitivism puts a premium on quaintness, which it then embroiders with the rhetoric of authenticity. There are two casualties of this process. One is an intellectual casualty: it becomes increasingly difficult to tell the truth about the achievements and liabilities of other cultures. The other casualty is a moral, social, and political one. Who suffers from the expression of romantic primitivism? Not the Lauren Huttons and Claude Lévi-Strausses of the world. On the contrary, the people who suffer are the objects of the romantic primitive’s compassion, “respect,” and pretended emulation. Sandall asks:
Should American Indians and New Zealand Maoris and Australian Aborigines be urged to preserve their traditional cultures at all costs? Should they be told that assimilation is wrong? And is it wise to leave them entirely to their own devices?
Sandall is right that the answers, respectively, are No, No, and No: “The best chance of a good life for indigenes is the same as for you and me: full fluency and literacy in English, as much math as we can handle, and a job.”
This is a truth that was broadly recognized at least through the 1950s. With the failure of colonialism, however, came a gigantic failure of nerve. (It might be said, in fact, that the failure of colonialism was a gigantic failure of nerve.) More and more, confusion replaced confidence, and with confusion came the pathologies of guilt.
Since the folly of locking up native peoples in their old-time cultures is obvious, but it is tactless to say so, governments have everywhere resorted to the rhetoric of “reconciliation.” This pretends that the problem is psychological and moral: rejig the public mind, ask leading political figures to adopt a contrite demeanor and apologize for the sins of history, and all will be well. Underlying this is the assumption that we are all on the same plain of social development, divided only by misunderstanding.
But this assumption, Sandall emphasizes, “is false.” And it was recognized as false by governments everywhere until quite recently. Around 1970, the big change set in. Then, instead of attempting to help primitives enter the modern world, we were enjoined to admire them and their (suitably idealized) way of life. As Sandall observes, “the effect on indigenes of romanticizing their past has been devastating.”
If your traditonal way of life has no alphabet, no writing, no books, and no libraries, and yet you are continually told that you have a culture which is “rich,” “complex,” and “sophisticated,” how can you realistically see your place in the scheme of things? If all such hyperbole were true, who would need books or writing? Why not hang up a “Gone Fishing” sign and head for the beach? I might do that myself. In Australia, policies inspired by the Culture Cult have brought the illiterization of thousands of Aborigines whose grandparents could read and write.
The statistics are grim.".....
And they’re really just taking a leaf out of the left’s book. How tolerant are liberals,really? Remember again, the only test of tolerance is how well you abide things you dislike. And no one is more vicious in destroying perceived negatives than leftists. ....................The reality is that when leftists hate something—and it is all emotion with them—they have no mercy.(Mind you, this is one reason liberals accuse conservatives of being “haters”;it’s projection. Governed by emotion, they only oppose what they despise,so they naturally view opposition as synonymous with hatred.)
So leftists’ calls for tolerance amount to a request that Muslims and others practice what leftists themselves merely preach. But if you consider their working definition of the word—confusing tolerance with affinity or indifference—there is an irony here: these secular fundamentalists have the same message the Islamic fundamentalists do:
Believe what we believe.
Like what we like.
Hate what we hate.
Become one with our collective.
And we can live in peace.
Secular and Islamic fundamentalists have something else in common. Both groups have many perceived negatives that aren’t actually objectively negative,so they try to wipe out the wrong things. Thus do they work together to destroy Christianity and Western civilization. And this is why I named as co-conspirators in the Paris attack Francois Hollande,Angela Merkel,Stefan Löfven and Barack Obama. But this brings me to my last Tolerance Lesson for Leftists,and I direct my words now specifically to leftists:There’s something else pious Muslims perceive as a negative,and it also happens to be something that is an objective negative.
You."
Question: when the Nazis, Stalinists, Khmer Rouge, the Shining Path or the Weathermen committed violence, did we lament, “Another attack in the name of ideology”? Did we hear “Ideology is the problem”? That would be about as helpful as going to a doctor with a dreadful illness and, upon asking him what the problem is, his responding “Your state of health.”
Like ideology, religion is a category, not a creed. As with states of health, which occupy a continuum from excellent to awful, they both contain the good, the bad and the ugly. But modern man, not wanting to place an onus on a faith or seem a “religious” chauvinist — which is often contrary to his relativistic ideology — is a bad physician who refuses to name the disease or the cure. So depending on how he is emotionally disposed, we may hear utterances such as “Children need some religion” or “Religion breeds violence.” Ancient Aztec children had “religion,” and they learned well how to sacrifice thousands of innocents a year to Quetzalcoatl on bloody altars. And Amish children have “religion,” and peace and charity define them.
Conservatives exhibit this problem as well. So many will say “Islam is not a religion; it’s a destructive all-encompassing ideology,” or some variation thereof. They treat “religion,” that broad category, as if it’s good by definition. Not that this isn’t understandable. Raised in a relativistic and pluralistic (and these two qualities have a bearing on one another) society, they want to get along with their neighbors; so they tacitly accept an unwritten agreement stating......"
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/characteristics-of-postmodernism-faq.htm
“What are the characteristics of Postmodernism?
When listing the chracteristics of postmodernism, it is important to remember that postmodernists do not place their philosophy in a defined box or category. Their beliefs and practices are personal rather than being identifiable with a particular establishment or special interest group. The following principles appear elemental to postmodernists:
There is no absolute truth - Postmodernists believe that the notion of truth is a contrived illusion, misused by people and special interest groups to gain power over others.
Truth and error are synonymous - Facts, postmodernists claim, are too limiting to determine anything. Changing erratically, what is fact today can be false tomorrow.
Self-conceptualization and rationalization - Traditional logic and objectivity are spurned by postmodernists. Preferring to rely on opinions rather than embrace facts, postmodernist spurn the scientific method.
Traditional authority is false and corrupt - Postmodernists speak out against the constraints of religious morals and secular authority. They wage intellectual revolution to voice their concerns about traditional establishment.
Ownership - They claim that collective ownership would most fairly administrate goods and services.
Disillusionment with modernism - Postmodernists rue the unfulfilled promises of science, technology, government, and religion.
Morality is personal - Believing ethics to be relative, postmodernists subject morality to personal opinion. They define morality as each person’s private code of ethics without the need to follow traditional values and rules.
Globalization – Many postmodernists claim that national boundaries are a hindrance to human communication. Nationalism, they believe, causes wars. Therefore, postmodernists often propose internationalism and uniting separate countries.
All religions are valid - Valuing inclusive faiths, postmodernists gravitate towards New Age religion. They denounce the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ as being the only way to God.
Liberal ethics - Postmodernists defend the cause of feminists and homosexuals.
Pro-environmentalism - Defending “Mother Earth,” postmodernists blame Western society for its destruction.”
......Conservatives who think progressives are misinformed idealists will forever be blind-sided by the malice of the left—by the cynicism of those who pride themselves on principle, by the viciousness of those who champion sensitivity, by the intolerance of those who call themselves liberal, and by the ruthless disregard for the well-being of the downtrodden by those who preen themselves as social saints.
Conservatives are caught by surprise because they see progressives as merely misguided, when in fact they are fundamentally misdirected. They are the messianists of a religious faith. But it is a false faith and a self-serving religion. Since the redeemed future that justifies their existence and rationalizes their hypocrisy can never be realized, what really motivates progressives is a modern idolatry: their limitless passion for the continuance of Them."
Over the past six months....I’ve finally sat down and read over the Triology (the three books that Muslims have as their “package”, and please note...the Quran is a third of the big picture). The Triology is made up of the Quran, the Hadith, and the Sira.
It would be to people’s advantages to spend a few hours...reading over the material...and grasp an understanding of your status under the Islam umbrella. At the conclusion, you will note that you aren’t at the same status level of life, compared to an individual of the Islamic faith...you are lesser. And the effect of the Golden Rule, which is the basis of our current society? Nowhere within the Muslim faith.
Multiculturalism? It can’t exist under a true Islamic faith. The history of Egypt disappeared after Islam arrived. The history of Persia disappeared after Islam arrived. The history of the Ottoman Empire disappeared after Islam arrived. There’s only one culture in the end, and you would be foolish to think it’s your own of today.
ping
bmp
Thanks for posting. BUMP!
National Socialists and Totalitarians Without Borders work hand in hand. Plunder/death.
When in the Course of human events...
So many great posts on this thread. Thoughtful and insightful, it’s the kind of stuff that has brought me here to FR for many years. I guess the threat is that some people are just not ever willing to leave other people alone. Any kind of resistance to thier plans is considered agression and running away or refusing to fight just leaves a vacuum that will be filled willingly, only to set up new lines of attack. We are in deep poop folks and the only way out is not something anyone wants to contemplate. The awakening of the west will come only when it is almost too late and the turning tide will wash far further than anyone expects since the alternative will be to be lorded over by these imams and thier brutal attack dogs.
The Postmodern progressive pap that’s been imprinted on 2 (going on 3) generations has paralyzed thought - leaving us a vulnerable, willing target for Islamic rigidity and their infiltration into western countries. Islamic terrorists (Muslims) have no confusion about what their beliefs and designs are when dealing with the “infidel problem.”
There will always be war between freedom and slavery.
The Left would have us think otherwise.
A total restructuring of society to remove freedom is the only way they could even come close to this dream (nightmare).
Islam sees their window of opportunity and are acting on it.
bttt
Bump!
Excellent. Waaayy too many people don’t realize that multiculturalism is nothing of the sort. Most of its practicioners and promoters are not interested in other cultures at all.
What they are interested in is ostentatiously opposing their own culture and thereby demonstrating their moral superiority to the rest of us.
Took a class in African history once. Turned out it wasn’t about African history at all. It was about the history of the white man and his oppression of Africans.
IOW, it’s not about them, it’s about us. We just pretend to care about them.
Thanks again.
I get so tired of claims that Islam isn’t “really” a religion because it is also a political movement. As if a faith stops being a religion because it is more than “just a religion” by our lights.
Religion, as you say, isn’t always good.
BTW, a parallel just struck me.
The constant recent drumbeat about “rape culture” generally incorporates the notion that “rape has nothing to do with sex.” This is because the proponents assume sex is always Good, therefore rape, which is Bad, cannot have anything to do with sex.
Similar for the “Islam isn’t a religion.” Religion is Good. Islam has many Bad characteristics. Therefore it isn’t “really” a religion.
The fact, of course, is that both modes of both sexual and religion expression can be and often are Bad.
I bet we could apply that same mental exercise to other progressive issues.
We need to be critical, opinionated and judgmental.
It shouldn’t be, “Have you hugged your child today?”
It should be, “Have you corrected your child today?”
I agree about compromise. I hear many conservatives lament Obama and how he has set race relations back 50 years. While he certainly has ‘picked the scab’ shall we say. The only way race relations were ever considered ‘good’ is by whites compromising to the point of being a non entity and working against their own interest. From the Black Caucus to affirmative action to ‘equal outcomes’. Want to find out where race relations really stand? Let’s us do away with all this race based crap and see where the chips fall.
It's enough to justify making public statues of Margaret Mead, for the purpose of publicly breaking them on National Reality Day.
For years I've been saying that "religion" -- even radical Islam -- isn't really the problem we're facing.
The real problem we face is that our society is filled with a lot of misfits and losers (mostly young males), and we have no idea how to deal with them. Some of them pursue careers in entertainment, and a disturbing number of them are showing up in politics now, too (Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Anthony Weiner are three that come to mind immediately), but that only masks what is an underlying personality disorder or psychotic condition because these people can hide behind their financial success.
Our dilemma is that we have scorned virtue and trotted vice out into the mainstream, and now we don't know how to deal with what we've created.
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