("Where do I begin," asked the nasty witch, cackling and chuckling to herself and throwing her mother's admonition: "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," to the wind.)
"...thus did industrialization beget a massive backlash..."
Let's start with that word--backlash--a favorite word of, for example, totalitarian feminist thinkers as they try to penetrate the inconceivable evidence that some people are not wholly on their side. "Backlash" attempts to contain what may be a RATIONAL CRITIQUE into childish game of crack the whip. Only crayola crayons and thick stick figures are necessary to address a backlash
Bravely the author of this essay, Brink Lindsey, battles his way through a forest of alternative viewpoints--blinkers firmly in place. Like Galahad, he rigorously maintains his intellectual virginity, manfully refusing to acknowledge the presence of the 800 pound cockroach scuttling around noisily in the corner.
Yes folks, along with those dreadful post enlightenment politicalbacklashes--Fascism and Communism (by the way, does anybody know why our President didn't finger the latter in his epochal speech? I do.) another system rose up to do battle with confusion, chaos, dislocation, longing for community, and love of toys.
And who might that be? Could it be that Mr. Lindsey does not see this fast-breeding, large-breasted (odd for a cockroach) THIRD member of the Holy Trinity of modernism because--and I blush to suggest it--he worships this diety and cannot conceive that anyone else on earth has any reservations about his deity?
With this little gem:"...Modernity thus came as a humiliation — a shocking realization that the local culture was hopelessly backward compared with that of the new foreign masters...." our hero attempts to shout down the shadows that are stalking him--tempting him away from a life of clean living, high thinking and sound investing.
The belief that envy motivates every person who rebels against the American Way Of Life is the ultimate juju bead in the arsenal of the Free Marketeer. No other possibility exists in his mind. Not because those possibilites are not there waiting to be examined, but rather because acknowleging the limitations of the Third, and most resilient godhead of the Enlightenement's Holy Trinity will unleash a new...a new....oh dear, say it ain't so....A new Enlightenment. A Great Leap Forward. Something unthinkable, indescribable to the Spenglerian "Matter Of Fact Man".
Self described "conservatives"--who are rejoicing at the "tough talk" of body bags, the "refreshing" secrecy of the military campaign, the lack of a declared war--how old fashioned--, the lack of a certain enemy, the "warm national "unity" dribbling over the country like...well...just like something that dribbles warmly--had better pause and ask themselves for whom the bell tolls. For whom is this "crusade" (that must not speak its name) being waged? Upon whose altar stone are we offering ouselves as sacrifices?
independentmind, when a civilization is nearing extinction, it is indeed shallow to characterize the prevailing emotion as envy. The once great militant Arab civilization is fighting for survival, desperately.
To those planning the (your) next County Fair, may I suggest that you: skip the Sheriff and Highway Patrol exhibits, which include trappings such as radar and satellite gear, on-board computers, infra-red imaging systems, advanced weapon and body armor systems, body cavity inspection procedures, etc. In other words, take your hi-tech/screw-the-individual-at-any-cost-taxpayer- funded-you-will-get-your-mind-right-Luke crap off the fair grounds.
It's a County Fair, for Christ's sake!
PS. And 4 bucks for a six ounce plastic cup of beer is robbery.
It is a religion whose leaders try to maintain political and economic, control, by teaching their adherents to hate. Teaching absolute nonsense, nazi-like, to stir up the ignorant, poor, dirty masses and keep control over them through ceaseless hatefull, and idiotic propaganda.
There is much in common in the brainwashing of fundementalist IsLAME, and Nazism and Communism -i.e take good people and turn them into animals. We have seen it before.
Hate everyone who is different, whether another IsLAME with a slightly different point of view, and certainly a non Islamic.
IsLAMIC fundementalism is religion of antagonism, not of peace.
If responsible Islamic leaders do not take a leadership role the war against the mad IsLAMIST, the entire Islamic world will be annahilated.
Because when a fundementalist Islamist get his hands on a nuclear or chemical weapon, he will not hesitate to use it.
The normal constraints of normal human thinking do not operate in such a person. Therefore the system of Mutuality of Danger, simply does not operate. The IsLAamist would accept a nuclear war in order kill his enemy regardless of the consequences to others. He acts entirely on behalf of his own twisted religious conviction.
Therefore, is is absolutly mandatory to eliminate the IsLAMISTs, and ALL nations supporting them , from the remotest capability of obtaining nuclear, chemical, or biologial weapons. Failure to do so now, will lead to a catastrophe for the West, and total annhilation of the Islamic nations.
Bin Laden would have no hesitation to use a nuclear bomb on Israel, or America, without concern for the civilian population, or for the future of the Middle East. And I am afraid that the Palestinians are so full of hatred and religious delusions, that they probably would welcome such suicidal attack upon their own heads.