Posted on 02/19/2006 9:27:17 AM PST by A. Pole
The uproar over the Danish cartoons satirizing the "Prophet" is a perfect illustration of the futility of public discourse in the postmodern world. In one corner are the pointy-headed leftists - self-hating Westerners who blame the victims (Danes et al.) for permitting such blasphemies to be published. In the other are the ditto-headed "conservatives" who declare that mockery of all things holy is our "tradition," and anyone who doesn’t like it, had better go back to Mullah-land.
It does no good to explain to the "conservatives" that mockery and skepticism have been the weapons of Anti-Christianity since Montaigne and Voltaire, both of whom championed the superiority of non-Western cultures. It is precisely this irreverent habit of mind that has made the West incapable of defending itself. In Enlightenment propaganda, Turks and Persians are portrayed as honorable and wise me of moderation, in contrast with decadent, violent, and superstitious Europeans. For anti-Christians, Islam, however much it is to be hated as superstition, is always a preferable superstition to Christianity. Unable to understand the nature of the beast, European liberals have preached toleration and freedom of religion, welcoming hordes of diverse immigrants who are now demanding to be treated with respect. If it is the policy of Denmark, Norway, and France to throw open their countries to Muslim occupiers, they had better learn on what terms their "guests" will permit them (temporarily) to exist.
The only alternative to the gentle courtesy of surrender is a reassertion of Christianity as the religion of the West, but such a revival is hardly likely in France or the U.S. and even less likely in Scandinavia, where Christianity came under attack before it had actually had time to bite deep into the Nordic soul. Liberalism, which is defined as a self-undermining philosophical posture, is only a transitional phase between Christianity and something else, and it is beginning to look as if that something else will be Islam. My advice to the Danes is to learn to live with it and make the best deal they can. Better to be Muslims than what they are.
The most predictable comment came from the Catholic League, which both condemned the violent Muslim response and applauded "the decision of mainstream media outlets not to reprint or show the controversial cartoons." The Catholic League under Bill Donohue has gone from being a defender of the Church to a sort of ACLU for religious freedom. Donohue, who has made valuable critiques of the ACLU, nonetheless subscribes, while attacking their abuses, to the ACLU’s point of view, and his statement illustrates the basic problem of trying to combine Christianity with any form of liberalism.
Liberalism, by its very nature, must reject the Christian’s claim to practice the one true religion. Some liberals, like Lord Acton, were also Catholics, though in most circumstances their liberalism trumped their religion - consider Acton’s rather dubious behavior, organizing the opposition to Pius IX at the First Vatican Council. Let us just say he was confused. Other more sinister liberals, take their stand on tolerance and defend (or at least pretend to) the Christian’s right to be wrong.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it."
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
As a child, I learned these three inanities - from Voltaire, Mill, and Jefferson respectively - from a recording of a famous CBC radio play, The Investigator. In the play, Senator McCarthy, killed in an airplane crash, arrives in Heaven (where else?), where he immediately questions the security at the gate and begins an investigation of all the pinkos and com symps in the place. One after another, the liberals recite their famous platitudes. The judges - such legal luminaries as Titus Oates, Cotton Mather, Torquemada, and Judge "the hanging" Jeffreys - are decidedly unimpressed. "These fellows all say the same thing," growls the Hanging Judge. The leftist writer was closer to the truth than he realized: Liberal "philosophy," from Locke to Mises, is one gigantic broken record, repeating the same petty incantations like children hiding under the covers on a dark night, swearing over and over "I don’t believe in ghosts."
Conservative Republicans denounced the play as an expression of Canada’s anti-Americanism; liberals and leftists loved it, though it was only anti-American lefists who had the courage to say so.
Like most Americans Joe McCarthy was an old-fashioned liberal who really did believe in the old liberal agenda - individual liberty, free enterprise, and democracy. He would probably have been happy to endorse even the liberal doctrine of free expression. But Joe McCarthy also loved his country enough to know when it was being threatened by an alien ideology whose adherents would use liberal values as a wrecking bar and turn the comfortable little world of American in the 1950’s into a Gulag.
Since Senator McCarthy’s fall from power and early death, leftists of every stripe - especially the leftists who call themselves conservatives - have screamed McCarthyism whenever an institution - whether a college, church, or newspaper - exercises simple prudence in limiting discussion. It is McCarthyism, if the Boy Scouts don’t want homosexual propaganda at the Camporee, but it is also McCarthyism when a university forbids hate speech. Sam Francis used to point out that a university has a duty to demand civility on campus, and racial slurs are, to say the list, not the mark of civility.
Modern liberals are far sillier than Mill or Jefferson, neither of whom would have endorsed the right of Communists or Muslims to impose tyranny. But even decent old liberals like Jefferson suffered from the dangerous delusion that opinions matter and that "people" have a right not only to hold but to express opinions. Anyone who has read a single dialogue of Plato should have been disabused of this nonsense. A potter’s opinion on justice is of about as much value as Plato’s opinion on the best means of disposing of nuclear waste. Indeed, there are few aspects of human life, from theology to musical taste to a preference in ice cream flavors, where it makes any sense to speak of an individual’s right to an opinion. People who regard Chopin as a greater composer than Bach or prefer Sealtest Rocky Road to an Italian gelato are no better off than people who believe that the universe is held up by an elephant standing on a tortoise. And besides, who really cares who you think? I know I don’t. I have grown tired of my own opinions. Just imagine how tedious I find yours.
I don’t really care what they print in a Danish newspaper, because, whatever they print will not be the truth. For the same reason, I don’t care if Muslims take to burning European newspapers or attacking European diplomats. This is what Muslims do and have always done. They have no argument but the sword and so long as the postmodern postChristian West continues to arm them, coddle them, and allow them the run of their countries, we can expect to hear more and more calls for sensitivity. Today it is the refusal of the America media to run cartoons; tomorrow it may be a ban on skimpy bathing suits in heavily Muslim neighborhoods (an argument already being made in Paris); next week a prohibition on the public consumption of alcohol. Of course, we will never admit we are adopting Sharia, because we in the West refuse to tell the truth even to ourselves, but little by little we are learning to make our accommodation.
Don’t agree? Then ask George Bush why the US government is about to violate the treaty we signed with Yugoslavia in order to give the sacred land of Kosovo to Albanian Muslim terrorists or why Laura Bush, in Turin for the Winter Olympics, expressed repugnance over the cartoons. The President says he is a Christian. I suppose he has a right to his opinion.
Bump
Ping for later
This is not about cartoon violence. This is about ISLAMIC violence.
We must stay focused on the cause.
A little too much high falutin' goobly gook but overall somewhat correct.
Huh?
If Jewish people saw an offensive cartoon about Moses, I think they would be offended and not ignore it. If Christans saw a cartoon about Jesus they would be offended and turn the other cheek for another blow. Of interest, would be any comments by Oriental religions to a similar situation.
Perhaps. Just remember that God gave man only TWO cheeks :)
I saw cartoons and they appeared to be hardly more than Caricature of Arab Male. Maybe presence of crescent somewhere in cartoon indicated identity of ...to Muslims.
the newspapers must have known that publishing cartoons would result in violence. Because that is how Muslim world tends to react to things they don't like.
so the newspapers were kinda inciting the whole thing.
posted comment on another site citing the lack of reaction on the part of U.S muslims.
they more accustomed to western style.
The Muslims that are angry don't want to hear about "freedoms" when it comes to depicting prophet in caricaure.
maybe newspapers should rethink future publishing on similar cartoons.
to avoid future bloodshed...massacres...beheadings etc etc
“This was not a race or religious issue, it was purely a
thuggish element bordering on criminality. They were not
standing up for the community, we are talking about thugs
and criminals who wanted to deliberately start things up to
create the headlines, and there’s no justification.”
Would the Muslims just take it and apologize to us for Insulting Christ?
I don't think so.
These vermin do not belong in the West.
Enough!
I cancelled my subscription to Chronicles because of condescending stuff like this.
This article makes great points.
TRUTH be told, that wasn't even Allah as a pig. It was a man in a pig costume from a hog calling contest. AP was not happy with the appropriation of their photo.
But the media has shielded the holy warriors (and they do comprise a violent army, this is NOT protest). Instead the West is blamed for the outrage and blamed for furthering the violence.
What I get from the article is that freedom of thought and expression are false ideals. Individuals are not entitled to such. Free thought and expression are corrosive of true Christian values in places where those values are held. For the sake of civility and protection of the faith, we mustn’t have totally free speech. This is why liberalism and Christianity are totally incompatible.
The implication that Europe will become Muslim is a taunt to them to come back into the fold, to re-embrace Catholicism.
"And besides, who really cares who you think? I know I don’t. I have grown tired of my own opinions. Just imagine how tedious I find yours."
Indeed.
Not true. We Christians have been living here in the US with liberals for over 200 years.
Heck..most of our children start out as liberals until they get their brains.
But even decent old liberals like Jefferson suffered from the dangerous delusion that opinions matter and that "people" have a right not only to hold but to express opinions. Anyone who has read a single dialogue of Plato should have been disabused of this nonsense. A potter’s opinion on justice is of about as much value as Plato’s opinion on the best means of disposing of nuclear waste.
Indeed, there are few aspects of human life, from theology to musical taste to a preference in ice cream flavors, where it makes any sense to speak of an individual’s right to an opinion. People who regard Chopin as a greater composer than Bach or prefer Sealtest Rocky Road to an Italian gelato are no better off than people who believe that the universe is held up by an elephant standing on a tortoise. And besides, who really cares who you think? I know I don’t. I have grown tired of my own opinions. Just imagine how tedious I find yours."
You know how private person or opinion would be in Greek? Idiota/idiotic - so instead of saying "this is my personal/private opinion" (as opposed to the universal/objective truth), one should say "this is my idiotic opinion" or "I am an idiot"!
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