Failures of Nerve

The New Criterion ^ | 11/3/02 | Roger Kimball

[Valin]

However tactfully you dress it up, the United States had it coming. —Mary Beard, about September 11 … the greatest source of terrorism on earth. —Harold Pinter, about the United States

The real matter is the extinction of America, and God willing, it will fall to the ground. —Mullah Mohammed Omar, Taliban leader

We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you. —Hussein Massawi, former Hezbollah leader

The first thing to note about these statements by the classicist Mary Beard, the playwright Harold Pinter, and the Islamofascists Mohammed Omar and Hussein Massawi is that they could quickly be multiplied tenfold. You will find similar statements circulating at almost any American or European university, throughout the American and European (and Arabic) press, in mosques and madrassahs—almost anywhere, in fact, that intellectual elites, or Islamic terrorists, congregate. Anti-Americanism, in both its patently murderous and fatuously sophisticated forms, is a growth industry.

Is there a connection between the Mary Beards and what Mark Steyn has aptly dubbed the weird beards of the world?—between the prattling intellectuals and the pragmatic terrorists? In an important sense the answer is Yes. “Ideas,” the political philosopher Richard Weaver observed in his signature phrase, “have consequences,” even bad ideas, even silly ideas, even ideas that could only come from the mind of a privileged Western intellectual too infatuated with his own importance to notice fundamental political realities. This is not to suggest that Harold Pinter (say) is responsible for Mullah Omar; it is to suggest that he helps create a climate of opinion where Mullah Omars have a better chance of thriving.

[SES1066]

I was puzzled when I first read this exerpt and am glad that I took the time to read the entire article. It is excellent and well worth the read. It is a very reason criticism of the weak intellectual underpinings of these critics.

A better exemplar paragraph from this article is this...
Orwell noted that pacifism was “objectively pro-Nazi” because it inculcated an attitude that aided England’s enemies. Just so, anti-Americanism is objectively pro-terrorist. It was not surprising that the Nazis did all they could to encourage pacifism among the English (just as the Soviets actively aided the anti-War movement in America in the 1960s and 1970s). Similarly, anti-Americanism helps to create a climate where terrorism is excused, rationalized, explained—explained away. We deserved it; we had it coming; arrogance; poverty; the environment; root causes ...

[Valin]

You have a point. I probably should have used a larger excerpt.

[SES1066]

Not a problem, I just want our fellow members to take the time to read this excellent article. One of the reasons that I'm here is to find these things that I wouldn't find on my own - like this one!

The problem with scholarly articles like this is that the opening paragraphs are frequently used to setup the position to be argued against. Very different from news articles which have synopsis lead paragraphs.