Universal Enlightenment Truths & Politics In The Academy-Two Links

June 10, 2022 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Theodore Dalrymple at the Library of Law & Liberty: ‘The Impotence Of The Kantian Republic.’

Many proposed Enlightenment universal truths, truths used to make moral claims, and truths often used to guide modern institutions and political movements (and a lot secular global humanism besides) come into conflict with local, religious, traditional, patriotic and national truths, a conflict which can be witnessed in much current political debate here in America.

I think Dalrymple is leveraging such a gap to highlight the downside realities of Muslim immigration to Europe:

‘When I learned of the provenance of the Manchester bomber, namely that he was the son of Libyan refugees, I asked myself a question that is now almost disallowable, even in the privacy of one’s own mind: whether any authority, in granting them asylum in Britain, asked whether it was in the national interest to do so. In all probability, the answer is no. The officials concerned probably thought only that they were applying a universal rule, or pseudo-universal rule, that in the name of humanity all political refugees (as Salman Abedi’s parents were) have an automatic right of asylum. And if they, the officials, were to be criticised, they would no doubt reply that there were a thousand, or five thousand, refugees for every suicide bomber, and that therefore the admission of Salman Abedi’s parents was a risk that had, on humanitarian grounds, to be taken.’

Via Heterodox Academy (& Jonathan Haidt)-‘On The Intrusion Of National Politics In College Classrooms:

A student suggests (with the necessary caveat of having the proper politics) that point of entry to Shakespeare really shouldn’t be solidarity around current political ideals, especially solidarity as advocated by professors:

‘Students I spoke with after class appreciated the “relevance” of the lecture, noting how the election had revitalized the otherwise inaccessible works of Shakespeare. It’s been over 7 months since Trump was elected, yet my professors show no signs of putting their political digressions on hold. The spread of this phenomenon to subjects like Literature and English reflects a troubling trend: the growing partisanship of higher education.’

It’s hard to see how playing fast and loose with much of the humanities curriculum these past generations, while simultaneously inviting much political idealism, activism and radicalism to settle into academies won’t also invite a subsequent political response by those who don’t share in the ideals (if it’s got ‘studies’ after it…).

If you’re going to gather around political ideals, don’t be surprised when you’ve carved up the world into a series of political fiefdoms.

If it’s any consolation-I discovered similar trends occurring about twenty years ago: The vague notion there had actually been, and should be, a canon, along with much overt and covert political idealism uniting people in the academy.

But, I also found a lot to absorb, experience and hold dear.

It can be a bitter pill to swallow realizing how much shallowness, group-think and moral cowardice there is in a place dedicated to the pursuit of truth and wisdom, especially regarding radical ideologies, but that’s not all there is.

Try and leave things a little better than you found them.

There’s a lot to learn.

Heather McDonald At The WSJ: ‘ The Humanities Have Forgotten Their Humanity’

Repost-From Scientific Blogging: ‘The Humanities Are In Crisis-Science Is Not’…Which Way The Humanities? Five Links & Quotes Gathered Over The Years, Culture Wars Included

Sunday Quotation: From Jonathan Bennett On Kant…Via Youtube: (1 of 3) Kant, Chomsky and the Problem of Knowledge…From Bryan Magee’s Talking Philosophy On Youtube: Geoffrey Warnock On Kant

Via UnHerd, A Discussion With Eric Zemmour-Plus Ca Change…

December 6, 2021 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Via UnHerd, Freddie Sayers discusses immigration with Eric Zemmour, French right historian and politician on Islam, Immigration and French politics.

One has to disregard pretty much any mainstream outlet to discover information these days.

‘I guess I’m left with an anxious feeling…’

Well, watching the current tides in the West leaves me anxious as well.

—

As posted:

Christopher Caldwell filters conceptions of how a society should [be] through a Burkean lens.-‘Reflections On The Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam & The West‘

From the Mark Steyn show:

—

Theodore Dalrymple on Michel Houellebecq here:

‘Hou[e]llebecq has been accused of being a nihilist and cynic, but far from that, his work is an extended protest against nihilism and cynicism. It is true that he offers no solution to the problem, but it is not the purpose of novels, but rather of tracts, to offer solutions to such problems. For him to tell his readers to take up basket-weaving or some such as the answer to existential emptiness would in fact be an instance of that very existential emptiness.’

Here’s a brief Houellebecq interview on Tocqueville (I too was bored when I first read Tocqueville, but I hadn’t realized how deep and accurate so many of his observations were):

As previously posted:

Interview sent in by a reader with Houellebecq on his ‘Soumission,’ which, in his fictional world, imagined a soon-to-be Muslim candidate defeating a French nationalist candidate, followed by an ultimate submission of French society to Islamic law and political leadership.

Interesting discussion at the link (including a deflation of (R)acism as critical theory).

‘But now you’re asking words to mean something they don’t. Racism is simply when you don’t like somebody because he belongs to another race, because he hasn’t got the same color skin that you do, or the same features, et cetera. You can’t stretch the word to give it some higher meaning.’

On some of Houellebecq’s thinking behind the creative work:

‘Yes. It has to happen sometime and it might as well be now. In this sense, too, I am a Comtean. We are in what he calls the metaphysical stage, which began in the Middle Ages and whose whole point was to destroy the phase that preceded it. In itself, it can produce nothing, just emptiness and unhappiness. So yes, I am hostile to Enlightenment philosophy, I need to make that perfectly clear. ‘

Whoa, at least he’s relatively up front about that.

Isn’t it possible to reject Houellebecq’s modernity-is-dead worldview AND also put the universal claims of progressive, collectivist, ideological, postmodern, multicultural feminist discontents into their proper perspective? Perhaps without suggesting the end of the modern world and some presumed next stage to be reached?

And as for discussions of art: Is the book worth a read?

From the comments:

‘Those of you regarding e.g. feminism as somehow an antidote to the patriarchal impulses in enlightenment thinking or Islam, or in broader terms postmodern political and social movements as offering a ‘third way’, something totally new and immune from this dynamic of competitive decay and decline, forget the fact that these movements are themselves the most recent outgrowths of the emancipative instinct, one of the core features deeply rooted in Western thought ever since the renaissance, as Barzun described. As an Asian living in the West myself, I have to tell you that this instinct is simply not present as a core element in other civilisations, and is indeed distinctive about the West. That Japan and Korea, and for that matter every non-western nation, modernised without a countercultural ‘values’ rebellion is indicative in this regard. The west is going to be without allies as it goes with a whimper.
Under such a depressing worldview, hope is provided for by religion and mysticism, a return to medievalism. It is sad, because the West will truly die as it numbs its own most deeply embedded instincts in the process of conversion, but the mysticism is a form of hope for the masses, who never particularly cared for high ideals anyway.
Houellebecq seems to channel Spengler, who hardly anybody reads nowadays. But that such an interesting thinker is hardly glanced at today is an indictment of us, not of him.’

Also, from the comments. Hubristic, but there’s something to deflated nihilism:

‘This is why I love French writers and thinkers. Fascinating to read even if they are always wrong.’

As much as I’m hoping for a break-up of Islamist ideology, I suppose I’m hoping for some light into these dark, post-Enlightenment corners as well. Something other than the existential void and the ideas and ideologies which so often rush in.

I have to give Hollebecq credit, too, for as he points out, the major religions have been dealing with questions of purpose, suffering, telos, why, what, when, and the stuff human nature for a lot longer time.

Denis Dutton suggested art could head towards Darwin (and may offer new direction from the troubles of the modern art aimlessness and shallow depth…the money and the fame) Review of Denis Dutton’s ‘The Art Instinct’

Roger Sandall, Australian critic of romantic primitivism and the Western’s Left’s penchant for the Noble Savage: His home page where his essays can be found. Here’s “The Rise Of The Anthropologues“

Robert Hughes, Australian and often fierce critic of modernism and post-modernism.

***I should add that Werner Herzog’s ‘Into The Abyss‘ was worth my time. Herzog is probably not a proponent of the death penalty, but I thought he left me to decide what I thought, and he didn’t flinch from the crime, the tragedy and the loss.

From Edward Feser: ‘Nagel And His Critics Part IV’…A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”…

John Gray Reviews Jonathan Haidt’s New Book At The New Republic: ‘The Knowns And The Unknowns’

Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’

Sunday Quotation: Edmund Burke On The French Revolution

From Reason’s Hit And Run Blog: ‘It’s Everybody Bomb Anybody Who Draws Mohammed Day in France!’

What To Do When A Lot Of People Are Losing Their Cool-A Few Thoughts & Quotes

September 7, 2021September 7, 2021 / chr1 / Leave a comment

If you believe that institutions, local institutions like the city council and the school board, are only as good as their members, then you have to rely on yourself to be a somewhat useful person. Sooner or later maybe you step up and volunteer; maybe you have some spreadsheet knowledge, have worked with budgets, have tutored kids etc. We are only as good as our own decisions and our own self-regulation, and so are these institutions.

Our Republic requires this kind of virtue.

Now, imagine your Federal Government, hundreds if not thousands of miles away, is currently acting as though people who aren’t citizens, who have not contributed, and whose first act in our country is breaking the law, could have as much right to be here as you. This is a pretty ridiculous contradiction.

The potentially good news: Old, sclerotic, poorly functioning systems without much direct accountability, like many institutions in Washington, aren’t working very well. In their weakened states, and because of deeper trends and natural incentives, the rot has become obvious. Also, in their weakened states, they’ve become captured by many of the wrong people. There’s some good, at least, in having this understanding and knowledge.

The bad news: Maybe after a period of instability, we end up with worse institutions, or we flirt with tyranny, or back our way into an authoritarian technocracy. Pendulums swing after all. Actions and groups of actors create opposite actions and actors, more or less. Maybe the worse people don’t get pushed out as they should. Maybe many of the loudest and worst fight over the spoils.

Also kinda bad: Because most of us are living in less religious, less patriotic, less physically connected towns, and living amidst more secular, Self-focused and human universalist ideas, the turn Europewards to a more entrenched Left, as in many European institutions, could be inevitable.

Slower growth economies, more people fighting over less, and a greater likelihood of mid- to long-term violence and less trustworthy politics could also be inevitable.

Ah, well.

Thanks for reading.

This Wendell Berry quote, from on “tolerance and multiculturalism,” from his essay “The Joy of Sales Resistance”, has stayed with me:

‘Quit talking bad about women, homosexuals, and preferred social minorities, and you can say anything you want about people who haven’t been to college, manual workers, country people, peasants, religious people, unmodern people, old people, and so on.’

And…:

‘Here our account of the disposition to be conservative and its current fortunes might be expected to end, with the man in whom this disposition is strong, last seen swimming against the tide, disregarded not because what he has to say is necessarily false but because it has become irrelevant; outmanoeuvred, not on account of any intrinsic demerit but merely by the flow of circumstance; a faded, timid, nostalgic character, provoking pity as an outcast and contempt as a reactionary. Nevertheless, I think there is something more to be said. Even in these circumstances, when a conservative disposition in respect of things in general is unmistakably at a discount, there are occasions when this disposition remains not only appropriate, but supremely so; and there are connections in which we are unavoidably disposed in a conservative direction.’

Oakeshott, Michael. Rationalism In Politics And Other Essays. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1991. Print.

“Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.”

–George Santayana

‘The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.’

—George Santayana

Charlie Hebdo & Freedom Of The Press-Douglas Murray Reviews Phillipe Lançon

November 24, 2019 / chr1 / Leave a comment

At The Spectator, Douglas Murray reviews ‘Disturbed‘ by Charlie Hebdo survivor, Phillipe Lancon:

Murray:

‘Lançon is under no illusions about this process: ‘This lack of solidarity was not merely a professional and moral disgrace. By isolating and pointing the finger at Charlie, it helped make the latter the Islamists’ target.’ Death threats and ‘filthy emails’ to the staff were common for a decade.’

There is silence surrounding the bloodshed, along with desire to turn away, ignore, and forget.

Confronting, recalling and remembering upsets many assumptions these days.

As for my American take on the French desire to relentlessly and radically mock all institutional authority (the Catholic Church, ‘bourgeois’ thinking, diametrically opposed political views like Le Front National), well, how very French.

‘Charlie Hebdo (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁli ɛbdo]; French for Charlie Weekly) is a French satirical weekly magazine,^[3] featuring cartoons,^[4] reports, polemics, and jokes. Irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication describes itself as above all secular, skeptic,^[5] and atheist,^[6] far-left-wing,^[7]^[8] and anti-racist^[9] publishing articles about the extreme right (especially the French nationalist National Front party),^[10] religion (Catholicism, Islam, Judaism), politics and culture.’

What about the differences between Islam and Islamic civilizations and the post-Enlightenment West? Point them out at your own risk. Violate much secular humanist conventional wisdom (supporting Christian religious liberty when it ain’t cool) and be ignored.

Stand against the oft radically driven causes of the radical Left (beneath much secular-humanist and high-liberal thought) and possibly be threatened with violence.

Draw cartoons insulting the central figure in Islam and maybe get murdered.

Salman Rushdie at about minute 57:00: ‘This idea of separate treatment for separate cultures…I think essentially if we follow that to its conclusion…destroys our ability to have a really moral framework for society.‘

Six writers apparently know what is acceptable speech and what isn’t, and thus don’t think the folks at Charlie Hebdo engaged in acceptable speech.

Christopher Hitchens (nearly a free speech absolutist, railing against many of his former friends on the Left) discussing the Yale Press, which was genuinely afraid that publishing this book could lead to violence in the Muslim street:

“…Yale had consulted a range of experts before making its decision and that “[a]ll confirmed that the republication of the cartoons by the Yale University Press ran a serious risk of instigating violence.”

Cartoons here. The cartoonist is still in some danger.

Food for thought.

A British Muslim tells his story, suggesting that classical liberalism wouldn’t be a bad idea…as a more entrenched radical British Left and Muslim immigration don’t mix too well: From Kenanmalik.com: ‘Introduction: How Salman Rushdie Changed My Life’… Via YouTube: ‘Christopher Hitchens Vs. Ahmed Younis On CNN (2005)’…

Free speech (used both well and unwell) meets offended Muslims: ‘Mohammad Cartoonist Lars Vilks Headbutted‘During Lecture’……From The OC Jewish Experience: ‘UC Irvine Muslim Student Union Suspended’…From Volokh: ‘”South Park” Creators Warned (Threatened) Over Mohammed’

See Also: If you thought the cartoons were bad, more on the Fitna movie here. From The NY Times: Review Of Christopher Caldwell’s Book “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West” Libertarians love this issue: Repost-A Canadian Libertarian Making Noise: Ezra Levant

Repost-From The NY Times: Review Of Christopher Caldwell’s Book “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West”

July 13, 2018 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full review here. (updated, Fouad Ajami’s piece, which was not the original)

Book found here.

A lot of the discussion I’ve seen about Muslim immigration to Europe as much involves the anti-multiculturalist crowd (from reasonable, persecuted voices to shrill doomsayers) as it does the problems on the ground, which are quite real. Usually, it’s the politically, economically, and socially conservative who have been the most vocal, lamenting the hold on public opinion and sentiment such a problematic set of ideas has had. Of course, Caldwell goes a little deeper than that, and of course so do the problems and conflicts that can result.

A few quotes:

“The most chilling observation in Mr. Caldwell’s book may be that the debate over Muslim immigration in Europe is one that the continent can’t openly have, because anyone remotely critical of Islam is branded as Islamophobic”

Remember the Dutch cartoonists? Some of them were perhaps irresponsible,even inflammatory, but that was probably no less a time to offer up a reasonable and principled liberal defense of their right to publish.

Also:

“For Mr. Caldwell, the fundamental issue is also, more centrally, about irrevocable societal transformation.”

Is it irrevocable?

As posted:

Caldwell filters conceptions of how a society should [be] through a Burkean lens.-‘Reflections On The Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam & The West‘

From the Mark Steyn show:

There’s a sober realism, reasonable use of statistics, and deeper analysis I find appealing: The number of immigrants each country can absorb is ever in flux and dispute, but it likely has limits. When problems of immigration are backed into as they have been for a few generations (cheap labor, post WWII exhaustion and colonial guilt), harder choices and worse outcomes loom.

European birth rates are low, European economies are relatively more static and weaker than ours, and the political ideals and sentiment at work in Europe seem capable of uniting only to produce many of the problems at hand.

Political leaders frequently elide questions of basic security (Islamic/ist terror), numbers (of immigrants and incentives), as well as the shortcomings and failures of large, top-down bureaucratic institutions to develop legitimate authority and properly allow individuals to mediate their own challenges locally.

Douglas Murray’s ‘The Strange Death Of Europe: Immigration, Identity & Islam‘ is reviewed here.

What say you?

Kenan Malik In The Spiked Review Of Books: ‘Twenty Years On: Internalizing The Fatwa’-Salman Rushdie

Theodore Dalrymple argues that France has the potential to handle Muslim immigration better because of its ideological rigidity, which can better meet the ideological rigidity of its Muslim immigrants…Theodore Dalrymple Still Attacking Multi-Culturalism In Britain

How do you reasonably deal with relativism anyways?: From Virtual Philosophy: A Brief Interview With Simon Blackburn

080405_046 by *chiwai*.

A long time ago, and not so long ago. *chiwai*’s photostream here. Excellent photo.

You Do That Taboo That You Do So Well?

April 3, 2018April 4, 2018 / chr1 / Leave a comment

This blog is still baffled by Angela Merkel’s decision to let in so many migrants in short-term, without seemingly having addressed many long-term immigration and integration issues.

What’s the plan, here, exactly?

‘Solomon Michalski loved going to his new school on a leafy Berlin street because it was vibrant and diverse, with most students from migrant families. But when the teenage grandson of Holocaust survivors let it slip that he was Jewish, former friends started hissing insults at him in class, he says. Last year some of them brandishing what looked like a gun took him aside and said they would execute him’

Perhaps there isn’t such a good plan, but this is the political will, expediency and leadership there is.

A good start for most media outlets might be just reporting the facts. Letting the chips fall where they may; having the courage to discuss more sensitive matters in public forums is a balm desperately needed (plenty of crazies, idiots and ideologues all around…plenty of real elephants in the room).

Douglas Murray at the Spectator: ‘Why Can’t We Speak Plainly About Migrant Crime?:’

‘In Germany friends and readers describe to me how they are learning anew how to read their daily newspapers. When the news says that ‘A person was killed by another person’ for instance, and no names or other identifying characteristics are given, people guess – correctly – that the culprit is probably of migrant background. For the time-being serious crimes are still reported, but the decision has been taken that the public should not really be informed about them. Of course if you were to report them, or mull on them on social media then you would now risk losing that platform. So the media isn’t much use. And social media isn’t either.’

Typically, the kinds of failures we’re seeing means that deeper models are not robust! Many in the media, politics and academia are simply regurgitating parts of questionable models for as long as they will work, and for what they will cover.

There are deeper philosophical, ideological, political and thinking conflicts here, and few will be easily resolved.

It must be a strange time when self-described ‘libertarian Marxist’ Brendan O’Neill is advocating for the liberty of the man-on-the-street to live his own life.

He’s really bringing it to many nannying Eurocrats, techno-Davosians, the radically chic, the well-to-do daughters and sons of the liberal European Left claiming some variant of victimhood while up to their eyeballs in opportunity and material comforts.

This, as many populist responses fill the void:

Everyday people might be able to live their own lives!

But…to what end? Revolutionary Praxis? A return to Marx? A life well-lived?

It reminds this blog of Camille Paglia’s return to the promises of liberation baked-in into the radicalism of the 60’s (when she knew real Marxists just as she holds the academocrats who filled into their wake with contempt). A welcome and bold voice, but…to which ends exactly?

Do you trust yourself enough not to know what could possibly be best for others, and thus default to basic liberty?

What about authority?

Do most people really just want to know where they stand in a hierarchy?

Arnold Kling reviews the late Kenneth Minogue’s ‘The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes The Moral Life,‘ and finishes with:

‘Overall, I would say that for libertarians Minogue’s book provides a litmus test. If you find yourself in vigorous agreement with everything he says, then you probably see no value in efforts to work with progressives to promote libertarian causes. The left is simply too dedicated to projects that Minogue argues undermine individual moral responsibility, and thus they are antithetical to liberty. On the other hand, if you believe that Minogue is too pessimistic about the outlook for freedom in today’s society and too traditional in his outlook on moral responsibility, then you would feel even more uneasy about an alliance with conservatives than about an alliance with progressives.’—

What can some moderns tell us?:

T.S. Eliot (Preludes: Stanza 3)

You tossed a blanket from the bed
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

—

On Marianne Moore at The New Criterion-‘Armored Animal:'(behind a paywall)

‘A first-time reader of Marianne Moore’s poems might be forgiven for thinking that they were dictated on the sly in some uproarious menagerie of the imagination.’

Any thoughts and comments are welcome.

Thank you for reading!

European Anti-Semitism, Marxism, Immigration And Bad Ideas

March 31, 2018March 31, 2018 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Via Mick Hartley.

Oliver Kamm:

‘Why would the leader of a mainstream political party declare that he is opposed to antisemitism? The answer, in the case of Jeremy Corbyn, is that otherwise it would be impossible to tell.’

Of course, NPR will tend to see ‘anti-semitism’ as a ‘far-right’ phenomenon and overlook how complicit naive idealism and authoritarian collectivisism can be in exacerbating the problem.

Let’s not forget that greasing many a cog, found grinding within many a big-city American political machine (exiquisitely corrupt), can be found similar activism.

My two cents: Fashioning the same, tired ideas into a political platform and leading many of the same ‘People’ ritualistically against the world that is (the oppressor’s world), misunderstands much of human nature and much of what is politically possible.

Merely subjecting one’s Self to the continually fresh challenges and foibles of political leadership doesn’t necessarily legitimate bad ideas.

Labeling all individuals as either ‘racist’ or not, ‘misogynist’ or not, ‘Islamophobic’ or not, is serious mislabeling.

This can expose, sooner or later, genuine ‘minorities’ (definitional) living in plain sight to many of the abuses and legitimate fears minorities tend to face pretty much all the time and in all places.

The divisions within the human heart towards the known, familiar and comfortable tend to re-assert themselves, sooner or later.

Hopefully, this occurs magnanimously and within families, as part of institutional best practices and under laws which leave individuals free to practice charity, prudence and reasonable judgment where possible. A solid friendship can weather much more than yet another political crusade.

The more institutions and laws with power to govern your family become governed by radicals and utopians, the weaker those institutions and more badly written the laws tend to become. Unsurprisingly, this bodes ill for many families.

How is ‘Europe’ going to handle these problems?:

Update And Repost: From Peter Berkowitz At Harvard: ‘The Reason Of Revelation: The Jewish Thought Of Leo Strauss’

Are we back to a clash of civilizations…or are there are other options: From The Atlantic: Samuel Huntington’s Death And Life’s Work

From The OC Jewish Experience: ‘UC Irvine Muslim Student Union Suspended’ …

Thank You Bernard Henri-Levy: The End Of Victimhood & Identity Politics

Tom Wolfe wrote about the Black Panthers showing up at Leonard Bernstein’s place: Tom Wolfe’s Radical Chic: That Party At Lenny’s.

Alberto Nisman, The ‘Global Community’ & Anti-Semitism in Europe-Some Links & Thoughts

Ben Sixsmith At Quillette: ‘Britain’s Grooming Gang Crisis’

March 18, 2018March 18, 2018 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Full piece here.

‘The scale of the street grooming crisis in the UK almost defies belief. Hundreds of girls and young women were raped in the city of Rotherham, and hundreds by similar exploitation rings in Rochdale, Peterborough, Newcastle, Oxford, and Bristol. Now, up to a thousand girls are thought to have been drugged, raped, and beaten in Telford between the 1980s and the 2010s.’

Large numbers of migrants (more than possibly can be admitted) desire entry into more successful civilizations from less successful and often failing civilizations. Some are genuine war refugees, some are seeking political asylum, some want economic opportunity, and others’ll just take money if it’s being handed-out. Some are smarter than you, some are considerably dumber; some have particularly valuable skills, others have few to no marketable skills. Some are of exceptional character, some are of particularly low and criminal character; some are from instantly recognizable civilizations, some from very different and potentially conflicting civilizations. All will take much from their own civilizations into yours, and without proper incentives, most will likely wall themselves off into separate and unequal enclaves.

Better to start getting more serious about these questions sooner rather than later.

—

As posted:

Christopher Caldwell piece here.

Quite detailed:

The flood of Middle Eastern refugees into Austria began in the summer. By September they were arriving at the southeastern border at the rate of 10,000 or 12,000 a day. These migrants are associated in the public mind with the war in Syria but, in fact, come from throughout the Muslim world—Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Most of them are on their way to Germany. The great majority are young men. By the end of this year, Austrian authorities estimate, 375,000 will have passed through the country, and a quarter of them will have stayed to apply for asylum. Austria will have added 1 percent to its population in just about three months, with virtually all the newcomers Muslims. When migrant families follow, as they inevitably do, the effect will be multiplied. Donald Tusk, the Polish president of the European Council, warns that the biggest tide of migrants “is yet to come.”

A few things that stuck-out:

–The inability of the leading Social Democratic coalition in Germany to craft reasonable policy, instead making naive, idealistic, short-sighted rather self-serving political choices with consequences for millions of people, and for decades to come.

–The fact that while many of these refugees are simply looking to escape war, many are young men, anchors who will bring more family over to become likely ‘European Muslims.’

–Again, what is Europe doing? With a rather socialistic Left defending freedom with such vaguely utopian idealism, this invites the more ethnically purist, nativist, and further right interests to take measures, almost out of principle alone.

An interview with Caldwell here

Caldwell raises some important points, and sheds light onto the Muslim immigration debate in Europe:

“SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is America more successful when it comes to integrating immigrants?

Caldwell: For now, yes. I think the first reason is the ruthlessness of the American economy. You either become a part of it or you go home. There are more foreigners in the workplace, and that’s where a lot of integration happens.”

Another review here. (updated, Fouad Ajami’s piece, which was not the original…from 2009)

Book found here.

A few quotes:

“The most chilling observation in Mr. Caldwell’s book may be that the debate over Muslim immigration in Europe is one that the continent can’t openly have, because anyone remotely critical of Islam is branded as Islamophobic”

================

Salman Rushdie at about minute 57:00: ‘This idea of separate treatment for separate cultures…I think essentially if we follow that to its conclusion…destroys our ability to have a really moral framework for society.’

Repost-John Gray Reviews Francis Fukuyama At The Literary Review: ‘Destination Denmark’

Out of the Valley of modernism, post-modernism, and relativism…one path from Nietzsche’s nihilism is through Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom: Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’

On this site, see also: From The NY Times: Review Of Christopher Caldwell’s Book “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West”

..Via A Reader-Douglas Murray Speaks At ‘The Danish Muhammad Cartoon Crisis In Retrospect’ Conference

From The Mildly Specific To The Wildly General-Three Links On Erdogan’s Turkey, Douglas Murray And Liberal Idealism

March 4, 2018 / chr1 / Leave a comment

Michael Totten at World Affairs: ‘Turkey Takes Its War Against The Kurds Into Europe‘

At the same time he’s [Erdogan] been rolling up the Gulenists and the deep staters he’s been mounting a breathtakingly draconian campaign against supposed Kurdish terrorists and their supporters, so far jailing and indicting thousands of civilians—including a Wall Street Journal reporter—on nonsense charges. Hasip Kaplan, once a member of parliament, is facing a 142-year prison term, and the court won’t even let him attend his own trial. As of the end of 2017, the state has arrested more than 11,000 members of his avowedly secular People’s Democratic Party (HDP).

Well, it reminds this blogger of that Turkish/Armenian demonstration erupting into violence a while back. Right in front of the White House, no less:

I see Erdogan’s Islamic populism, and the broader Islamic resurgence towards notions of religious purity and ideological conformity, as quite obviously not leading Westwards nor towards any kind of moderation. Such a man, riding such a wave, towards an authoritarian and rather thuggish consolidation of power could likely yet draw other powers towards conflict.

Modernity and the West (and increasingly the East) have been pressing upon Islamic civilizations, and many of these civilizations have responded by turning inwards, reinforcing the old rules, and continuing to try and synthesize the products of modernity and the West within the Quran.

—

On a slightly deeper level, I think one of Douglas Murray’s central arguments is that civilizations are actually rather fragile things, requiring the continual consent and contributions of those governed, and a continual re-evaluation of what’s important and what isn’t; what’s true and what isn’t. Europe, through history-weariness, has produced inadequate political and social leadership as of late.

Personally, I see a rather backed-into economic union in theory, and a somewhat authoritarian and bureacratic labyrinth in practice, made from many good impulses and reasonable fears, but with poor design and many bad impulses and a lot of guilt.

Islamic radicals and genuine terrorists uniting with Western identity-radicals who’ve worked their way into many influential positions (academy, media etc) does not a healthy civilization make.

Perhaps even a little deeper?

Ken Minogue framed it thusly, and he believes there’s going to be some authority in your life, but you’ve got be particularly careful about which kind, and which rules govern that relationship with authority:

Full piece here:

‘Olympianism is the characteristic belief system of today’s secularist, and it has itself many of the features of a religion. For one thing, the fusion of political conviction and moral superiority into a single package resembles the way in which religions (outside liberal states) constitute comprehensive ways of life supplying all that is necessary (in the eyes of believers) for salvation. Again, the religions with which we are familiar are monotheistic and refer everything to a single center. In traditional religions, this is usually God; with Olympianism, it is society, understood ultimately as including the whole of humanity. And Olympianism, like many religions, is keen to proselytize. Its characteristic mode of missionary activity is journalism and the media.’

And:

‘Progress, Communism, and Olympianism: these are three versions of the grand Western project. The first rumbles along in the background of our thought, the second is obviously a complete failure, but Olympianism is not only alive but a positively vibrant force in the way we think now. Above all, it determines the Western moral posture towards the rest of the world. It affirms democracy as an ideal, but carefully manipulates attitudes in a nervous attempt to control opinions hostile to Olympianism, such as beliefs in capital or corporal punishment, racial, and other forms of prejudice, national self-assertion—and indeed, religion.‘

Perhaps what many dark-webbers, some New Atheists, and various other liberal idealists and institutionalists can miss is the following: The very products of reason, the mathematical and natural sciences, advances in political science and material progress, for example, have also helped to create the conditions for many post-Enlightenment ideological, social and artistic movements to emerge.

Some of these ideological movements are simply totalitarian at their roots, and lead to disaster in practice. We’re still seeing their ruins around us (North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba) while their practioners, priests and adherents continue to colonize and cluster in relatively free Western institutions (orgs and academies, especially).

Some of these post-Enlightenment social movements can provide enough to live a truthful, moral, and decent life, but don’t stop the very human impulse to forget how little one knows, to proselytize and well…form coalitions of believing humans full of various talents and flaws. There’s a lot of idealism (naive) and utopianism.

To my current thinking (and this really may be more about me), these movements often fail in providing a deep enough moral framework to provide the stability necessary to account for much in human nature and how hard it can be to provide moral legitimacy in positions of authority.

Repost: Martha Nussbaum Channels Roger Williams In The New Republic: The First Founder

Roger Scruton On Moral Relativism And Ross Douthat On Bill Maher

Ayan Hirsi Ali in The NY Times: Lee Harris’s ‘The Suicide Of Reason’

Free speech and Muslims From Kenanmalik.com: ‘Introduction: How Salman Rushdie Changed My Life’… Via YouTube: ‘Christopher Hitchens Vs. Ahmed Younis On CNN (2005)’… ‘Mohammad Cartoonist Lars Vilks Headbutted

Repost-John Gray Reviews Francis Fukuyama At The Literary Review: ‘Destination Denmark’

The NY Times op-ed writer and a practicing Catholic? William Saletan and Ross Douthat At Slate: ‘Liberalism Is Stuck Halfway Between Heaven And Earth’…Douthat’s The Grand New Party…Ross Douthat At First Principles: ‘The Quest for Community in the Age of Obama: Nisbet’s Prescience’

…Peter Singer discusses Hegel and Marx…From Philosophy And Polity: ‘Historicism In German Political Theory’

Alberto Nisman, The ‘Global Community’ & Anti-Semitism in Europe-Some Links & Thoughts

December 16, 2017December 17, 2017 / chr1 / Leave a comment

A terrorist blows up a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires (85 dead) in 1994–>Prosecutor Alberto Nisman starts relentlessly investigating years later and eventually confirms evidence of an Iranian state-sponsored Hezbollah agent behind the attack–>Nisman also discovers that the President of Argentina (wonderfully corrupt) is involved in the cover-up of this fact for politics/money/trade/ideological reasons–>Alberto Nisman is murdered in 2015.

A little more on the murder here.

Dexter Filkins took a look at the death of Nisman:

Now it’s back in the news again:

From The NY Times:

‘On July 18, 1994, Ibrahim Hussein Berro, an operative of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, drove a van filled with 606 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil into the Buenos Aires Jewish community center, known as AMIA. More than 300 Argentines were wounded; 85 were murdered. It remains the bloodiest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history.

From 2004 until 2015, our friend, the prosecutor Alberto Nisman, tirelessly pursued the truth behind this crime. He knew from his investigation that the attack was an Iranian-planned operation. And he determined that Ms. Kirchner was behind a cover-up designed to whitewash Iran’s role.

What drove Ms. Kirchner? Argentina faced deep economic problems at the time, and the financial benefits of closer relations with Iran might have tempted her. Her government also had populist ties to Iran and the Bolivarian bloc of nations led by Venezuela. Whatever the reason, never has Ms. Kirchner been formally charged in the crime. Until now.’

This event demonstrates not only how criminally corrupt the Argentine government is (Don’t Cry For Me Argentina), but also the kinds of people, incentives and dangers out there in the world.

The thuggish regime in Iran really is seeking to expand its scope globally (murdering Jews on foreign soil). It really is seeking deliverable nukes while dipping into black-market activity, funding terrorism in a bid to the Mediterranean. It really is seeking supremacy over a quickly forming Saudi-Israeli alliance (Al Quds in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, current ‘allies’ in Yemen).

It will do these kinds of ‘legitimate’ deals where it can too.

During the past administration, a decision was made in Washington to frame American relations with the Iranian regime as either war or a deal to include them in the ‘community of nations’ (perhaps what you might expect from a ‘peace’ activist).

It’s not clear these are the kinds of people with whom we can, nor should, be doing business (though I’m sympathetic to countering Saudi-funded Wahhabism).

Yeah it’s Vice (way radical and edgy), but at least they’re on-scene:

Addition: Argentinian politics are deeply charged, personal, corrupt and messy.

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Anti-Semitism runs deep, and there are plenty of people to reinforce their own standing/lack of standing by scapegoating Jewish folk. A lot of the time such differences can be explained simply by what happens in the schoolyard (he/she is different, isn’t like me, looks funny etc.) but dear Lord, can such sentiment be theorized into racial and genetic pseudo-science, justified by religious conviction, and mobilized into political violence.

More care is required than to leave freedoms in the hands of identitarians.

Jamie Kirchik’s ‘Last Night In Sweden‘:

‘The danger of governments and the press continuing to deny the reality of violent anti-semitism, and of the real dangers posed by large numbers of migrants from Muslim-majority countries without any real effort or ability to acculturate them to Western social and political norms, while blaming “the far right” and “neo-Nazis” alone for anti-semitism and attacks on Muslims, should be plain to any thinking person.’

Via Mick Hartley via Forward: ‘Take It From A British Jew: Anti-Zionism Leads To Anti-Semitism.‘

Israel, Iran, & Peace: Andrew Sullivan Responds To Charges Of Potential Anti-Semitism…

From Guernica: Bernard Henri Levy Interview On Anti-Semitism And Fascism

Repost-Henry Kissinger & George Schulz Via The WSJ: ‘The Iran Deal And Its Consequences’