Innocent as Serpents, Wise as Doves
Posted by Roland Shirk on February 7, 2011 10:12 PM
From a variety of angles over the past week or so, I've been exploring particular virtues of the West, and the crucial importance of defending them both on principle and in practice. On principle, we reject the monomaniacal emphasis Islam by its very essence (submission) puts on the following values:
Ironically, however, if one drew up a list of the opposing values, the list that resulted would (if pursued with equal single-mindedness) prove equally unsatisfactory. It would, indeed, describe the post-Christian, liberal West that has shown itself completely unable to defend itself against Islamic aggression:
Haven't I just listed the very attitudes, pursued in isolation, that have rendered Europe (and to a lesser degree, America) a happy hunting ground for Islamic supremacists? It's as if the peoples of the West, in reaction to the hateful pseudo-Islamic creeds of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, and under the spell of seemingly limitless growth in prosperity after World War II, had unilaterally declared themselves back in Eden--exempt from all the previously universal requirements of a thriving culture, dispensed of the need for sacrifice, self-restraint, asceticism or even simple prudence. It's as if in a single generation, the peoples of the West had evolved millions of years, turning themselves from warlike eagles into flightless Dodo birds, who felt safe waddling slowly across their predator-free island in search of ripe fruit that fell from the trees. Until the aliens washed up on their shores, and ate them.
Rudyard Kipling really was prophetic when he spoke scornfully of the milk-and-water progressivism that pervaded Western Europe, in his great polemical poem "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919):
I cannot improve on Kipling, so I'm tempted to leave it at that, but of course there is more to say. (Just by way of explanation, "copybook headings" here refer to the wise old cliches that children once were taught in British schools--of the sort that Peter Hitchens recalls with such ambivalence in The Rage Against God, which I wrote about [1] yesterday.) The task at hand might seem at first a paradoxical one; we must convince the practitioners of the second set of values listed above of the importance of the first--by pointing out how unpleasant they are! (They are especially unpleasant, we might explain, when they are imposed in an alien form by foreigners.) We must persuade Westerners that to preserve their open society, they have to close its borders; to keep their freedom to innovate, they have to defend their own traditions; to prevent the rise of a society that subjugates women, they must reject the sterile feminism that is emptying its cradles. And so on.
The simple thing, the blandly obvious thing to say at this point would be that we must attain a happy medium between the first set of values (let's call them the Virtues of the Carnivore) and the second (call them the Virtues of the Herbivore). But that's no answer at all. If each of those values above existed on a simple continuum with its antonym, and straightforward Aristotelian "middles" could be easily identified, we never would have ended up in the wretched situation that we're facing. The history of the West could be analyzed fruitfully in light of the perilous tension exerted on our societies between these opposing poles. Ibn Warraq, in [2] Defending the West, used the tragedy Antigone to point up just one instance--the conflict between civic order and private conscience, which animated the Roman persecution of Christians, the Christian emperor Theodosius' subsequent repression of pagans and heretics, and in later centuries the Reformation and Thirty Years' War. You could write a worthy history textbook exploring all these antinomies--without ever finding a balance point for each of these oppositions that would satisfy all observers.
But that, I would answer our enemies, is precisely what is so magnificent about the West: these tensions are in play, both poles exert their force, and our civilization moves along these spectrums in search of the balance proper to each era. Islamic civilization, on the other hand, attained fixed positions on every one of these questions long ago, ever after defining itself (and priding itself) on its utter inflexibility. And that is what it has in common with the modern, secular Left--which has chosen in every case the values opposed to the Islamic answer. It has rejected every attribute of the predator, plucked out its teeth, torn off its claws, even gelded itself, in the fond hope that its example will inspire newcomers to do the same. Just so, the Dodo bird may have toddled up to the hungry European sailors on the beach, and tried, in vain, to make friends....
- revelation
- obedience to authority
- deference to tradition
- rejection of alien influences
- perfect continuity between the past and the present
- legalism
- collective judgment
- the patriarchal family
- the procreative purpose of sexuality
- modesty, privacy, and sexual decorum
- militancy in the defense of one's civilization and religion.
Ironically, however, if one drew up a list of the opposing values, the list that resulted would (if pursued with equal single-mindedness) prove equally unsatisfactory. It would, indeed, describe the post-Christian, liberal West that has shown itself completely unable to defend itself against Islamic aggression:
- rationalism
- resistance to authority
- innovation for its own sake
- the embrace of alien influences
- radical discontinuity between past and present
- antinomianism
- private judgment
- atomistic individualism
- the emotive purpose of sexuality
- eros and romance in public life
- sensitivity to the claims of other civilizations and religions.
Haven't I just listed the very attitudes, pursued in isolation, that have rendered Europe (and to a lesser degree, America) a happy hunting ground for Islamic supremacists? It's as if the peoples of the West, in reaction to the hateful pseudo-Islamic creeds of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, and under the spell of seemingly limitless growth in prosperity after World War II, had unilaterally declared themselves back in Eden--exempt from all the previously universal requirements of a thriving culture, dispensed of the need for sacrifice, self-restraint, asceticism or even simple prudence. It's as if in a single generation, the peoples of the West had evolved millions of years, turning themselves from warlike eagles into flightless Dodo birds, who felt safe waddling slowly across their predator-free island in search of ripe fruit that fell from the trees. Until the aliens washed up on their shores, and ate them.
Rudyard Kipling really was prophetic when he spoke scornfully of the milk-and-water progressivism that pervaded Western Europe, in his great polemical poem "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919):
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
I cannot improve on Kipling, so I'm tempted to leave it at that, but of course there is more to say. (Just by way of explanation, "copybook headings" here refer to the wise old cliches that children once were taught in British schools--of the sort that Peter Hitchens recalls with such ambivalence in The Rage Against God, which I wrote about [1] yesterday.) The task at hand might seem at first a paradoxical one; we must convince the practitioners of the second set of values listed above of the importance of the first--by pointing out how unpleasant they are! (They are especially unpleasant, we might explain, when they are imposed in an alien form by foreigners.) We must persuade Westerners that to preserve their open society, they have to close its borders; to keep their freedom to innovate, they have to defend their own traditions; to prevent the rise of a society that subjugates women, they must reject the sterile feminism that is emptying its cradles. And so on.
The simple thing, the blandly obvious thing to say at this point would be that we must attain a happy medium between the first set of values (let's call them the Virtues of the Carnivore) and the second (call them the Virtues of the Herbivore). But that's no answer at all. If each of those values above existed on a simple continuum with its antonym, and straightforward Aristotelian "middles" could be easily identified, we never would have ended up in the wretched situation that we're facing. The history of the West could be analyzed fruitfully in light of the perilous tension exerted on our societies between these opposing poles. Ibn Warraq, in [2] Defending the West, used the tragedy Antigone to point up just one instance--the conflict between civic order and private conscience, which animated the Roman persecution of Christians, the Christian emperor Theodosius' subsequent repression of pagans and heretics, and in later centuries the Reformation and Thirty Years' War. You could write a worthy history textbook exploring all these antinomies--without ever finding a balance point for each of these oppositions that would satisfy all observers.
But that, I would answer our enemies, is precisely what is so magnificent about the West: these tensions are in play, both poles exert their force, and our civilization moves along these spectrums in search of the balance proper to each era. Islamic civilization, on the other hand, attained fixed positions on every one of these questions long ago, ever after defining itself (and priding itself) on its utter inflexibility. And that is what it has in common with the modern, secular Left--which has chosen in every case the values opposed to the Islamic answer. It has rejected every attribute of the predator, plucked out its teeth, torn off its claws, even gelded itself, in the fond hope that its example will inspire newcomers to do the same. Just so, the Dodo bird may have toddled up to the hungry European sailors on the beach, and tried, in vain, to make friends....
Article reprinted from Jihad Watch: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/02/innocent-as-serpents-wise-as-doves.html
URLs in this post:
[1] http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/02/we-regret-to-inform-you.html
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Defending-West-Critique-Edward-Orientalism/dp/1591024846/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297145767&sr=8-1
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