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Suggested reading

Yesterday’s article on the growth of Islamism in Germany was originally published in the Middle East Quarterly. The same issue also has an expose of Tablighi Jamaat, a Islamist sect that promotes violent jihad against the West. This movement originated in India and Pakistan, but with Saudi financing, it has spread worldwide including America. Indeed you’ll notice names of familiar Islamic terrorists and jihadists.

Dale C. Eikmeier’s article, “How to Beat the Global Islamist Insurgency,” has much to recommend. Here’s a few quotes:

“From a military perspective, … planners have not based their strategy on a detailed threat analysis of the enemy, its objectives, and its strategies. A coherent approach is not only necessary to achieve military goals but also to rally the public support needed for a sustainable long-term struggle in the defense of freedom.”

“Any effort that lacks an ideological component will fall short.” … “In the military struggle against Islamism, winning the war of ideas is crucial. This is nothing new. The Cold War was a struggle of ideologies. The United States did not rely on military action alone to counter the Soviet threat.”

"It’s the result of foreign policy"

The blame-America first crowd claims that Islamic terrorism is the result of America’s foreign policy. However, the jihadists have been waging a religious war around the world and they have for some time. It’s with good reason that Samuel Huntington says that Islam has “bloody borders.” This website documents the daily killings motivated and underwritten by Islam. Is this the “blowback” of a foreign policy? Whose? Are Muslims the aggrieved victims of the foreign policy of Indians, Filipinos, Siamese, Nigerians, Jews, Americans, Spanish, Australians, Buddhists, Dutch, Greeks, Russians, etc?

Actually, foreign policy is the problem – it’s the foreign policy of Islam that seeks to conquer and oppress others. This has been the founding ethos of this political religious ideology. Islam is a worldly religion, imperialist in nature, and warrior-like. It is simply a supremacist movement. Once again, I suggest everyone should read about this ideology. It’s a religion but it’s not like contemporary Christianity or Judaism. It’s very different from religions familiar to people in the West.

Hope: Real or Mirage?

It is important to appreciate the recent events in the Middle East starting with the Iraqi election. It doesn’t matter if you are for or against military action, if you believe this will solve the religion’s problems or believe it will make no difference in the long run. The hopeful spirit, while embryonic and uncertain, still deserves our respect. Let’s examine why.

Since the toppling of Saddam’s regime, terrorist attacks occurred on a daily basis with Iraqis as the primary target. The aim is simple: terrorize the Iraqi people into submission. Both Baathist fascists and jihadists seek power to establish the traditional repressive government that is typical of the region. From the day Saddam was removed, Iraqis were fearful of stepping forward and winding on the wrong side of the next dictatorship. Any flicker of hope for a civil society required confidence in their fellow Arabs that was non-existent. Resignation and cynicism suggested waiting for a clear victor before aligning one’s interest with the new regime.

If you remember, prior to the Iraqi election there were doubts that holding the elections as scheduled could produce a meaningful result given chaos and threats of violence. The result, however, was quite meaningful … to the “Arab Street”. What was shocking to the Arab world was seeing their fellow Arabs braving terrorist attacks to vote! How often have you wondered about the value of voting? Imagine having to vote when your life is threatened! Why did they do it? Could one vote matter that much?

Most explanations seek either a compelling concrete payback or chalk it up to some innate drive. Let me propose another explanation. The act of voting itself is a transformational act. It says that one wants to be worthy of living in a civilized society. By voting one acts like a member of a community where arguments are settled at the ballot box and under the protection of the rule of law. When Arabs saw that their fellow Arabs could act in such a manner they gained a confidence in a new future. And it sparked a sympathetic surge for democratic change in other Arab nations.

Of course, this is an aspiration that is emotional in nature. This isn’t an explicit understanding of what liberty is, what makes it important and how to secure it. However, there is a sense that the liberal societal model provides hope; there is, on some level, an awareness that living in a free society brings the good life. Despite all the propaganda and ethnic pride, the West still inspires hope.

But an emotional sense is not an articulated principle, program, or ideology. By itself, it cannot lead to clear and certain progress. At most, by mimicking the success of advanced societies a modicum of progress is possible. By osmosis, trial and error, feeling one’s way in the dark, one can take a few steps toward modernity. However, fear and cynicism are competing emotions. One ultimately needs explicit principles to secure that which is implicitly sensed, to guide specific actions and to defend against the enemies of liberty.

Standing in the wings are the devout Islamists, they have declared the liberal Arabs the enemy and their moral claims – backed by 1400 years of Islam – remains unchallenged. A liberal society will never be secure, if by some accident it is established, as long as these ideas are given respect.

I recently read a poignant example the captures the dilemma in the lives of today’s Muslims. An Iraqi father sent his son to live with relatives in Saudi Arabia in anticipation of the war. During that time he was taught about the Islamic tradition, became devout and adopted a strict puritan lifestyle. When he returned home, the father was saddened to see his joyous boy had become an angry dogmatic stern young man. There was nothing the father could say. His son knew the religion thoroughly and could refute his father’s notions of how a young Muslim should live his life. The only thing the father could do was hope that his son would wake-up from this horrible nightmare. The boy’s childhood friends were called in the hope that he would recall his more joyous days. With temptations and examples, slowly the boy started to soften. One only hopes he makes it back.

How far can emotion overcome dogma? Not for long. Sooner or later Arabs will have to explicitly attack and reject Islamic doctrine. The Islamists aren’t going away of their own free will; they will attack secularized Arabs (or any opponents of theocracy) as Infidels and that is exactly what they have been doing in Iraq. Eventually, if Iraqis ever hope to secure a free and modern society, they will have to aim for the heart of Islam and slay this vicious beast. Unless they do, they will not be able to maintain the joyous optimism of this post-election period. It will have been a fleeting moment – lost to the cynicism and fatalism so familiar in Arab and Islamic culture.

Fighting for reason and liberty.

Ed Hudgins points to the importance of speaking out critically in the face of the horrors of foreign cultures, especially as these cultures are imported to America. “[I]t is imperative to discuss openly and without concern for political correctness of irrational sensitivities that obscure the truth, the moral and cultural foundations of a free society.”

Ed is right. Free Speech is a powerful tool but we must use it! We cannot remain silent about the savagery of foreign religious practices; we cannot lie and pretend there is a moral equivalence between our culture and others; we cannot silently sanction the irrational – primitive or post-modern – in our culture or in the world. We must speak out and make moral judgments.

Speaking of the primitive and post-modern threats to our Enlightenment heritage, David Kelley, has an excellent introduction to the subject and the false alternative between pre-modern faith-based philosophy and secular irrational post-modernism. Most importantly, he defends modernity – reason, science, individualism, liberty, and capitalism. “Who speaks for those values? Who provides the intellectual defense? Who carries the banner of modernity in the culture wars? Among popular writers, Ayn Rand was far and away the most articulate advocate. At the center of her Objectivist philosophy, which she explicitly aligned with the Enlightenment, was a morality of rational individualism.

Conservatives and Reason

There is misconception, repeatedly resurfacing in conservative circles, which holds that naturalism in ethics implies a view of man as a barren valueless mechanistic being – only a supernaturalism can supply ethics and the concept of rights. On today’s editorial page of the New York Sun there is a quote by Ronald Reagan:

“Without God, there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience. Without God we are mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God there is a coarsening of the society. Without God democracy will not and cannot long endure. And that, simply, is the heart of my message: if we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”


The conflation of naturalism with Hobbesian materialism is so common place in conservative circles that few conservatives can even imagine any other type of secular or naturalistic ethics. In Ancient Hellenic thought, the naturalism of Aristotle was teleological to a fault. He wrote the first treatise on ethics in human history; constructed on naturalistic grounds, it is a major pillar in the foundation of Western Civilization. But conservative intellectuals, when I try to remind them of this, look at me and say with a straight face that Aristotle must have believed in transcendent values (actually, guys that was Plato) and not the mere expedient nor in arbitrary convention (correct boys and girls, that was the Sophists).

Two recent authors who comment on this mistaken notion of naturalism are Tibor Machan and Robert Tracinski. I’ve written about this as part of my assessment of the conservative response to the Islamic threat.

I respect that many of my conservative friends cherish religion and turn to their religion for solace to deal with stressful issues of human mortality, etc. However, we’ll have common ground if we share a commitment to deal with the challenges of living this life by the use of our rational faculty. Since Aquinas, some Christians have found a way to accept reason as a potent tool to understand secular matters. I cheer my conservative friends when they find that liberty is in harmony with their religious beliefs. However, when religion is used to push aside reason and claim for religion what only reason can support, I must protest this dishonest turf grab. There is a growing hostility among conservatives against the core values of Western Civilization (as I discuss in my link above).

It’s time for our conservative friends to accept the heroic achievement of our secular/rational/scientific humanist tradition. If they can do that we have common ground. In the face of the theocratic Islamic threat, we need to take stock in the contributions of our tradition – on which rests our cultural achievements

Hubris

I like Greek words; I wish I knew more of them. “Hubris” seems to be the Greek word of the day. What’s odd is the left is using it. After a century of utopian schemes that have left 100 million dead and confined over a billion to subjugation, they are still unrepentant. What intellectual right do they have to make charges of “hubris?”

It is even stranger when you read their interpretation of America’s influence in the world. According to the left’s narrative, the world would be full of blooming democracies – in the socialist sense, of course – if it weren’t for the fact that America, using a handful of covert CIA operatives, installed dictatorships all around the world. Wait a minute! It’s hubris to think that 150,000-200,000 men and women can bring liberal democracy to Iraq but we’ve derailed potential democracies and installed the regime of our choice all around the world with a few covert operatives?

And you thought the left was engaged in honest criticism!

However, cultural change is normally a slow process and those that result in liberty are the exceptions. Abrupt change – revolution, for example – seldom achieves its goal the first time. England had its Oliver Cromwell before the Glorious Revolution of John Locke’s time. The hopeful atmosphere of the early days of the French Assembly was replaced by the Reign of Terror and Napoleon before France got back on track. The democratic Kerensky revolution was replaced by the Bolshevik communist putsch. The Weimar democracy, in the aftermath of a war to “make the world safe for democracy” ended with the election of Hitler. No, most first attempts at liberal democracy don’t pan out.

Thus, we are attempting a bold and radical change – one which is a long shot. At this point we must hope that it is one of the exceptions. If not, it may have merely bought us time while we return to the drawing board. It is clear, however, that the generosity of the American people is praiseworthy and the mission is honorable. In light of the vicious attacks of the left, it is difficult to debate the fine points of an otherwise respectable course of action. Of course, the left wants nothing more than to demoralize and paralyze our national discourse. So far they are very effective.

New Guide to the Political Left … a must read!

If you have the stomach, read the profiles in the far left’s hall of shame, compiled by the good folks at David Horowitz’ Front Page Magazine. He has recently created an information center on the left.

There you’ll find one Robert Scheer, Los Angles Times columnist and onetime follower of Kim Il-Sung of North Korea. While Scheer saw nothing wrong with Clinton’s firing 450 missiles into Iraq and bombing Serbia, he is now “writing columns which assert that even one Iraqi killed by American arms constitutes a war crime.”

Or perhaps you missed, Rachel Corrie, useful idiot who died supporting Palestinian terrorists. Want to know about Lynne Stewart, that poor excuse for a human being, who helps Islamist terrorists operate from jail? Or the ubiquitous Ramsey Clark, who never met a dictator he didn’t like? They are all there with the incriminating details. Be forwarned, it’s not for the faint of heart.

You’ll also find an excellent library of articles on current affairs. Of course, you might lose a weekend or two reading these informative briefs. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll just hang the “be back tomorrow” sign and head over now.

Democracy isn’t enough!

It is often said that the solution to fundamentalist Islam is democracy. “Look at Turkey”, say these advocates, “or look at how Muslims thrive in the West.” The singular example of Turkey is considered the proof-of-concept that democracy can tame Islam. Let’s look at the picture in more detail.

Turkey didn’t become modern by adopting democracy. It was the autocratic rule of Ataturk – a dictatorial almost totalitarian-like ruler – that changed the culture of Turkey. Democracy came later. (The closest Ataturk imitator was the Shah of Iran.) For years the Turkish military stood ready to prevent Islamic recidivism, making Turkey known as a “guided democracy.”

Consider the case of Algeria. The military suspended democracy when it was clear that fundamentalists were going to be elected. Algeria wasn’t always a fundamentalist hotbed. After the French abandonment of Algeria, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism came with a revival of Arab culture and the goal of establishing “authenticity.” Over the last 15 years, over 150,000 have perished in civil strife in Algeria. If this is Arab authenticity, donne-moi les Francais.

Many Muslims in America and Europe embrace liberal values (perhaps this is self-selection by emigration). However, some turn to Islamism. Mohammad Atta turned to radical Islam in Hamburg – not Egypt. In France, children of secular Muslims are turning to fundamentalist Islam. In Holland, a policy of permissive toleration has failed to inspire toleration in some Muslims and the policy is discredited. This raises doubts about assimilation.

Liberal democracy is still a proper long-term goal but it requires a critical examination of Islam. The first order of business must be an honest and open discussion of Islam. Until the problem is discussed, faced, judged, and when found harmful, condemned, no lasting change can take place. Since this may not be possible in societies where you will be killed for being critical of Islam, this must happen here – in America – and in Europe.

If we fail to pass moral judgment, if we tacitly sanction the jihadist ideology, if we become morally complicit in whitewashing Islam, if we stand by and do nothing we have failed as human beings. This is not a job for governments; this must be done by individuals – especially intellectuals. How often have we looked back in history and said we would have taken a moral stand? Why not now?

Islam and its Denial. Part I

The inability to face the Islamic threat, indeed, the outright whitewashing of Islam, has striking similarities with past difficulties coming to grips with the nature and threat of Communism. During the first thirty years of Communism, from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech of 1947, social democrats refused to face the stark evilness of Communism. Seen as a brave “social experiment” to engineer a new human nature devoid of “selfish” impulses, the left denied, apologized, diminished, trivialized, or otherwise excused the Soviet catastrophe.

Few social democrats or left-liberals were immune to the collectivist dream, one that turned into a nightmare in Russia and eventually China, Cambodia, etc. Even that most respected of American intellectuals, John Dewey, went through a sympathetic period in the late 20s but come to his senses and spearheaded a critical examination by the mid 30s. Both The New Republic and The Nation downplayed the problems of International Communism during the whole decade of the 1930s – the “Red Decade”.

Today, Islam is new to most people in the West, and we are going through a similar denial stage. Only this time the denial is on the left and the right. The left dismisses the threat of Islam as a mere epiphenomena reflecting what they see as the underlying dynamics of American empire and oppression. On the left, there is sympathy of our Islamist enemy even if the religious form is seen as an unfortunate by-product. I’ve written about this in detail here and here.

The right has a hard time believing a religion can be bad – especially the ecumenical intellectual conservatives who dominate the main venues of conservative discourse. Fresh from victory in the Cold War, where they see Godless Communism defeated by the Judeo-Christian West, they are unprepared for the threat of a super-religion. How could trust in God lead one astray? I’ve discuss the conservative’s mistake here.

Currently, I’m reviewing the denial phase during the rise of Communism. I suspect the parallels will be revealing. I’d appreciate references on this period. Leave a comment or e-mail your suggestions

Bat Ye'or on C-Span

Bat Ye’or, on a C-Span rebroadcast, discussed the ominous rise of Islam in Europe and her latest book on the subject: Eurabia. This brave woman has written on Islamic history and the Islamic threat for over 3 decades.

Because of the taboo (and laws in some cases) against being critical of Islam, Europe lacks intellectual leadership. Ye’or mentioned in the Q&A, that a proper understanding of the problem must be differentiated from a xenophobic attack on the demographic group, which includes moderate assimilated Muslims. Without discussion and proper intellectual leadership, there will be an inadequate understanding of the threat of Islam by both those who dismiss it and those who distort it.

This is a woman who talks calmly, patiently, clearly and forcefully – all in the face of an unresponsive and hostile culture that doesn’t want to take its head out of the sand. The dignity of this woman is inspiring. If the C-Span broadcast is repeated, don’t miss it.

Her website: dhimmitude.org. Unfortunately, I missed her talk at Columbia University.

Have you read Das Kapital or …

Have you read the Koran?

Muslims, who lie on principle (taqiyya), will insist you can only understand Islam by reading the Koran. After you read it in English, you’ll be told you can only understand it by reading it in Arabic. If you learn Modern Arab, you’ll still be hampered as the Koran is written in Classical Arabic. Of course, all this is bull just to intimidate you to accept the party line. After all, was it unfair to be critical of Nazism without reading Mein Kampf in German? Or should you ignore the 100 million that have died under communism because you didn’t read Das Kapital?

The Koran actually isn’t hard to understand. Amber Pawlik systematically analyzes the Koran and subjects it to a scientific analysis (over here). Half of the verses of the Koran are vitriol against the Infidels. Most of the rest is about Allah, believers and the judgment day. Only about 5% concerns itself with ethics for living this life.

Pawlik illustrates how you can sample the Koran and get a representative picture that continues to holds with further study. Thus, you can verify her results without spending years and years of worthless study. After all, we’re not talking about some esoteric detail; we’re talking about the general tenor and message of the religion.

Here are some super quotes from Amber:

“In order to judge Islam, I did what most Islam apologists and most Muslims (many of whom are illiterate) did not do: I read the Koran.”

“There is no moral system outlined in the Koran – with the exception of allowing men to beat their wives, sleep with their slaves, and there is an occasional, ‘give to the poor.’ There certainly is no unequivocal ‘Do not kill’; ‘Do not steal’; or ‘Do not lie,’ let alone any other insight into how to behave properly as a human being. Most of the ‘moral’ guidance given in the Koran is not a restraint on humans but permission to do what they want – mostly for men to do what they want.” … “Indeed, the Koran gives men full right to have sex with female slaves and their allotted four wives.”

“What has a tendency to shock most people about Islam and the Koran is its belief in predestination … the Koran says that it is Allah who causes people to believe or not believe.” … “Almost the entire Koran is dedicated to delegating to infidels an inferior status. They are called blind, stupid and ignorant. No proof is given of why they should believe.” … “All of this sets up for what the Koran, at heart, is: one long battle cry against infidels.” … “Muslims are taught to wage war on nonbelievers. It is written in plain language. Muslims are to fight until nonbelievers convert or pay alms. All else are to be killed.” “Everything about Islam prepares its people to be fighters. It riles them with hatred. It prods them to fight.”

“The terrorists who attacked us on September 11, 2001 did not do so in the name of their country or for any demand, such as money or land: they did it openly and proudly in the name of Islam. They were not misguided; they were in every way Islamic.“ … “Islam is a fighting ideology with an uncanny hatred for those who don’t believe as they do. But don’t take my word for it. Please, by all means, read the Koran for yourself.”

Read her whole report and analysis. If you are still in doubt put the Koran to the test yourself. It’s not that hard. It’s easier than reading Das Kapital … in English!

Dogma and relativism: the method to their madness.

Socialism failed. It wasn’t a close runner-up to capitalism, it was a massive and catastrophic failure in proportion to the degree it was practiced everywhere it was tried. The failure was understood, explained, and documented. Those who wished to continue the dream were unable to continue the pretense of a “scientific socialism” rooted in reality but instead had to dispense with reason, push aside science, and evade reality. 11 Indeed, reality is the enemy and reason is the enemy’s tool. Only relativism and subjectivism can support the dream. But what supports relativism and subjectivism? The history of philosophy! “Postmodernism is a result of using skeptical epistemology to justify the personal leap of faith necessary to continue believing in socialism.” 12
The slightest familiarity with the far left shows a ruthless adherence to dogma and an abhorrence of traditional Western values. This is hardly the signs of a doubtful skeptic. Prof. Hicks argues, successfully in my opinion, that the skepticism is selectively invoked only to undermine the remaining elements of the liberal Enlightenment order. America, the symbol of that liberal order and most powerful country on earth, must be opposed by any means necessary. That means denigrating “truth” (generally put in quotes by postmodern detractors), championing any powerless group as noble victims, and consciously embracing whatever lie one can get away with. “[S]ociety is a battle of competing wills, that words are merely tools in the power struggle for dominance.” 13 Thus, postmodernism “justifies using language not as a vehicle for seeking truth but as a rhetorical weapon in the continuing battle against capitalism.” 14
With Prof. Hicks’ analysis, the events of the past two years become intelligible. We are actually witnessing the most vicious embrace of anti-American propaganda during wartime; with the sole purpose of demoralizing and defeating our war effort. This is not the loyal opposition; the concern is not prudence and effectiveness. This is fundamental attack on the soul and character of America. To the left, America is the enemy – a “rogue nation”. The sin of America is capitalism and it is that intrinsic evil that compels America to commit atrocities around the world. And the left’s denial of this duplicity is just part of the New Lie. All dissent is honorable and should be respected according to this trope, even as it viciously attacks American values.
The New Lie is not identical to the Big Lie practiced by the Nazis. It goes beyond that. The Nazi practice consisted of the continual repetition of a falsehood while pretending it is obviously true. The New Lie boldly puts forth a falsehood but without hiding that fact. Thus, there is no longer any embarrassment in contradictions; say whatever you think you can get away with and if that doesn’t work try something else. Show indifference to inconvenient evidence. However, if it is obvious that you’re caught in a lie, deny that truth is possible. The litmus test is “if it hurts the powerful, it’s right; if it hurts America, it is just.”
Remember that the classical liberal mindset holds reason and reality to be important. This leads to the virtues of rational argumentation and the reliance of supporting evidence. Postmodernists discard the concept of truth and thus need to prove nothing. They need only insert arbitrary and unwarranted doubt. They seek to establish nothing but only to annihilate. The use of rhetorical spam and arbitrary statements are merely dialectical trash thrown in the path of all rational persons of good-will in the hopes you may stumble or that you may become worn down jumping these hurdles. With a continue barrage of baseless accusations, piles of irrelevant details, and empty moral posturing, the hope is to undermine morale and induce cynicism. The goal is to destroy, destroy, destroy.
Where does this leave us? First of all, the arbitrary doesn’t need to be addressed. Unless a statement or the assumptions of a question are based on reality and motivated by substantial considerations, they do not deserve cognitive status. They are no different than the sounds of a parrot, and should be summarily dismissed. The very stance of the left – i.e. that truth is a fiction – makes any further dialog a farce. Now one might ask: have we not been silly to dignify the empty and deceitful posturing of the left? Perhaps. But even with a parrot, there may be someone else in the room that says: “hey, what about that?” To which you may reply, it is only a parrot – ignore it.

Academia’s latest fashion: postmodern irrationalism.

Deception has had its proponents in the past. In the “Republic,” Plato made an exception for a “noble lie” in the service of the collective good. Machiavelli left out the “noble” part. However, these moments are footnotes in history. Truth was power, it was believed, or for those less sanguine, duty. Today, however, there is a complete and unabashed acceptance of lies, deception, and irrationality, and without any fear to one’s reputation. Columnists, politicians, academics – all regurgitate the party line without embarrassment or fear to their careers. Just the opposite, Moore has demonstrated you can make millions and stay in the spotlight by popularizing the New Lie. It’s the latest in leftist fashion, and it’s hot off the academic runway.
To the average American it still seems incredible that intellectuals and writers could be doing what we think they are doing: embracing lies on principle. How can they justify this? This is a story that unfolds behind the walls of academia, slowly simmering for some time, and finally reaching a boil in a self-consciously anti-rational creed that’s sweeping our colleges and universities: Postmodernism. This snake-oil unleashes the inhibitions that limit deception and underwrites the policy of the lie. Stephen R. C. Hicks2 has written a scathing expose called “Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.” To appreciate the story we have to step back a few centuries and see how this descent has unfolded.
It was during the 18th century Enlightenment that reason reaches the pinnacle of respect in modern times. Flush with confidence that reason could make sense of reality and mediate human contentions, men of the Enlightenment embrace reason as the key to knowledge and human well being. There is a profound sense of optimism and confidence that the power of reason can conquer ignorance, superstition, bigotry, strife and suffering. The founding of America is suffused with the spirit of the Enlightenment. England’s benign neglect allows the colonialists to order their affairs guided by the philosophical spirit of the times and when that tolerance wanes we confidently create a new nation.
On the European Continent, the Enlightenment spirit, exemplified by Diderot, Voltaire, and Montesquieu, would soon be eclipsed by the most influential of all: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. By attacking key planks of the liberal paradigm, he effectively launches the Counter-Enlightenment. Rousseau disparages civilization as a corrupting influence, charges that rational progress undermines morality, and damns private property as socially destructive. Reason and progress, in his view, brings inequities, oppression, insensitivity, superficiality, and degeneration. Science, he declares, is “vain curiosity” harmful to society. Rousseau’s collectivism – submission to the general will, by force if necessary – is an inspiration to the Jacobin fraction of the French Revolution. 3
The Enlightenment’s nominal defenders often did more damage than its detractors. In one way or another both Rationalists and Empiricists took the primary object of awareness as mental in nature. This made reality inferential and empirical knowledge problematic. Since the purpose of knowledge is to grasp objective reality, the philosophers’ flawed formulations of reason’s ability to achieve certainty in this matter lead to the skepticism. Kant, however, saw this analysis as an opportunity. The mind, according to Kant is what gives the properties and regularities we previously associated with the object-in-itself. Thus, it is consciousness itself that contributes the important properties of our experience. As Hicks writes, “Kant’s significance in the history of philosophy is that he absorbed the lessons of the rationalists and empiricists and, agreeing with the central assumptions of both sides, transformed radically the terms of the relationship between reason and reality.” 4
The assault on reason accelerates through out the 19th century. Hegel explicitly embraces contradictions and identifies consciousness with object. Kierkegaard learns “to relinquish his understanding and his thinking, and to keep his soul fixed upon the absurd.” 5 In the 20th century, Heidegger finds that “[t]he entire Western tradition of philosophy – whether Platonic, Aristotelian, Lockean, or Cartesian – based as it is on the law of non-contradiction and the subject/object distinction, is the enemy to be overcome.” 6 Postmodernists will even surpass Heidegger and abandon metaphysics and truth all together.
The Anglo-American analytical tradition never seriously challenges the Kantian turn. Instead we see the reduction of reason to the merely formal, conventional, tautological, or nominal. The emaciation of rationalism to an internal tool of mental housekeeping underscores the divorce of reason from reality and removes it as a tool of scientific truth. Ayer announces that “the principles of logic and mathematics are true universally simply because we never allow them to be anything else.” 7 “By the 1950s, these conclusions were commonplace. Language and logic were seen as conventional, internal systems – and not as objective, reality-based tools of consciousness.” 8 “Consequently, by the 1960s, the pro-objectivity, pro-science spirit had collapsed in the Anglo-American tradition.” 9 Rorty concludes “’[t]he nature of truth’ is an unprofitable topic.” 10
The combined effect of the direct assault on reason by continental irrationalists and the trivialization of reason by nominal proponents of the analytical tradition set the stage for the overt and belligerent anti-realist, subjectivist, and nihilistic postmodern movement. But why have these academic foundational issues become so important to the modern left? It is here that Hicks provides a powerful and compelling narrative.

The left’s intellectual disintegration

There used to be a time when the left proudly carried the banner of reason and science; and disdainfully viewed religion as a superstition or at best an antiquated myth. In the name of science they advanced an agenda on several fronts. In economics, central planning was described as a rational systematic alternative to the chaotic free-for-all of the market. In human relations, what was previously viewed as a moral failing was now a condition amenable to social engineering. Social science, we were assured there was such a thing, would provide the guidance and justification for the socialistic regulations required for a better world. To maintain this stance, left-wing intellectuals felt compelled to provide substantiation, evidence, and rational arguments. That time has long since past.
The façade of science is gone – reality stubbornly refused to go along. Socialism was a glaring failure that brought poverty, misery, and wholesale death. Yet, despite this, the dream remains. The left seems strangely indifferent to evidence that undermines their worldview. Communism was responsible for over 100 million deaths and the enslavement of over 1 billion more. But on the left, this hasn’t hurt the popularity of communism’s remaining standard-bearer: Fidel Castro.
Rational debate no longer exists among the vanguard of today’s left. Exposing a flawed argument engenders few signs of discomfort. Contradictions curiously fail to perturb in the slightest the left’s steadfast adherence to fixed doctrine. For example, America and Britain are singularly condemned for the sins of slavery as if it were unique to our history or a particularly egregious example. However, it was Anglo-American tradition of individual liberty which is exceptional in history, not the remnants of slavery which existed everywhere and through out history. Islam, which invented the race-based slave trade centuries before America’s discovery, condemned people to slavery from Africa, India, and Europe, exceeding the British slave trade by orders of magnitude. And it was the West that led the abolitionist movement worldwide. But the left shrugs. All of this is deemed irrelevant since in absolute terms the West’s history remains blemished.
Not only is evidence summarily dismissed, but what spews forth often has little relation to the subject matter. By being barraged by “rhetorical spam” the listener is overwhelmed with dubious claims in the hope that something will stick. No shame accompanies wrong, arbitrary, or ridiculous statements. This technique was ubiquitous in response to recent military actions in Iraq. For example, every major intelligence agency, including France, Germany and Russia, incorrectly believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Yet, leftists continually repeated the mantra that Bush is a liar. On top of that, they yammer about Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam, Iraqis getting bio-agents from “us”, and nefarious neocon Zionist conspiracies. It becomes impossible to have an intelligent discussion under these circumstances.
Not surprisingly, civil and reasonable discussions are now the exceptions. The far left is reduced to chanting: racist imperialist war-mongering America. No they won’t say they hate America – they realize you can’t say that yet. But are we to believe that imperialist, racist, and war-mongering describe a country one could love? Of course not, but apparently most imagine a confession is required before you can point to the obvious conclusion.

Introductory Articles on the Web:

Philip Carl Salzman discusses the tribal roots of Islam in his article in The Middle East Quarterly. He shows many of the cultural conditions that influenced the formation of this religious political ideology are still operative today. These include tribalism and its distinctive honor dynamics; conquests, domination, and the need to humiliate; warmongering and seeking validation in military victory.
Professor Moshe Sharon, a scholar of Islamic history, presents a frightening description of the worldview of Islam in: “The Agenda of Islam – A War Between Civilizations”.

This article, “ Islam Warriors Looking For Saladin” describes the origin and early development of Jihad. Non-Muslims find it hard to imagine the importance of such distant history. Muslims, however, talk as if events like the Crusades happened yesterday. Indeed, Shiites and Sunnis still feud over the rightful successor to Muhammad! Thus, it is critical to understand Muhammad and the first few centuries of Islamic conquests if we are to understand the Islamic threat.

It is not only the “Crusader” West that has suffered the wrath of Islam. This article gives a brief description of the horrific Islamic invasions and conquests of India: “ Islam’s Other Victims: India.” For information about the Islamic concept of Jihad read “ Spread By The Sword,” “The Global Jihad,” and “Islam’s Imperial Dreams.” The prolific writer and scholar, Daniel Pipes comments on the propaganda in academia aimed at hiding the real meaning of the word Jihad in “ Harvard Loves Jihad.”

Islamism’s antipathy to the Western liberal democratic tradition and the rational secular worldview should be obvious. Yet, there is a dearth of insightful commentary on this matter. One notable exception, available online, is “ The War against Modernity”. The author, philosopher David Kelly, contrasts the Enlightenment worldview with the mindset of Islam (and religion in general). He writes, “The West may still be a culture of Christians, by and large, but it is not a Christian culture anymore. It is a secular culture. And that is what the Islamists hate most about us.” Kelly makes other subtle and valuable points in this important article.

How were we so blind to the events that led to 9/11? Most writers focus on the government’s failure. But it goes much deeper. For over 20 years experts on the Middle East have been willfully blinded by our academics. No one has done more to expose this treachery than Martin Kramer. His book, “Ivy Towers in the Sand”, is a classic expose of the bogus academic research of left-wing post-colonial propagandists that dominate the Middle East studies departments in today’s universities. To get a sample of his analysis read “ Islam Obscured”. Kramer shows that our intellectuals purposely blinded us to the threat of Islamism and the chief propagandist taught just 8 miles north of Ground Zero.

“Islam is a totalitarian ideology that aims to control the religious, social, and political life of mankind in all its aspects.” This is the first statement of Ibn Warraq’s forward to “The Myth of Islamic Tolerance” edited by Robert Spencer. Warraq shows how the myth developed in the West and what purpose it served those who propagated this lie. The romantic fantasy of the “noble savage,” the relative ignorance of Islam, the selective focus on an atypical time and place, the willful evasion of evidence of Islamic barbarity – all themes covered in just the forward. Then read the rest of the book!

Bruce Bawer, in “The Crisis in Europe,” explains the threat of Islam to European civilization.
For the role of Islam in terrorism see “The Terrorists’ Motivation: Islam” by Edwin A. Locke and Alex Epstein. Also see my article “Root Cause.”

Finally, I’ve written extensively on my blog on various aspects of the Islamic threat that weren’t fully covered by other authors. I index those articles via hyperlinks in my summary essay.