Throne and Altar

Bonifacius has made me realize a serious danger in my Christian-Muslim alliance strategy:

Now, when certain subjects are discussed, to propose reasons is to entertain the notion that a particular idea is actually a matter of reasonable debate. Sometimes the only way to really convey the sense of censure that a particular idea merits is “bullying,” shunning, etc., as you, Bonald, have noted elsewhere on this blog (see your defense of bullying). It seems, Bonald, that you have simply, and sadly, lost the visceral repugnance that men of the West should have for the Islamic alien worldview and population entering Europe. Rehashing the arguments (like the fact that Mohammedans see Sharia as having universal applicability and therefore are extremely unlikely to respect Christian autonomous areas except when forced to do so by the sword, etc.) is probably futile at this point…

Anyone with a proper love of orthodoxy should feel a corresponding abhorrence of heresy, and of false religions all the more.  It should, as Bonifacius indicates, be an automatic, visceral response, one preceding–indeed precluding–argument.  Has my horror of irreligion caused me to lose a proper horror of false religion?  Perhaps, but if so that’s only a matter of my own soul.  More importantly, though, one could argue that my strategy would expose all Christians who partake in it to this temptation.  If Muslims become our allies, won’t we be tempted to start feeling that the divinity of Christ really isn’t such a big deal after all?  (From the Muslim point of view, it would expose them to the temptation of losing their proper horror of Christian “idolatry” and “tritheism”, but I speak as a Christian.)  Yes, I think this is a real danger.  It may be–although I’m still not sure–a necessary danger; it’s certainly not as spiritually corrosive as any Christian-Liberal alliance against Islam would surely be.  Orthodox Christians have in the past admired non-Christians without spiritual harm (think of St. Thomas and Aristotle and Ibn Sina, or Dante and Virgil) but always from a safe distance in space and time.  We must be sure that my grand anti-liberal alliance doesn’t end up sneaking in liberal “tolerance” through the back door.

Filed under: Europe, Islam, What's to be done? | 7 Comments »

I think this discussion deserves its own post.

In a previous entry, I threw this out:

I’m more convinced than ever that a traditionalist movement in Europe will have to be Muslim-led.  We, the remnant of Christendom, would still have much to contribute to and much to gain from such a movement.  Imagine a movement promoting local self-government for religious communities, which would, yet, mean Sharia in Muslim parts, but also no sodomy indoctrination in Christian parts.  We can lament the fact that Muslims would be more palatable leaders and spokesmen for such a movement for the general public, but we must acknowledge it.

Two of my wisest readers disagreed.  (I should probably say four.  While Alan Roebuck and Bruce Charlton haven’t said anything about this proposal, I’m pretty sure I know what they think of it.)  Marcio Silva writes

This is a point where we disagree, by a large margin. I would like to, respectfully, address two aspects of your proposal. The first, is the question on exactly how is your proposal of joining the false (in this case, Islam) with what is true (in this case, Christianity) differs from Frank Meier’s fusionism or Tu Weiming’s “modern confucionism”? Will Muslims “tolerate” what they think to be false on Christianity and will Christian “tolerate” what they think to be false on Islam? A “Muslim-led traditionalist movement in Europe” if successful, would turn Europe in a Muslim-led society would it not? If so, I think it is fair to examine how well are the “Christian parts” of other Muslim-led societies going. How are Christians in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran? How well are Christians doing even in Kosovo? You say the Christians have “much to contribute” to this Muslim-led movement. Historically, apart from being a source for slaves, janissaries and, “raw material” to “organic fertilizer”, how exactly Christians “contribute” to Islam and “gain” from it?
The second aspect that I would like to address is the Muslim behavior in Europe. How exactly this crime-prone, violence-prone, gang-rape prone minority (the data on Muslim crime on Kafirs is abundant, as any reader of VFR, GoV or JihadWatch knows), today on a non-leadership position will, once turned in the majority or achieving leadership, behave in a proper and civilized manner? By the way, would you describe Saudi Arabia, Yemen or Pakistan as “conservative” place where you – as a Catholic – would like to live in? Allowing a troublesome ethnic-religious group to take the leadership of a country never ends well. Ask the whites in post-apartheid South Africa.

JMsmith writes

I have to agree with Marcio Silva, that Bonald is wrong in his fourth point. The word tradition denotes a form of knowledge, but without a qualifier indicates no particular content. Traditional knowledge is knowledge received on authority from the past, usually on the assumption that the people or person who originated the tradition enjoyed some sort of epistemic advantage. This is why modernity opposes all tradition. It stipulates that the present always has epistemic advantage over the past. Because modernity opposes tradition as a form of knowledge, it lumps all traditions together, regardless of content. We traditionalists are not, however, committed to tradition as a form of knowledge, but rather to the received content of our own particular tradition. So, coming to the point, European Muslims will not create a Traditional society, they will produce an Islamic society. If I had to choose between Islam and Hedonistic Nihilism, I think I’d choose Hedonistic Nihilism.

One big issue is how Christianity and Islam relate.  Is any alliance between the two as intellectually incoherent as Frank Meier’s fusionism or Tu Weiming’s Enlightenment-friendly Confuciansim?  I don’t think so; I would say that Christianity and Islam are rivals but not opposites.  Libertarianism and social conservatism, and Confucianism and the Enlightenment are movements in opposite directions.  There’s no coherent way one can push both at the same time.  One can advance Christianity and Islam at the same time.  Their morals and ours are mostly compatible (far more so than are Christian and liberal morals), and in a broad sense, Christians and Muslims would like to push Europe in the same direction (less public blasphemy, less pornography, less usury).  The particularities of our own traditions can be pursued at the local level, since Christians and Muslims usually live in different places, so a robust localism can serve us both.  What’s more, this is the means of coexistence endorsed by both our traditions.  Muhammad himself said that Christians should be unmolested in our own enclaves, while we Christians are obliged to promote subsidiarity when possible.  Both Christians and Muslims accommodated religious minorities through ghetto arrangements in the Middle Ages; it’s the sensible thing to do.  The liberals, by contrast, think they have a right to indoctrinate other people’s children.

Let’s also not loose sight of the contemporary reality.  A Muslim-dominated conservative Europe may not be the ideal, but at this point I think it’s by far the most viable alternative to a completely Leftist Europe.  Christianity is toxic in the public mind.  Europeans think we’re all a bunch of bigots and mass-murderers.  And let’s not forget that half of those European Christians are Roman Catholics, who in the public mind are all child molesters.  No one would ever vote for us.  On the other hand, Islam, as they’ve been told ad nausium, is the religion of peace.  Also, while the genetic differences between us and Turks or Arabs is small, they are regarded as non-white for some reason, which automatically gives them higher status in the European mind.  Finally, they are a more formidable force because of their self-confidence.  They really know that they’re right, and they don’t care what the New York Times says.  Christians conservatives, on the other hand, are use to defeat.  We’ve known nothing else for two centuries.  We’ve come to expect it.  We go into every fight demoralized, worried more about how to avoid social ostracism for what we know will turn out to be an unpopular cause than about how to make it a popular cause.  The Muslims are psychologically better equipped to fight than we are.

Most importantly, between Islam and hedonistic nihilism, I’d choose Islam hands down.

Filed under: Europe, Islam, What's to be done? | 41 Comments »