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Saturday, April 01, 2006
Accepting The Unacceptable
Despite its appearance of cheerful spontaneity, suicide isn't always a spur-of-the-moment thing. Many a suicide goes through an elaborate preparatory sequence: he arrives at a rationale, finds someone to blame for his inadequacies, ensures that his personal bile accounts have been paid, and finally chooses and acquires his means of departure from the world: the weapon with which he will destroy his own life. He often spends the greater part of his planning time and energy on the last.
As with men, so also with nations. A nation bent on suicide can't do so any more frivolously than a man; it must rationalize its failures, allocate the blame for them, take its final vengeances, and select a means of self-destruction. The rationales, the accusations, and the vengeances might all be idiotic, even evil, but they are necessary steps. The historical record is heavy with examples of the process.
Western Civilization has been stumbling through a suicide process for some years: roughly the past four decades. Certain of the prerequisites are in place; others are in various stages of preparation. About half the people of the United States and an unknown fraction of Europeans would subscribe to the statement that Western Civilization, as they understand it, is unworthy of defense. Are they enough to bring the knife to our throats? Unclear. But it would appear from recent developments that the choice of a weapon may be at hand.
Many who speak of "Western Civilization" are a bit muddled about it. Allow your Curmudgeon to clarify what he means by it.
Western Civilization is not a geographically delimited entity. It's that group of peoples who share a particular set of postulates about right and wrong: broadly speaking, the ethics that emerged from the Enlightenment's leavening of the Christian ethos. In common parlance, it comprises the English-speaking nations and those of (post-)Christian Europe. Its pinnacle, the nation where Christian-Enlightenment values have always been most fervently felt and most stoutly upheld, is the United States of America. Indeed, one could say with justice that until the emergence of the United States, there was no incontrovertible representation of Christian-Enlightenment values in any polity in the world.
Also, the Christian-Enlightenment postulates have certain strong implications. If those implications were not followed in practice, the ethical backwash would ultimately nullify the postulates themselves. Certain practices are absolutely contrary to those postulates; to tolerate them would be equally a surrender of our ethical position.
Western Civilization would cease to be Western Civilization were it to surrender those defining values. That would constitute a cultural suicide. What fragmentary civilizations might survive would no longer be united with one another through Christian-Enlightenment ethical postulates. To whatever extent their ethical postulates might diverge, they would treat one another as enemies; that's what it means for two persons, or two nations, to differ on the nature of right and wrong.
It is your Curmudgeon's contention that we can observe the systematic undermining, and in some cases and places the overt rejection, of Western Civilization's founding principles occurring as we speak.
Though Christian ethical principles hold that one should treat others as he himself would wish to be treated, they also hold that no man has a right to impose his conscience on another by force. Enlightenment thinkers elevated this dictum into a central constraint upon governments: freedom of thought and expression. Western Civilization cannot claim to be true to its foundations if it ceases to honor that tenet.
Yet is it not the case throughout the Western world that angry groups are attempting to impose their convictions upon others by force and intimidation? Is it not the case that their attempts are being tolerated more frequently than not, and in many cases are being assisted by the forces of the State?
Christian ethical principles absolutely forbid theft, fraud, and covetousness. Enlightenment thinking regards private property and its corollary, free enterprise in a free market, as the indispensable basis for all kinds of defensible freedom. Western Civilization's demonstrated material superiority to societies based on other economic precepts proceeds from the incorporation of that principle into its codes of law.
Yet is it not the case that in every nation of the West, governments have undermined both private property and free enterprise at every turn? Is it not the case that one must get permission to produce and sell, and that that permission may be withheld for any reason, including favor to prior enterprises, the hostility of some pressure group, or the aesthetic notions of a zoning board? Is it not the case that even in the United States, the land that has shown private property the most respect, governments may now seize a man's property to the last stitch, and may turn it over to any arbitrary beneficiary, on nothing more than a whim?
Though Christian ethical principles hold that one should be charitable toward the less fortunate, they also hold that each man is properly the master of his own affairs, including his decisions about whom he should favor with his largesse, on what conditions, and in what amounts. Enlightenment thinking also strongly favors individual responsibility. Together, they imply that each man's first, irrevocable duty is toward himself and those to whom he has freely obligated himself. A man who attempts to abdicate those duties deserves reproach and instruction; he has no claim -- and certainly no enforceable claim -- on the beneficence of others.
Yet is it not the case that multitudes of Westerners preach precisely the opposite: that poverty, savagery, disadvantage, or "a history of oppression" inherently entitles the afflicted ones to forbearance, privileges, and generosity from the better-off? Is it not the case that they advocate State enforcement of such things, and have in numerous cases succeeded in enshrining that policy in the law?
Christian ethical principles are unequivocal about the importance of one's sworn word. Enlightenment thinking incorporated the sanctity of one's oaths into the operation of our courts and the elevation of our public officials: jurors, witnesses, and public men are all required to swear to certain codes of conduct, on pain of punishment in this world and the next. The common maxim that "a man is only as good as his word" was long thought to express the very highest aspirations of an ethical society: one in which no tolerance would be shown to anyone who dared to promulgate falsehood for any purpose.
Yet is it not the case that men high and low trade in falsehood routinely today? Is it not the case that interest groups of all sorts play as loosely with the facts as they dare? Is it not the case that partisans and promoters reinforce their trumpetings with volume and repetition in preference to facts -- that they would rather be on everyone's lips than right? Is it not the case that the prevalent maxim of our time is that "nothing political is certain until it's been officially denied?"
Christian ethical principles oblige him who is able to go to the defense of him who is not. Enlightenment thinkers saw the willingness to fight for the right, even when unpopular and desperately overmatched, as indispensable to the maintenance of any ethical system. For the universe of human action is divided into freedom and coercion. When the defenders of freedom abdicate their posts, coercion will rush forward to fill the space.
Yet is it not the case that great volumes of popular opinion, amplified by the organs of the major media, oppose the forcible defense of the innocent against the brutality and intimidation of would-be tyrants? Is it not the case that our public organs of defense lie inert before the threats of militant groups of several kinds -- that peaceable institutions are routinely intimidated out of their preferred courses by threats of violence and arson? Is it not the case that many persons accept the argument that "giving offense" to such groups' sentiments is itself an aggression that justifies their violent reprisals? Is it not the case that hurricanes of condemnation have been raised specifically against the liberations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and against the freedom and security of Israel?
If you think your Curmudgeon is indulging in hyperbole, read on.
In Britain, violent crime and crimes against property are at an all-time high. Yet peaceable Britons have been statutorily shorn of the means of defense. Indeed, a British subject who dares to defend himself with force against a forcible assault is himself deemed to have committed a crime, for which he might face both criminal and civil penalties.
In France, Muslims have rioted more or less continuously for months, engaging in numerous acts of destruction and violence against the innocent. Notably, several Jews have been the targets of their rage; one, Ilan Halimi, was tortured to death for his effrontery in being a Jew. More recently, French youths have rioted massively over proposed changes in French labor law, which would allow employers the privilege of discharging young employees within the first two years of their employ, without need for State permission.
In Germany, Muslim unrest simmers at a lower temperature. Yet the ever-enlarging Muslim guest worker community there bears at least part of the responsibility for Germany's official coolness toward the United States and its hostility toward Israel. More, it appears that Germany's relations with Iran have been anything but innocent; German equipment figures prominently in Iran's headlong rush toward nuclear weapons.
In Denmark, numerous media figures, most notably a number of cartoonists, must live in hiding because of Muslim death threats over a dozen drawings of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. The Danes have come under increasing international pressure to censor their press because of derivative Muslim outrage in other countries. Danish embassies have been torched and at least one Dane has been killed by Muslim rioters.
In Australia, the authorities have confronted a rash of rapes committed along ethnic and religious lines: rapes of non-Muslim women by Muslim men. Local Muslim organizations have condemned Australian law enforcement and investigative efforts aimed at these crimes as racist and discriminatory.
In Canada, enclaves of Muslim immigrants have instituted, de facto, the rule of shari'a law. Because this scheme is massively oppressive of women, numerous Muslim women have pleaded for the authorities to intervene against it. So far, there has been no official action to that effect.
In the United States:
- Illegal immigrants have held mass rallies intended to dissuade federal legislators from tightening America's border security or acting to enforce the immigration laws. To the best of your Curmudgeon's knowledge, nothing has been done to investigate or penalize the organizers of those rallies, who must surely know that they're aiding in the concealment of federal criminals and encouraging their like.
- Legislators have written special accommodations into the law for innumerable groups: women, racial groups, ethnic groups, and homosexuals in particular. All these groups are dissatisfied and are demanding more. Oftentimes, through the action of courts gone wholly ultra vires, they get it.
- Supreme Court decisions have sanctioned the arbitrary seizure of private property, which is then turned over to private parties for their own purposes.
- Numerous commercial institutions fear to sell wares that might offend the sensibilities of any angry group, most particularly Muslims and eco-activists.
- Political discourse has become so inflamed, and the statements of public figures on the Left so distant from the facts, that no intercourse between majority and minority, or between Left and Right, is possible at all.
- The current president is ceaselessly attacked for having liberated 50 million people from the grip of two of the worst despotisms known to history, and faces stiff opposition, both domestic and international, to the impending necessity of dealing with Iran. His predecessor, a self-disgraced figure, first of all presidents to be stripped of his license to practice law and first ever to admit to having lied to a jury or to the public, has awarded himself the privilege of criticizing the president from retirement.
- Every politician at any level may be presumed to have violated his oath of office, usually by exercising power not granted to him or his class by the relevant authorizing charters or constitutions.
Your Curmudgeon's point is not that all of this is terrible -- it is -- nor that it's unprecedented -- it's not. The point is that the nations in which it's occurring appear disposed to accept it.
All other things being equal, a rational man prefers to avoid conflict and strife. All other things being equal, he will choose the easiest of the routes toward what he desires. But all other things are seldom equal, nor will wishing make them so.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in discussing the breakdown of families and moral standards becoming visible throughout the West in the mid-Sixties, gave us a memorable phrase for the acceptance of the unacceptable: "defining deviancy down." He was aware of the implications, but it's doubtful that he foresaw how malignant the "deviancies" would become, nor the extent to which the cancers would swell without a significant opposed reaction, particularly here in the United States.
It cannot continue without critically damaging the Christian-Enlightenment ethical principles that render our societies habitable.
More anon.
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