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Saturday, February 11, 2006
The Hour Of The Knife Part 2: Boundary Conditioning (UPDATED 2/12/2006)
The responses to the previous essay in this short series were, to say the least, impassioned. Among them were several that were tactically oriented, to the following composite effect:
If we're going to quarantine the Islamic world, physically and fiscally, how ought we to proceed? After the quarantine is in place, what measures would be required to keep it in place, and to allow whatever degree of intercourse between the West and Islam we deem prudent and constructive?
Worthy questions, deserving of an extended discourse.
If there's a significant, underappreciated fact about the ongoing war between the West and Islam, it would be this: all attempts at civilizing Islam by the West's preferred techniques of peaceful trade and interpenetration of population have failed utterly. Islam, particularly where it's politically dominant, has only grown more squalid and more violent, despite Western attempts at tolerance and accommodation.
(Of course, there are commentators who'll tell you that that's because we haven't been tolerant and accommodating enough, but I'm not here to analyze the psychopathology of sociopolitical masochism. Not today.)
Of particular interest in this connection, given the flap over the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, is the wholly unsatisfactory response of the "moderate Muslims." I've come to think of these creatures in much the same way I thought of the "dark matter" hypothesized to close the universe gravitationally: since in practice they can't be detected, then whether or not they actually exist, they're of no consequence.
Charles Krauthammer holds an even harsher view:
What passes for moderation in the Islamic community -- "I share your rage but don't torch that embassy" -- is nothing of the sort. It is simply a cynical way to endorse the goals of the mob without endorsing its means. It is fraudulent because, while pretending to uphold the principle of religious sensitivity, it is interested only in this instance of religious insensitivity.Have any of these "moderates" ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part (!) series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery (and inspiration of the Nazis), "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?
It's very hard to argue with that.
But the question remains: Why have peaceful trade and gradual intercourse with the West not done to Islam what they did to India, Japan, and other nations? What distinguishes Islam's adherents from those of Hinduism, Shintoism, and Buddhism?
The answer lies in the bell curve.
Few subjects are as superficially controversial as intelligence assays and the statistics derived from them. Even a nominally fearless cognitive scientist will tend to back away from the subject when there's any kind of audience. But when you manage to get that cognitive scientist alone, he'll tell you that most of the controversy emanates from racial activists pretending offense at data no one, regardless of his politics, can impeach.
In a landmark study conducted with exquisite care, Professors Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen assayed the intelligence levels of 168 different nations. Their published results were too carefully arrived at to be attacked on objective grounds, so those who would have welcomed the chance to besmirch Lynn's and Vanhanen's methods, largely ignored them. But the data, most carefully collected and validated, speak for themselves. They correlate very strongly with many other manifestations of human ability and achievement.
One of the more ominous items from the study is that the average IQ of the world's Islamic nations is about 87.
A number such as that should be used carefully, and with full regard both for what it implies and for what it does not. An average says nothing about the qualities of any individual included in it. There are undoubtedly Muslims with IQs in the genius band. But since IQs are distributed on a bell curve, the average has powerful implications for the aggregate it describes.
On any bell curve:
- 65% of all scores will lie within one standard deviation of the average.
- 95% of all scores will lie within two standard deviations of the average.
- 99.7% of all scores will lie within three standard deviations of the average.
The standard deviation for IQ scores is about 15 points. Therefore:
- 65% of Muslims in the Islamic states have IQs between 72 and 102;
- 95% of Muslims in the Islamic states have IQs between 57 and 117;
- 99.7% of Muslims in the Islamic states have IQs between 42 and 132.
The norm for worldwide IQ testing is, as it always has been, 100 exactly. That is, the average of the raw test scores of all persons worldwide, when averaged in the usual (i.e., the mean) fashion, is assigned to an IQ measurement of 100. The range within which fall 65% of the scores clustered around the mean is set to a "width" of 30 points: from 15 points below the mean to 15 points above it. That sets the scale by which IQ measures are assigned to other raw scores.
The names once given -- i.e., before political correctness made it difficult to discuss intelligence measurement at all -- to IQ levels at various removes from the mean were as follows:
- 160 and above: Genius.
- 145: Very Superior.
- 130: Superior.
- 115: Bright Normal.
- 100: Average.
- 85: Dull Normal.
- 70: Moron.
- 55: Imbecile.
- 40 and below: Idiot.
The educability of persons at each of those levels was their most important aspect. A dull-normal could be educated somewhat, but would more likely than not be best suited to a trade that didn't require much abstract reasoning. A moron's ability to absorb abstractions is even more limited. Imbeciles and idiots are capable of being conditioned into carefully designed, undemanding behavior patterns, but their ability to deal even with simple abstractions such as small whole numbers is near to nonexistent.
The lower the individual's intelligence, the simpler and more rigid are the patterns of life to which he's suited, and the less ability he'll have to cope with changes to his surroundings or to the demands on him.
The central principle of a just and peaceful society is reciprocity. The greatest voices in history have spoken to this effect:
Confucius: "Do not do to another what you would not have him do unto you."
Jesus Christ: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."
To grasp why these rules are as effective as they are, one must be able to generalize over both space and time: that is, one must be able to project the consequences of men's decisions and actions with fair accuracy. He who lacks the mental capacity to do that will conform to the Confucian and Golden Rules only insofar as he's compelled to do so by some other factor, whether it be empathy, law enforcement, or lack of imagination.
Similarly, to respect the lives and prerogatives of those nearest to one doesn't take a lot of smarts. After all, they have ample opportunities for conditioning one into acceptable behavior, by their own behavior. But to respect the lives and prerogatives of distant persons and lands requires the same sort of ability to generalize -- to deal with abstractions, cause and effect, and the emergent norms -- that the Confucian and Golden Rules require. This is why, in a nutshell, we don't allow morons to wander about unsupervised or play with guns.
It's also why the West's largely peaceful, trade-oriented approach to the Islamic world has been answered with grasping and hostility.
I've long been of the opinion that Islam exerts its greatest attractions upon the mentally subnormal. Persons who feel themselves inferior to others are forever looking for a rationale by which they might invert that relation. Islam, which not only nominates its adherents as the chosen of God but also gives them license to kill and subjugate "infidels" in God's name, is a perfect case. Small wonder that Islam's greatest gains among native-born Americans have been in inner-city slums and prisons. In contrast, Muslims of some intelligence, once freed from oppressive surroundings, tend to shed the uglier parts of their creed, usually remaining only nominally Muslim. This has been the prevailing pattern among Muslim immigrants to the United States, outside of the "tight" Muslim enclaves in the Detroit area.
As the argument above implies, it is consistent with subnormal intelligence to respond to an open, generous hand by grabbing, pulling, and demanding more. It takes a modest amount of mental power to realize that this is more likely to convert that hand into a fist than to evoke a second offer of largesse. Similarly, when the hand does become a fist, the usual reaction is sullen resentment, rather than comprehension of the consequences of one's misdeed.
The West's attitude toward the Islamic world since about World War II has been quite amiable and charitable, despite a near-total lack of reciprocation. Our prime error, from which the greater part of our troubles have flowed, was to maintain that amiability and beneficence despite Islamic hostility. By continuing to be openhanded and courteous toward the Islamic states even when we were insulted, obstructed, and attacked in return, we conditioned them, peoples and rulers both, to expect that they could wring even more generosity and accommodation from us by behaving even worse.
The mentally subnormal learn principally through conditioning. We conditioned the Islamic states into behaving as they do. Though American attitudes have changed and American responses have hardened since Black Tuesday, September 11, 2001, those of Europe have not. One consequence of this is that the Islamic states can continue to believe that their policy of answering courtesy with insult and generosity with derisive demands for more is essentially correct; perhaps all it needs is intensification. Another consequence is that on the crucial matter of Israel, the Islamic states really, truly believe that they can have their way --- that they can annihilate five million Israeli Jews and claim that tiny nation for Islam -- if they can somehow paralyze America's will to defend it.
If Americans were other than we are, those beliefs might even be sound.
Conditioning of the sort we've unwittingly inflicted upon the Islamic world cannot be countered by reason or charity. Not only is it pointless to try to reason against history; it's also an approach to which the low mentality of the Islamic world is insusceptible. It can only be corrected by a sustained campaign of reconditioning:
- Adherence to Islam, or origins traceable to an Islamic state, must disqualify any applicant for immigration or any kind of visa to the United States.
- Islamic non-citizen immigrants already in the United States, if affiliated with known militant mosques or madrassas, must be informed that they will be kept under continuous surveillance, as will those aforementioned institutions.
- Every act of Islamic barbarism that can be traced to a particular individual or group must be followed by the pursuit-to-execution of that individual or group.
- If a savage act is shown to have had state backing, the state which provided that backing must be punished. Since trade walls will already be in place, the punishment must be military.
- Non-Islamic states that undermine the quarantine must also be punished, though here the penalty may be economic in nature.
For brevity's sake, I'll refer henceforward to this quarantine-and-reconditioning program as the QAR program. The QAR program must begin at once.
Conditioning is only effective when it cannot be evaded. This is a strong reason for the quarantine of Islam I've been advocating for some time. By "keeping Islam's doors locked," we of the West can ensure against several possibilities at once; compelling world Islam to suffer the consequences of its own actions is high among them. Only once Islam has been confined to those states where it's currently dominant can the reconditioning begin.
Conditioning is most effective when it's uniform. The United States should make every effort to enlist all Western nations -- the Anglosphere and Europe -- in the QAR program. The rulers of Europe are currently following a far different course -- a destructively accomodationist one. It might well be necessary for us to recondition Europe, which has also been the beneficiary of far too much American indulgence, as a preliminary to the QAR program. Inasmuch as Europe is having troubles of its own, both economic and Islam-related, it might not take too much effort to bring the Europeans into our fold.
Finally for the purposes of this essay, a reconditioning program cannot expect to take less time than the conditioning process it seeks to undo. Therefore, the QAR program must become a facet of enduring, long-term American foreign policy -- one to which no exceptions are ever made. Only after half a century should any aspect of it be reviewed.
I have no doubt that the above policy recommendations sound extremely harsh, especially to Muslims. It's of no moment. Islam-powered terrorism and Islamic incursions upon the freedoms of Americans, Europeans, Australians, and Britons have brought us to a point where attempting to deny the nature of the threat, or the necessities involved in dealing with it, is self-destructive lunacy. If the Jyllands-Posten affair and the behavior of Muslims in Britain, France, and Australia have anything to teach us, it's that kindness and accommodation toward Muslims are currently counterproductive.
Indeed, kindness and accommodation toward Islam might remain counterproductive forever. What will decide is whether the unintelligent, squalid masses of the Islamic world, once locked into their own house and subjected to sustained and humorless reconditioning -- the lesson that stridency will be met with scorn and barbarism will be met with punishment, regardless of the rationale -- can unlearn its current ways and acquire enough civilization to be readmitted to the family of Man.
UPDATE: Dr. Farish A. Noor, a Malaysian political scientist, has this to say:
For decades, if not centuries, Occidental scholars have been asking the same questions: Are Muslims modern? Can Islam be reconciled with modernity? It appeared as if these questions were being asked in some ahistorical vacuum, oblivious of the fact that Muslims have been among the first to embrace the tools of modernity from the beginning: the printing press, modern transport, modern notions of identity, citizenship, the nation-state; modern commerce and now Internet and virtual communication technology and modes of representation.The cartoons were transmitted world-wide via a network of interlinked Islamist websites and portals, they were discussed and criticised in Islamist chat-rooms in cyberspace, and the protests against them were likewise organised and coordinated in cyberspace. How modern can Muslims get?
What we have seen therefore is clear evidence of a globalised Muslim world on the march. Islamist NGOs, parties, movements, civil society groups, media outlets and politicians have mobilised Muslims and got them on the streets to demonstrate the will of the Muslim masses and — more importantly — the power of the Muslim dollar. The boycott of Danish goods has shown that the Muslim dollar has clout — Muslims are rich, by the way — and that the Muslim dollar can make or break Western economies.
If this is the sort of penetration that earns a Ph.D. in political science, it's small wonder that political scientists occupy a level of regard barely above three-card-Monte hustlers:
- Not one of the "tools of modernity" Noor mentions was invented, nor to any degree advanced nor refined, in an Islamic state.
- The same goes for the "network of interlinked Islamist websites." The use of the Web or of E-mail as a communications tool isn't much of a claim to modernity; technological illiterates can send E-mail and build mediocre Websites.
- "The Muslim dollar can make or break Western economies." This frequently heard conjecture is without any substance. Indeed, the reality is the other way around: the American dollar, all by itself, could reduce the entire Middle East (excepting Israel) to a Paleolithic level of existence, in which stone axes and sapling bows are the cutting edge in weaponry.
If this is the "globalised Muslim world on the march" we're supposed to fear and conciliate, that world had better learn to fear and conciliate us, before we get really serious.
The "Hour Of The Knife" essays:
- The Hour Of The Knife
- The Hour Of The Knife Part 2: Boundary Conditioning
- The Hour Of The Knife Part 3: Islam In Durance Vile
- The Hour Of The Knife Part 4: Game Time
- The Hour Of The Knife Part 5: Opening The Campaign
- The Hour Of The Knife Part 6: The Vanguard
- The Hour Of The Knife Part 7: The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown
Comments
Spot on as usual- all except for the IQ part. I test between 154 and 157 and I’m clearly an idiot.
I pray incessantly that Islam will become what so many profess it to be at it’s core, which is a religion of peace. I know better, but I pray anyway.I am not interested in seeing any mother’s son die in the name of God, but I’m even less interested in MY mother’s son dying for the same reason.
Aside from prayer or violence, what is there?
Posted by og on 02/11/2006 at 11:41 AMDidn’t Lynn and Vanhanen also claim that the average IQ in Israel was 94?
I think there’s a bug in their system.
I’m also reminded of the claim that the “blue states” have higher mean IQs than “red states.”
Posted by Joseph Hertzlinger on 02/11/2006 at 09:54 PMAnd, of course, a good many of these propositions could have been implemented, especially the immigration resrictions, if ew had done so immediately after 9/11.
Now I fear we’ve waited far to late and it will take another hit here in this country before the population is willing to demand these changes.
I read a lively debate on exactly this topic at Front Line today. The meme there was what we ought to do and what we are/can do at this point.
Posted by Lana on 02/11/2006 at 10:37 PMI’m also reminded of the claim that the “blue states” have higher mean IQs than “red states.”
hoax.
http://www.isteve.com/IQhoax.htm
Posted by on 02/11/2006 at 11:40 PM“...unwittingly...”
Stopped dead in my progress.
First, please share with me your thought processes when you chose this particular adverb Fran. Really.
Last, pleaae provide your best answer. At this point in time, those who persist in this policy are:
A) morons?
B) Imbeciles?
C) Idiots?
D) Spineless, morally bankrupt geniuses?Really.
Posted by Pascal on 02/12/2006 at 01:54 AMFran, do you believe that the ‘issue’ between the Muslim world and the rest of us will reawaken the barbarian in the American or European soul?
A part of me looks at the sheer unwillingness of the Muslim world to move forward and wonder if Robert Howard was right that barbarism is mankind’s natural state, and the civilization is a temporary aberration.
Howard would expect the Muslims, being on the whole more barbaric to win, but I wonder if the barbarian that lurks in the hindbrain of the West might not be the big winner. Kim du Toit believes that we can be barbaric for a time, and when the threat is finished, return to civilized behavior. I would like to agree with him, but at some levels, being barbaric easier. And if we start down that path, might we discover that we like it too much to leave?
If an ‘Islamofascist’ group killed thousands, or tens of thousands of Americans, which would be easier for America with regards to material capacity: 1) Attempt to locate and kill only those Muslims responsible, and those who gave them material support; 2) Make use of our nuclear stockpile to render the entire Muslim world unable to repeat such an attack?
Which one would cost fewer American lives, and which one would assuage our fears of further attacks on our loved ones more?
After a jihadi attack, I often find myself asking, what would Rome have done if such an attack had been carried out on them, and they had the capabilities of America today.
My concern is not for the Muslim world. They have had ample oppurtunity to let the world figure out who is who among them, and I believe that every decent man and woman among them has little to fear from a loving God. What I am concerned for is America’s soul.
Posted by on 02/12/2006 at 02:47 PM
