Auster's moral dilemma
I was going to make a compilation of Lawrence Auster's Islam apologism. But there is so much, and each case is so good that it deserves a post of its own. I think the funniest one is in how he presented as a difficult moral dilemma, a hypothetical case of a society where the churches had been forced to marry homosexuals (the true evil according to Auster), and the Muslims waiting outside the city gate to attack. Should one let the Muslims in? A very difficult moral dilemma according to Auster. After all it's liberalism and not Islam that is the true evil to Auster.
Here's how he presents it:
Jim Kalb's position certainly raises interesting considerations, and even possible plots for a futuristic movie that may well happen some day. Let us imagine a community of Christians living in a city in a Europe in which Christianity has been effectively banned. This Europe has homosexual marriage, and requires churches to perform homosexual marriages, so that the still-believing, orthodox churches have officially shut their doors to escape this requirement. Meanwhile the Moslems are outside the city gates, trying to take over. They promise the Christians within the walls dhimmi status, freedom to follow their religion (with of course, all the dhimmi restrictions such as not being allowed to ring church bells, not being allowed to repair churches, having to pay jizya and get slapped on the face while paying it, and so on and so on), if the Christians will open the gates and help the Moslems take over. What should the Christians do? If Jim Kalb were their leader, what would he do? If I or David G. were their leader, what would we do?Gee, gay marriage vs. stoning to death for adultery, pedophile marriage, anal rape of young boys, and all the "complex truths" we get through Sharia. It's so hard to decide really. Truly a moral dilemma, isn't it? In addition the Hadiths recommend cutting the clitorises off young women, regulate things as the shaving of Muslima pussies, and say that it's OK to sodomize an infant and to mix animal excrements in food.
Auster thinks is a tough shot -- after all it's modern liberalism that is the true evil; Islam is not exactly evil. It's almost a toss up, but he might decide for not opening the gates for the Muslims after all. But he sees it as a genuine moral dilemma, so he wouldn't think of holding it against anyone else if they did open the city gates for the Muslim attackers.
Also, Auster has got a naive idea of the dhimmi status of Christians after and Islamic conquest (including the jizya and the slap on the face). His mentor Jim Kalb has told him that Islam has "a theoretical place for Christian communities" (unlike liberalism). But everything is "theoretical" with Jim Kalb, isn't it. Let's have a look at the real world. Recent conquests by Islam have been Kosovo and Libanon. In Kosovo there are soon not any churches left that has not been desecrated in the most vile ways and burned down (but I guess it's still modern liberalism that is the true evil and threat against Christianty).
And regarding the "place" of the Christian community in Lebanon, Brigitte Gabriel has written about it in Frontpage:
They started massacring the Christians, city after city. Horrific events the western media seldom reported. One of the most ghastly acts was the massacre in the of Damour where thousands of Christians were slaughtered like sheep. The Muslims would enter a bomb shelter, see a mother and a father hiding with a little baby. They would tie one leg of the baby to the mother and one leg to the father and pulled the parents apart splitting the child in half. A close friend of mine was mentally disturbed because they made her slaughter her own son in a chair. They tied her to a chair, tied a knife to her hand and holding her hand forcing her to cut her own son's throat. They would urinate and defecate on the altars of churches using the pages of the bible as toilet paper. They did so many things I don't need to go into any more detail. You get the pictureSo much for the "theoretical place" for the Christians. Does Auster still think it is a difficult moral dilemma whether the Muslim attackers should be let in through the city gates?
[End of post]
12 comments:
Auster is a certifiable lunatic for even considering Kalb's moral conundrum.
Where do I sign up to be a dhimmi, just as long as I don't have to mingle with morally decadent homosexuals as opposed to the moral high ground that Muslims through Shari'ah typically engage in?
Awake,
as long as I don't have to mingle with morally decadent homosexuals
Well, you would still be able to anally rape young boys, if you'd be so inclined. Sharia does not count this as homosexuality, as long as the boys are underage. It's only if they are (consenting) adults that it's a sin. That's the sort of complex moral truths that Islam offers.
But Kalb and Auster, in a misdirected attempt of being good Christians, looks the other way about these things, being too impressed by the Abrahamic connection (Oh how Muhammad fooled them!). And call for showing some basic respect for Islam (in how it's not a cult but a religion devoted to the worship of a transcendent God).
I think what these Christian traditionalists are objecting to is the way the British government has enforced gay liberation on private religious institutions, such as Catholic adoption agencies who may not legally discriminate against prospective gay adoptive parents.
I have nothing against gays and regard homosexuality as normal, but I support any private organisation or church in discriminating against anyone they want to. It really is a violation of people's religious rights if the government forces them (private parties) to treat gays the same as straights, if that's against their religion.
I'm in complete agreement with you that preferring Islam to liberal social values, including the acceptance of homosexuality, is pretty insane. However, the religious right is justifiably outraged that liberal governments are telling them they can't discriminate against gays, even though many religious conservatives regard homosexuality as a sin.
I often find myself in an awkward position, trying to make common cause with social and religious conservatives, when quotes like the above make me think, these people are crazy, how can we be on the same side? But in fact, Auster is on our side in the important matters, like ending Muslim immigration, and we throw people like him under the bus at our peril.
Latte,
Auster is on our side in the important matters, like ending Muslim immigration, and we throw people like him under the bus at our peril.
Auster doesn't seem to be on anybody's side regarding the ending of Muslim immigration. As soon as someone comes out calling for the end of Muslim immigration he attacks them for not having said so before, etc., driving the whole thing down all the way into the mud.
And regarding the possibility of throwing him under a bus, I don't think anyone could do more damage to him than he does to himself, by failing out with everybody, burning the bridges in all directions.
Conservative Swede
I look forward to reading about other instances of Auster's Islamic apologism - are there more of that than just this gay issue (where unfortunately a lot of Conservatives are only to happy to team up with the Shariah supremacists on)?
I used to admire Auster, until I read his retort to Awake, as well as this article on how there are groups he'd put below the ummah on the totem pole (no such group exists for me that I'd consider worse than Mohammedans)
Conservative Swede, on this particular point, the nucleus of this essay on your blog -- the quote of Auster's hypothetical scenario -- I think your entire articulated condemnation is built upon an elementary misunderstanding. I was linked here by someone, and initially I agreed with the conclusion of your argument. On that basis, I emailed Auster with my concern. However, after numerous email exchanges with Auster over this, I have come to see that his hypothetical was not intended to pose the dilemma qua the dilemma, but to pose it with regard to psychoanalytically probing the mentality of someone like Jim Kalb. The fact that Auster in doing so chose not to blatantly pillory Kalb, as more emotionally charged bloggers might feel is obligatory, can lead some readers to think that Auster is affecting an unconscionable diffidence or neutrality on the hypothetical and its questions. However, in that same thread of Auster's, prior to his hypothetical, there are comments here and there by Auster indicating his disagreement with Kalb.
Anyway, in this one instance, Conservative Swede, I think you ran rather wildly with shaky -- if not faulty -- premises.
Erich,
Auster is doing a Sarkozy regarding Kalb. I.e. his aiming for holding all the possible opinions at the same time. Eating the cake, keeping it, throwing it away, etc. And wouldn't you agree that the one referring to proper criticism (without this tap dancing) as "pillory" are the one emotionally charged about the issue?
Anyway, I'm glad to hear that your initial reaction was to be appalled about it. But then after some email sessions with Auster, you are here imitating his words on the issue.
What's your own take on Kalb's idea that Islam is superior to Western liberalism? Do you agree with it?
Conservative Swede,
1. If Kalb thinks Islam is superior to Western liberalism, I condemn his thought. (I haven't read enough of Kalb to know.)
2. This is not relevant to my main point here, that Auster claims that hypothetical scenario did not in any way reflect his opinions, but rather was his way of psychoanalyzing someone like Kalb. Whether Auster is as inconsistent about this particular issue I don't know, not having read enough of him; but even so, your exegesis of it in this one article is just plain mistaken. At best, you can salvage it by holding up other statements by Auster that seem to point toward a support in the general vicinity of this hypothetical scenario, and contrast those with his psychoanalystical critique (however mild it was) of Kalb represented by that hypothetical scenario.
Isn't it sad how deluded most Westerners are about Yugoslavia? I'm actually ashamed in a way of my country allowing NATO to use our air space for the bombings. But again, that's how being a small country goes and Russia was a bigger threat then. Big countries are gangsters indeed and small ones prostitutes. It will be funny in a way though when the Mexicans in Cali will want to join Mexico though because it will be the same thing happening.
rebelliousvanilla,
I like Romania very much. But of course your people are mesmerized by their imagined glory of the West, and all it's French Revolution ideals. But it takes some decades to destroy a country, and your country is still traditional and undestroyed in many ways. The cheese in Rucar was a favourite for me. But of course they are forbidden to sell that anymore because you have entered the EU.
It's all going the wrong way, however slowly. Enjoy it while you can :-)
ConservativeSwede, we are actually not mesmerized by the ideals of the West at all because of their value and what we see as valuable. We see the West as good because we needed hope to survive waiting a whole work shift in queue lines to get your ration of ten eggs and pound of a meat for that month or wiping your bum with newspapers because you didn't have toilet paper. Or be happy about the heating and electricity along with warm water going out during the night in the winters. Everyone clinged to the hope that the West is good and it will either come to save us or we will move there, so that image is still there. Hell, we loved Americans in the early 1990s so much and it took them to stab us in the back quite a few times for us to lose respect for them.
Also, the society itself was dehumanized by the communists. When everyone around you could be a snitch that would send you to forced labour camps for years or get you into a mental hospital while healthy or for jail(and believe me, jail here was jail, some people forgot how to talk due to being isolated for so long), you will not trust others. I see this everyday here, people expect everything to be a scam. Due to everything being bought on black markets and having to pay people off to get basic things, we have rampant corruption(still, I didn't lose my licence at all so far due to it lol). Also, people just look at the government to do things because that's how they were used to. But there are voices who actually speak against the thing in the West and that want to get back to the spirit we had before WW2 - and here this is the mainstream in terms of cultural critique. I like how we got our independence in the late 19th century and in the early 20th century we discovered insulin, the fountain pen, first jet engine, first self propelling flight without aid of catapults and only by on-board means, laying the groundwork for cibernetics and other stuff. But again, we were confident and proud back then, not broken, we also were free and we trusted each other.
I will contradict that my country isn't destroyed in many ways. It is, it's just that along with all that bad things, we had a shield that banned influence in terms of culture from the West(there were cases of national team athletes coming back from the West with a can of Coca-Cola to show to friends and they got banned from ever competing again due to it, which is quite sad actually). And also this forced us to see ourselves as a people, while the West was rich enough and afforded not to. Still, when people will not have what retirement, vacation or career to plan about, they will be forced to face reality.
I don't think you have it right though - my country's traditionality is disappearing fast. I'm just 19 and I can see this because I grew up not knowing what sex is until like 13 and I blushed when I talked about it. An year ago I was talking to a neighbours son who is in 3rd grade and he asked me if I have sex with my boyfriend. I was disappointed. Kids, at least in my city(which is one of the most Westernized one since it's the capital) aren't much different compared to Western kids related to morality. Or 15-20 years ago, apparently half of the Romanian women were virgin on their wedding night and the average age for women to marry was 21 or 23(I don't remember, but unlike Sweden's close to nothing per cent and 29ish, it was a huge difference). Now, we are catching up, but still, I doubt we will get into the irrationality of not seeing ourselves as a distinct people. It's funny in a way though because we like foreigners as long as they don't plan to move en masse here. If you've been here, you probably noticed that the ethnic Romanians are fairly friendly(since I doubt we export much cheese).
About cheese, yes, I like Rucar cheese too. By the way, we don't comply with the EU regulations - it's all about knowing where to get things. We also have some cool wines. :P I wanted to write more, but I forgot what and I have stuff to do, but this is how the cookie crumbles. What's sad too is that a lot of cities here got mutilated by the communists, my own included. I feel all the old buildings as alive and having personality(I found one from the early 19th century in the old part of the town, sort of not taken care of) and a lot of them got destroyed so that the idiot will build apartment complexes. Funny how before communist the working class in my city was living in houses and now we live in tiny apartments.
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