Civilization Envy
Cold war general Jack Wheeler on the Islamization of Europe.
He rambles a bit, but he has some good points. He points out that there are villages in India and other places where nothing's been different for centuries. Somebody tries to make an improvement or a change, and they're accused of witchcraft or otherwise kept down or killed.
Wheeler says Islam, communism, and Naziism are or were all "religions of envy." "The only way to counteract" a religion of envy, he says, "Is to not be afraid of it."
"So the only chance that Europe has to reject the...envy of the Muslims, and regain a sense of civilizational confidence in the moral worth of western civilization and the accomplishments of their own history. And until that happens, Europe doesn't stand a chance."
More on this from an interview with Wheeler on FrontPage:
We are not in a war on “terrorism” and the enemy is not “terrorists,” but as you say, Islamic Jihadism. We should call this The War on Jihadism. The crux understanding of Jihadism, or Moslem Terrorism, is that it is a form of envious rage. All three of the great barbarisms of modern times have been pathologies of envy. Nazism, preaching race-envy toward “rich exploitative Jews”; Communism preaching class-envy toward “rich exploitative capitalists”; Jihadism preaching culture-envy toward “rich exploitative America/Israel/the West.” A clear example is the Nazi-type hatred Arabs have for Israel. The root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict is envy. The Jews created a civilization out of the wilderness and a garden out of the desert, while the Arabs – even with their centibillions of petrodollars -- continued to mire themselves in medieval tyranny and poverty.Israel is a fount of creativity and achievement, a bastion of Western Civilization built by scratch out of a desiccated wasteland, sparsely populated by Arab nomads herding sheep, goats, and camels. And that is why the descendants of those nomads hate and envy it so much.
It is also why they hate America so much. Jihadis do not hate America for its vices but for its virtues, for its freedom, its prosperity, for its cultural success. Just as Nazis hate Jews for their success, just as Marxists hate capitalists for their success, so Jihadis hate America, Western Civilization, Judaism and Christianity for their success.
Jihadism, Nazism, and Communism are all totalitarian ideologies masochistically obsessed with destroying what they are envious of. Jihadists may claim their goal is a Salafist Caliphate, just as the Nazis claimed about a 1,000 year Reich, and the Communists a New Socialist Man. These are utopian pretexts to hide the fundamental goal of annihilating the object of their hate.
That’s always the pathology of envy: the willingness to destroy yourself as long as who you are envious of is destroyed as well. The suicide bomber is an ultimate expression of envy.
And more, from Wheeler's FrontPage interview, on how the European left plays into Islamist hands:
Just as the totalitarian left is motivated by envy, the liberal left is motivated by the fear of being envied. It is a very ancient and primitive fear, exactly the same as a primitive tribesman’s fear of envious Black Magic or a peasant villager’s fear of the envious Evil Eye. People in our society who are susceptible to this fear – such as heirs who inherited rather than earning their wealth and Hollywood celebrities who do so little to earn their millions – become liberals as a psychological strategy to avoid being envied. Liberalism is a not a political philosophy. It is the politicalization of envy-appeasement. Thus liberals are masochists as well – for the more one fears being envied, the more one is driven to masochistic self-humiliation in attempts at envy appeasement. Liberals have a compulsion to apologize to those that envy them, apologize for being white, for being male, for being successful, for the success of their country, their culture, their civilization. This renders liberals incapable of passionately defending America.
And they're also jealous of cartoonists, it seems:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23125346/
Flynne at February 12, 2008 7:05 AM
We don't get over this and soon, we ain't gonna have anything to envy. But then, that seems to be what they're after.
That last bit explains what seems to be a growing fear of having jihad pronounced on you. And people not speaking up for fear of it.
Donna at February 12, 2008 8:01 AM
Excellent little talk there. I agree with everything he said. There is a socialists strain that has been prevalent in our education system since before the thirties. Socialism is based on envy because in order to make things 'fair', there should be an equalization of outcome. It compensates for the fact that some people earn and create more than others and redistributes the outcome between all workers therefore kowtowing to the envy of the ones who didn't do so well.
Since our system has been doing this by not keeping score in games,"ware all winners" and giving trophies to everyplayer or doing away with gold colored stars because the other kids will 'lose self esteem'. These dumb little things are why our youth and our liberal side don't have the conviction to fight jihadism. They never will. Even worse, they will condemn those that do while they live under that protection.
Bikerken at February 12, 2008 12:48 PM
I loved this video. I can't even begin to understand the self-hatred that afflicts Western civilizations.
How do people raised in Western countries look at the achievements of Western civilization --- modern science, fine arts, modern industrial arts, Liberal society, democratic politics, free markets, human rights --- and side with the primitives and degenerates?
I mean come on! This is a civilization in which "poor" people are fat and have big screen TVs! It's a civilization of abundance, and it has a rich culture, history and heritage.
Some westerners, especially New Ager types and multiculturalists, pine for the return of Native American culture that never even discovered the wheel, long for the bygone days of throwing Indian widows on funeral pyres, yearn for the squalor of Aboriginal nomads, and apologize for the seasonal African genocides spawned by superstitious zeal.
The anti-Western forces within our society are mad, mad, mad. They must be confronted everywhere. They must find no safe haven to advocate a collective Western suicide.
I refuse to let multicultural bullshit pass without public confrontation. In my circles, I'm often the only one defending the West against its critics.
The ideological blindness of multiculturalism is going to kill our great civilization. I really think it's becoming that serious.
Jeff at February 12, 2008 2:33 PM
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that people mostly fear what they do not know. This is why education is so ultimately important, not just with our USA educational system, but globally. Wheeler's solution to "not be afraid" of the problem is woefully incorrect. The ONLY way to correct "the problem" is through education.
Beneath the fears among the peoples that Wheeler writes about, is an overall ignorance of the world. When you eradicate that ignorance with education then you are left with opinion.
Opinion allows discourse. In a free society, discourse leads to common sense solutions of problems.
The caveat to this is, of course, a "free" society. Which leads to what would seem to be a circular argument - how can you have freedom of speech without education? You can't have education in these countries without rebellion. Rebellion would seem to be the way to go. What is important to a nation's growth is not the rebellion of those who want to keep the status quo, but the rebellion of those who seek change. That rebellion need not be violent. That rebellion can be as simple as starting a school in a province that has never had such a thing.
I have plenty to say on that subject, but I'll stop with that.
Furthermore, the rising of Natziism was one of economics - the Jews were a scapegoat for a madman. The basic NEEDS of the populace were not being taken care of. One does NOT revolt because you are driving a Mercedis-Benz vs I have a Volvo. One DOES revolt because - I am starving vs you are fed. This does NOT equate to envy.
I am starving - end of statement. I don't really care if you are eating caviar or broth - you are eating and I am not. I revolt.
The same analogies can be applied to the Communisic revolts, to much extent.
PS - and while I can agree to some extent that a suicide bomber is an "ultimate expression of envy" - It would appear that a suicide bomber is a nine year old child who is not capable of the higher order thinking of, say, a 30 year old man. A nine year old is doing what he thinks he needs to do to save himself and/or his family. Let us not forget, many of these "expressions of envy" are being PAID (by the the guys with the political motivations) to represent them. An entire different line of thinking because - hello! he's nine.
Opinion allows for discourse and (hopeful) resolution of problems/differences.
The new motto should be modified to be: There is nothing to fear, but education itself.
PSS - I sure hope my paragraphs show up - my apologies in advance if this is one huge thing.
Inquiring at February 12, 2008 6:34 PM
Fear of being envied? What is that, pressentiment? I know we're all freaked out about the much-touted Global Caliphate, but what exactly is the Final Solution of the Muslim Question in Europe? Deport them all to Madagascar?
Paul Hrissikopoulos at February 12, 2008 9:14 PM
That's hackneyed bullshit.
Suicide bombers are disproportionately from the upper and middle classes. They usually have higher education. They are killers because they have been educated.
The problem isn't a lack of knowledge of the world, the West, or of Western peoples. The problem is a totalitarian religious-politico ideology called Islam and the people who follow it. They know about us, and that's exactly why they hate us. We know about them, and that's exactly why we fear them.
Education isn't the problem. The problem is that we act like pussies around Muslims. They must learn to say "please" and then "thank you." Fuck their demands. We'd never bow and scrape before Christians the way we do before Muslims.
Mostly, we need to tell Muslims, "No. This is a secular Western society. We won't change it for you. If you don't like it, leave us and return to Muslim lands."
We need to tell Muslim nations, "If you raise a sword against us, we will kill you, burn your cities to the ground, and salt the earth. We will not re-build your nation; we will destroy it forever."
It's time to take off the gloves.
We need only force them to conform to our culture, if they want to live in our culture. While in India, General Sir Charles Napier said this about the practice of killing widows,
That's how we deal with Muslims in Europe: the same way we deal with ourselves, by our customs, our laws, our sensibilities. Muslims must leave if they cannot abide Western societies. Western societies should not abide Muslim demands to the slightest degree.
Jeff at February 13, 2008 1:28 AM
That's how we deal with Muslims in Europe: the same way we deal with ourselves, by our customs, our laws, our sensibilities. Muslims must leave if they cannot abide Western societies. Western societies should not abide Muslim demands to the slightest degree.
ABSOFUCKINLUTELY!!! I don't understand why the powers that be in this country don't get this! o_O
Flynne at February 13, 2008 6:41 AM
Although I agree with some of what Wheeler had to say, especially the part about being proud of our Western culture, I think that he is symptomatic of the fundamental lack of understanding of Islamists. Islamists are NOT envious of us. They do not want to become us. They want us to become them. Think about them as a gang of evangelical Christians on steriods, if that helps. There are people in this world who are simply religious fanatics, and I am not talking about the well dressed young men handing out tracts in front of the mall.
Since religious wonder and awe have been so far removed from Western civilization, we simply cannot comprehend that there are people happily willing to die for thier religious beliefs. To destroy what they consider to be "evil". Religion used to be the center of society and the hard nut inside oneself that couldn't be comprimised, and it still is in some places. Now it is just a fad or a choice in the West. It means nothing to us anymore, but this is a relatively recent development, and certainly not universal.
(And I think that this genetic superiority crap vis a vis Europe is a bunch of hogwash!)
liz at February 13, 2008 11:37 AM
So which Western country is actually letting anyone of any color, race or creed break the law with impunity -- let alone in the name of multicultural sensitivity?
Paul Hrissikopoulos at February 13, 2008 1:12 PM
Great quote, Jeff. And very apt. 'Nough said. Live by our rules or expect the same punishment as someone born here. Don't expect exceptions based on respect for some loony religious belief.
Donna at February 14, 2008 8:53 AM
I'm not very impressed with this video. Any analysis that manages to fit Communism, Naziism and Islam into one mould is over-simplifying things. You could just as well say that these -isms all had a thing for Great Leaders with facial hair.
Secondly, I don't believe the emigration of people to the New World would be likely to have much genetic impact on either side of the Atlantic. You could say it was those with get-up-and-go who emigrated; but you could also say (but I don't) that it was the poor huddled masses who had no option, and the reason they were poor and huddled was that they were genetically inferior in the first place. Rubbish.
Third, if the Europeans have been so genetically impoverished by all our brightest and best emigrating to the US (conveniently ignoring the improvement we'd get from having our genetic criminals being transported to Australia) then what basis can the Good General have for saying what Europeans have to do? Since he's already established we're genetically incapable of standing up to anything rougher and tougher than Amy's killer doglet.
I think the Good General is way out of his depth in this topic.
Norman at February 14, 2008 2:20 PM
When I respond to blogs, I do so addressing the original topic of the original blog owner. Rarely do I ever respond to comments regarding my comments. However, for you, Jeff, I’ll make an exception.
Jeff, you state that my answer to this problem is, “hackneyed bullshit.”
Okay.
You further go on to state, “Suicide bombers are disproportionately from the upper and middle classes. They usually have higher education. They are killers because they have been educated.”
Perhaps you can explain the following:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1077288,00.html
This young man does have some education. But there is no doubt whatsoever that he is a zealot to his religious beliefs. His family, who are as educated as he is, repudiate him.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/06/exclusive_suici.html
This article discusses boys as young as twelve. I guess I exaggerated when I said they were nine. So sorry.
Or try this video
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2007/06/25/cafferty.children.terrorists.affl?iref=videosearch
It’s possible I’m all wrong – here’s a grandmother….
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2006/11/24/hancocks.suicide.grandma.cnn?iref=videosearch
Oh, gee, I apologize again. I said the kids were as young as nine. That was not correct. Here’s an article and video that shows they are as young as six. My bad.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,328832,00.html
There are literally THOUSANDS of articles, pictures, and videos on the internet that support my position that young children are used by terrorists. I can only mundanely reiterate my position that education is what it will take to change these problems.
Your answer to the problem is just to not put up with it. It’s a fairly good argument. God knows I’ve tried it a time or twelve… But people don’t generally react well to ultimatums of “be like this, or else….”. This includes your 15 year old kid who is dating someone clearly wrong for them, all the way up to… well, terrorists. Believe me, I wish that ultimatums worked – but that is not reality.
Key to this whole discussion is the subject of zealotry. When you educate people, you take that whole argument away. Sorry, Jeff, but your solution is only temporary. Educating an entire populace is enduring.
I may be back – who knows.
Inquiring at February 14, 2008 6:08 PM
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