A reader thinks I was "too charitable" in <\/font>The Real<\/em> Culture War<\/font><\/a>. I wrote:<\/font><\/p>\n But this minor<\/em> culture war, as heated as it has become recently, is, despite its importance, as nothing compared to the major<\/em> war between the West, with its Enlightenment values, and militant Islam.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The reader responds:<\/font><\/p>\n Since the Enlightenment side of this culture war has taken sides with militant Islam, it can hardly be the case that our war with the Enlightenment is less serious than our war with militant Islam.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Speaking for myself, I don't consider myself at war with the Enlightenment, nor do I consider a sound conservatism to be anti-Enlightenment; what I oppose is the exaggeration and perversion of Enlightenment ideals by contemporary liberals and leftists. But the reader has a point, and in an earlier post, I took a harder line. What follows is a slightly redacted version of part of that earlier post. I hope my reader finds it sufficiently harsh: <\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My minor\/major culture war scheme is upset by the fact that many liberals in the West have become, and many more are becoming, radical leftists out to subvert the very principles that they as leftists supposedly support. Thus arises the phenomenon of the schizoid Left<\/em>. For example, from the time of the French Revolution on, the Left has been anti-clerical and ever more anti-religious. But now we witness the bizarre spectacle of leftists aligning themselves with, or at least not opposing, the most extreme type of religious fundamentalism on the face of the earth. <\/font><\/p>\n For a second example, consider that lefties traditionally display a prominent libertine and bohemian wobble. Why then do they cozy up to, or at least not resolutely oppose, Islamic fanatics who murder homosexuals, stone adulterers, and <\/font>circumcise females<\/font><\/a>? <\/font><\/p>\n Third, the Left, as part of the Enlightenment project, supposedly champions science over superstition. Yet, in the last 400 years or so, scarcely anything of any scientific value has emanated from the Islamic world. (Bernard Lewis is the man to read on this. <\/font>Here<\/font><\/a> is a recent piece by him.) The same goes for philosophy. Tiny Israel in the mere 61 years of its existence has cranked out more genuine philosophy that the whole of the Islamic world has in 400 years. So what does the Left do? It waxes anti-Semitic and pro-Islamic.<\/font><\/p>\n The nihilism of the hard Left — its denial of value and true being to anything that actually exists and provably works — may be turning in upon itself. Unable to destroy Western civilization under its own steam, it aligns itself with Islamists, who, were they to attain power, would of course mercilessly exterminate all leftists. A curious sort of Selbstaufhebung<\/em>.<\/font><\/p>\n For a leftist, the end justifies any and all means, including ignoring the very real threats of militant Islam while demonizing Christians who pose no threat to speak of. For full documentation, see David Horowitz, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left<\/em>, Regnery 2004.<\/font><\/p>\n So perhaps I was a bit hasty in my intitial schematization. The major war, of course, is against militant Islam. But if liberals keep moving to the Left, then the minor war against liberals may become indistinguishable from the major jihad against the Islamic militants. <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A reader thinks I was "too charitable" in The Real Culture War. I wrote: But this minor culture war, as heated as it has become recently, is, despite its importance, as nothing compared to the major war between the West, with its Enlightenment values, and militant Islam. The reader responds: Since the Enlightenment side of this culture war … Continue reading “Postscript to The Real Culture War<\/i>: The Schizoid Left in Cahoots with Islamists”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islamism","category-leftism-and-political-correctness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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