I’ve received several inquiries requesting an Ethics Alarms analysis of the current controversy roiling France, namely the so-called Burkini Ban. Muslim women had been wading into the French Riviera surf wearing “burkinis,” body-covering swimsuits designed to be compliant with the Islamic faith , and one resort town after another, fifteen in all including Cannes and Nice, declared them illegal. The women entering the water wearing such attire have been ticketed for not “wearing an outfit respecting good morals and secularism.”
Well, I try not to spend much time here writing about the obvious. The ban is unethical. In the U.S., such laws would be over-turned before the arrested women’s bathing suits were dry, since the meaures violate both the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. It should be obvious that the ban is unfair, as it is sexist, directed against one religion, and makes no sense whatsoever.
Sometimes I wonder if the French quite get this ethics thing. This is an example.
Both conservatives and many liberals in France support the ban. The conservatives, in addition to wanting to punish Muslims for recent Islamic terrorist attacks, claim to be upholding France’s core principle of “secularity,” enshrined in the nation’s constitution. Liberals argue that the Islamic strictures against women exposing any part of their bodies in public are misogynist, patriarchal, and “regressive,” so the bans defend the rights of women…by preventing women from wearing what they choose to, observing their own religion, and taking a swim.
You see what I mean about not quite grasping the whole “ethics” thing? The equivalent argument in the U.S. would be if feminists argued that sexy bathing suits be banned because they objectified women, even when the women wearing them felt like being objectified. The Burkini Ban is, to be blunt, idiotic.
Indeed, France’s freak-out about too little exposure on the beach seems like a Monty Python skit, especially coming from a nation that once scandalized the world by launching women’s swimwear fashion that was initially deemed obscene. The ban punishes the alleged victims of the misogyny that the liberals claim they want to prevent. It only applies to Muslim women covering their bodies with a specific style of bathing suit, and apparently only if they are Muslims. This is illegal…
…but not this…
…nor this…
…nor this
..Nor, unfortunately, even this…
…and those towns would see nothing wrong with this...
or even this:
Wait…would it depend on whether a woman was a Muslim or not? After all, it seems that this wouldn’t violate those laws:
..or would it? If a woman in scuba gear or a nun’s habit is Muslim, she’s undermining French “secularity” and promoting misogyny, but if it’s a man wearing a similar outfit to take a dunk, or the woman is a Catholic, a Druid or an atheist, she can cover up like, say, this…?
Yup. Unethical, unfair, incompetent, mean, sexist, and really, really stupid.
[France partially redeemed itself, today. It’s top administrative court overturned the burkini ban, the Associated Press has reported.]
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Facts: Vox, Independent, The Guardian
Ethics Alarms 
I have been reading Guillaume Faye and getting to know his thinking better. There are not many titles of his available in English, but ‘Why We Fight’ is available on Amazon and I downloaded it. Very good stuff. He makes very many good points.
In order to understand the present resistence of the ‘colonization of Europe’ as he terms it, one has to understand geo-political realities in greater detail. And to see a larger picture.
According to a view which is present and developing in Europe, and which cannot any longer be called ‘fringe’, Europe IS BEING colonized by Muslims and Muslim culture. In Faye’s view, the US supports and condones this, and for this reason the US is described as ‘an adversary’ (but expressly not an enemy). Faye and other eurocentrics, and there are many, and the movement is developing, is opposed to this.
It is easy for me to see, and also to understand, that the attempt by the French state to ban and control Muslim symbols has very little to do with controlling what a woman wears. For all the reasons you show (in those images). It has to do with attempting to control, or beginning to establish controls, on the presence of the Muslim culture in Europe. These represent the first movements toward it, and they are movements hobbled by the French liberal traditions themselves. Faye’s view, and it is cogent, is that eventually there will occur a civil conflict in France and also in Europe in which the Muslim culture, and of course this means people, are driven out. (That is my interpretation, he has not said this as far as I know).
To understand him, and people who think like him, one must understand that he envisions a Federation of America, Northern Europe, and also Russia as an identity project, and of course this means among ethnic whites. I may be seen as an enemy from bringing this to the attention here, and yet I don’t wish to be treated as such (but accept it), but I do feel it relevant to make this post since, now, British statesmen are speaking in the Trump campaign, and Clinton herself is making reference to the (dread) Alt-Right.
It simply has to become part of a larger discourse.
His entire position, down to the bone, is Eurocentric and Identitarian. He desires to create that identity and he describes what the result might be. To understand the European ‘new right’ one can get a good glimpse of its positions by understanding Faye’s discourse.
Here is a hour talk he has given in Stockholm — there is a very vocal and developing Swedish resistance movement — in which he describes his view of things.
I agree that it is illegal and near impossible to ‘ban’ such clothes and expressions, and that in the US it would be utterly illegal to attempt it. But what I do accept is the necessity that Europe find ways to resist, and reverse, Muslim colonization of Europe. To speak about what that entails is a difficult and complex conversation.
My object here with this post is only to shed additional light on a specific question.
https://www.righton.net/2015/11/17/guillaume-faye-the-colonisation-of-europe/
Very good points. It’s too bad they couldn’t see this coming back before it gained an irreversible momentum. Many people think that their national identity will ultimately be completely lost within a couple decades. I’d like to think that at least we could learn from their mistakes, but that seems unlikely.
“It is easy for me to see, and also to understand, that the attempt by the French state to ban and control Muslim symbols has very little to do with controlling what a woman wears.”
Except for the part where they are controlling what a woman wears.
Jesus Christ, no one is “colonizing” you or anyone else by wearing what they want to wear at the beach. You’re free to hold whatever white (supremacist) identity you would like for yourself, but what you are not free to do is use the state to force others to live by the standards of that identity. If your “Eurocentric” values includes forcing women to reveal parts of themselves they’d rather not reveal, then your values suck, and should be replaced with better values.
“My object here with this post is only to shed additional light on a specific question.”
No, your object here is to normalize and legitimize bigotry, and to promote racist and religiously bigoted movements which aim to repress other people in the name of “Western values,” all while abandoning the Western values of tolerance, equality and respect. That has always been your object here, and everyone here knows it. You’re fooling no one, except maybe yourself.
Fun fact: the website Alizia linked to has an article titled “Ghostbusters and the Suicide of Cultural Marxism.” It’s insane, and she is insane.
I will try to respond to each of your posts here Chris. To understand Guillaume Faye and one aspect of the European New Right, you have to understand their geo-politics. I do not say that you have to accept it but only that to understand why they say what they say, you have to understand what informs their ideas.
Europe is being colonized by Muslim culture. There are large and growing communities in England, certainly in France, and in other European countries. Sweden is entering into convulsions because its directing elites are opening the doors to the immigration of people that will, in time, radically change the cultural and genetic stock of Sweden. This issue is one of concern in all the countries of Europe where there are large populations of immigrants. This can be looked into. You may decide that that is how you wish things to be and you have no issue. Or you might decide differently. But I think the point can be and should be to ‘see things clearly’ first.
I am reasoably certain that the issue with the Burkinis and all the Muslim symbols is not the fabric but the reason why it is worn. That means, the underlying tenets. That means essentially and at bottom Sharia Law. To allow Sharia Law into a given community means to allow the cultural and also religious penetration of another culture into one’s own culture. Maybe this is not an issue for you and not something that concerns you. But what I can assure you is that it is very definitely an issue for the French right now. And like America they have to come to terms with aspects of their own revolutionary social ideology in order to mount a resistance to the colonization by Muslim culture. It is true that in France it is complex and one has to speak of the French colonies, Algeria, etc. But this does not change the fact of a southern invasion of the north.
So again, I do not understand this at all as an issue of what a woman wears. As Jack’s photographs show in France they wear all sorts of bizarre stuff. That is not in any sense what the issue is here. The issue is that a sector of French culture is awakening to the fact that their country has been invaded and that they risk being dominated. It becomes an issue of cultural clash and social conflict; of national identity; and as well of identity of the self. You may completely disagree that any people have a right to control an immigrant population. You likely do. But I only want to get out in the open what the real issue is, so to be able to look at it.
“Europe is being colonized by Muslim culture.”
It isn’t; you are simply a bigot.
“You may completely disagree that any people have a right to control an immigrant population.”
No government has a right to control what a member of any population wears, you freedom-loathing idiot. You’re also ignoring that this policy applies to all French Muslims, not just “immigrants,” but then you’d probably not consider any Muslim European a “real” European, assuming you think of them as people at all. The government has the right to punish lawbreakers, be they Muslims, immigrants, or descendants of Voltaire. It does not have the right to stop people from wearing partcular items of clothing, no matter what the origin, any more than the American government has the right to stop people from wearing berets.
You misunderstand. I wrote that it is not possible, within the framework of existing liberal French law, to curtail what a woman wears (except perhaps in the schools and I think head-coverings are still illegal). And you are right: the government does not have the right to limit or control what a person wears. France and America are similar in this sense: strong liberal traditions. Well developed interpretations of law.
And what I did was only to present a problem; to describe it and set it out on the table as it were to be looked at.
I am I think more than a ‘bigot’. I foresee a civil conflict that will decide the issue. This is no light matter. I know that this will have to happen, and all the evidence seems to point to the fact that it is happening (I mean, beginning to develop).
I may live another 50 years, even 60 years if I am lucky, so I will have a chance to see what happens in Europe.
Chris wrote “No government has a right to control what a member of any population wears”
I read this statement just after I saw some photos of police officers measuring women’s swimsuits on American beaches in the 1920s. Now at most American beaches topless swimsuits are still banned. So maybe the government still does have a right to control what people wear after all.
I should have said “barring nudity or indecency laws,” but I felt that was obvious.
Trouble is not everyone agrees what is or is not indecent, hence the police officers measuring women’s swimsuits in the 1920s.
Sure, but I think we can all agree a full body swimsuit isn’t indecent.
Here in New Zealand it is legal for females to be topless on a beach although for whatever reason it is rare. I more often see women in burkinis than topless. As long as it’s the women’s choice on what to wear without interference from the government or religious or other groups, then on this issue at least, women can consider themselves free.
Alizia: Europe is being colonized by Muslim culture.
Chris: It isn’t; you are simply a bigot.
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Well, that settles that eh? 😉 I cannot tell you enough how this *style* of thinking, which is the application of a specific methodology, is destructive to understanding. You simply shut down the doors of perception yet you do this (I assume) imagining that you are protecting some value.
Peter Berger is a very interesting sociologist who writes and lectures on the ‘explosive’ rise of Pentecostalism. But in his talks he also refer to the explosive rise in Islam which similarly, like a fire, is spreading, gaining ground, and ramping up through its own tenets to carry our its ‘historical project’. Islam functions very very differently from Pentecostalism and has very different designs, and these can be discerned, viewed and discussed.
There are indeed large groups of Islamists which have colonized (by invitation according to Faye) Europe and seem to have a strong interest in expanding and, as well, resisting ‘assimilation’ (the liberal/modernist pipe-dream). It is just 10 minutes long and gives a sense of what Berger is about.
In order to see Islam at this level requires to take a few steps back from it: to see ‘geo-politically’ or geo-historically’. I suggest to you that there is a wealth of material out there, some of it less charged and more ‘factual’ than other material, which describes a real process that is occurring. You could find this information by a simple search (though I admit you will get some hysterical results as well, but these can be gleaned away).
Yet I’d suggest all over again that *your essential method* of seeing, which appears to be Left/Liberal/progressive is a malfunctioning mode of thought. It is based in an imposition of understanding as an apriori. It is infected with bizarre strains of intentionality. It does not help one to see and understand by it distorts and confuses.
Once again, the French resistance to the symbols of Islam is directly related to ethnic, cultural and religious clashes. One or the other must give way. Let me put it another way: Islam has no relationship at all to Western forms and desires no relationship. Islam by its nature will destroy those Western forms. It is not because of maliciousness necessarily. One must look at these processes coldly.
So, there is indeed a *problem*, yet it is one difficult to see and analyze (because politically charged), and yet it can be done.
If you bothered to listen to Berger, you will have understood that Europe’s secularization — in the face of an active, prosyletizing Islam — is one of the reasons that secular Europe struggles to deal with Islam. The mode of thinking of secular Europe is significantly different from that of actively-religious Islam, and thus Islam has a very real advantage. Put another way: As long as Islam remains religious Islam it will expand, will resist secularization’, and will eventually gain the strength to assert itself and not to be held down or at bay by liberal-secular postures.
This is a complex issue and cannot be encapsulated simply.
Alizia, in your dream white super-state, what happens to all the people who aren’t white and where’s the cutoff?
That is a very good question. It is one I have both posed to myself and attempted to answer. I have thought that it may be the point where the entire enterprize is shown to be impossible.
The counterpart of the question is ‘What will happen in European culture (that is ‘white community’) if there is NOT some sort of racial self-definition’.
So, the issue (to maintain an ethnically white community) posits some sort of action and activity on one hand, but in the absense of that decisiveness and activity there would be a simple ‘letting go’ of any concern or interest in the issue. I think you are well-informed enought to know and to understand that many forces of ideology have been brought to bear against ‘white identity’ and I assume that you understand what the main root of this will has been. If so, the question becomes: How to resist that? How to turn it back? You clearly see the difficulty as do I.
Once again I make a reference to Jewish Identity (you made no comment the last time), which you certainly know and understand (though I imagine you are at least 1 or 2 generations removed from strong cultural and religious identity)(?)
Ask yourself how Jewish Identity had been historically maintained, and then how it had been understood. As you know you have to teach it. You have to establish it as a value, and then to describe why it is a value, and then what the value is. If you do that successfully, you will make sense, you will convince. As there was a time in European culture when such value-understandings existed, part of the answer is to return to former models. That is not hard.
In the dread Alt-Right there is a comical statement that makes the rounds when Israel and Jewish Identity comes up, perhaps you have heard it:
Ethnostate for me,
Multiculturalism for thee…
The statement, with irony, implies that there is a ‘doer’ and that there is a ‘plan’. You know, and I know, that Jews are blamed for interfering in European culture. I am sure that there is ideological intervention but I do not accept Jewish conspiracy. Yet I do accept the rise of and the inculcation of a vision of ‘multiculturalism’. Where doid it come from? On what philosophy has it been constructed? If it does exist as a credible and coherent doctrine, what is its antithesis? And how would that antithesis be described, explained, and lived?
When one begins to think on that, when one begins to imagine what an ‘ethnostate’ is or could be, one begins to answer some part of the question that you ask.
The base of my answer to you, and this is also based on many many conversations I have listened to among some of the people I have associations with, is that everything starts with knowledge and understanding. You have to know what you are fighting and why. You have to deconstruct an edifice of perception/interpretation that has been established, and you have to construct another one. Not easy, but not impossible.
This is all that I know at this point.
If you want a white society you need to define white. If you want a white society you need to decide what happens to people who aren’t white. If you want your answer to be accepted then you must give one, not tell me that I already know the answer.
I know what I think your answer is, apartheid. Perhaps as it is currently practiced in Israel. But since you’re quite openly showing your racism and being coy about how you would enact it, I must wonder how far you’d go and why you haven’t answered.
Well, it is not because of the disingenuousness that you imply that I cannot give you the answer that you demand. But what I do do — and it is an approach which has integrity — is to receive your question, note its difficulties, ask counter-questions that might help in reponding to it, and in this way demonstrating that I am available for conversation. When I say ‘This is all I know at this point’, I also mean this sincerely. I do not have a list of answers for you. I am one who is examining a range of material, idea and opinion and speaking about my endeavor. You seem to desire to set me up and this I well understand.
I think that to define ‘white’ I might follow Madison Grant in his classifications of Europeans into Alpine, Mediterranean and Nordic strands. That would be the physical element. But then there is the cultural element, or the historical element. I do well understand that there are problems defining ‘whiteness’ — some of them that seem insuperable — but this does not immediately concern me. What interests me the most is more like what Alain de Benoit writes on in ‘Manifesto for a European Renaissance’. The IDEA is where I desire to start. De Benoit is notably not ‘racist’ in his viewpoints:
‘It [the book] offers a strong argument in favor of the right to difference among cultures and civilizations, and the right of peoples to defend themselves from cultural homogenization. It also offers a vision of a regenerated Europe which will find its strength in a return to its authentic values and traditions, in opposition to the new imperialism of multiculturalism and the global marketplace’.
More or less, and even before I started to think in ‘rightist’ or ‘conservative themes, this had become my personal project.
You desire, I think, that I answer irrationally or impulsively, and I have nothing to gain from doing so.
Since I am not involved in any project of ‘enactment’ I have no plan to offer you for enactment. I have always said that I am working in a theoretical realm as a first step.
‘Quite openly showing your racism’ is a statement that I would like you to speak about a bit more. You must know that I reject the Troskyist term ‘racism’? Once you have used it, you gain the certainty that you are right and I am wrong. It is not a reasonable term of discourse. I think in terms of race and culture, and I work within these as reasonable categories. I also see my genetic self as being as real and important as my ‘ideational self’ or perhaps one could say my ‘spiritual self’.
I do not think you are interested in or perhaps even capable to having a good conversation on these ideas, nor do you seem to desire to manifest a counter-proposition. Why not?
Regarding Alizia’s comments above;
They are perfect examples of what Jack said a while ago, “Any [issue] can be blurred and muddied by piling on generalities, tangents, cosmic puzzles, dancing angels and navel-gazing exercises.”
Alizia,
We already know that the world revolves around you; but, p..l..e..a..s..e.. allow this concept to take up permanent residence in your psyche; think all you speak, but speak not all you think.
Europe “struggles to deal with Islam” because it has relegated its Muslim population to segregated ghettoes. Notice that American Muslims are much wealthier and more assimilated than their counterparts in Europe. Notice that we do not have Muslim ghettoes here. Notice also that our country lacks both a heavily radicalized Islamic presence AND the far right parties that give tacit endorsement to random attacks on immigrants in the streets.
You fear the former, but I am far more concerned with the latter, which you want to import the latter to our shores. When a radical Muslim politician rises to prominence in the same way as Donald Trump, I’ll begin worrying about their former more than the latter. As of now, you are the greater threat to freedom.
What you have done here — I wonder if it has exhausted you from the effort? — is to perform a most simplistic interpretation on a more complex question and problem. I am certain that you are an intelligent human being, yet I am also aware that you tend to use a very very simplistic mode of analysis. It is a cookie-cutter mode of thinking and analysis.
If that works for you …
You are simply not interested in any perspective or exchange of idea that is not the one that you hold. Your vision of the world seems like something out of a children’s book. You hold that set of opinions much as a religionist holds to his religious tenets.
I have read a great deal of leftist/progressive material and I believe that I understand quite well on what the views are constructed. Especially modern progressivism appeals to the child’s mind. I mean, it has an infantile aspect.
However, to understand the New European Right could be a way to open up your mind, and might even help you to argue better both for what you value and against what you fear and resist.
I was reviewing the first two paragraphs of ‘Manifesto for a European Renaissance’ (Alain de Benoit) and thought of you: How our present secularized ideas and perspectives derive from Christian metaphysics but then deny the transcendent dimension.
“Progressivism is born of the idea that history has an absolute beginning and a necessary end, and that it unfolds globally according to a divine plan’.
It is awesome (in the original sense of the word) to note how America, as a vital post-Christian culture, embodies this progressivism with religious fervor!
You are a pretty clear example of this, I think. (And I, of course, am the demon you resist).
It is only 20 pages or so:
Click to access manifesto-of-the-french-new-right1.pdf
My comments are not “simplistic,” dummy, they are clear and concise. I can say more in five words than you can say in five hundred. I am not the only one here who has told you that much of what you write is devoid of meaning, or that the meaning that is discernible is dark and deranged. Consider that when everyone is telling you you’re the one with the problem, they may be right.
People say all sorts of things, and they make up things to say, and they bring all the armaments they can in a struggle against what they fear, loathe, misunderstand and hate.
Others actually discuss ideas …
Like anyone I must certainly have my weaknesses or faults, and like anyone I am plodding along; learning, questioning, struggling to understand, but among those who have been most vocal in opposing the ideas I work with, I have tentatively concluded that they attack what is non-essential in order to discredit the content, which is rarely addressed. It is really a common occurance on all fora. Certainly in political fora.
When you refer to ‘us’ and ‘we’ do you imagine that you are the spokesman for a plurality? That is when numerous alarms go off for me. I have spoken of ‘coercion’ and the machinations of the group in attempting to get people to conform to certain established ideas. I would suggest to you, again humbly and without absolute certainty, that you and some others here exist intellectually in a fading liberal-intellectual world, and that what terrifies you the most is not little me but the mega-shift that is occurring in the idea-world surrounding you and us.
Is that possible?
There are indeed strange, rather large and imposing upsets and changes that have all on the sudden appeared before us. I major party fractured and sems to have collapsed. No one knows what is the direction of the country and there are deep divisions about that interpretation. I don’t think it has really sunk in how strange and dangerous it all is. Really, this is heavy stuff. And the uncertainty and the tumoil, which only seems to increase with every passing year, seems to move toward a crisis.
This is what I think scares people about the ideas I bring to the table. Or does my word-count strike mortal terror into the soul?
I have made an effort to deconstruct the simplicity of your tactics in a few different posts and am satisfied. I understand that you don’t agree. I mean you no offense at all and I take nothing you say personally. Yet what you say to me you mean with a deadly intent. You seethe. In your case you MUST establish an enemy. You MUST identify a clear enemy against which you can rail and fight. This is part-and-parcel of the liberal-progressive system in which we live, dogs and cats. (Or angels and demons!) If it weren’t me it would be someone else.
Devoid of meaning did you say? Dark and deranged? This is just opinion and emotionalized opinion at that. You use your words as incantatory weapons, like hate-mantras designed to main and wound, and you project those intentions on me.
But this is so much a part of our present, can you see this? Reading what journalists write, listening to the radio or YouTube videos of commentary, and surely on the TV, it is all bickering with undercurrents of fear, hatred, projection … to the point of madness.
Don’t lecture me on “hate.” You dress your bigotry in fancy language, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have identified Muslims as your enemy and advocated state discrimination against them. *That* is hatred.
I’m not sure that was necessarily the best excerpt to give; much of it is pretty identical to what my lefty friends would say. The most contentious parts of what your own comments talking about aren’t discussed with anywhere near the necessary level of detail needed to actually convince the unconverted. Also, there’s that unspoken assumption that people can only work smoothly together with those who look(ish) like themselves, when really, it seems to be more that people work better with those who actually *live* near them in a community of shared values (and how values *become* shared is far more complicated than sharing the same race); heck, even the manifesto you shared talks about the need for international cooperation in the same breath as favoring more localized communities.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but the French New Right itself seems to be rather the “left” of lot of other alt-right movements (particularly the American flavor); like I’ve already said, for all your talking about “delusional progressivism”, that manifesto you linked to shares a lot of the same assumptions about how the world works (particularly with regard to markets) as those who consider themselves legit “progressives”
I don’t think you’d find De Benoit’s ideas as ‘identical’ but he does not see himself as strictly of the left or the right, in fact he sees those terms as meaningless. What he does talk about is ‘liberalism’, and that as an evolution of Christian thought and metaphysic:
“Modernity designates the political and philosophical movement of the last three centuries of Western history. It is characterized primarily by five converging processes: individualization, through the destruction of old forms of communal life; massification, through the adoption of standardized behavior and lifestyles; desacralization, through the displacement of the great religious narratives by a scientific interpretation of the world; rationalization, through the domination of instrumental reason, the free market, and technical efficiency; and universalization, through a planetary extension of a model of society postulated implicitly as the only rational possibility and thus as superior.”
His philosophy and outlook is obviously critical and constructive. Guillaume Faye is similar, but more militant, more ‘realist’, and more cynical. Faye’s position is that history has very certainly NOT ‘ended’, that these tenets of liberalism are more false than ever, and that we shall face catastophes. And out of these catastrophes new modes may/will come into play. Faye’s position would be interpreted by progressives as being ‘racist’ and I think this is fair if it is qualified. He merely says that he desires to live in self-chosen ethnic communities, and that he desires to see Europe (and ‘Euro-Siberia) as a unified, self-determining block. And he is very anti-Islam, of that no doubt.
If by ‘French New Right’ you mean De Benoit, yes, I agree. But the Alt Right/New Right is not a monlith. It is a critical school that is resurrecting older schools of thought such as ‘traditionalism’ and many other trains and schools. It is also a ‘defensive school of thought’ and iwhat it defends itself against is, frankly, America (as the hyper-liberal hyper-powerful agent of multiculturalism).
You could read De Benoit further to see why he describes ‘liberalism’ as fading and failing. ‘Delusional progressivism’ is my own term. It means a religious sentiment, or a religious intensity, applied through a fixed set of notions.
I’d say more but I am putting myself on a word-count diet (of sorts).
Chris writes: “No, your object here is to normalize and legitimize bigotry, and to promote racist and religiously bigoted movements which aim to repress other people in the name of “Western values,” all while abandoning the Western values of tolerance, equality and respect. That has always been your object here, and everyone here knows it. You’re fooling no one, except maybe yourself.”
When someone speaks, and when we don’t like that speech, it does become important to restate it, to bend it as it were, to conform it to what we think is being said. To translate it is another way to put it.
I do not mind very much that you — and all progressives and leftists — ‘hear’ some discourse and then run it through your interpretive mill and spit it out the other end. It is a really large part of the progressive interpretive project.
Your whole paragraph, similarly, requires unpacking. You have to separate it into its parts and then attempt to comment on each part. I can do this. First, ‘bigotry’ is a loaded word. As with many or most lefties you employ it as a swear word. It is like a knife. With it you wish to create a wound and cause your opponent to fall down and writhe. Other terms like it are ‘sexist’ ‘macho’ ‘paternalist’ ‘mysogynist’ ‘racist’ etc. These are all part of a quite elaborate lexicon of meanings which you have to have been trained up in, to have absorbed, to understand them. It is all an elaborate and a complex grammar.
What I very certainly want to legitimize is the capacity, the capability, of seeing things in ‘real terms’. That will often mean shedding idealistic terms. But to do that is part of a process. Just as the terms are defined through processes, they are dismantled similarly. My object is to clearly define to myself, as successfully as I can, what I mean when I say ‘white’ or ‘Western culture’ and to clearly understand just what exactly I do mean. In my view this is not a ‘project of evil’ but a project of seeing clearly and understanding, free of certain political impositions. In the end, and this is likely, you will have no choice but to see it as bigotry. I cannot control your vocabulary. Yet it will be a ‘bigotry’ that I have carefully struggled to define.
In my view a given culture — be it Japan or Ireland or Zululand — has the right to define itself. To BE itself. Europe has the right, and indeed the mission and the responsibility, to be Europe, to be itself, and to avoid becoming or being turned into something else. The rights and privelages that you speak of — good solid liberal ideology of the proper sort — can only function in a homogenous cultural setting. This is why I see the multicultural project as a failure.
Now, and this is only ‘public service’, there are movements gathering steam — those that interest and inspire me are in Europe — which are working in the idea-realm to define the philosophical and conceptual paths to a redefinition of Europe. That is what Faye is about. His view is also that America must re-link itself with Europe and also ‘European destiny’ (this requires definition). At this point, and I admit it, this is where things get knotty. Because no one can agree, now, on just what America is.
I desire to see a consciously ethnically white America re-link with the same Europe and to join with Russia to become Eurosiberia. That is the vision that inspires me. I know that this can be done, though it seems like the most outrageous statement ever made. It all has to do with how certain people conceive of themselves, and with how they claim power: the power to choose and to mold their own path and destiny. If I am ‘evil’ for that, well then, I accept the term.
When I first visited Counter-Currents and saw some of the material I fled away. It took me about a year, maybe more, to see that it presents a huge swath of critical perspectives. It brings together a great array of critical ‘right’ thinking.
If you ever want to really freak yourself out look up Jonathan Bowden’s talk on Savitri Devi (youtube). You will DEFINITELY need about a week in a padded and perfumed safe-space with a whole litter of puppies to get yourself back to normal.
Ha! Awesome!
I’m in 💘
This, in particular: “Your whole paragraph, similarly, requires unpacking. You have to separate it into its parts and then attempt to comment on each part. I can do this. First, ‘bigotry’ is a loaded word. As with many or most lefties you employ it as a swear word. It is like a knife. With it you wish to create a wound and cause your opponent to fall down and writhe. Other terms like it are ‘sexist’ ‘macho’ ‘paternalist’ ‘mysogynist’ ‘racist’ etc. These are all part of a quite elaborate lexicon of meanings which you have to have been trained up in, to have absorbed, to understand them. It is all an elaborate and a complex grammar.”
And the puppies part.
Joe, are you really disputing that Alizia meets the textbook, dictionary definition of “bigotry?” She has defended state action against a minority religion, on the basis of a paranoid conspiracy that said minority is conducting a stealth “invasion/colonization” of the country by, you know, existing in public places like beaches and wearing swimsuits that are more modest than those of the general public. You may agree with the general principle that leftists overuse the term “bigotry,” but to pretend it does not apply here is to declare the word has no meaning at all.
You’ll be approached on the street someday soon. They will ask: “Can you tell me where the Chrysanthemum Club is?” Say no and then walk to the next corner and wait. A bike messenger will approach you and hand you your first packet. All instructions are within. Good Luck!
Chris — As a general rule, I try to ignore everything that Alizia writes and I instead go straight to her source material that she cites. It tells me everything I need to know.
The titles I have next to my desk to be sure to wipe off your list and well out of your mind:
Plato, ‘Epistle’.
Aristotle, ‘Nichomachean Ethics’
Nietzsche, ‘On the Genealogy of Morals’
Antonio Gramsci, ‘Letters from Prison’
Alexis Carrel ‘Man the Unknown’.
Samual Francis, ‘Essential Writings on Race’.
‘The Nature of the Right’, edited by Roger Eatwell and Noel O’Sullivan
Vladimir Nabokov ‘Nikolay Gogel’
‘Pleasures of Life’, Sir John Lubbock
Hesiod, ‘Theogony’
Frank Kermode, ‘Genesis of Secrecy’
‘Critical Theory’, Max Horkheimer
The Pocket Book of Greek Art’ Thomas Craven
‘A Rhetoric and Composition Handbook’, Richard Weaver.
‘The Passing of the Great Race’, Madison Grant
Alain de Benoit, ‘Manifesto for a European Renaissance’
‘The Revolt Against Civilization’, Lothrop Stoddard
La Rouchefoucauld ‘Moral Maxims’
Schiller, ‘On the Aesthetic Education of Man’
Brooks Haxton, ‘The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus’
Huh. No writers of color. Who’d a thunk?
So, how much tolerance should be extended to a group that doesn’t respect us or our values, and doesn’t see us as equals?
“So, how much tolerance should be extended to a group that doesn’t respect us or our values, and doesn’t see us as equals?”
Very little. The group trying to restrict religious freedom should be “tolerated” only to the extent that they have the same rights as they rest of us. They should still be roundly mocked and condemned.
Is that the group you were talking about? If not, which group were you referring to?
Islam. Their lack of tolerance towards others seems to be roughly proportional to their population density.
Literally you.
Ah, so very typical. Too bad. I was going to take the time to elaborate on my position, but this does a good job of demonstrating how people from your camp aren’t interested in the intricacies of someone’s position when it deviates from their own. It would have been a wasted effort; your mind is more than made up.
The video summarizes your stated position entirely accurately, joe.
You said this:
Islam. Their lack of tolerance towards others seems to be roughly proportional to their population density.
“Their” modifies “Islam” (which doesn’t actually make sense; you meant to say “Muslims,” meaning you are making an intolerant generalization about a billion people, while at the same time accusing them all (yes, lack of a qualifier implies “all”) of intolerance. Hypocrisy, of the kind illustrated perfectly well by the clip.
If your position were more nuanced and intricate than this, you should have indicated that at the beginning, instead of making a hasty generalization that ended up making you look like a hypocrite. You’re free to make your position seem more nuanced now, but you’ve already made it seem pretty simplistic and bigoted, so you’d just be undoing your own work.
Everybody? You sure?
With all due respect, Alizia. I have read a number of your posts, and while I think I am a reasonably intelligent fellow, I have a very hard time wrapping my brain around your arguments. I find them overly obtuse and confusing.
But, to what I think is your point, Is there a rise of a new ‘alt-right’ movement afoot, especially when it comes to a resistance to an alleged Muslim colonization of Europe or the US? Yes. However, I don’t believe that such a movement is either ethical,moral, just, or reasonable. The rise, as you claim, of Euro-centrism or Euro-identity is just rebranding bigotry and Aryan supremacy. That will lead to a very bad place, as the history of Western Europe in the last 100 years clearly demonstrates.
jvb
With all due respect, Alizia. I have read a number of your posts, and while I think I am a reasonably intelligent fellow, I have a very hard time wrapping my brain around your arguments. I find them overly obtuse and confusing.
It’s actually pretty easy–most of it simply translates to “Whites are awesome and I’m scared that other people don’t think we’re better than them any more. We have to fight for our superiority, er, I mean dominance, er, I mean identity.”
But, to what I think is your point, Is there a rise of a new ‘alt-right’ movement afoot, especially when it comes to a resistance to an alleged Muslim colonization of Europe or the US? Yes. However, I don’t believe that such a movement is either ethical,moral, just, or reasonable. The rise, as you claim, of Euro-centrism or Euro-identity is just rebranding bigotry and Aryan supremacy. That will lead to a very bad place, as the history of Western Europe in the last 100 years clearly demonstrates.
Yep.
Her little website also describes the new Star Wars as “anti-white” because it includes a black male lead. He is called an “affirmative action hire” as well as “Mace Dindu,” a play on the new racial slur “dindu” popular among the alt-right to describe blacks who “dindu nothin'” when they’re accused of crimes. Disgusting. She should be ashamed of herself.
Again, I understand and even appreciate to some degree your project of ‘restatement’. It is one of the primary tasks or undertakings of the Left/Progressive camp. The more that I understand of these things, the more that I understand how much everything hinges on ‘interpretation’.
However, I do not accept your representation and your restatement. When (and in your case if) one makes an effort to actually look at the material; to read it and to think about it, one quickly understands that it is NOT as you describe it. Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant for example. I have read, closely, 3-4 titles and so I actually know what they are saying, and also why they say it. You rely on heresay.
Faye describes not a European imperialism but a self-contained and self-defining Europe. I think it is safe to say he is a Euroentric, and that he places a great deal of value in Europe’s attainments, but I cannot read him as a European imperialist. His position is more defensive. And it is interesting to note that one influence that he feels must be resisted is that of America. But he is very careful not to describe America as an ‘enemy’ but rather an ‘adversary’.
I accept that you understand that my ideas and musings and opinions are the Devil’s own foul breath. To some degree it is while not fun yet still a little amusing to watch you perform your contortions as you try, again and again, to get your brand to stick on me.
I only will suggest that your arguments would have more power and solidity (validity) if you were familiar more with your ‘enemies’.
It is really very different than you say it is.
Alizia is our own little Miss Metaphysics and hasn’t properly considered this definition of metaphysics and all that it entails…
Metaphysics: Excessively subtle or recondite reasoning.
What that definition entails…
Recondite: Not easily understood; abstruse or obscure
Abstruse: Not easy to understand; ambiguous or vague or esoteric
Esoteric: Not known by or suitable for the public.
Ambiguous: Difficult to understand or classify.
Vague: Not clear in meaning or expression; inexplicit.
Inexplicit: Not definitely or clearly expressed or explained.
What is true is that Alizia’s comments are meandering verbose self-serving short deflecting essays that glaze over the eyes of most readers because (as part of the definition implies) it’s not suitable for the public.
P.S. The comment Alizia wrote above is one of the few that is a lot less in the “metaphysics” department as defined above.
John Burger wrote: “However, I don’t believe that such a movement is either ethical,moral, just, or reasonable. The rise, as you claim, of Euro-centrism or Euro-identity is just rebranding bigotry and Aryan supremacy. That will lead to a very bad place…”
_________________________________
I can certainly understand your view. It is one that I have held at times. But in contradistintion to you, I believe that it IS ethical and also moral. And this is the area I am working in. And I am there BECAUSE I see it as ethical and moral.
I do not believe in the validity of the term ‘bigotry’, and the people that I have read who are described as ‘alt right’ reject out of hand German nationalist and ‘Aryan’ imperialism.
So, in order to understand that position, you will have to get more familar with it. It seems evident to me that you are not familar with it. Here is a link to a talk by Greg Johnson where he attempt to define, in a general sense, this ‘New Right’:
When I first started reading this, I assumed they were talking about the full-ninja outfit, and that it was about being able to I.D people if needed. That probably still wouldn’t pass muster, but at least it would be understandable. This is just mean-spirited
Unethical yes. There’s been a small movement here in the US for modest bathing suits (http://www.parenting.com/news-break/will-modest-bathing-suits-be-new-mom-beach-trend). The first I saw was among extreme homeschooling families (separate from the all mainstream culture vs. homeschool because of incompetent public schools). I’m seeing it more among women who want to enjoy the beach or pool while decreasing melanoma risks or don’t feel a need to flaunt their skin. The targeting of a specific religious group is absolutely unethical.
When I saw this several days ago my first reaction was what were they thinking. The concept of issuing tickets for not “wearing an outfit respecting good morals and secularism,” would obviously apply to the nun’s of Notre Dame attire as well whether they are at the beach or walking along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Thus, it became obvious that secularism must mean to the French as not Muslim. My initial gut reaction was that this was clearly unfair – I don’t know if fairness and ethics are synonymous. I don’t think they are. Furthermore, my sense of fairness is shaped by my culture so my opinion is irrelevant in French affairs. Aside: ( Jack one bikini photo above is hardly a portrait of modesty and borders on pornography I’ll let others decided which one)
There is an old saying that goes “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”. To me, this simply means that when I travel I follow the laws, norms and behaviors of the country to which I am a guest – I don’t expect that what I can do in the U.S. will be acceptable behavior or legal there. Why is a French law banning burkinies unacceptable but not a law outlawing a westerner’s desire to wear a French bikini in Saudi Arabia or a woman’s requirement to wear a hijab in public? Why can’t I get a bourbon and water in downtown Tehran? In Singapore don’t spit your gum onto the sidewalk or you will be subject to caning. Are these laws unfair or unethical? I suppose it depends on your perspective.
When it came to immigrant behaviors of those coming to the U.S., those that adapted to the new ways succeeded. We used to call it assimilation. Newcomers would adopt the homogenized culture that evolved over several centuries. Among all ethnic groups, some old cultural habits would be discarded and some of theirs would be added to the overall blend of ideas, norms, and values. Out of this melting pot emerged a society that picked on one another like brothers and sisters but when threatened by outsiders we were one; it did not matter if you were a Mick, a Deigo, a Kike, a Wetback, a Redskin, or any of the litany of epithets to describe a differing ethnic group, we were all Americans – it’s our national motto – E Pluribus Unum. Not so much any more.
No doubt, over the years in some communities political, racial and ethnic differences gave rise to violent and bloody events. Geographically we were blessed with substantial resources but we became the strongest nation on the planet by virtue of our combined differences. What is interesting is that today, we are promoting the idea of society made up of competing identities and not similar cultural values. These identities apparently are the sole property of the ethnic group who claims them. Any incorporation by any other ethnic group is considered cultural appropriation. And yet, we still expect everyone to live in peaceful coexistence and harmony. Such thinking is insane and the results have proven to be the polar opposite. Now it is out of one, many. Will this change lead us to become the weakest third world nation on the planet?
I would suggest that the corollary to cultural appropriation is cultural dilution. Conceptually the introduction and incorporation of another group’s ideas, culture, methods or genetic code renders the bloodline of the culture less pure. Will classic French cuisine be the same 100 years from now if it is married to Indo-Caribbean culinary techniques of today. Probably not – it would be Carib-French fusion. Oh wait that’s Creole. What exactly makes a French person French? It is not genetically determined it is their culture. Now what could we expect to happen if we demand that all African Americans, Jews, Latinos etc, purposely work to discard that which gives them their cultural identity. What backlash you do you expect to see.
Today it appears as if we are nothing but a bunch of narcissistic hyphenated-American voting blocks bound and determined to demand government to protect our perceived rights and to ensure that laws are passed to advance our desire to control other’s behaviors. We are sheep led by marketers who slice and dice us into competing factions. We are no longer R’s, D’s or I’s with different ideas we are now white women – either college educated or non college educated – same with white males. We may be evaluated as part of the African American vote or the Hispanic/Latino vote, ( Notice they don’t sub-segment the minority vote according to educational attainment) do they all think the same regardless of education? The messages are tailored specific to the audience and often the messages directly contradict what was said to another constituency.
We are expected to and do form alliances along religious, ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation lines to amass power against other groups that currently hold power. Everyone must adopt the culture of that block or be cast out. How is this any different than the methods employed by the tribal warlords of Afghanistan or other cultures who are mired in dark ages thinking?
Perhaps the French foresee a peril in allowing certain behaviors to take root that might eventually eradicate French culture and history. Is it our place to tell them what is valuable or what is right for them? Not unless we are willing to make the same demands on every other culture to which we find fault and allow them to do the same to us. Perhaps the French see the decline of the U.S. resulting from the growth in identity politics here. Perhaps they simply think being French is a brand they wish to protect – much like their Champaign and don’t want it diminished through cultural dilution. Not every country wants to be a melting pot.
This is not a Eurocentric, Afrocentric, Occidental or other point of view. The golden rule applies here. Don’t dictate to another country if you don’t want them interfering in your sovereign affairs. The irony in all of this is that all the people who typically suggest that the U.S. adopt the liberal European social compact are the same ones decrying this racist Eurocentric prohibition on the burkini.
Personally IMHO she can wear whatever she feels comfortable wearing.
“There is an old saying that goes “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”. To me, this simply means that when I travel I follow the laws, norms and behaviors of the country to which I am a guest – I don’t expect that what I can do in the U.S. will be acceptable behavior or legal there. Why is a French law banning burkinies unacceptable but not a law outlawing a westerner’s desire to wear a French bikini in Saudi Arabia or a woman’s requirement to wear a hijab in public? Why can’t I get a bourbon and water in downtown Tehran? In Singapore don’t spit your gum onto the sidewalk or you will be subject to caning. Are these laws unfair or unethical? I suppose it depends on your perspective.”
No, all of those laws are unfair and unethical. How is this not obvious?
(You’re also doing that thing where Muslims in France are assumed to be just “traveling” through France, or at best, guests in the country. Even though many were born there. Stop doing that.)
“The golden rule applies here. Don’t dictate to another country if you don’t want them interfering in your sovereign affairs.”
I don’t see anyone “dictating” to France to change this law. None of us here have any power to do so. We can and should complain about it, since it’s wrong.
If you condemn something the purpose is to try to change it. My point was that all the self proclaimed arbiters of ethical behavior do so through the lens of their own culture. The existential question is are some cultures unworthy of continuance because another deems its practices unethical? You said it should be obvious that such practices are unethical but you never stated why. Furthrrnore, you chastise alizia for bigotry but assume your position is superior to hers because you know what is good and right.
Mankind has had sufficient experience, though, to be able to distinguish toxic cultures from ethical ones, and the values of the successful cultures become enshrined as a proven ethical principles. Nazi Germany was a hypothesis, for example, and the theory failed. Cultures are unworthy of continuance when they result in human misery, death, poverty, and the lack of human advancement to its potential; when they become a menace to the rest of civilization, and don’t contribute enough positive to offset the inevitable negatives.
“You said it should be obvious that such practices are unethical but you never stated why.”
Jack already stated pretty clearly in the article why the burkini ban was unethical; I didn’t think it beared repeating. The other laws you mentioned are clearly unethical by the same basic principle that freedom is good, and unnecessary restrictions on freedom are unethical. This is a basic Western value, one that is under more threat from the likes of Alizia than from most of the women who wear burkinis.
“you chastise alizia for bigotry but assume your position is superior to hers because you know what is good and right.”
I assume that freedom is good. Unless you, like Alizia, don’t share that assumption, I’m not sure what the purpose of this line of argumentation is, other than to play Devil’s advocate, which bores me.
Exactly: Freedom is good. Honesty is good. Fairness is good. Respect is good. The Golden Rule is good. Many thousands of years of civilization has taught these ethics lessons pretty resoundingly to those who pay attention, though they will continue to be challenged, as they are currently by Mr. Trump.
I thought to ask you if you agree with my analysis: The Burkini ban and other bans on Muslim symbols represents a resistance (impossible to carry out within the system of French liberal laws) to the presence of a foreign religious culture that orients itself not through French liberal traditions but through Sharia Law, and that the shadow of a foreign system of religious law is there in the background. And that the attempt to limit an aspect of woman’s dress is directed exclusively against this religious culture which is perceived as a threat?
Do you think that the issue can be reduced to this?
If the issue can be reduced to this, and if this is indeed what it is really all about, the question I have is How Would it be possible that a people, in this case ‘the French’, coalesce their sentiments or their political will (or cultural or social will) in order to mount a successful resistance? I am of course asking you to engage in the hypothetical which is being actively discussed in France right now, and among serious people: What will happen to France, to French identity, if there takes place the expected and predicted increase in Muslim population, the increase in Muslim religiosity and the *impositions* of its symbols, practices, values and also laws within the French national system?
My questions would be predicated on an event which is not contemplated within the Constitution, that is to say an influx of a people and of traditions that may (or that are) desirous to either undermine or disrespect or to change the existing system and structure of law, and the philosophical base on which it is contructed, in that country.
How could it ever happen then, within the existing constitutional and legal forms, that a resistance be mounted unless there were some sort of ‘constitutional crisis’?
Is a people who comes to realize that it and its institutions are in danger responsible to act in their present to ensure that the danger is defeated? You refer to freedom, honesty and fairness and a host of other values which no one I know would deny. But do not those values best, or perhaps exclusively, function in a social system where everyone plays by the rules and everyone has agreed to them? What of those situations when it is necessary to suspend ‘freedom’ in order to secure a higher, but perhaps a future, good? Is it not the responsibility of a concerned person, community and nation to act to curtail and limit or control a danger? If you came to understand that a danger was *real* and not imagined or invented, would you not feel compelled to modify the ethics which you describe?
I do have an interesting book that deals on Constitutional Crisis (‘Constitutional Dictatorship’ by Rossiter) which, naturally, devotes considerable time to Lincoln’s ‘crisis government’.
Do you allow that in Europe now that there might be legitimate concern by Europeans touching on such issues as ‘invasion’ by a foreign cultural system? IF it were real (and perhaps you think it is not) what would you have to say about it, from a legal, constitutional and ethical standpoint?
Nope. Suppressing and punishing religious or cultural symbols or symbolic conduct cannot be justified or rationalized. It’s a per se abuse of power.Culture is an ongoing debate, not the Hunger Games.
I think you have avoided, almost completely, the substance of my questions, and the core issues at stake.
I assume that your view arises out of your grasp of constitutional precedents such as:
Justice David Davis, Ex Parte Milligan, 1866
“The Constitution of the United States is law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or dspotism, but the theory on which it is based is false; for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it which are necessary to preserve its existence…”
Now, if the law of France is similar in its construct — it likely is but I don’t know much about it and cannot say — I’d imagine that similar principles pertain, and I’d also imagine that the anti-burkini prohibition was struck down as a result of respect for the same principles: that there is a Constitution and it HAS to be respected. And this makes absolute and complete sense. In fact, there can really be no argument against it. This is clear.
But I cannot accept your statement: ‘Culture is an on-going debate, not the Hunger Games’. (I had no idea what the Hunger Games are — some dystopian novels? A TV series?) but I will take it to be a situation of social conflict. Although I understand I think very well what your orientation is and why you can make the statement you do, I do not think it stands up, and it will not stand up, within the European context. (Applied to America, with its traditions and with its standards, perhaps. Or, as some say, perhaps a Constitutional Crisis is developing, this I do not know. Yet it would be dishonest if I said that I did not think it possible and likely).
But the part in what you say, and which I do respect, but cannot agree with, is that ‘Culture is an on-going debate’. This is simply not a fact of history. It is a commendable idealism and yet, in fact and in practice, it is unreal. I refer to the last 50 years of political history in Latin America as an example. Chile is an example. The ‘on-going conversation’ in Chile led to a Marxian government that would have evolved as most of them or all of them do. That conversation might have led to a group of Marxian republics allied with Cuba and then with Soviet Russia. Extra-constitutional means were employed in which the Constitutional Potency of the US was directly involved, which put a quick stop to that.
Right or wrong? Someone has to decide. The conversation *ended* and was made to end, and another level of speech was insisted on. Right or wrong? As a Latin American we have had to debate these questions, and most recognize that in the long run it was better to have stopped short the *conversation* that may well have led to Marxian regimes in all of the Southern Cone. I would certainly have opted to eliminate Chavez in my own country, and I would have supported the intervention of the US there to save us from the evolution of that bitter *conversation*. I could cite a dozen examples in Latin America, and examples in which the constitutional government of the US intervened, overtly, in these political *conversations*.
Politics, then, always pursues other principles. Except that one may hope, and one should and can hope, that in a stable political environment. That ‘the constitutional rules of the game’ be observed.
Therefor, the Machiavellian Principle comes to the fore and has to be considered: “Those republics which in time of danger cannot resort to dictatorship will generally be ruined when grave occassions occur”.
This is not my wish nor is it my hope. I am attempting to deal with the situation that you have presented and to be thorough about it.
In Europe, right now, and certainly in France, a social situation is simmering that may well lead to extra-constitutional action. If this fact is not seen, or not allowed to be understood, one can only see the limited but very important rule of law (as is your position). And one could only take your side.
But the fact of the matter is that there IS a more grave situation there, though not one that concerns you. Yet it does concern many — and a growing number — in France and in Europe.
And this has been my purpose: to point it out and to indicate some routes to SEEING what the issue (really) is. If we cannot see something, if our own lenses of perception keep us blind, we are not really dealing responsibly in our reality. That is my understanding.
You seem to be under some delusion that the way culture is created over time is different from continent to continent. It isn’t. The only differences are the random factors that get in the way, like oppressive governments, bad leadership, religious fanaticism, war and anarchy. Given a free and fair path to evolution, any culture will eventually evolve in ethical directions, which is to say, to maximize individual freedom, fulfillment and happiness within a society that that facilitates rather than interferes with the process of accumulating wisdom from experience.
With respect, naturally, I will offer a critique of your statement. I mean you and no one else any harm. I am only trying to keep the focus on ideas and their consequences. A valid pursuit.
Delusion is an interesting word. I didn’t know that it derives from Latin ‘ludere’, to play. To delude somoene is ‘to play’ them, like in a shell game or Three Card Monte. The reason I would focus on this word is because I think it is a sort of common knowledge these days — something everyone feels and believes — that they are being played. And we all attempt to see clearly enough to distinguish the ‘controller’. It is one of the bases of my entire philosophical and metapolitical outlook and it is one I have stated from the beginning:
We cannot *see* our world and what we do see is a series of layers or veils that seem to separate us from *seeing things as they are*.
I have also referred often to *metaphysics*. And with this I refer to the structures of perception, or the elements of belief and understanding that make up our preception of the event and entity known as *our world*. I have been ridiculed for mentioning seemingly arcane topics but I perservere because I know that one has to be slowly introduced to the ideas and that they take some time to see and understand.
So, here is a good and sensible statement: To understand what is our own ‘metaphysic’ and how a general perception of the world derives from such a ‘metaphysic’, requires the aid of a ‘master metaphysician’. That is Basil Willey and not something I made up. And I am not that ‘master metaphysician’ either. Yet I am presently convinced that I have a genuine and a worthy point and that there is value in understanding what I am referring to. It can help in an analysis of the world, and also of politics.
OK so here goes:
Your statement, according to my view/interpretation, is quintessentially post-Christian. It illustrates how the metaphysical Christian view, though the overt religious assent no longer functions, is still highly operative. You speak of Truth that is plainly apodeictic: necessarily or demonstrably true. It requires no further proof and is not debatable. Essentially you are making a faith-claim and the origin of this claim is grounded in Medieval metaphysics. A quote from Alain de Benoit which will help to round-out this notion:
“This movement [modernity] has old roots. In most respects, it represents a secularization of ideas and perspectives borrowed from Christian metaphysics, which spread into secular life following a rejection of any transcendent dimension. Actually, one finds in Christianity the seeds of the great mutations that gave birth to the secular ideologies of the first post-revolutionary era. Individualism was already present in the notion of individual salvation and of an intimate and privileged relation between an individual and God that surpasses any relation on earth. Egalitarianism is rooted in the idea that redemption is equally available to all mankind, since all are endowed with an individual soul whose absolute value is shared by all humanity. Progressivism is born of the idea that history has an absolute beginning and a necessary end, and that it unfolds globally according to a divine plan. Finally, universalism is the natural expression of a religion that claims to manifest a revealed truth which, valid for all men, summons them to conversion. Modern political life itself is founded on secularized theological concepts. Reduced to an opinion among others, today Christianity has unwittingly become the victim of the movement it started. In the history of the West, it became the religion of the way out of religion.”
I have continually stated that ‘progressivism’ and ‘hyper-liberalism’ (my own term) can be seen and grasped better when they are understood as expressions of religious-derived sentiments. Faith-statements in short. I have also continually said that one can notice that these faith-statements, and thus ‘progressive ideology’, has penetrated our intellectual culture and is no longer just an ideology of the Left but has infected ideation generally. It has quite obviously penetrated conservative thought and is evident everywhere in American culture, almost from top to bottom.
That is, when we think, we think in these terms.
I won’t elaborate on the paragraph quoted above because most everyone will be able to see and to understand both its good and clear sense and its ramifications. Except to put additional emphasis on:
“Progressivism is born of the idea that history has an absolute beginning and a necessary end, and that it unfolds globally according to a divine plan. Finally, universalism is the natural expression of a religion that claims to manifest a revealed truth which, valid for all men, summons them to conversion.”
Your statement is, I suggest, one that arises out of a metaphysical understanding that we are in or have approached ‘the end of history’ in the sense de Benoit indicates. Your statement is also a faith-statement and is post-Christian insofar as it is bound up in faith-claims and not in any strict or demonstrable empiricism. You also elucidate a ‘core tenet of the American civil religion’. In fact, I would play the Demon’s Advocate and say that the opposite is likely a more true statement. The whole statement can pretty obviously be reversed and contrary truths be posited. (In any case the faith-claim can be challenged as such).
To me, this is all very important. In fact, and painful though it is and will be, we have to deconstruct these metaphysical faith-truths and to reexamine all over again the actual facts of the actual issues. I have said this here from Day One and am attempting to remain in integrity to my view and understandings and against some notable opposition. (I was helping my sister shop yesterday for baby-articles (she is soon to give birth and can think on nothing else) and speaking to her about my writing here and showing her a page or two she said ‘They will either crucify you or you will spontaneously combust!)
I also feel it very important to mention that there is now on the horizon a New School of politics (the European New Right or the philosophical Alt/Right) and a group of philosophers who are involved in this reexamination and reconsideration of ‘fundamental tenets’ that have driven idea in the Occident, and which inform modern liberalism. Pierre Krebs, Alain de Benoit, and Guillaume Faye just happen to be the most notable.
The reason I feel this is all important material, and that it certainly has a relationship to Ethics, is obvious.
Cultures as they arise from era to era and place to place ARE NOT the same, and they do not and will not either arrive in the same final place, nor are they internally structured to do so. The same is true in biology: Inteligent beings are the exception to the rule in biological history and are not necessarilly ‘adaptive’ in fact. The ‘survival of the fittest’ in no sense whatever necessarily posits the survival of ‘the best’; and to define ‘the best’ is an elite project. It is a delusion, and a dangerous one, to believe differently. It is not borne out by empricial facts (yet it is a contentious road to prove and demonstrate that, but a fun and interesting one!)
I suggest that the statement ‘Given a free and fair path to evolution, any culture will eventually evolve in ethical directions’ is a faith-based statement and expressed a post-Christian metaphysical view of ‘reality’. I would suggest then that we need to understand that the development of the ‘best’ and the ‘highest’ as well as the definition of *value* and even *meaning* itself each represent elite categories, and that we need to focus on where those elite categories came into manifestation. And that when we do that we clearly see that they are regional, that they link just as much with ‘biological being’ as they do with ‘spiritual identity’, and that in a clearly demonstrable way we find a huge part of this ‘best’ and ‘better’ to have come into material manifestation in Europe.
In a crude and rather fast form I offer an enunciation of my understanding of ‘Eurocentrism’. In any case, the defense of these things is a fair and a valid pursuit; it can be undertaken intellectually and philosophically in clear, fair and well-resonded terms, and people can be won-over to see and to understand what is said and what is implied.
A duck with a mustache came down when you said “apodeictic.” If “The Hunger Games’ reference stumped, you this one will really drive you crazy.
About Alizia’s comment above…
Over 1,400 words of reaffirming the obvious; Alizia is a pompous ass, the world revolves around her thoughts, her verbose comments are nothing but twisting of reality and deflections, she says all she thinks but thinks not all she says, she blurs and muddies all threads she participates in, and she is a skilled troll.
Here’s how intelligent critical thinking works for Alizia…
…oh wait, sorry folks, that was an oxymoron.
Well, I set myself to the task! It made me happy to know I’d won a prize! Don’t know what I’ll spend it on yet.
Zoltar, you forgot to include the most relevant fact about Alizia: that she is a racist.
Why am I the only one here who will call a spade a spade?
Chris said, “Why am I the only one here who will call a spade a spade?”
Chris,
You’re a few months behind the times, please catch up before you spew such false pompous character assaults again. Alizia has been called a racists by many people around here, so why don’t you climb down off that tall horse of yours before you fall off and hurt yourself.
Here is just one of many…
https://ethicsalarms.com/2016/05/21/a-brief-message-from-the-ethics-bunker/comment-page-2/#comment-392271
I stand corrected, Zoltar, though I wish you could have corrected me a bit more civilly.
Chris said, “I stand corrected, Zoltar, though I wish you could have corrected me a bit more civilly.”
I’ll consider it in the future.
I don’t know if either of you saw the film ‘Doubt’ by John Patrick Shanley but there is a great line in there: ‘In the pursuit of wrongdoing one steps away from God’.
To combat me you have each stepped away from God. Having stepped away from God you stand on uncertain ground and the Devil hisses in your ears. But do not turn one against the other one. Kepp your eyes on the prize. The descent of egalitarian Heaven on Earth!
This is a blog dedicated to Ethics and to the discussion of ethical problems as they arise. The object then is to think on these themes, to engage ethically with ethics, and to create arguments to defend and explain those perspectives on ethics and ethical choices in a sound, honest, and well-argued manner. What can be described as a more important endeavor?
‘Racism’ is surely a big ethical question. And so of course is the use of the term. Today, and if one is a public figure (and perhaps even not quite that) an accusation of being a ‘racist’ can destroy a person’s economic and social position. To be called a ‘racist’ or an ‘antisemite’ can result in severe losses, social damage, public shunning, and much else. For this reason 1) the use of such terms is common, because they are effective, and 2) people fear, and rightly so, the use of those terms and so, naturally, they avoid any comment or perhaps even thought that might appear ‘racist’.
On this blog, and used by certain persons, I submit that the way the term is used is massively unethical. In actual fact it is malicious, slanderous, coercive and rather close to ‘evil’ if only in the Randian sense of the word. Yet those who employ the word are immune to being corrected for its use. Why? The answer appears to be that they are 100% that they are justified in being able to make this judgment. How this justification is supported is an interesting question. Generally, among the ‘progressive left’, there is no apparent need to ‘justify’ it or any other term they may use in their massive interpretation-project. Certainty is granted them, as if by divine edict. The Light of Truth has fallen on them and their judgments are pure. This is why I focus, with some irony of course! on the post-Christian underpinning to their view of themselves and the world. They judge and condemn others from their perspective as God’s Chosen. Though they pretend to have reasons and reasoning to support their views, when it comes down to it they will completely refuse to 1) understand an argued position that explains, let us say, a description of a ‘racialist’ perspective or one that argues against ‘egalitarianism’ nor 2) will they enter into any level of self-examination of their guiding and controlling tenets. For them, that is for God’s chosen, there is no requirement to defend their ideas rationally. Why? They have received their ideas through the social version of Direct Transmission and Revelation.
Now as I have been attempting to explain the New Right is en emerging philosophical position, a reengagement on philosophical and ethical levels with important questions about modernity. It turns a critical eye to many of the formulas of the liberal/progressive left, as well as the outcomes of these ideologies visible in our present, and it reexamines these questions of egalitarianism, of universalism, of culture and biology, of sovereignty and independence, and brings forward a whole group of alternative views.
So, to define oneself as ‘racialist’ IS different from either defining oneself as ‘racist’ (few take on this designation willingly), and thus the term ‘racialist’ begs a rational definition. What does it mean to to say one is a ‘racialist’ but not necessarily a ‘racist’?
In any case, the topic of the word ‘racist’ is wide and varied. There is much to look into there and much to understand because it all turns on questions of anthropology, which of course turns on questions of perspective, interpretation, as well as will and of course power. See http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/01/05/260006815/the-ugly-fascinating-history-of-the-word-racism
Here is an interesting parapraph which speaks to the use and the origin of the term:
“In an article on http://patdollard.com published in 2010 the origin of the word is dealt with. The article observes: “The word ‘racist’ has for a long time been the single most effective fear-word in the leftist and neoconservative arsenal. For decades they have successfully used it in the political arena to slander traditionalists, shut down debate, and leave opponents running for cover…What surprisingly remains almost totally undisclosed, even on the hard core traditionalist Right, is the word’s origin. Did it come from a liberal sociologist? A 60s Marxist college professor? Perhaps a politician in the Democratic Party? No, it turns out that the word was invented by none other than one of the principal architects of the 74-year Soviet nightmare, the founder and first leader of the infamous Red Army, Leon Trotsky.”
“The article notes Leon Trotsky’s 1930 work, The History of the Russian Revolution and it shows a passage from that book. The last word in a particular passage in that book has a Latin transliteration which is “racistov”, i.e., “racists” The article says: “This work here is the first time in history one will ever find that word.” [There is debate whether indeed Trotsky was the forst to use it, an American general of the Indian Wars may have beat him to it in fact].
Yet it should be clear — in any case it is clear to me — that the use of the term is muddled and also muddying. To bring this out a bit more I quote Pierre Krebs in ‘Fighting for the Essence’:
“The necessity of this re-questioning regarding our roots corresponds in fact to an urgent need to restore to order ideas and certain facts, a prophylactic measure that the mind adopts when the discussions of the age, on account of being burdened with taboos and obscured by dogmas, have ended up completely falsifying the etymology of words, distorting their meaning and perverting reason. For this age is not only vile, it is mad. We wish to say thereby that egalitarian reasoning, by walking on its head, has indeed turned the world upside down. [Julius] Evola had already luminously predicted it: ‘Western civilisation needs a complete overhaul or it will fall apart one day or another. It has realised the most complete perversion of any rational order of things. Reign of matter, of gold, of machine, of number, it no longer possesses breath, or liberty, or light.’
I take this to mean that to understand who we are — and this would refer not just to one who identifies as European or White but to anyone of any race and culture — and to understand the *root* of ourself it is extremely imperative to arrive at a position where one can think clearly and freely about certain realities (certain basic facts and truths) free from the coercive power of intense ideological impositions. To say this imples — it really states — that our present is one where language, as in 1984, is tainted, confused, suffused with ideological will and requires a project of sorting through terms, and sorting through perception, and certainly sorting though ideologies and dogmas, whcih ‘pervert reason’.
A genuine and a good path? Or just sophistry and lie?
But that is the question isn’t it? That is what has to be brought out into the light of day and conversed, argued, thought-through.
Alizia said, “To combat me you have…, …stepped away from God.”
Interesting; now you’re claiming to somehow know God’s will?
You might also consider that maybe, just maybe, I’m doing exactly what “God” want’s me to do in an effort to inspire you to come down off your precarious perch before you completely loose it and tumble into the abyss of dark dispare. I could be God’s instrument for change in your life.
On the other hand; for those that firmly believe the book of life has already been written by God, I am most certainly doing exactly what God has preordained and so are you. So our paths were meant to cross in the exact manner in which is taking place; in this regard, we can do no “wrong” in God’s view because we are doing what we are supposed to do.
Then there’s the other way of looking at it, God’s grace is limitless and “he” will forgive both you and I for all our sins regardless of those sins and allow us into Heaven.
Of course there’s the “belief” that God doesn’t exist and therefore inserting “God” into the conversation is just another way for you to ram your faux God and associated religion down the throats of others.
I’m sure there are many, many more “beliefs” that could be listed here; the point is that YOU don’t know God’s will or even if God even exists.
I confess: That opening sally was so silly I didn’t bother to read the rest.
Esteemed Zoltar, by referring to ‘God’ I am on one hand being ironic, yet on the other filling-out the assertions I make about a ‘post-Christian culture’. (I don’t think in terms of ‘God’ but only in terms of ‘metaphysics’).
And I have a strong feeling — in your case specifically — that there is no irony in the statements that you make about ‘the book of life’ and about ‘God’s will’ and as well how you see and understand yourself in relation — I think it must follow — in relation to the world, to politics, to ethics, and certainly as you oppose my efforts and also the philosophical and also religious positions of the New Right as I bring them forward.
So, this is a large part of what I am trying to get at: 1) that we live in a post-Christian culture. 2) that the assumptions and beliefs of Christianity (and Medieval metaphysic) still *function* in our consciousness though many who are such ‘post-Christians’ may have left their Churches and have little link to Christianity in a doctrinal sense; and 3) that liberalism and progressivism is tinged, if not dripping, with post-Christian assumptions. 4) That America is informed by a group of tenets which are essentially religious (egalitarianism, etc.) and that these religious assumptions become impositions and are expressed in notions of ‘American exceptionalism’ as well as becoming part-and-parcel of the general imposition (on the world) of liberal economic policies, ‘multiculturalism’, and many other impositions that are part of the American attitude and belief-system.
Yet these *impositions* are rarely analysed and in this sense are part of a *metaphysic* that operates without being rationally and perhaps consciously understood.
In your case I assume this is not precisely the case insofar as I am 95% sure that you have an active Christian orientation.
The question is not to discuss God’s plan, whatever it may be, but to understand ‘ideas and their consequences’. Yet, it is vital to understand that in Europe, and certainly among the writers I have mentioned (de Benoit, Krebs, Faye) that they are very interested in revisualizing Christian doctrine, recovering Pagan connections (which ties in with reconnection with body, biology, race, culture and locality) and in noticing some of the down-side of the effect of Christianity in our present.
(But to understand me better you must understand that I ‘convoited’ out of Judaism through a Johannine Christian conversion which has since volved considerably).
Similarly, Chris and progressives generally seem to me (and to others) (Pierre Krebs writes extensively about this) to embody a ‘post-Christian ethics’ which they see and understand as unquestionable, just like the basic religious tenets and that of Christian conversion: They have received the political truth and the social truth doctrine as one might receive commands from God or the ‘spirit’, and they take these truths forward as missionaries and activists. You cannot argue against them since, in fact, they see and underdstand themselves as converts to a Higher Truth.
I have stated, and continue to underdtand it, that these liberal-progressive currents of thought (of belief really) have extended beyond the confines of progressive circles and have ‘penetrated’ and ‘infected’ society generally, in the manner of hysterical contagion or Pentecostal fire. You think I am joking. I am not. This is a reality of post-Christian culture. It is NOT ‘rational’ as we normally understand rationality to be. It is emotional, sentimental and in a way difficult to understand and describe very strangely *religious*. It can be looked at, examined, and thought about.
Now, you may suppose: “The Demon Alizia, who I clearly recognize as dark and on the border of falling into evil and perdition, or mental disease according to others, is bringing forward a critique of such things as are deeply and personally relevant to me; indeed I have structured my person, my view of life and reality around these views. And I KNOW that Alizia is caught in the Devil’s webs, and so I know how I must battle her!”
This, I am somewhat sure, IS your perspective, and yet this is not what concerns or interests me (I mean, you do not concern me). What concerns and interests me is a much larger picture of American Politics, and certainly at the juncture we now see and face, in all its bizarre and almost frighteningly bizarre dimensions.
Why am I concerned about this? Why bother to focus on these things? What does all of this mean? Those are the questions!
That is where the debate occurs. These issues and these currents and these sentiments and these feelings are there, surrounding us, in all their strength and power, in almost every apsect of what we see unfolding in front of us. From the decimation of the Republican party, to the clamoring of young socialist activists in their march for power, to the BLM movement if it is taken as an extension of Black American liberation theology, to which it is clearly related, and of which there is a direct disciple of that theological movement situated in the White House.
Is all this irrelevant? Should none of this be mentioned? Am I off-track for thinking these things and dedicating myself to the study of these social events and effects? And what of my *interpretation*? And then: What of the poltics that I am speaking about and defending? This so-called ‘Alt-Right’ and these dangerous new thinkers who seek to examine all of these questions in new and different ways, and to come up with different statements about *our present*? Should they be considered and allowed to participate in ‘the conversation’, or shunted off to the sidelines? Driven away?
Which opening sally was silly?
You’re right, there are many candidates, but I was referring to this:
“I don’t know if either of you saw the film ‘Doubt’ by John Patrick Shanley but there is a great line in there: ‘In the pursuit of wrongdoing one steps away from God’….To combat me you have each stepped away from God.”
1. The quote is about “pursuing wrongdoing.” Disagreeing with a blog post isn’t pursuing any “doing” at all. It’s called an argument.
2. To call an exchange of opinions here “combat” is silly hyperbole.
3. Ethics has nothing whatsoever to so with God.
4. Attaching oneself or one’s opinions to God is one of the worst of all debate tactics, and deservedly mocked no matter who does it.
Alizia,
You make way too many assumptions!
That may be so, Zoltar, and yet I base those assumptions on what you wrote. ‘It would seem’ that some of those attitudes exist in you. Yet only you could clarify, exactly, what it is you do think.
I don’t think you will, but you could.
And I am fairly certain — not 100% since in tese areas it is not possible to know anything with precision — that I have a good line of sight on American sociological phenomena. In any case, I can describe, support and defend my views.
Alizia Tyler said, “That may be so, Zoltar, and yet I base those assumptions on what you wrote.”
Assumptions are assumptions regardless of what you “think” you are basing them on.
Alizia Tyler said, “Yet only you could clarify, exactly, what it is you do think.”
Alizia,
What I choose to believe or not believe in regards to “God” is none of your damn business.
With that I offer both agreement and disagreement. One is that each person is entitled to their private beliefs and if they do not wish to discuss them they most certainly have no obligation to!
On the other hand, I am certain (here I have some *certainty*) that our inner structure of belief, our *core orientation*, very certainly determines what we think, how we see, and how we make decisions about what we do, allow and all else. If this is so this ‘inner structure’ is vital, and perhaps the most vital aspect of a person.
What that means, for me, is how I orient myself in regard to these huge metaphysical questions, and how any other does, is of vital concern and importance. Can it be hidden and concealed? Perhaps, and yet somehow it all gets externalized.
Therefor, the discussion of what is going on in society, how people think, how they see, and how they defend what their understandings are, is a vital area of investigation and consideration.
Jack wrote: “1. The quote is about “pursuing wrongdoing.” Disagreeing with a blog post isn’t pursuing any “doing” at all. It’s called an argument.
2. To call an exchange of opinions here “combat” is silly hyperbole.
3. Ethics has nothing whatsoever to so with God.
4. Attaching oneself or one’s opinions to God is one of the worst of all debate tactics, and deservedly mocked no matter who does it.”
_____________________________
1) It was purely ironical. I was referring to Chris and Zoltar’s spat.
2) The same.
3) For a religious person ethics is basically their religious view in action, and all ethics rerive from religious views and orientations, as does philosophy. You suppose there is a disconnect and there is not, and there will never be. To understand what I mean requires more description than you;d desire to read …
4) I pretty much agree with you. Except that it is a fact that people attach themselves to their notion of God and see themselves as agents of God in this plane of existence. So, one has to take into consideration that a huge percentage of people orient themselves through their religious perspective, and certainly in America, a religious country.
4a) What you say holds true except that our entire worldview, as I have painstakingly indicated, and yours as well, derives out of Medieval perspectives, and thus Christianity.
I know that what I am talking about does not make much sense to you and others but it doesn’t change that it is relevant or important.
Alizia,
Please don’t take offense; but…
“Opening the fourth and final part of the book, on originalism and political thought, is Robert Lowry Clinton’s meditation on the impossibility of limited constitutionalism in an age of scientism. This scientism is the hubristic, antirational residue of a modern science that has fully divorced itself from the Western philosophic tradition. It has succeeded in reconfiguring our understanding of human nature by positing a universe — including the human things — devoid of meaning and purpose. Such a conception cannot help but have consequences in the realm of constitutional thought and interpretation. As Clinton argues, our social and political arrangements are, invariably, a consequence of what we think we are. If we see ourselves as determined by external stimuli and biology, we quickly lose faith in those things that make free government possible: Political institutions and practices based on choice, and the reality of political equality, natural rights, and morality itself. The only legal theory that can be supported on the rubble left by scientism is positivism.. And the Supreme Court, in the purported finality of its interpretive authority — being both the ultimate and last expounder of the law — assumes the role of sovereign. “And from this conclusion there is no escape;” as Clinton notes in his sobering summary.”
From ‘Ourselves and Our Posterity: Essays in Constitutional Originalism’. Just picket this up and decided to read it.
While I cannot say that I understand how you, Jack, situate yourself within such issues and questions, it would seem from your various responses over the last year (the time I have been here) that you would not agree with this writer’s conservative platform, or his metaphysics. I bring this up because I canot quite grasp what sort of conservative that you are. My interest is genuine and I am not trying to irritate.
In other threads you have expressed wonder and dismay that people’s reasoning capabilities are afflicted, so much so that you can’t understand what is going on in them (‘What sphinx of aluminum and concrete bashed open their brains …” Etc.) So I ask: Could what is described here be some part of the problem?
Or, do you assume a stance within jurisprudence and ethics which is, in the sense described here, positivist?
The definition ‘Who we are’ (Who I am) becomes paramount to defining an ethic. I believe that I am ‘identitarian’ because I have some specific ideas and philosophy which informs my sense of who and what I am.
I don’t have the sense that much of this interests you or perhaps ‘moves you’. You see ethics and morality as independent of theological, metaphysical and other such questions. A pragmatic? A positivist?
Alizia: “(I had no idea what the Hunger Games are — some dystopian novels? A TV series?)”
You should read them. They’re about an oppressive, authoritarian government which distributes rights unevenly and brutally punishes those not in the favored “culture.” They’re written for eighth graders, so you should be able to understand them, as long as you go in knowing that you’re not supposed to be rooting for the capital.
::: laughs :::
Were they written by a ‘colored’ author?
Justice David Davis would be turning in his grave if he knew about FISA courts, the Patriot Act, national security letters, etc..
The thing that’s a little scary about this is that in some beaches in France where there is a high Muslim population, will not wearing a burkina be offensive to Muslim men and women and lead to aggressive behavior to the teenie weenie bikini wearer? I really don’t think that there is much likelihood of this this happening in the USA and we have laws against assault and battery that could be easily enforced. Still, I think of what happened in Germany with assaults on women.
Actually some women Muslim or not should be wearing a Burkina!! And some men too. Especially those hefty guys wear speedos that really shouldn’t.
NOBODY should wear a Speedo outside of a swim meet.
If I go for a swim my choice of what to wear will be influenced by the fact that I am a poor swimmer and don’t want to wear anything that will make it more difficult to swim, not by what the fashion police think I should wear.
This is kind of a funny article on what Mormon men should wear at the beach and not expose: http://religionnews.com/2014/02/20/especially-young-mormon-men/
If you’ve ever spent a week in the Salt Lake City area it goes from ‘kind of funny’ to roll on the floor hilarious.
I wonder if France censors Ms. Marvel comic books. In vol 1 she digs out a birkini her grandmother gave her to use as part of her super hero costume (stretchy and covers a lot, helps the secret identity thing.)
Australian Surf Life Savers.
The long leggings give extra protection from skin cancer, but also trap sand, so it’s swings and roundabouts.
We take melanoma seriously here.
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/mecca-laa-laa-wears-a-burqini-on-her-first-surf-lifesaving-patrol-at-picture-id73194791?k=6&m=73194791&s=594×594&w=0&h=mAqJeJaXizK5cHXrN7nDwggIW_GGqKfp2EfUV9Ga42o=
Just curious (and maybe this is going to far into the weeds of the law), but why do you think this violates the equal protection clause?
I would have said it violates the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause, but not the Equal Protection Clause.
Of course, I could be missing something. My law school transcript makes clear that Constitutional Law isn’t my strong suit.
It violates the equal protection clause because you can’t pass a law that allows one class of people to do something and punish another class of people for doing the exact same thing…as the photos I added were intended to convey. Men and non-Muslims can cover themselves on the beach, Islamic women can’t. If someone passes a law that says red heads can’t wear green suits, that’s an equal protection breach.
Okay, I get it now.
I would have said it didn’t because nobody could wear the Burkini under the French Law.
So, to draw from your example, I would say that making a law that says that green suits can’t be worn isn’t an equal protection violation, even if the only people who ever wear green suits were, in fact, redheads.
On the other hand, I think there’s some language in a case somewhere saying that if you can show by clear and convincing evidence that a law is discriminatory on its face, then the law would violate the equal protection clause even if it would apply to everyone equally. Perhaps the redhead example I postulated above would fall into this narrow category of laws. I’m pretty sure the Burkini Law would fall into this narrow category of laws.
But I know I’m getting you into the weeds here; if nothing else, it would be a blatantly obvious violation of First Amendment values.
Right—Equal Protection issues would never have to be reached.
But the “disparate impact” rulings follow your point.
A Simple Observation.
No Replies Needed.
I’ve observed that Alizia has posted over 4,000 words in this thread, nearly half of the total words in the thread and almost all of those words are contained in verbose comments.
With here post just now, it’s over half the total words.
And she could have conveyed the same meaning had she merely wrote “Muslims suck, white people rock.” She thinks sounding like a caricature of an intellectual makes up for the fact that her bigoted philosophy is entirely intellectually and morally bereft.
Getting a ticket from some jackboot that says you failed to wear “an outfit respecting good morals and secularism” is some of the creepiest, most sinister, Orwellian nightmare fuel I’ve heard of in my lifetime.
If I were French, this large and extremely non-Muslim man would be wearing a burkini to the beach every day. Heck, burkinis should be all the rage by now among all freedom-loving French folk, male and female. Demonstrate how absurd this all is. It’s France, revolting against things is supposed to be their thing.
Banning burkini’s while at the same time practicing political appeasement toward Islam is culturally predictable based on recent French/European political actions. Neither action is ethical in my opinion. Europe (and every other country facing Islamic population shifts) needs to figure out what parts of their own culture they most value and will fight to preserve. Thomas Jefferson said “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
Being trivial is just as bad as being oblivious.