Sunday, January 18, 2009

Suicidalism

(Hat tip: Cheat-Seeking Missiles)
Armed and Dangerous offers a take on a doctrine he calls "suicidalism".
al-Qaeda didn't create the ugly streak of nihilism and
self-loathing that afflicts too many Western intellectuals. Nor, I
believe, is it a natural development. It was brought to us by
Department V of the KGB, which was charged during the Cold War with
conducting memetic warfare that would destroy the will of the West's
intelligentsia to resist a Communist takeover. This they did with
such magnificent effect that the infection outlasted the Soviet Union
itself and remains a pervasive disease of contemporary Western
intellectual life.

Consider the following propositions:

  • There is no truth, only competing agendas.
  • All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority
    over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West's history of racism and
    colonialism.
  • There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture
    to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such
    standards is an evil oppressor.
  • The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of
    the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be
    impoverished and miserable.
  • Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal.
    Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to
    criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
  • The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only
    victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals
    are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying
    with poor people and criminals.)
  • For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It
    is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself.
    But "oppressed" people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are
    merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
  • When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner
    is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist's point of
    view, and make concessions.

These ideas travel under many labels: postmodernism, nihilism,
multiculturalism, Third-World-ism, pacifism, "political correctness"
to name just a few. It is time to recognize them for what they are,
and call them by their right name: suicidalism.


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