Designer Tribalism and the Racism of Low Expectations

Romantic primitivism in all forms is absurd and deserves to be ridiculed. But when it emerges out of multiculturalism as a designer tribalism that incorporates superstition, violence, corruption, and misogyny - when it effectively keeps people locked into poverty and failure by perpetuating the soft racism of low expectations - then it demands serious critical examination.

White liberals with their touchy-feely morality and political correctness are always overly keen to show how sensitive they are to racial and religious difference. They believe it's crucial that immigrants arriving in Europe from Asia and Africa are allowed to keep their own beliefs, traditions, and practices in order to maintain their identities and self-esteem. It follows from this that they should therefore be allowed to have their own schools, places of worship, community centres, shops, newspapers, radio stations, and, perhaps, even their own legal systems.    

Ayaan Hirsi Ali ruthlessly tears this well-intentioned but profoundly misguided and ultimately disastrous way of thinking to shreds. She writes: "The idea that immigrants need to maintain group cohesion promotes the perception of them as victim groups requiring ... an industry of special facilities and assistance" and results in the creation of ghettos.  

In other words, the ideal of cultural diversity is one that ends in social failure. Rather than producing "a rich mosaic of colourful and proud peoples interacting peacefully ... it translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse."

Immigrants might preserve their arts and crafts, be able to eat the foods they like and wear traditional styles of dress, but this comes at a tremendous cost. For they are effectively complicit in a system which preserves them in the same manner it preserves endangered wild life; they are patronised and encouraged to remain loyal to a way of life which is untenable, inappropriate, and often in direct conflict with the society around them.

If this means their children do badly at school, can't find employment, and drift into crime, well, that's just too bad. Members of the liberal establishment overlook this just as they turn a blind-eye to the those unfortunate cultural practices such as honour killing and female genital mutilation. Their determined celebration of exotic otherness allows them to demonstrate just how tolerant and understanding they can be - and that's what they care about; atoning for the sins of their imperialist forefathers and exorcising their own guilt.

One is grateful to Hirsi Ali for speaking up and speaking out on this topic with her customary intelligence and integrity. 


Note: lines quoted from Ayaan Hirsi Ali can be found in Nomad, (Simon and Schuster UK Ltd., 2011), pp. 212 and 213.  

Peep Show Proves We're a Long Way from Wuthering Heights

"We're a long way from Wuthering Heights ..."

With this devastating line, Houellebecq refers to the progressive effacement of human relationships and a kind of vital exhaustion - particularly in the bedroom - which characterizes the early 21st century.

Ours is an age in which people continue to fuck and to feign an interest in romance, but their fascination for eroticism is completely artificial and they are, in fact, bored beyond stiffness by the endless orgy in which they find themselves; thus the growing need for pornography, sex toys, and Viagra.

We simply don't feel or even truly understand what fictional lovers such as Cathy and Heathcliff are said to have felt; their passion has become embarrassing and slightly repulsive. We don't want intense emotional commitment; rather, we prefer to fake our own feelings and simply replay old scenarios whilst lacking in any conviction. For us, sex is all about a nostalgic staging of desire and its dispersal. 

Ultimately, all we'll be left with are the signs and simulations of sex circulating via the media creating a world characterized by what Baudrillard refers to as virtual indifference. This will doubtless have many consequences, including the fact that novels, such as Emily Brontë's classic, will become impossible to read, or even talk about in and on our own terms; as evidenced, for example, in Peep Show series 7, episode 3.

Chairman Mao and the Swindle of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Image of Chairman Mao:
uncyclopedia.wikia.com

Traditional Chinese Medicine is, of course, an entirely bogus modern phenomenon; a pseudoscience promoted by Chairman Mao that possesses no valid mechanism of action or evidence for its treatments. It's no more effective than the equally dubious remedies offered within European witchcraft.  

Not that this stops millions of believers around the world using obscure herbal remedies, ingesting ground up animal parts - such as tiger bone and rhino horn - or having pins stuck in them in order to release a flow of vital energy along the body's meridians. Attempts to locate these mysterious pathways, or to identify this potency known as qi, have so far proved fruitless. Primarily, this is because they don't exist.

   

Practitioners of alternative medicine, however, don't allow such minor details or anatomical facts to stop them peddling their services and products. If modern knowledge of human physiology and pathology proves problematic to their teachings, they simply start talking about cosmic notions of yin and yang, patterns of harmony and disharmony, or the five phases. Such traditional Chinese wisdom is also, of course, entirely false - if pleasing to metaphysicians everywhere.

Happily, at least some Chinese philosophers are prepared to admit as much. In 2006, for example, Zhang Gongyao published an article entitled 'Farewell to Traditional Chinese Medicine', arguing that TCM in both theory and practice was absurd and should be exposed as such. The Chinese government, however, keenly aware of global export revenues, insisted that it had an important role to play in healthcare and deserved future development. 

And this brings us back to Chairman Mao, who, almost single-handedly invented TCM as we know it today. Let me elaborate by summarizing a recent article by Alan Levinovitz, who is an assistant professor of Chinese Philosophy and Religion at James Madison University ...

Initially, following their victory in the Civil War, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party ridiculed TCM as irrational and backward; something contrary to the Party's programme of modernization and scientific progress. However, when it became clear that they would never be able to afford to establish a national healthcare programme reliant upon highly skilled doctors, expensive drugs, and advanced surgical techniques, Mao revised this position. Now TCM was proudly held up as a great national resource to be developed in opposition to the bourgeois medicine of capitalist imperialism. 

Further, Mao realised that if only the traditional methods could be marketed in the right manner, they could be sold to gullible foreigners. And so the Chinese Communist party set about standardizing TCM into a single theoretical and practical system that could be taught as an alternative (holistic) science concerned with preventative and complimentary healthcare. 

Next, they set about providing Westerners with sensational - but faked - evidence of what TCM could do. Eager to subscribe to the myth of the ancient wisdom of the east, this was, outrageously, accepted at face value by large numbers of the public, as well as many professionals who really should have known better. Before long a craze for TCM - particularly acupuncture - boomed and today you can get all kinds of quack treatments on the NHS! 

Levinovitz nicely puts this into a cultural and historical context:

"The reason so many people take Chinese medicine seriously, at least in part, is that it  was reinvented by one of the most powerful propaganda machines of all time and then consciously marketed to a West disillusioned by its own spiritual traditions. The timing couldn't have been better. Postmodernism was sweeping the academy, its valuable insights quickly degrading into naïve relativism. Thomas Kuhn had just published his theory of paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions ... Alan Watts was introducing hippies to mind-blowing Eastern philosophy; Joseph Campbell was preaching the power of myth. Sick of Christianity and guilty about past imperialist sins, the West was ready to be healed by Mao's sanitized version of Chinese medicine."  

He concludes:

"Ultimately, however, the existence of qi, acupuncture meridians, and the Triple Energizer is no more inherently plausible than that of demons, the four humours, or the healing power of God. It's just that Mao swindled us ..."

Notes: 

Alan Levinovitz's article in the online magazine Slate entitled 'Chairman Mao Invented Traditional Chinese Medicine', can be found by clicking here.

My thanks to Zena McKeown for inspiring this post following a recent conversation on the topic.  

Foucault's Islamic Folly

Photo from the front cover of the Turkish translation of 

Foucault and the Iranian Revolution

Michel Foucault wanted more than anything to be generous to the Iranian revolutionaries when he arrived in Tehran in September 1978 in order to report on events for an Italian newspaper. 

Despite their aggressive xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and fetishization of martyrdom, Foucault was keen to counter the idea that these bearded opponents of the Shah were simply political extremists or religious fanatics. On the contrary, he argued, their demand for the impossible was perfectly reasonable and their goal of establishing a new Islamic order held out the hope of a genuine revaluation of all values; the first great insurrection against global hegemony inspired by a creed of combat and sacrifice.      

Just a few short months after writing this, Ayatollah Khomeini and his mullahs assumed power and established a murderous theocracy which has endured to this day. For a while, Foucault continued to defend the regime - or, rather, he continued to promote his quasi-mystical belief in ecstatic violence and revolution as a crucial form of limit-experience (however tragic the outcome). But, eventually, Foucault was obliged to break with what André Glucksmann described as the terrorist radicalism of the theoretical avant-garde. 

Indeed, before his death in 1984 Foucault even found it possible (and important) to rethink questions central to the Enlightenment and to liberalism. He conceded that whilst the concept of human rights is a political fiction, it's nevertheless a useful fiction which needs vigorously defending; as does secular society when threatened by militant religious fascism.

And this is something I wish more of our intellectuals, media commentators, and public officials would have the courage and the tactical intelligence to acknowledge today.   

Note: those interested in reading more on this topic should see Janet Afary and Keven B. Anderson; Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, (University of Chicago Press, 2005).

Qué Barbaridad

Flag of the Islamic State 
(formerly known as ISIS or ISIL)

One of Nietzsche's concerns in his later writings is with the question of how a stronger species of man might arise from out of modernity, which he regards as a form of corruption. A people possessing the ability and the desire to impose themselves upon others can, he says, grow up only out of terrible and violent beginnings. And so he awaits those he terms the new barbarians ...

But just as the Nazis were not those whom he anticipated and called forth, neither are the militants of the Islamic State - presently fueling chaos and committing a series of grotesque atrocities across Syria and Iraq. For whilst these jihadis may display some of the traits that Nietzsche admired, they nevertheless remain barbarians of the depths, rather than those who come from the heights and who, like Prometheus, bring something genuinely new into the world.

Unfortunately, their asceticism remains tied to a spirit of revenge and is born of sickness and inferiority, rather than a union of spiritual superiority, well-being, and an excess of strength. For all their sincerity and violent enthusiasm, they're essentially decadents full of all the same modern vices - such as an addiction to modern technology and social media - as the rest of us. This is why when, not praying or fighting, they seem to spend most of their time tweeting, or posting vile images on YouTube and Facebook.

 

Ultimately, if holy war can be the source of stimulation in a mankind grown soft via the resurrection of the most savage energies "in the shape of the long-buried dreadfulness and excesses of the most distant ages", it can do no more than this. Significant change requires something else. Not something bigger or more catastrophic, but, on the contrary, something much more modest; something requiring not just cruelty, but the exercise of great caution.

Ultimately, we will reflect on the attempt by these Islamofascists to trigger a revaluation of values as Nietzsche looked back on the French Revolution; i.e. as nothing more than "a pathetic and bloody piece of quackery". They might inspire believers with their neo-archaic fantasy of a global caliphate, but, the attempt to reterritorialize upon the ruins of a despotic state machine and fragments of a seventh century Arabic text is, thankfully, doomed to failure.     

Notes:

For Nietzsche's thinking on the question of barbarism and the new barbarians, see, for example, notes 868, 899 and 900 in The Will to Power, ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, (Vintage Books, 1968), pp. 464-65, 478-79. 

The line quoted from Nietzsche in paragraph four is from Human, All Too Human, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), I. 8. 463, p. 169.

The line quoted from Nietzsche in paragraph five is from Daybreak, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), V. 534, pp. 211-12. 

For a more extensive discussion of this topic see my study of Nietzschean and post-Nietzschean politics, Outside the Gate, (Blind Cupid Press, 2010), particularly part three.

On the Etymology of the Word Hamas

People often ask: What's in a name?

Well, quite a lot when that name happens to be Hamas: an acronym of Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, which rather conveniently spells out the Arabic term for enthusiasm.

As we know, this Islamic resistance movement - designated a terrorist organization by, amongst others, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union - has governed the Gaza strip since winning a majority of seats in the 2006 Palestinian elections. Since then, it has certainly demonstrated an enthusiasm for indiscriminately firing rockets into Israel and building an extensive network of tunnels in which to conceal weapons and through which it might send suicide bombers. 

Obviously, as one who values irony, indifference, and insouciance, I have little time for those who enthuse in this manner; i.e. with such militant sincerity. In fact, as an anti-theist, I hate the very term enthusiasm, which is derived of course from an ancient Greek root, ἐνθεός [entheos], meaning to be possessed (or inspired) by a god.   

Such is the intense level of enthusiasm displayed by the members and supporters of Hamas, however, that I think we might more accurately translate their name as zeal and understand them not merely as enthusiasts, but true zealots; i.e. fanatical and uncompromising, in both their religious faith and their political ideology.

Interestingly, the English word zealous can also be traced back to an ancient Greek origin; indeed, if Maria remembers her mythology correctly, then Zelus [Ζῆλος] was the son of the Titan, Pallas, and the river goddess, Styx, and he personified dedication to a cause.
 

However, it is important to note that he also personified other traits, including envy (the modern word jealousy is also derived from his name), resentment, bigotry, and insecurity (thus his need for complete consensus and his desire for the total annihilation of his enemies).

What's in the name Hamas? More than they might care to acknowledge ...

On the Joy of Flirting and the Experience of Beauty

 Ayaan Hirsi Ali

 

Flirting is one of the great joys of life, which, regardless of intent, is always an innocent form of sexual play at the level of language and gesture; by this, I mean it lacks the consciously cruel and manipulative aspects of teasing.  

People who do not know how to flirt are like those who do not know how to laugh; they lack that insouciance which is so lovely in wild animals and flowering plants and in men and women who intuitively understand the mystery of beauty.

 

For beauty, ultimately, is the key thing: when we flirt, we communicate the happiness that arises out of an experience of beauty. We find others sexy and appealing when we find them beautiful. But, as Lawrence rightly argues, living beauty is not a fixed pattern or a conventional look which comes ready-made or photoshopped. This is why even the most skilled cosmetic surgeons fail to produce a truly beautiful face, despite an almost perfect arrangement of features. And this is why there's nothing flirtatious about a sex doll.

Because beauty is something felt and something which can be shared with others, even the plainest person can be beautiful and flirt successfully. On the other hand, even the most attractive person in the room can seem ugly and undesirable when they lack the warm glow of beauty and don't know how to communicate joy. Only when the sex-glow is missing, writes Lawrence, do people move in ugly coldness like "one of those ghastly living corpses which are unfortunately becoming more numerous in the world ... and whom everybody wants to avoid".

Today, it takes a rare woman to genuinely rouse a sense of loveliness; and a rare man to have the courage to respond to her loveliness and to flirt in a spirit that is neither lewd nor crude, but generous and playfully tender, with perhaps just a touch of irony. Luckily, however, there is an example of such to be found on YouTube and involves a very touching and amusing public encounter between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christopher Hitchens; he full of old school charm and she smiling and giggling in an almost coquettish manner.

Perhaps, as well as everything else, flirting is an important sign of freedom ...

Notes: 

Readers interested in viewing the encounter between Hitch and the very beautiful Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, on Feb 13 2007, should click here.

The line quoted from D. H. Lawrence can be found in the article 'Sex Appeal', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 146. 

The Picture of Douglas Murray

Douglas Murray: Photo by Martin Pope

The writer and commentator Douglas Murray may not be made out of ivory and rose-leaves, but he certainly embodies several of the virtues that make beautiful and make manly, including courage, for example; courage in the face of often violent opposition and the courage to speak his mind with an openness lacking in most other public figures and politicians.

I might not always agree with what he says, but I can't help admiring him and, after first seeing Douglas on YouTube, I was conscious of the curious effect that he exerted: I knew that I was watching someone whose personality is so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would threaten to absorb my whole nature and whose neoconservative ideas are so dangerously seductive that, if not careful, they might infect my own thinking on the issues that face us today.

I do not know if we are destined to meet and to know each other. But I suspect, sadly, that we could never be friends. Indeed, I would find it difficult to even stay in the same room as this wonderfully handsome young man, with his finely-curved scarlet lips and frank blue-eyes full of candour and passionate purity; for how could one not feel inferior in the presence of someone so palpably better-read, better-travelled, and better-looking?

My one hope is that Douglas finds time to write more works of literary biography - like his brilliant study of Bosie, written when he was still an undergraduate - and that he doesn't squander all his time and talent listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless, or fighting against the ignorant, the base, and the fanatic.

Just Say No

Viktor and Rolf: A/W 2008

 

'You're always so negative and critical', she said - rather ironically by way of criticism. Like many of the things that came out of her mouth, it wasn't entirely true. But, even if it were, so what?

For just as in saying yes to something in particular we automatically say no to everything else in general, in saying no to things - particularly things, ideas, or people which we once loved uncritically in the past - we say yes to the future and a strange new unfolding of the self. 

Nietzsche writes:

"When we criticize something, this is no arbitrary and impersonal event; it is very often evidence of vital energies in us that are growing and shedding a skin. We negate and must negate because something in us wants to live and affirm - something that we perhaps do not conceive as yet."

- The Gay Science, Book IV, 307.

To want to have done with judgement and make an affirmation of life as it is, does not mean depriving oneself of any means of distinguishing between modes of existence; nor does it mean renouncing one's critical faculty as born and developed not within the ideal realm of higher values, but within a beating heart that knows of love and hate.

 

Richard Dawkins on Rape: Good Logic, Bad Thinking

In an attempt to illustrate what philosophers know as a syllogism (i.e. a statement of comparison between two terms that does not necessarily endorse either), Richard Dawkins tweets: "Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse."

As a piece of logic, it's fine. But as an example, it's extremely unfortunate and one does wish he had simply stuck with the algebriac formula of x and y. For whilst clearly not sanctioning date rape, Dawkins nevertheless perpetuates the myth that it's a less serious crime because carried out by someone known to the victim in what are deemed to be less aggravating circumstances.

Such circumstances, however, remain external to what essentially constitutes the crime itself; i.e. fucking someone against their will. If consent is not fully and freely given to sexual penetration (or, in the case of minors, cannot legally be given) and you stick your dick where it isn't wanted and shouldn't be, then that's rape professor!

Indeed, the law is pretty clear on this. So critical opposition voiced on Twitter by those who were troubled by his choice of syllogism is not necessarily proof of their moral absolutism, or inability to think logically; rather, it might simply demonstrate their superior legal knowledge, their more sophisticated understanding of rape, and their rather more sympathetic sexual politics.

Ultimately, rape is rape, just as murder is murder. The story of someone killed with kindness - perhaps a lethal dose of diamorphine discreetly administered before bedtime thereby allowing the victim to slip away peacefully in their sleep - lacks the sensational horror (and thus newsworthiness) of someone hacked to death with a chainsaw, but either way a vile crime has been committed and there's a body lying dead at the end of it.

Now, whilst speaking about degrees of violence and mitigating circumstances doesn't make much difference to a corpse, for a prominent public figure to imply that if a woman happens to know her rapist (and chances are she will) - and that if he comes carrying flowers rather than a weapon - this somehow makes the crime less serious (i.e. hardly even worth reporting), well, that makes a lot of difference - both to women who have to deal with the reality (and existential threat) of rape and, indeed, to the men who refuse to accept their shameful behaviour for what it is.      

In the end, as my friend Zena rightly argues, it's not up to men - even very clever men like Professor Dawkins - to try and define women's experiences of sexual violence.

Sadly, even good logic can result in bad thinking ...