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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Clash of (Collapsing) Civilizations? |
| 2006-06-19 |
| By David Warren I want to say boldly something I've hinted at, or said only parenthetically before. It is something very big that I think is overlooked by nearly everyone who comments on the terror wars. Whether themselves religious or irreligious, most assume that Christian belief is declining in the West, while Islamic belief is ascending in the East. Hence the general fear, among people who are still Christian -- and therefore know what power religion can have, and how haplessly secular materialism resists it -- that the West is ripe for Islamicization. Worse, the writing on the wall is enlivened by alarming demographic trends. But what if only the first of these propositions is true? Without question, the civilization that was once Christendom is in a bad way, not only in Europe, but also across North America. Ignoring polls that tell us nothing, the proportion of people in the West who actually believe in the Trinitarian God, the incarnation of Christ, the working of grace, an absolute moral order, the immortality of the soul -- et cetera -- has probably never been lower (since, say, the 3rd century AD). It remains significantly higher in America than in Europe. But perhaps only because we have heard Europe's splash at the bottom; whereas America is still sliding down the well. I am ignoring, for the moment, why this should be; I am only stating the large fact. I am aware Christian belief is on the rise, steeply, through much of Africa and Asia. But here I am comparing the West, as conventionally defined, to that part of the East corresponding to historical Muslim territory: especially, its heartland in the Middle East. Now, it is taken for granted by almost everyone that the violence and disorder emanating from so much of traditional Islamdom may be attributed to the spread of Islamic "fundamentalism" or "purism" or "political Islamism". True enough. It may also be true that the great mass of Muslims are being swept along for the ride: much as Hitler and Mussolini were able to bring disaster upon the great mass of otherwise indifferent Germans and Italians -- by manoeuvring them into a position where their failing national identities could be placed directly on the block. We have every reason to fear such a catastrophe is gathering again. But no reason to think it is because the great mass of Muslims have been seized by religious enthusiasm. On the contrary, I have the strongest possible hunch, from everything I know about the current Muslim East, that the opposite is true. The world of Islam is suffering a crisis of belief, parallel to that in the West, though so different in its outward expressions that we do not recognize it. Indeed, the failure of what we fondly call "moderate Muslims" to stand against the fanatic tide, is among the leading indicators that the "mainstream" of Islam has hollowed out. Plummeting birthrates -- a sure sign of a society's terminal decadence -- are not confined to the West alone. The Muslims are outbreeding us, in the short run, but their own birthrates are in steep decline. (Ours could well begin rising again, before theirs finish falling.) In guessing what is to come, and thinking what to do about it, we should entertain the proposition that we are witnessing a double collapse of civilization, and thus civility. In effect, the wreckage of Islam is tumbling into the wreckage of Christendom. We don't see this possibility because our eyes are trained upon what is typical of the crack-up of a Christian society -- absurd parodies of old Christian doctrines, such as tolerance for anything at home, and surrender-pacifism abroad. But the same planetary loss of faith, infecting the Muslim world, produces instead absurd parodies of old Islamic doctrines, such as Talibanism at home and gratuitous terrorism abroad. In other words, both civilizations are entering their "second childhood" of senile dementia, but each in his characteristic way. So that a better way to phrase the question, "Who will win this clash of civilizations?" might be, "Which one is collapsing faster?" |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 can the entitiies within the system being defined objectively assess the change that is inherent in all systems. how do we accurately assess decline or incline from within? It's change alrihjt but only time will indicate whether or not it was "positive" or negative" |
| Posted by: bk 2006-06-19 10:43 |
| #6 Warren has it partly right. There are large numbers of secular and liberal moslems who deeply fear their Islamist brothers and sisters. And there are large numbers of ordinary moslems who are sick of corruption in moslem governments and explotation by moslem clergy. But, there are few voices within the Islamic world who can make a case publically. What we really need is a 24-7 radio network with news of the moslem world that brings normative, liberal and apostate commentary and observations to the masses in their own languages. |
| Posted by: mhw 2006-06-19 08:38 |
| #5 Global Secular Regressionism vs Global God-based Regressionism - you know, UPWARDLY-MOVING, ESCALATORY, PROACTIVE-POSITIVIST PROGRESS??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-06-19 02:00 |
| #4 It doesn't matter if islam is undergoing a collapse of faith (which is quite possible), what matters is that they also see the West, Europe most notably, as rightly weakened and rip for conquest, and are on the move again thanks to oil money and demographical inertia. They've got a window of population growth for a few decades still, and they will use it for what islam has always done since its violent birth : expansionism and conquest. That it results from deathtroes is irrelevant. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-06-19 01:54 |
| #3 While minorities are being systematically cleansed from each and every Muslim entity, Muslims are pouring into the West in a non-productive multitude. Decline? Hell, yes! |
| Posted by: Shurt Angaimble9728 2006-06-19 01:25 |
| #2 I don't buy David Warren's jibe. The Chicago Tribune writer is a old hack defeatist. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-06-19 01:01 |
| #1 I don't really see eye to eye with declinists, especially as regards the USA. We've been through so many crises: slavery, civil war, Reconstruction, the industrial revolution, isolationism, cold war, civil rights, etc, etc, etc. And we've come up with a creative response for each of them. I will not believe that this is the last crisis -- that this is the one we fail to figure our way out of. There are a lot of nut cases and losers in America. But there are also a lot of steely-eyed killers and winners too. This is a natural consequence of living in a free society. Freedom has no meaning unless it includes the freedom to fail and we have failures a plenty.* We always have. In the end, no amount of passive agressive whining and Tranzi hand-wringing will hold the winners back. We will win this war. I'm just not sure it will be in the way that most of us envision it. * Three of our biggest "failures" were perhaps responsible for saving the nation during its greatest challenge: Grant, Sherman, and Lincoln during the Civil War. That's another great thing about freedom. You always get a second chance. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2006-06-19 00:49 |