As I observed in a blog of Dec. 10, commentators of a Leftist bias never cease to condemn as “far right” anything they disagree with, including ideas and policies that seem to be utterly defensible on a rational basis. Among the stacks of newspaper clippings I have collected rife with this slimy “progressive” stratagem, an article in Canada’s Globe and Mail of Aug. 12, 2023, has moved me to approach this topic once again. Purporting to document Germany’s growing infatuation with the hateful, racist, anti-immigration policies of the “far right,” the article is typical of the shoddy pseudo-intellectualism that is poisoning contemporary political discourse.
Written by Pakistani-Canadian journalist Sadiya Ansari, the opinion piece focuses on the growing popularity of the AfD, the Alternative for Germany Party, whose main concern seems to be the impact of the immigration policies of Angela Merkel who, as leader of the Christian Democratic Party [the CDU] and a staunch devotee of the European Union, allowed over one million Asian/African migrants of mostly Islamic orientation to enter Germany in 2015. Even more distressing to Ansari is the fact members of the apparently moderate CDU are now also questioning the wisdom of Merkel’s policies.
In his 1996 work The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington argues that orthodox Islam is utterly incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. Whereas Western democracies are founded upon the principle of the Separation of Church and State, Islam was aggressively political from its very inception. This is an inarguable historical fact, a fact that continues to be evident in oppressive regimes such as that of contemporary Iran. Tayyip Erdogan’s request that Muslims everywhere move to Europe and “Islamize” the entire continent is hardly ambiguous. Yet when the leaders of the AfD suggest their main concern is the preservation of Germany’s Culture, they are summarily dismissed by the brain dead Left as racists. Predictably, Ansari’s article equates the AfD’s concern with the EU’s immigration policies to Hitler’s disgusting antisemitism. Apparently, trying to preserve the cultural heritage of one’s country by imposing rational limits on the influx of those whose values are utterly incompatible with that heritage, is morally comparable to slaughtering 6 million Jews. Such is the “logic” of Ansari’s article which of course also indicts Britain’s Brexit vote as but another example of the ignorant, populist racism typical of the “far right.”
I hardly conform to the Left’s definition of a “populist.” I am well educated, my studies focusing on the intellectual evolution of Western Civilization and, more specifically, the richness and diversity of its Literature. Never one to be concerned with money, my greatest treasure is this Cultural Heritage, a heritage clearly superior to that of most every other civilization on the planet. In stating as much, of course, I have revealed myself to be what the “woke” Left considers an ignorant White Supremacist. A gift from the gods, however, has just leapt out of my computer, a Dave Rubin podcast featuring Bill Maher, some 20 years ago, declaring, during an HBO special, that the Enlightenment Principles and Values which inform Western Civilization are unequivocally superior to those of every other civilization on the planet. While Maher, though critical of many aspects of the contemporary Left, still considers himself a liberal, he is, from the perspective of Ansari’s article, just another “far right” racist, an accusation he would no doubt find absurd.
Rubin’s point in posting Maher’s statement is to illustrate how “liberalism” has degenerated from a perspective focused on real social injustices, to one whose superficial definitions of “equity” and “inclusiveness” have led it to abandon any semblance of rationality. The absurd Irony of this devolution is that it has been led by “intellectuals” for whom Culture is no longer a significant aspect of the human journey. Shakespeare or Snoop Dog, who has the right to judge? Socrates or Joy Behar, is either in any way wiser than the other? Such is the postmodern relativism underlying the cult of Inclusiveness. Such is the stupidity of those such as Ansari who automatically denounce as Racist anyone who dares defend the Cultural integrity of the West.
Are there racists among those who support the AfD? Of course there are. But this in no way negates the legitimacy of that party’s concerns. “Conservatives” see Man as an Intelligent, Moral being obligated to behave as such by his very nature. Each Civilization’s Culture represents the extent to which it has collectively honored that obligation. But the neo-Marxist Left sees this as mere nonsense, “homo sapiens” [sapientia meaning “wisdom”] being the delusional identity adopted by that portion of the species unwilling to admit we are really just another animal motivated by greed and power. This of course means my conviction that the brilliance and diversity of Western Culture is incomparably superior to, for example, anything produced by the Indigenous of the Americas, is just a form of White Supremacism based on the delusion that intelligence, creativity, achievement, etc. are of significant human value. It means that political initiatives rooted in a concern for Culture are always but veiled expressions of Hatred. Leftist commentators, to put it bluntly, can’t engage in honest moral/intellectual analyses of the issues before them because Intelligence and Morality are not part of their neo-Marxist narrative. It is why this blog is called “the politics of hate,” a title intended to highlight the ironic tendency of the Inclusive Mob to angrily hurl insults at their “conservative” opponents, because there is no rational defense for much of what they believe.
The issue of Islamic immigration into Europe is a complex one. Turning away migrants genuinely seeking to escape persecution is clearly unacceptable. But so also is the “woke” inclination of Western leaders such as Merkel and Biden to mindlessly open their borders to a limitless onslaught of foreigners with no thought whatsoever of the repercussions, cultural, economic or otherwise. The outrage of a number of American Democrats with the chaos created within their cities and states by Biden’s open border policy, suggests there are valid reasons for Western governments to defend the integrity of their borders. To those of a traditional Humanist world view [i.e. “conservatives”], the defense of their Culture is perhaps the foremost of those reasons. Yet to Sadiya Ansari and indeed most contemporary “intellectuals,” Britain’s Brexit and Germany’s AfD Party are loathsome. It is a simplistic valuation rooted in the superficiality of their neo-Marxist perspective, a perspective that sees all who have failed to flourish as the victims of “oppression,” as if they are no responsible for the arc of his lives than the average monkey or hedgehog.