The battle between liberalism and its terrorist child

A reader writes from Florida:

Mr. Blair has said that the recent London attacks are directed at British “values” and “our way of life.”

This is an example of extreme cognitive dissonance.

The British “way of life,” as it is now constituted and as it has been promoted and nurtured by Mr. Blair, is Islamic extremism and terrorist attacks in the heart of London. Islamic terrorism is the British way of life, and will be for the foreseeable future.

A true “attack on our way of life” would attack the status quo of extremism and terrorism by the steps you have repeatedly outlined in your site, but of course Mr. Blair cannot undertake such an attack because it would be an attack upon himself, his government, and the “values” he holds most dear. The London attacks are a perfect reflection of Mr. Blair’s “values.”

LA to reader:

Well, what Blair would say in response to you is that the British way of life consists of tolerance for many cultures living together, with no common culture or allegiance other than the belief in liberal tolerance itself. This is what he’s claiming that the terrorists attacked. But, of course, as you point out, Britain’s tolerant multicultural society is the very thing that empowered the terrorists to carry out the attack.

In fact, what the terrorists are attacking is not liberalism or multiculturalism, but Britain, that is, whatever remains of Britain as a particular concrete society. But Blair cannot acknowledge that, because that would require him to defend Britain as a particular concrete society.

Blair has thus drawn the battle line between liberalism, and the terrorism that liberalism liberates.

Obviously, this is a battle that liberalism cannot win, as long as it remains liberalism. Britain can defeat the jihadists and terrorists. Tony Blair’s “values” cannot.

Reader to LA:

Thank you for your response. I agree with it completely.

A “tolerant, open, and multicultural” society, should it include a critical mass of Moslems, will invite its own destruction. So, the highest principles of liberalism will lead inevitably to a “way of life” that includes Muslim terrorism. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly.

LA to reader:

Exactly. This is the key to understanding the inherent destructiveness of liberalism. As more and more people come to understand this point, that liberalism itself is the problem, and not merely some excess of liberalism, it becomes possible that our civilization may be saved.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 13, 2005 11:50 AM | Send