Spencer is a liberal, redux

The other week Robert Spencer went overboard (and over the edge) in response to my description of him as a liberal or a neoconservative, complaining over and over that in subjecting his published statements to critical analysis, I was “smearing” him and “dividing the anti-jihadist side.” Yet at the same time, demonstrating the amazing lack of intellectual self-awareness that he has shown throughout our exchanges, Spencer keeps going overboard in confirming that he is indeed a liberal.

Thus in a blog entry yesterday at Jihad Watch, he asks, “What are we fighting for?” And his answer is the pure liberal package: liberal universal values, universal human freedom, the equal dignity of all persons, blah blah blah. He does not stand for the historical actuality of Western society and the Western peoples, but only for the West’s universal values which are good for all mankind, and which thus can only be truly fulfilled by the West’s embracing and including all mankind. Such formulations are, of course, a hallmark of liberalism or neoconservatism, just as I have argued. At the same time, Spencer says that the concern I have stated about preserving the historic ethnic particularity of the Western nations, i.e., the white majority character and culture of the West (along with the West’s other traditional components and values which I also defend), is “white supremacism,” and “is as repugnant” as the ideas of the jihadists. Of course, the automatic indictment—as “repugnant,” “immoral,” and “racist”—of any notion of Western ethnocultural particularity is another sure touchstone of liberalism. In Spencer’s mind, if you want to save the historically white-majority countries of the world from being swamped, transformed, and destroyed by mass non-Western immigration, that means you are seeking racial “supremacy” over non-Western peoples, which makes you disgusting and evil.

So, Spencer accused me of trying to “divide the anti-jihadist” side when I merely said that he was a liberal or a neoconservative. Then this pleader for anti-jihadist unity turns around and says that my views are as repugnant as those of the jihadists, thus attempting to read me out of the anti-jihadist camp, and indeed out of all respectable intellectual society.

No wonder Spencer calls Ayaan Hirsi Ali a “hero,” notwithstanding her support for banning conservative and anti-immigration parties in Europe. In principle, he agrees with her.

- end of initial entry -

Van Wijk writes:

Mr. Spencer said some interesting things in his blog comments:

“You and Mr. Auster evidently have not noticed that there are black Americans, and have been for hundreds of years. What is your cut-off point for racial and ethnic purity in North America? 1600? 1500? Many of those black Americans, despite politically-motivated racial polarization today, have contributed a great deal to American society.”

Personally, I find the the-blacks-have-given-us-so-much line to be a very tired one. Blacks have always been a minority in our country, and so reasonably their contribution to society must be viewed as just that: a contribution, and one made within a society that was invented by white Europeans. Whether that contribution is above and beyond the call of duty, so to speak, and “can never be repaid” is debatable. For instance, the constant singling-out of all-black military units for praise never seemed logical. These generally served in a minuscule capacity when compared to similar white units (I understand that the reason for this was due to restricting the number of these units by the service, but I’m interested in giving credit where credit is due. Woulda, coulda, didn’t), and they certainly weren’t elite. This is not hate, this is fact. Mr. Spencer is appealing to emotion.

Also, Spencer seems to think that in order to bring the West back to its senses, you would expel every dark-skinned individual from the West, despite your explicit comments to the contrary. This all-or-nothing attitude (you either embrace multiculturalism or you’re a Nazi) strikes me less as liberalism and more as far-leftism.

“The genius of the West is not its whiteness, but in its civilization, which Auster claims to revere but severely misunderstands. People of many races, not just white people, have proven able to adopt Western values and perspectives. For Auster to prescribe a white U.S. as the remedy for modern racial politics is to adopt a parched and impoverished view of Western civilization. Our laws, our language, and our literature come from England, but there are many people from all over who are quite capable of accepting and embracing them.”

He makes it sound like the first colonists to arrive in America were 1/4 European, 1/4 black, 1/4 Asian, and 1/4 Miscellaneous. Again, Third-World immigration didn’t begin here or in Europe until the European nations were already very well established.

Spencer is flat-out wrong when he says that “many people from all over” are capable and willing to accept Western values and culture. There are some, like the Indian character in The Camp of the Saints, but their numbers are very few indeed, and they are always educated and intelligent enough to appreciate the West. But start bringing in bargeloads of Pakistanis, Mexicans, Cambodians, and what do you get? Cities partitioned into Little Pakistans, Little Mexicos, and Little Cambodias, respectively, each preserving its own culture and its own language.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 07, 2006 12:41 PM | Send