Malkin thinks liberalism is merely “dumb”

Michelle Malkin sums up the recent arrests of terrorist in the U.S.—Muslims, every mother’s son of them. It’s a powerful catalogue. But she spoils the effect of it when she calls the Canadian authorities’ comment that “it is difficult to find a common denominator” among the Toronto terror suspects an instance of “jaw-dropping dim-wittedness.” Does Malkin really believe that the dogmatic denial of socially significant differences among human groups—and especially the banning of any negative generalization about non-Western groups—is due merely to dim-wittedness? Doesn’t Malkin realize that it’s due to liberalism, which just happens to be the dominant belief system of the modern world? I didn’t realize that Malkin was a member of the “PC is silly” school.

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J. writes:

I still think that when an informed, intelligent columnist pulls punches in one PC area it’s likely indicative of an across-the-board failure to treat the problem with due seriousness and perspective. Spencer, Malkin, and most of conservative punditry only seem willing to tackle certain convenient symptoms of the problem (radical Islam, illegal immigration, silly PC manifestations, etc.) and in a manner that shows they’re not really serious about diagnosing and curing it. Their proposed solutions accordingly will not solve the problem.

VFR’s approach is fundamentally different in this respect, going right to the root of the problem and laying it wide open for treatment.

LA replies:

I think there are two sides to this.

On one hand, it’s simply a lack of thought. All these people have been formed by and are part of a “climate of opinion,” the received opinions of a certain milieu, in this case, “conservatism.” In their world view, certain things are “liberal,” such as being anti-Bush, being anti-Iraq war, anti-American, etc., and certain things are “conservative,” such as being pro-military and anti-illegal immigration. But all these things are just issues, separate and discrete issues. There’s a lack of thinking through to the larger concepts that make liberalism or conservatism what it is. There are just “liberal” issues, and “conservative” issues. Also, as I think I said in the “Why does conservatives call PC silly” article linked above, it simply takes less effort to call something “dumb” or “wacky” than to try to understand it in terms of first principles.

But on the other hand, it’s not just laziness or a lack of thought. If Malkin were to think about why that Canadian assistant police commissioner said there was “no common denominator” among the terror suspects, she would realize that it’s because of premises that she herself shares, namely that we should not make negative generalizations about non-Western groups. Since she shares that liberal premise, she doesn’t want to expose it; or, rather, she is not even aware of it, it is simply a given, a part of her mental make-up. Her difference from the commissioner is that in this case he carried the liberal rule to patently absurd extremes. But it’s not extreme in terms of liberalism itself. In terms of the fundamental premises of liberalism, his denial of a common denominator among the suspected terrorists is logically consistent. If liberals (and mainstream conservatives) started to notice the real differences of Muslims from Westerners, then the liberals’ (and mainstream conservatives’) belief in the sameness and equality of all human groups would be discredited, the belief that we can bring every people into the West on a strictly non-discriminatory basis would be discredited, and the whole liberal (and mainstream conservative) house would come tumbling down. That’s why Malkin doesn’t challenge the premise. She only mocks its extreme application in this case.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 08, 2006 03:15 PM | Send