How ideology replaces humanity

David Frum agrees with Robert Spencer that it was a very good thing for the British government to knight Salman Rushdie.

Gosh, these neocons are clueless. They don’t see what an obnoxious, alien figure Rushdie is, and what a grotesque insult to Britain his knighthood is. They don’t see real countries and real people. They just see ideology. So all they can see in Rushdie is a symbol of “freedom,” to be employed against the Muslims’ ideology of anti-freedom.

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Jeff in England writes:

Agreed. But now that Rushdie has been knighted the issue of his right not to be threatened and attacked must be focused on. Rushdie didn’t deserve a knighthood but neither did many others who have been knighted in recent years. They are not being threatened as far as I know. The main point now is that Muslims in the West have to learn that if they threaten or attack Rushdie they will be punished in a severe manner.

As for Muslims outside the West, they need to be condemned in no uncertain terms and we should consider boycotting or financially punishing Muslim countries like Pakistan. We cannot repeat the Western appeasing behaviour towards Muslims when the original Rushdie Affair (or Cartoon Affair or Pope Affair) was taking place. We must go on the offensive this time and reassert Western values of free speech and religious freedom. We must show clearly that we are not going to give in to the barbarity of Muslim threatening behaviour.

LA replies:

Sure, but don’t you see the irony in calling on Britain—which just demonstrated her total contempt for herself by honoring this person who despises her—to defend herself proudly from other countries which are attacking her for having honored that person?

C.S. Lewis wrote in The Abolition of Man that liberalism gelds a man, then bids him be fruitful, meaning that liberalism takes away a man’s belief in truth, then expects him to stand up for principle. Britain by knighting Rushdie has just gelded itself, and now you expect this self-gelded country to act bravely against other countries which are attacking it for having gelded itself.

Or, to paraphrase another British writer, Winston Churchill, you expect Britain to be pugnacious for pusillanimity, heroic for self-hatred, ardent for self-abnegation.

Karen writes from England:

Regarding Jeff’s comments, how can Moslems who threaten Rushdie be “punished in a severe manner” when the state has demonstrated its weakness and preference for the appeasement of Moslem aggression in every possible way? Boycott and financially punish Pakistan? The Government just gave Pakistan huge aid packages. There is just no chance of this country “going on the offensive” and standing up to Moslem barbarity, as you have rightly pointed out. Jeff likes to stand up for people/animals who are being threatened and abused, and that is a good thing in the right circumstances, but this time he is just barking up the wrong tree.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 21, 2007 08:51 PM | Send