Dalrymple on Muslims and immigration

(Note: This entry contains a discussion of what makes Dalrymple a liberal rather than a conservative. The topic is also continued in a separate blog entry. )

Here is another establishment conservative (i.e., a liberal), Theodore Dalrymple, who, for the first time in his writing career, is saying critical things about Muslim immigration. He even affirms the rightness of discrimination. But then he turns around and heaps piles of liberal guilt on Britain, the West, and, it seems, on all of us, almost as a punishment (on himself? on Britain?) for having had these unacceptable thoughts.

First let’s catch the highlights as he builds up to his point about restricting immigration:

One of the most sinister effects of the efforts of the bombers and would-be bombers is that they have undermined trust completely…. [N]o one can ever be quite sure whether a Muslim who appears polite and accommodating is not simultaneously contemplating mass murder…. Mistrust of Muslims in Britain has developed quite quickly and could develop much further….

The fundamental problem is this: There is an asymmetry between the good that many moderate Muslims can do for Britain and the harm that a few fanatics can do to it. The 1-in-1,000 chance that a man is a murderous fanatic is more important to me than the 999-in-1,000 chance that he is not a murderous fanatic …

And the plain fact of the matter is that British society could get by perfectly well without the contribution even of moderate Muslims….

In other words, one of the achievements of the bombers and would-be bombers is to make discrimination against most Muslims who wish to enter Britain a perfectly rational policy….

This is real change, real progress. But then he undermines it:

The problem causes deep philosophical discomfort to everyone who believes in a tolerant society. On the one hand we believe that every individual should be judged on his merits, while, on the other, we know it would be absurd and dangerous to pretend that the threat of terrorism comes from sections of the population equally.

History is full of the most terrible examples of what happens when governments and peoples ascribe undesirable traits to minorities, and no decent person would wish to participate in the crimes to which this ascription can give rise; yet it would also be folly to ignore sociological reality.

All that is needed, then, to deal with the present situation is the wisdom of Solomon.

He makes it seem as though Britain must become the incarnation of Nazi-like evil if it takes the rational measures toward Muslim immigration that he just suggested it needs to take. Only the most tortured process, aided by the “wisdom of Solomon,” can possibly solve the dilemma. Well, thanks a lot. How would you like to be trying to stave off an immigration invasion with this guy on your side?

The fact is that Dalrymple, torn between his belief in a “tolerant society” and his desire that his society not destroy itself, is in a heck of a fix, and he wants Britain and all of us to be in that same fix with him. He sees that the current liberal policy is dangerous and that it must be stopped, but he cannot bring himself to affirm his new, non-liberal position because that would mean embracing attitudes that for him are deeply immoral. He recognizes that a consistent liberal policy toward the immigration of Muslims spells Britain’s ruin. But he’s a liberal and can’t leave liberalism. How then is he to act?

With paralyzing ambivalence. He treats his new-found belief in immigration restrictionism not as a morally valid stand but as an unprincipled exception to his overall liberalism. He’ll support some measures to control Muslim immigration. But he’ll keep feeling guilty and torn about the issue the whole time.

Moreover, this is the same guy who when he’s writing about Britain’s or France’s deterioration seems to savor the sense of impending cultural doom. When describing unmitigated nightmare coming on his civilization, he’s not inhibited at all, he’s in his gloomy glory. But, when it comes to doing something positive for once to protect his civilization, he’s suddenly afflicted with a tortured conscience.

Nevertheless, what has happened here is positive. A respected writer has taken several steps away from the liberal taboo on discrimination to which he has apparently adhered for his entire life. And—who knows?—perhaps the exits will turn out to be more clearly marked than any of us now realize.

- end of initial entry -

Thomas F. writes:

While I greatly enjoy your blog (though I cannot share many of your fundamental principles), I must say that I think you are too harsh with Dr. Dalrymple. He’s kindly, but, you’ll find, none too soft and liberal. It’s the British reserve thing, perhaps. Not many are as adamant as you about punching the point all the way home (which BTW is something I particularly admire about you!).

In fact, Dalrymple is deeply pessimistic, and thoroughly imbued with the conservative’s “tragic sense of life”; not that being curmudgeonly is all there is to being conservative, but it’s a good start to being anti-utopian. Indeed, I think he shares much in common with you. See, e.g., an interview here.

His books, too, are good if somewhat depressing.

I really, really appreciate your strong stand on immigration, together with your spirited defense of our Western tradition. You kept a lot of us bucked-up during this recent Senate fight!

LA replies:

I agree with all your points except one. Yes, as you say, Dalrymple has this dark, tragic, pessimistic view of life which is the opposite of what we think of as liberal.

But those attitudes are not the essential components of a non-liberal view. First lets’ think about what is liberalism. The essence of liberalism is the belief in freedom and equality as the guiding principles of society. The essence of modern liberalism (post WWII liberalism) is the belief in tolerance and non-discrimination as the guiding principles of society. And therefore a true conservative would not make equality, tolerance, and non-discrimination the guiding principle of society. (Not that a conservative is against tolerance, but he doesn’t make it the ruling idea.)

Also, by tolerance I don’t mean the old idea of suffering that which you don’t approve. I mean the modern liberal idea of nonjudgmentally accepting and being open to whatever comes down the road.

In today’s Britain, as I realized to my shock after the July 2005 bombing, tolerance—unconditioned tolerance—is the guiding principle of society, the touchstone that is constantly appealed to on every issue. It was tolerance that led the British to allow millions of Third-World people including Muslims into Britain, and it was tolerance that has led the Brits to allow the Muslims including terror supporters free rein of their Island, and it’s tolerance that keeps the British from reacting against the enemies in their midst. The main reason for the surrender of Britain to Islamization is tolerance.

Now keep that in mind when you re-read what Dalrymple wrote:

The problem [of controlling Muslim immigration] causes deep philosophical discomfort to everyone who believes in a tolerant society. On the one hand we believe that every individual should be judged on his merits, while, on the other, we know it would be absurd and dangerous to pretend that the threat of terrorism comes from sections of the population equally.

History is full of the most terrible examples of what happens when governments and peoples ascribe undesirable traits to minorities, and no decent person would wish to participate in the crimes to which this ascription can give rise; yet it would also be folly to ignore sociological reality.

Someone who says, “I believe in a tolerant society,” meaning, “My default position is that Britain should be open to everyone,” is a liberal. It means that whenever he is confronted with a choice between, say, letting Muslims into his society or not, the belief in tolerance will be the deciding value. A liberal says, “The problem of how to keep out Muslim immigrants causes deep philosophical discomfort to everyone who believes in a tolerant society.” A true British conservative or traditionalist would say: “The presence of a vast Muslim population causes deep philosophical discomfort to everyone who believes in a British, Christian, white, Western, European society.”

70 years ago no self-respecting Englishmen would have uttered the wimpy statement, “We believe in a tolerant society.” They might have espoused an attitude of tolerance in specific circumstances; but they would not have defined Britain in terms of tolerance. Loyalty to King, Country, Duty, Honor, would have been their highest values.

The fact that Dalrymple, this famously grim, hardbitten, pessimistic figure, as soon as the issue of immigration controls came up (which he had never discussed before) instinctively made tolerance the main test of the moral rightness of his views of immigration, and that it was this very idea of tolerance that made him so uncomfortable and guilty at the thought of keeping out Muslims, proves that he is a liberal—yes, a liberal who is struggling to work his way out of the suicidal implications of his liberalism, but a liberal nonetheless.

It is not attitudes and personal style that make a conservative or a liberal, it is whether one believes primarily in a substantive order of being, or whether one believes primarily in freedom, equality, and non-discrimination.

I’m glad you brought up this question, as it enabled me to clarify a point that may have confused other readers as well.

Thanks for writing.

Ben W. writes:

Dalrymple writes, “The problem causes deep philosophical discomfort to everyone who believes in a tolerant society.”

How does belief in a tolerant society qualify as an absolute? Which holy writ commands that as a sacred principle? Has God decreed this?

In any case what is a tolerant society? How did tolerance without a specific target become enshrined as an absolute? Tolerance towards what exactly? If tolerance is a universal virtue, then why don’t we tolerate pedophiles and rapists? If tolerance is not a universal virtue, then there is no “deep philosophical discomfort” because human beings can judge, discriminate, distinguish, categorize, isolate, differentiate, externalize and draw distinctions.

Ben W. writes:

I believe that when people start talking about a “tolerant society” it is because they have lost confidence in the authority of a society or a civilization or a nation to make distinctions, to judge and categorize, to distinguish and separate. The words “tolerant society” really mean let’s not assert ourselves in a confident manner.

A “tolerant society” is a formless cloud whose only possible shape is bounded by a series of unprincipled exceptions.

From a Biblical perspective, people usually cite Matthew 7:1 (“Judge not that ye be not judged”) as a plea for social tolerance. Yet they forget Matthew 25:32 (“And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.”). Here we have a separation of NATIONS (not just individuals).

This reminds me that Paul, in speaking of different peoples, stated in Acts 17:26 that God had fixed “the bounds of their habitations.” Boundaries.

I’ve often reflected on Genesis 11:1-8. Why is it that God took a people with a common and universal language and dispersed them? 11:4 says that they wanted to build an edifice “whose top may reach unto heaven.” In other words their building effort was poised towards the heavenlies in replication of the divine (reminds one of the neo-con assertion that American democracy is religious in nature).

God’s response—“now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” Once humanity conceives a form of universalistic edifice and imbues it with a religious sense, all restraint in imagination is lost. Doesn’t this describe the progress of liberalism towards a universalism in which all distinctions are destroyed and any shapes or forms are imaginable?

It’s almost as if God anticipated in Genesis 11 the disease of unconstrained universalism we currently suffer from… A universalism undergirded by tolerance in which all distinctions and any judgments are lost.

LA replies:

Ben wrote: “I believe that when people start talking about a ‘tolerant society’ it is because they have lost confidence in the authority of a society or a civilization or a nation to make distinctions, to judge and categorize, to distinguish and separate. The words ‘tolerant society’ really mean let’s not assert ourselves in a confident manner.”

This is excellent. It shows that the liberal belief in equality and tolerance is not the primary impulse but the secondary impulse. The primary impulse is the loss of belief in a substantive transcendent, such as one’s nation. Once that’s happened, one has no substantive value any more by which one can give things a true evaluation, as in, “This is good because it adds to the wealth and strenght of the United States,” or, “This is bad because it takes away from the wealth and strength of the United States.” When there’s nothing to love any more, all values become equal, and then one starts boasting of how we have a tolerant—i.e., an empty and meaningless—society.

Jeff in England writes:

Good reply saying what needed to be said.

I agree it is progress to have some of these Suspects mentioning the possibility of immigration restriction of Muslims. But the immigrants are coming in in such numbers so quickly that my celebration of the Suspects’ ‘getting it’ doesn’t last long.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 10, 2007 07:02 PM | Send