How neocons learn about reality

KPA writes from Canada:

A couple of nights ago, Mark Stein was on a Canadian current affairs program to talk about his Macleans magazine article (mostly it is on demographics), and the consequent complaint filed against him by three Muslims to the Human Rights Commission for his “promotion of hate.”

Through his own quite admirable aggressive request, he was allowed to sit on a panel with them after his initial interview with the host Steve Paiken. The three Muslims had originally declined to have him on their panel.

This was one of the few times when everything Steyn said was laudable, especially as compared to the three whining and arrogant Muslims who are making outrageous demands, including trying to force Macleans to give them editorial rebuttal in the magazine.

But during the show I also realized Steyn’s intellectual arrogance and superficiality, despite my 100 percent preference for his character, including his jokes, over the three Muslims.

He came to the conclusion that there are no moderate Muslims (at least in Europe) based on surveys and polls of Muslims currently living in the West that show, for example, that 40 percent of young Muslims in Britain want to live under sharia law, that 36 percent of them believe apostasy is punishable by death, etc.

His first mistake here is in differentiating between “assimilable” American and Canadian Muslims, and non-assimilable ones in Europe. He said: “There are differences between American Muslims [and European ones]. America I think has a better assimilationist pull than most Western countries.”

When push comes to shove, I think he will always end up asserting that moderate Muslims exist in some enclaves (the more educated? Over 25s? Turkish? Persian? American and Canadian? Feminist women?), which will forever cloud his overall analysis of Islam.

His second mistake is that he bases his discovery that Muslims in Europe are not assimilating on statistics. There have been 1,400 years of reports, scholarly work, operas, novels, visual references (destroyed buildings, paintings), lost civilizations, wars, and the Koran itself to make this point. But all this was not enough for Steyn. The only thing that could persuade him that at least some Muslims (those in Europe) are not moderate is contemporary polling data. Statistics, not the thousand-year history of Islam, finally showed him that modern day Muslims are jihadists and sharia-supporters, which of course is exactly what Muslims have always been. The arrogance is in his disregarding anything that he wasn’t able to “see for himself.”

I think this is how he works out his demographic doom and gloom as well.

The really revealing moment in the show was when one of the Canadian moderate Muslim panelists, who is all about peace and assimilation, says to Steyn: “I think you want to be a martyr.” Meaning, of course, “All those Jihadi Muslims will put a fatwa on your life and kill you!” Of which she of course is not a part …

Steyn didn’t get it. Although it might come up in one of his articles later on.

PS: The video of the panel is worth watching just to see the supremely boring, aggressive, whining methods the Muslims have to make their points, which I believe will always be their modus operandi.

LA replies:

You are making an excellent point. And this I think is the essence of neocon epistemology, to use the fancy term for how we know things. The neocons are unable/unwilling to understand reality in the normal way that intelligent people understand it, by looking at the whole picture (including the history of something). This looking at the whole picture involves a combination of reading, observation, logic, intuition, and common sense; it cannot be put in a mathematical term or a neat phrase. But the neocons can only relate to easy-to-digest “tidbits,” like poll statistics or slogans. It’s like what I said about Giuliani in the “Anguish over Obama” thread today. Giuliani had good poll numbers among Republicans (statistics), and he was “tough” (slogan). And that was enough to make the neocons believe completely in his “inevitability” and commit themselves totally to him on that basis—this candidate whom five minutes of normal reasoning, including knowledge of his record, would reveal was totally unsuited for the GOP nomination.

It’s the same with “democratization.” They heard a slogan, “Coddling dictators in Muslim world hasn’t worked, therefore democracy will work,” and a second slogan, “All moms in the universe love their kids, therefore everyone wants democracy.” And that was it! On this flimsy basis they became true believers in the democratization of the Muslim world.

KPA replies:

Yes, and the other point is, which you also made in your post on the pseudo-intellectual treatment of birth rates, where you wrote: “They seem to get a frisson from imagining that they have the ability to discern the shape of History,” is that Steyn thinks he alone is discerning the shape of History through his own seeing (observation), like a cutting edge scientist (in fact his “observation” only consists of reading a poll in a newspaper article), whereas History has been shaping itself from the beginning of time. At least 1,400 years regarding Islam. There’s nothing new he’s discerning here.

LA replies:

Yes, for the neocons, there are no historical realities from which we can learn about the world in general and Islam in particular. There are no sacred authoritative texts of Islam, there’s no history of Islam from which we can reach certain conclusions about the nature of Islam. But there is the latest poll.

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Dimitri K. writes:

I think it is wrong to oppose theory and statistics. Some learn from theory, but most—from statistics. A good theory is one which can be supported by statistics. Problems in ideology are such because they have practical consequences. I would say, the God always acts in an obvious way.

LA replies:

I didn’t mean to say that statistics are not a useful and important tool for understanding things. The neoconservatives’ very useful contribution to conservatism, back in the ’70s, was to bring statistical social sciences into the critique of liberal government policies such as welfare. In some areas, statistics by themselves are sufficient to understand the issue at hand, say group IQ differences. In other areas, statistics by themselves are a radically flawed way of understanding things. To use poll data to reach one’s understanding of the nature of Islam or what constitutes Islamic radicalism is ludicrous.

David Winch writes:

Re-reading the excerpt from Steyn’s book, I find it just stunning how amateurish his notions of population, birth rates, fecundity, etc. are.

In his discussion of the falling birth rates “everywhere in the Mediterranean,” conveniently there is no mention of France, whose birth rates have soared 30 per cent to almost 2.0 per woman in the last decade, following decisive government action (i.e. subsisides).

…. add to that the little item about Russia on your site the other day.

Honestly, Steyn needs a good comeuppance !

MG writes:

David Winch writes:

“Re-reading the excerpt from Steyn’s book, I find it just stunning how amateurish his notions of population, birth rates, fecundity, etc. are.

“In his discussion of the falling birth rates “everywhere in the Mediterranean,” conveniently there is no mention of France, whose birth rates have soared 30 per cent to almost 2.0 per woman in the last decade, following decisive government action (i.e. subsisides).”

David W. forgets that women of France fall into two very different groups: 85-90 percent white women with low birth rate (probably around 1.4-1.7) and 10-15 percent African and Arab women with rates in 5-6 range.

My guess is that birth rate among French women changed very little if at all, but welfare-consuming Arab and African women responded enthusiastically to the new government give away.

It’s hard to see how this helps stall Muslim take-over.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 08, 2008 10:37 PM | Send