The choice is not between liberalism and Islam, but between traditionalism and Islam

In June 2008, Henry Hotspur wrote about Bruce Bawer’s comically futile search for a European country that would be both homosexual-tolerant and Islam-intolerant. I summarized and commented on Hotspur’s article. Here are excerpts from the entry:

By a cruel twist of fate, wherever Bawer went in Europe that was especially friendly to homosexuals, somehow also turned out to be especially dangerous for homosexuals….

Bawer, says Hotspur, fails to understand that the same ultra freedom that produces total tolerance for homosexuals, also produces total tolerance for violently homosexual-hating Muslims. He fails to recognize that Europe, by stripping itself of “oppressive” Christian morality, turned itself into a moral vacuum into which the million-times-more-oppressive moral system of Islam could freely insert itself….

Bawer is thus a typical deluded liberal. He is deeply hostile to traditional Western norms, since such norms oppressed homosexuals. His ideal is unrestrained freedom, achieved by the removal of traditional norms. But such unrestrained freedom opens the doors to the Muslims who also deeply alarm Bawer.

… He is unable to comprehend that a totally free and liberal society, that is, a society that lacks any traditional moral or cultural authority, will also lack the will to oppose the inroads of Islam. The real choice then, is not between a totally free Europe and an Islamized Europe, since a totally free Europe will inevitably be Islamized. The real choice is between a re-traditionalized Europe and an Islamized Europe.

In my follow-up 2009 article, Bruce Bawer denounces the anti-jihad movement, I showed how Bawer’s fear and loathing of conservatives equals or transcends his fear of Islam.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 23, 2009 04:07 PM | Send