Another superficial “conservative” celebrates the defeat of liberalism

Here is Telegraph columnist (“The world is turning conservative, so liberals are eating their words”) Damian Thompson’s clueless take: Because the non-liberal Third World, particularly the Islamic world, is becoming more influential and powerful, both in its own countries and in the West, and Western liberal leaders in the interests of good relations are accommodating Third-World leaders’ non-liberal views, this is a victory for conservatism. He doesn’t see that the growth of the power of Islam in our societies means our destruction, not our conservation.

Thus he seems to gloat over the fact that far-leftist Labour politician Ken Livingstone, in pursuit of the growing number of “conservative” Muslim votes in his district, has changed his tune, using the word “Jewish” in a pejorative manner and describing the Tories as “riddled with homosexuality.”

Conservative deep thinker

Where is Thompson going wrong? He is employing what P.D. Ouspensky called formatory thinking. Instead of using his intellect to try to understand reality as it is, he is mistaking the form of words for reality. The operative word here is “conservative.” Because Islam is arguably “conservative,” therefore as Muslims gain influence and leadership in our society, we too will become more “conservative.” What he is missing is that “conservative” in an Islamic context means an entirely different thing from what it means in a Western context. It means traditional Islam—sharia, Islamic supremacism, the submission of non-Muslims to the Islamic law, the suppression of Christians and Jews, the brutal subjection of women, death to apostates, and so on. All of this is obviously totally incompatible with Western society, whether in its conservative or its liberal iterations. But Thompson doesn’t see this, because, mistaking the form of words for reality, he thinks “conservative” has just one meaning.

- end of initial entry -

LA writes:There is another side to Thompson’s argument which is not nonsensical: that as the nations of the Third World increasingly assert their traditional cultures and their dislike of the Western decadence that accompanies modern Western liberalism, this will put a large obstacle in the path of the global democratists. Such a development is to be welcomed. However, it is not our attempt to spread democracy into the Third World that threatens our existence, but the spread of the Third World into our world. And Thompson seems to have no objection to the latter, because he sees it as part of the advance of “conservatism.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 24, 2012 11:14 AM | Send