On Mohammedism and giving peace a chance
December 10, 2015 § 15 Comments
Bonald points out that Islam actually is a religion of peace, as long as the entire world becomes subject to a universal Caliphate, apostates are executed as the traitors against the Caliphate which they are, and dhimmis stay in their place.
I’d further point out that this is one sense in which Islam is inherently more peaceful than liberalism. At least a universal Caliphate under sharia is rationally conceivable, so it is possible in principle for war between the dar-al-islam and the dar-al-kufr to come to an end: for dar-al-harb and dar-al-kufr to shrink to nothing.
With liberalism it is a different story. Liberalism is not rationally coherent, so an end to its violence is not even conceivable without liberalism itself disappearing. Perpetual violent revolution is inevitable under liberalism, even when liberalism is universally triumphant.
So the only path to peace available to liberals, even just as something rationally conceivable, is repentance. The only even conceptually coherent path to peace from under liberalism is to come out from under it: to reject it utterly and unequivocally.
Zippy Catholic 
Perpetual violent revolution is inevitable under liberalism, even when liberalism is universally triumphant.
Especially when liberalism is universally triumphant. When the revolution wins, it must continue by devouring itself.
There will come a point where left-liberalism, which I think is really liberalism unalloyed with any other philosophy (right-liberalism being alloyed with religion and other influences), simply has no observable basis in reality. It will probably take SJWs militantly demanding that transgendered pedophilic zoophiles be considered a protected class. The first is already a protected class. Efforts are being made on the second adjective. Only the noun in that statement is a real frontier for them.
For now.
I think that – even after you’ve convinced someone that liberalism is self-contradictory – this is still one of the most difficult points to get across: that Liberalism is always and necessarily at war with itself. Many still think that a particular conception of Liberalism (that is, a particular basket of unprincipled exceptions), can somehow remain stable and peaceful – at least within itself.
It is the nature of a contradiction to assert everything and its opposite at once; always, necessarily, and simultaneously. Thus, if I start with the self-contradictory premise of Liberalism, I can validly prove anything and I can validly disprove anything.
When a people, then, is truly committed to Liberalism, there can be no peaceful resolution of conflict amongst them. When they disagree, Liberalism validly logically affirms both sides of the argument. Both sides can validly conclude that they are right. Furthermore, both sides are unwilling to acknowledge that the other side’s arguments are also validly affirmed by Liberalism, because that would require recognizing Liberalism’s self-contradictory nature.
A conflict amongst liberals, then, cannot be resolved by deliberation, unless he is convinced by logic that actually is invalid (which I suppose does happen occasionally). Both sides are committed to the same underlying principles which validly affirm both of their contrary positions: the independent chains of logic are in fact valid, and there is no way to validly attack the structure of the argument rather than the premises (which a fellow liberal will not do). There can be no convincing the other side; in the end the only way to deal with them is to suppress them by force or to get rid of them altogether.
As an aside, one of the most common ways the mind trap is perpetuated is when a liberal assumes he’s disproved his opponent via reductio. He basically says, “My proposition validly follows from freedom and equality. Your proposition is contrary to my proposition. Therefore your proposition cannot validly follow from freedom and equality.” This form of argument is so enticing because, if Liberalism were actually coherent, it would be a good argument. As it stands, though, it prevents the liberal from considering his premises.
So, whenever liberals disagree, they literally cannot resolve the issue with deliberation if they argue validly. I suppose, in theory, a people that never had disagreements could maintain a peaceful Liberalism, but history shows us that there is no such thing as a people that never has disagreements – even for comparatively short periods of time.
That brings us back around to Zippy’s point: an internally coherent substantive conception of the good – even if it is externally incoherent – is at least not always and necessarily at war with itself. It is therefore intrinsically more peaceful (perhaps not peaceful, but more peaceful) than Liberalism, always and necessarily.
It’s truly a sobering realization that the Islamic terrorist’s “Allahu Akbar!” is intrinsically more peaceful than Benjamin Franklin’s “Freedom is…a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.”
Islam is divided into enough of sects and schools of thought beyond “Sunni vs. Shiite” that I’m not sure this theory is that good. The way ISIS is behaving toward fellow Sunnis also shows that in practice, Islam has a nature that is at war with itself as well just like liberalism.
That’s a good insight.
Liberalism must always be purging itself of anything contrary to freedom and equality; and since literally everything is contrary to freedom and equality, it is constantly severing from within itself every piece of meaning that it manages to identify as distinct from freedom and equality – which includes every single other school of thought out there.
The right-liberals are just behind the curve because they have comparative levels of commitment to non-liberal philosophies.
The most self-destructive liberalism is pure liberalism.
The difference is that there is no such thing as an internally coherent conception of liberalism.
If you consider a single Muslim sect (like just the Sunnis or just the Shiites), they have a conception of the good that is internally coherent – even if it is externally incoherent and contrary to other Muslim sects’ conceptions of the good. Because it is internally coherent no one with the same foundational principles can validly argue that their conception of the good is wrong.
Another way to look at it is that Muslims don’t disagree and divide up into different sects because they disagree on what follows from their foundational principles, they do so because they disagree on what the foundational principals even are in the first place.
Even if the different sects of Islam are not compatible with each other, they are at least compatible with themselves. No conception of Liberalism, on the other hand, is even compatible with itself, let alone other conceptions of Liberalism.
Zippy,
I found this when sampling a remake (which so far seems to be a total farce) of the Heroic Legend of Arslan (a Japanese version of the Persian story Amir Arslan). That portion of the video manages to humorously capture the spirit of the various schools of modernity in a 15 second clip.
It occurred to me that this example is probably misleading – especially in light of the internal divisions within them. I simply mean to refer to any one Islamic school of thought.
@ Mike T:
That was fantastic.
Real liberals are that oblivious to their obvious unprincipled exceptions too.
All areas which is dominate by Muslims or rule by Sharia is a living hell as per my experiences in Pakistan, Saudis and other areas. So it is utter foolishness to kill people in the name of Islam as U support it.
Previous Invader BinQasim from Saudi Arabia succeeded to create as we see now: The nephew of Raja Dahir, his warriors and principal officers have been dispatched, and the infidels converted to Islam or destroyed. Instead of idol-temples, mosques and other places of worship have been created so that demotions are performed at stated hours… his first act of religious zeal was forcibly to circumcise the Brahmins of the captured city of Debul; but on discovering that they objected to this sort of conversion, he proceeded to put all above the age of 17 to death, and to order all others, with women and children, to be led into slavery. The temple of the Hindus was looted, and the rich booty was divided equally among the soldiers, after one-fifth, the legal portion for the government, had been set aside. Reply: “Except that you give protection to all, great and small alike, make no difference between enemy and friend. God, says, ’Give no quarter to infidels but cut their throats’. Then know that this is the command of the great God. You shall not be too ready to grant protection, because it will prolong your work. After this you should not give quarter to any enemy except those who are of rank.” Ghazni “He demolished idol temples and established Islam. He captured cities, killed the polluted wretches, destroying the idolators, and gratifying Muslims. ‘He then returned home and promulgated accounts of the victories obtained for Islam. and vowed that every year he would undertake a holy war against Hind’. Ghori was actuated by the same holy zeal in his invasions of India. Hasan Nizami, the historian, describes his work in the following terms: “He purged by his sword the land of Hind from the filth of infidelity and vice, and freed the whole of the country from the thorn of God-plurality and the impurity of idol-worship and by his royal vigor and intrepidity left not one temple standing.” Taimur says: “My object in the invasions of Hindustan is to lead a campaign against the infidels, to convert them to the true faith according to the command of Muhammad (on whom and his family be the blessing and peace of God), to purify the land from the defilement of misbelieve and polytheism, and overthrow the temples and idols, whereby we shall be Ghazis and Mujahids, companions and soldiers of the faith before God.”
Many more history of killing is there.
Even if the different sects of Islam are not compatible with each other, they are at least compatible with themselves. No conception of Liberalism, on the other hand, is even compatible with itself, let alone other conceptions of Liberalism.
And that is actually reasonably said of different sects of liberalism. Communists can live with Communists. Libertarians with libertarians. They may not agree on every detail, but agree on enough in their own flavor that they could live with their own kind.
Mike T:
However, in the case of liberalism, that detente – that situation where everyone is going the same way and agrees that the coins are shiny – is necessarily, intrinsically unstable. Within a given Islamic sect, unanimity once achieved is not intrinsically unstable in the same way. Peace is at least coherently conceivable inside the dar-al-islam.
Mike T:
Islam has a nature that is at war with itself as well just like liberalism.
All groups have some enforcing mechanism to prevent too much deviancy from what is perceived as the ideal. Sometimes it takes the form of executions, which some Christian groups performed too in some past times.
The significant difference is that there is no stable state for liberalism, which is at best in unstable equilibrium. An ouroboros, it always ends up devouring itself, as others have noted.
I’m afraid you’ve missed the point of the OP. It is not advocating for Sharia. It is simply pointing out that Sharia is more peaceful than Liberalism, similarly to how the Vietnam War is more peaceful than World War II. They’re both atrocious and destructive, but Sharia less so than Liberalism.
If you adjust for proportionality to how long each has existed, Liberalism has far more blood on its hands than Sharia if you go by the innocent body-count.
Two small cases that come to mind of how liberalism cannot continue indefinitely are Naghmeh Sabedini and that college student who got taken to task at a Christian university for saying he was abused by a sermon that emphasized the need to love (he felt judged). Such cases are at a point where you don’t, strictly speaking, need to be mentally ill to make those claims with a straight face, but it helps.