Immanentizing the eschaton.

“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. [...] We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”

Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), Vol. 1, Notes to the Chapters: Ch. 7, Note 4.

“There is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance”

Recently I have found myself experiencing a range of largely unpleasant emotions. I have felt anger, bordering on rage, and I am not an angry person at all. I have felt profound disappointment. I have fluctuated between apathy and deep depression at times. I have felt, and I do feel, a deep dread, apprehension, for the future. Where have all these emotions sprung from? They are my gut emotional reaction to two current phenomena in our global society that, I fear, have the potential to tear down and utterly destroy everything that is good and true about our Western civilization and its culture.

First, a small comment on my own political position. These days I regard my political and social views as largely Classical Liberal. I think it is a shame that the word 'Liberal' has become distorted, particularly in the USA, into a grotesque mirror image of itself. When I say Classical Liberal I am thinking about philosophers like John Stuart Mill, for example. Essentially, I would regard the rights and status of the individual as an independent actor to be paramount, and to trump all other concerns. The state exists only to ensure that a framework of laws exist that allow individuals to act and interact in pursuit of their own interests in a way that is compatible with social order. I do have a conservative streak in my world-view also. I see little point in change for the sake of change, for example. I also agree with Kant when he commented that:

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”

Immanuel Kant, Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784), Proposition 6.

This means, for me, that human nature is real and we have to work with the essentially flawed and imperfect reality of that as it is, not as we would wish it to be. And our most important tools here are reason, logic, sound evidence and sound arguments. Discussion, based on these things, is essential.

Basically, I have a 'live and let live' viewpoint and as long as you don't bother me, I wont bother you. I gave up voting some time ago, as I have come to regard politicians as rather wicked human beings in general, and the political process as deeply flawed. I may talk about that another time.

The two phenomena I referred to above are:

1. 'Islamism' – the primitive and brutal fascist ideology that grows out of the religion of Islam. It appears to grow rather easily too. I am aware of the many nuances in this argument. I am also aware that 'It is not all of them.' But it doesn’t have to be all of them surely? If only 5% of professing Muslims are Islamist, that is still a lot of people. And yes, there are genuinely moderate Muslims out there that are trying to make a real change, that are trying to begin a much needed reformation of Islam. But they don’t get much public exposure and when they do get some they are condemned as 'racists'.
   
   The fact that every survey that I have seen of ordinary Muslims reveals a majority that are consistently in favour of Sharia Law, are consistently in favour of a range of barbaric practices, that are in favour of gender and gay discrimination indicates to me that a rather large number of these individuals are more 'Islamist' that we would like to believe.
   
   On the issue of so-called 'Islamophobia' and Islamophobic racism I have this opinion. First, Islam is not a race. Many different ethnic groups and cultures are present in the global demographic of Islam. They are not all Arabic. In fact, the single biggest ethnic group present in Islam are Indians, with over 160 million followers in that country. (http://www.pewforum.org/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/) Islam is an idea, and ideas are not immune to criticism.
   
   Secondly, a phobia is an irrational fear, and I do not think that it is irrational to be afraid of Islamicism. In it's worst form, that taken by ISIS, it represents the most brutal and crude version of George Orwell's terrifying vision of the future:
   
   “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”
   George Orwell, 1984 Part Three, Chapter 3.
   
   
   
2. What I choose to call 'Social Justice Warrior-ism' … if I may be allowed that ugly phrase here. I am well aware that this is an even broader concept and I may well over-generalise a bit. Under this heading come movements such as Third Wave Feminism, particularly the campus and academic variants. Black Lives Matter also come under this heading. Then there are the various other 'identity' movements, like LGCTI and so on.
   
   These movements, in general, ignore rational argument and empirical data in favour of emotional gut responses. In doing so they are rejecting the hard won victories of the Enlightenment and progress made over the last 2 – 3 centuries. We already have a plethora of 'Committees of Public Safety' and 'Re-education camps,' just by other names, springing up all over to ensure that everyone is 'in line' with the ideology. The very recent example of a student at the University of Houston is a case in point -http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7920
   
   As regards the details of these various movements, there is a great deal of news and information available on the Internet and elsewhere, so I will not go on at boring length about them.
   
   SJW-ism represents a trend that was always present in the more totalitarian left-wing ideologies, whether of the communist variety or of the fascist variety, as I learned 40 years ago as a student who was, at that time, very much a Marxist. The continuous desire to abolish the human as s/he actually is and build a new, improved, one. In the process many, many people suffered and died, in Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Gulag, or the Cambodian killing fields. And many other places too, just not so well known. While Islamism represents the brutal and primitive method, SJWism represents a less violent and more insidious method. But they have a similar goal, all shall submit to our ideology by fair means or foul.

And that, I suppose, is my final point. Islamism and SJWism are both ideologies with a primitive religious character. They both have their saints and sinners, blessed and damned, and so on. They both have a goal of building their version of heaven on earth. They both require blind, unthinking submission to the religion they are peddling and damned be individual rights, empirical evidence, due process, reason and logic. They both seek to shut down completely all opposition or disagreement. They are not a new phenomena I know, this 'Millennialism' has long been a part of ideological movements, but any attempt to create paradise with the crooked timber we have will fail, and it may well take our civilization down with it this time.

"Don't immanentize the eschaton !" If you try, you will get hell on earth instead.

I think we should be worried. There are signs of resistance, and I see the recent Brexit in my homeland as such a sign. But there is still a long way to go.