PhD student Angus Lindsay
presented a well-attended seminar outlining his research
into far-Right extremism. More of a
lecture than a seminar, Angus was concerned with the recent sharp rise in
Right-wing terrorist attacks, the use of social media platforms for
dissemination of the far-Right’s ideas, and the responsibility of owners of the
hosting platforms for such anti-social (not to mention anti-socialist)
discourse. His studies were needless to
say highly focussed, and weren’t intended to digress into causation.
His focus is typical of much
in the way of mainstream attitudes to Right-wing extremism, as a sort of social
cancer which must be extirpated at any cost.
There has been little or no attention paid to the causes of the rise of
the far-Right, however, as if it is an ex-nihilo pathology. While I pretty much knew his answer, I asked Angus,
“What research is
being done into the causes of the increase in Right-wing extremism? It seems that the only way it’s being tackled
is via Alinsky – pick the target, freeze it, personalise it, and polarise
it. Yet his ninth rule reads, “The
threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Is anything being done to ameliorate the causes in
order to reduce the push factor?”
He could
have rejected the question outright – not a factor for consideration, for
example. But to his credit he stopped to
think, and said that he couldn’t answer the question. I gave him a prompt, starting with, “The Left’s shift to authoritarianism, its support for extremely
conservative agencies such as indigenous cultures and Islam, its dereliction of
responsibility to the poor; cultural repudiation, grand narrative destruction
and its replacement with a socially-engineered utopian aspiration regardless of
consequence; media bias…” but was interrupted by a
young woman, with other voices chiming in.
Typical - I’ve noticed over the years that
if men get into a serious discussion, other men will join in and contribute,
while women will tend to interrupt in order to end it. There is in general a ‘prolonged adolescence’
notable in youth and student responses, of behaviour observable in young people
but carried through to adulthood due to ideological reinforcement along with
suppression of contrarian ideas. The
effects are of a childish sense of unfairness without consideration of balance
of interest, self-referentialism due to lack of experience, idealistic authoritarianism,
and a poorly-formed ability to understand consequences or handle complexity and
ambiguity. What little that students
know of the longue durée is shaped and masked by ideological
stupefaction, leading to anachronistic moralising which I consider one of the
great sins of the age.
Again to his credit, Angus said that he was
interested in having a discussion about Right-wing extremism’s causes. A lecture such as his was no forum for
discussion so I gave him my card and said that my perspective was on the way
ideologies (environmentalism, feminism, neo-Marxism, neo-liberalism and Islam)
were shaping the Western world, and that as a non-academic I nonetheless took
an academic approach. I also said that 50 years from now he will view the world
as I do, and realise that things have gone too far. I don’t expect that he will respond, but
given that he might be ruminative, I can hope that I’ve planted a seed and that
it will germinate.
Angus showed a
chart of the sharp increase in annual numbers of Right-wing attacks in the USA.
The number I noted was ‘60’ on the scale per annum and the recent rise to that
number. I thought this trivial compared
with the 20-year average annual number of Muslim terrorist attacks, 1,961, or
5.4 every day. But that was worldwide, not just in
the USA, yet the extreme Left has succeeded in making people forget Islam’s
violent doctrines. An overlay of the two
charts would be interesting, since the frequency of Muslim attacks declined from
2014 (by an average of 10% per annum) and terrorist attacks from the extreme
Right began to rise about the same time.
I considered there to be two causes of the decline – improving Western
intelligence, and rising influence of ‘peaceful’ extremists exploring other
means. After all, the message had got through and in
my opinion the conquest of Europe was a fait accompli by early 2015, having
achieved the status of Dar al-Sulh
(Abode of Truce), up from Dar al-Harb (Abode of War) and now a ‘European
religion’ according to Tariq Ramadan,
grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood’s founder.
There was a
second question I would have liked to have asked, given that extremism was the
topic.
“Right-wing
extremism is being compared with Islamic extremism, with one US study showing that ‘right-wing extremists’ and ’white
supremacists’ were thought to be a larger threat to the U.S. than Islamic
jihadis.
“This raises four points, firstly that Islamic violence is being falsely
separated from Islam itself, when its ideology explicitly permits it. Secondly, the resource for white supremacism
in the west is the white population, so their terrorist acts are dwarfed by
Islamists’ acts where they form less than 10% in Western countries beset by
their terrorism. Thirdly, Right-wing
extremists want no change to the hegemonic status quo, whereas both
Left-wing groups and Islamists want radical change to the hegemony. Fourthly, Islamic terrorism is honed by
centuries of experience – show people you will fly planes into buildings, and it
begets fear, respect and converts. Argumentum
ad baculum.
“Given that, how successful do you
think targeting Right-wing extremists will be, when they, at least in part,
want to defend Western civilisation – the most successful and globally
progressive ever
– from its destruction by the extreme Left, as it increases its strangle-hold
on liberal values?”
Considering the extreme Left and Islamism
using each other as stalking horses, and Marxists’ unabated desire for the overthrow
of capitalism, I think I know the answer to that one, too.
The full list, while by no means
complete, ran as follows: “The Left’s shift to
authoritarianism, its support for extremely conservative agencies such as
indigenous cultures and Islam, its dereliction of responsibility to the poor;
cultural repudiation, grand narrative destruction and its replacement with a
socially-engineered utopian aspiration regardless of consequence; media bias;
supporting moral and cultural relativism which denies one’s own culture’s
values; depreciating advanced culture and elevating primitive culture; its
alienation of ordinary people and failure to respect conservative values; its
failure to address neo-liberal ideology, and worse, its refusal to reverse its
doctrines; support for individual rights over duties and relational solidarity,
reducing trust; anachronistic moralising, criticising and diminishing Western
colonialism while incorporating the much more deadly and morally supremacist
Islamic colonialism; diminishing jihadism while escalating the much lesser
Right-wing terrorist threat; support for agitated responses to climate change
and Right-wing extremism; moral support for fringe activities such as veganism
and gender variability; blank slate theory and repudiation of instinct,
especially sex roles and hierarchy; empowering the individual at the expense of
the state; treason of the clerisy; tyranny of merit… The list goes on, but the
result is the rise of Right-wing populism such as Trump and Marine le Pen.
Summary:
o Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms – of
expression, of religion, from want, and from fear. Plus freedom from
oppression.
o The creation of the nation-state
(allowing protection of citizens, taxation and limits to expenditure).
o Tribalism – minimising, reducing tribal
warfare, with the state offering an overarching entity
o Delegitimating caste systems.
o Abolition of slavery, influencing the rest
of the world through colonialism and hegemonic pressure, and the consideration
of reparations.
o Abolition of the death penalty
o Abolition of cannibalism, human, child
and widow sacrifices.
o Monogamy.
o Outlawing FGM and child labour.
o Religious tolerance, and its balance
with reason
o High value of human life and the
increase in life expectancy.
o Reduction of poverty (rate is one-half
to one-fifth, US 1960)
o Welfare for the poor, unemployed,
children, the sick and the retired.
o Universal health care, starting with
the Christian church and spread by missionaries.
o
Limits
to working hours and days; employee rights, minimum and living wages, work
safety
o Copyright.
o The scientific method.
o Industrial revolution and almost all
technological advances;
o
The
green revolution, the control of famine, and ecological balance with respect to
population growth.
o
Freedom
of speech and association.
o
The rule of law, common law, habeas corpus, and the presumption
of innocence.
o
Human
rights; rights of women, prisoners, animals and minorities.
o
Eliminating
racial, cultural, sexual and religious prejudice.
o
Eliminating
religious and ethnic conflicts.
o
Universal
suffrage.
o
Democracy,
which allows for a continuous moral change and the avoidance of civil war;
o
Capitalism
and the commodity cycle.
o Checks and balances of the powers of
the state.
o Western countries scoring consistently highly
on almost all civilisational indices.
o Influencing the rest of the world on
modernisation, civilisational values and virtues through hegemonic influence
and colonisation.
