Conservative is a misnomer for extremists
There is nothing more annoying than when commentators refer
to radicals and militants as “conservative”. By definition radicals are not conservative. They throw away the lessons built up
over centuries and go back to the root.
So the Islamic radical rejects the wisdom of ages in Muslim thinking,
that has taken on board Aristotle, living amongst Christians and Jews and accommodated
real human-nature. In the same way
the political radical, whether Bolshevist or Jacobin, rejects the institutions
that have evolved over the centuries, in the hope of reverting to some ideal
original state of nature.
Islamic extremism has been in the public eye recently with
the trial of the two murderers of Drummer Rigby, in a brutal and barbarous
attack. It is the argument of this
blog that what leads to extremist evil is a subjective approach to life that
rejects the shared lessons of history.
In effect the radical attempts to shake off shared values accumulated
over time and assert their own opinion in the place of common values.
Thus the young Islamist extremist living in Britain attempts
to define himself against the more moderate and conservative Islam of his
parents. For the extremist the
wisdom of the ancestors, the building up of knowledge and tradition, should be
rejected in favour of the original, pure “truth”, which happens to be his own
subjective view of the truth. In
Mali the Islamist extremists set about destroying traditional Islamic art and historical artefacts.
Just because it's your opinion doesn’t mean you are right
The real danger to Western society is not dogmatism, but the
rejection of shared dogma in favour of “my opinion”. People talk about their opinions as though because they own
them they somehow possess a special validity. Actually it is only that person’s opinion and it cannot
contain the experience of generations that exists in our traditions and
inherited values. It is inevitably
a partial and limited view.
It also commands no intrinsic legitimacy. For example, one of the late Drummer
Rigby’s murderers claimed to be a soldier and justified his atrocious crime in
this way. He did not really belong to an existing army it was just his own
opinion that he was a soldier.
There is no existing army that I know of, with commissions, paid
salaries and a duty to serve a head of state that gave him such an order. I have not heard of such a State that
would give this order, outside of the conventions of war, in violation of the
Geneva Convention. There was no
call from the established institutions of the Islamic faith for a crusade; only
some madman in a cave in Afghanistan had unilaterally created his own violent creed. This so-called army has been set up without
legitimacy and without authority.
The murderer’s view that he belonged to an army was nothing more than
his subjective viewpoint – it was only his opinion, with no authority. He is in fact a subject of Her Majesty
protected by Her Majesty’s forces that he attacked and will now be detained at
Her Majesty’s pleasure. Whatever
he thinks, that is what the case is in the real world.
Contrast this pretend “Islamist” soldier with Drummer Lee
Rigby. He belonged to a real army
that serves an actual head of state and works to defend a physical nation
state, with real boundaries and a rule of law and a Parliament. This State is a signatory to
international conventions on what its army will do and not do in war. When individuals violate these rules,
they are prosecuted by the State they serve. Drummer Rigby’s real army is a vivid contrast to the
imaginary army serving an imaginary nation that his murderer claimed to belong
to.
The other extremists are just as subjective
This subjectivity and idolatry of one’s own opinion
manifests itself in many other ways.
We see it in the animal-rights extremists, who have set up their own
warped, subjective moral code and demand that others adhere to it – a code that
justifies abuse of their fellow human beings in the name of their own idea of
what rights animals possess. We
see it when traitors such as Edward Snowdon, who took the view that his own
nation fell short in his own opinion and therefore acted in breach of the laws
of his land to reveal secrets he was under a duty to keep. A particularly dreadful example of this
subjectivity and vainglorious philosophy is of course Julian Assange, who would
rather see the West’s enemies benefit and her allies suffer than put aside his
own ego.
Well, the common trap that ensnares all these people
together is the sanctity to which they grant their own opinions, regardless of
common values and shared traditions.
Whether in the name of religion, as with Drummer Rigby’s murderers or in
pursuit of some skewed political ideology as with Juian Assange, these people
share the same idolatry of their own opinions.
The danger of Liberalism leading to relativism
The danger is that the West, in attempting to remain true to
its values of freedom and liberty is falling into the very same trap of
accepting someone’s opinion is true simply because it is held – the danger of
relativism and multiculturalism.
Tolerance is the sacred value of the West, which stems from its
Christian heritage. Tolerance
means not persecuting that with which you disagree, it does not mean the values
of society and our culture are neutral.
Replace tolerance with relativism and the moral authority is lost.
For example, how can you argue with the Islamic extremists
without any grounding in faith yourself?
It is impossible to reject beliefs as false if you yourself do not
believe in truth! The greatest
disrespect to all religions is to say that they are all equally valid, which
means in effect they are all nonsense and invalid; rather the truly tolerant
outlook is to remain true to our Christian values and to tolerate and speak to
other faiths on that basis. Not
all beliefs are equally valid, many beliefs are wrong (as manifested on the
Woolwich street)– but that cannot be said without we ourselves holding to a
belief in something that is true.
Conservatism is the way to counter extremism
Conservatism is about accepting that our values are handed
down to us and that we are shaped by that heritage. We are not able to reinvent a whole set of universal values
ourselves as we can only have a partial view. Reject what is handed down to us and we lose the accumulated
wisdom of our ancestors.
Now that does not mean accepting longstanding injustices,
but continually comparing what is with
what should be according to those
inherited values. Thus William
Wilberforce in light of his Christian faith opposed slavery and Emily Hobhouse
fought against Lord Kitchener’s camps for the Boers. On the other hand, the Islamist extremist, the animal-rights
extremist, the followers of Assange have all lost touch with their inherited
values and turned their own, partial opinions into idols. Only conservatism, by recognising civilization is based on
shared, tried and tested values, can resist this subjective relativism and act
as a force for moderation and piecemeal reform.
No comments:
Post a Comment