Paris

[Purusha]

Purusha is the logical end point of capitalism. His existence is the triumph of capital over creativity; he has no reason to exist beyond adding a simulacrum of novelty to a declining commodity. He is the committee designed end point of a society alienated from the ideas of joy and innovation. To behave as Purusha does i is the ultimate act of false consciousness; you may tell yourself you can engineer some kind of enjoyment when in reality this cynically designed character is playing you.

I'm not even sure how that argument follows. I don't even like capitalism (though i consider it to be a much better alternative than communism).

But since we are now playing that game, let's talk about the logical end point of multiculturalism, and the triumph of creativity over reality:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

For those who don't understand why i keep bringing this up, know that the "scandal" here is not so much that there were Muslim groomers raping children, but that the police did nothing for fear of being labeled "racist". This open border mentality stems from the same disease.

[The new erato]

Yes, I seem to remember something about Italy being a hodgepodge of Piemontesians, Savoyans, Austrians, Normans, Spanish, Venetians, Neapolitans and whatever, each speaking their own language. Shows what a disaster such multicultural societies can become. 

[Purusha]

Yeah, the history of Europe certainly proves that multiculturalism works wonders. Centuries of infighting and constant and relentless bloodshed. And right when one thought the ordeal was over, we are now starting from scratch by importing a people that is more alien than anyone that has ever lived in Europe. Why? Reasons.

[Jo498]

The problem is that the West has abdicated any right to have a cultural and ethnic identity of its own. Islam belongs to a completely different world. They are never, ever going to "integrate" with a culture that would rather die than assert itself. If it wasn't for the technological superiority of the West they would have already conquered us fair and square. And why shouldn't they? What possible reason do they have to value the West? Everything we do is an affront to their values and beliefs.

I thought we did not have a cultural identity of our own anymore?

Clearly, not both of the following claims can be true: (1) The West has abdicated and dissolved in multiculturalism and (2) The West is proposing a set of values that are abhorrent to islamists. 

If (2) is true, than the Western values, decadent, effete and abhorrent as they might be, are apparently still held strong and assertive enough to serve as a provocation, both for traditionalists like you and e.g. islamic terrorists.

If (1) was true, why bother with sacrificing young people as suicidal bombers, as "Eurabia" would only be a couple of decades away.

[Purusha]

Simple question: do you believe Caitlyn Jenner is a woman? Do you believe homosexuality is perfectly natural and normal?

[Florestan]

Yes, I seem to remember something about Italy being a hodgepodge of Piemontesians, Savoyans, Austrians, Normans, Spanish, Venetians, Neapolitans and whatever, each speaking their own language. Shows what a disaster such multicultural societies can become.

That was not a multicultural society in the contemporary use of the term. For all their linguistic diversity, those groups had very strong unifying factors, not the least of them being precisely religion and culture. A Venetian relocating to Sicily or a Neapolitan going to Milan might have faced temporal difficulties in making himself understood by, or understanding, the natives (and if he was an educated person this didn´t even apply) but in terms of religious values & practices and cultural & intellectual environment there was no significant difference, let alone tension or conflict.

[Purusha]

Clearly, not both of the following claims can be true: (1) The West has abdicated and dissolved in multiculturalism and (2) The West is proposing a set of values that are abhorrent to islamists.

Correction. The West is in the process of dissolving, and it is dissolving because of the anti-traditional values it has espoused, values which the Muslims find abhorrent. Obviously, when i said the West was no more i was speaking hyperbolically.

[The new erato]

.....let alone tension or conflict.

I certainly beg to differ on that. There was tension and conflict aplenty in the process leading to the establishment of Italy under Piemontese leadership. I just wanted to throw some much needed perspective into the discussion.

[Florestan]

If (1) was true, why bother with sacrificing young people as suicidal bombers, as "Eurabia" would only be a couple of decades away.

I don´t know if it is true or not but I just want to point out that (1) from their point of view those young people do not sacrifice but gain an eternal life of pleasure and (2) one could have as well asked Lenin why bother with a civil war and creating gulags and stuff when according to Marx the downfall of capitalism and the final triumph of communism would be only a couple of decades away.

[Florestan]

There was tension and conflict aplenty in the process leading to the establishment of Italy under Piemontese leadership.

Absolutely, its consequences are felt even today, but it was a political and economic conflict, not a religious or cultural one. There was no significant and irreconcilable tension or conflict between the religious and cultural values and practices of a Calabrese and those of a Piemontese.

[Purusha]

I certainly beg to differ on that. There was tension and conflict aplenty in the process leading to the establishment of Italy under Piemontese leadership. I just wanted to throw some much needed perspective into the discussion.

Yes, the perspective of a suicidal relativistic ideology.

"There was always conflict, so we might as well start World War III".

[The new erato]

I don´t know if it is true or not but I just want to point out that (1) from their point of view those young people do not sacrifice but gain an eternal life of pleasure and (2) one could have as well asked Lenin why bother with a civil war and creating gulags and stuff when according to Marx the downfall of capitalism and the final triumph of communism would be only a couple of decades away.

Lenin wouldn't have got there in the first place unless the Germans had wanted him there to ease pressure on their eastern front...I guess that one backfired.

[Purusha]

Absolutely, its consequences are felt even today, but it was a political and economic conflict, not a religious or cultural one. There was no significant and irreconcilable tension or conflict between the religious and cultural values and practices of a Calabrese and those of a Piemontese.

By way of comparison, look at the way Jews and Christians were dealt with in Muslim countries. Tolerated, but never seen as equal. This is because you cannot have a civilization unless you have a single, unified dominating culture. One mind, one soul.

[Florestan]

Lenin wouldn't have got there in the first place unless the Germans had wanted him there to ease pressure on their eastern front...

Or if Kerensky had ordered his arrest and hanging on spot the very moment he set foot on Russian soil. But that is irrelevant. He acted on contradictory ideological grounds, or maybe not. He might have thought that, although is true that history moves inexorably in the direction of communism, it doesn´t hurt to speed it up a little.

[Florestan]

By way of comparison, look at the way Jews and Christians were dealt with in Muslim countries. Tolerated, but never seen as equal.

And the big and sad irony: before Hitler the German / Austrian Jews were the most socially integrated and culturally assimilated of all European Jews...

[Purusha]

The irony is that the Muslims are like a concentrated dose of everything the left hates. They are religious fundamentalist and very, very right-wing. They do not care about the rights of women. They do no care about the rights of homosexuals. They believe a society should be ruled by religious law, and have no taste for modern culture in all its facets. It is as if Europe was being flooded with Bible thumbing rednecks of the worse sort. But, their skin isn't white, so i guess that's ok?

[Florestan]

The irony is that the Muslims are like a concentrated dose of everything the left hates. They are religious fundamentalist and very, very right-wing. They do not care about the right of women. They do no care about the rights of homosexuals. They believe a society should be ruled by religious law, and have no taste for modern culture in all its facets.

That is an accurate description of Saudi Arabia, Iran and a host of other Muslim states but not all Muslims, or Muslim states, are like that. The above is not true about Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon. It was not true about Iran before the Islamic Revolution, it was not true about Irak before and under Saddam Hussein, nor about Egypt before and under Mubarak, not even about Libya before and under Geddafi, or Syria before and under al-Assad father and son.

During my stay in France I met Algerian-born Muslims who were about the most friendly and helping people I ever met and their general way of thinking was no different than mine, at least on the surface. It is true, though, that they were highly educated and quite secular in outlook.

The Muslim native minority in Romania, which we inherited in 1878 from the Ottoman Empire, is thoroughly assimilated on all accounts and their Grand Mufti is an outspoken ennemy of Islamic terrorism. About recent Muslim immigrants I can´t say anything else than some of them are obviously radicals, judging by the fact that every year several of them are discreetly deported.

The problem is that Europe has for too long been (idiotically, criminally) tolerating exactly the sort of Muslims you described above: first and foremost, they have been (idiotically, criminally) alowed to come to Europe without a minimal background check; once there, they have been (idiotically, criminally) allowed to open mosques for the undisturbed indoctrination of their coreligionists, especially children and youngsters; they have been (idiotically, criminally) allowed to openly proclaim their murderous and destructive goals in public processions and marches under police protection (!!!); they have been (idiotically, criminally) allowed to organize themselves in ghettos and no-go zones; their misdemeanors, offences and crimes have been (idiotically, criminally) either brushed under carpet (Rotherham and other cases) or treated with soft punishment, if at all; and so on and so forth, all in the name of a twisted, perverted and ultimately self-defeating idea of human rights and freedoms, and it boggles the mind that even in the 14th hour, even now that the failure, idiocy and shortsightedness of such policy is hurtfully obvious there are people who claim that it was nothing wrong with this approach and it should be continued, even sped up, because the problem lies elsewhere. Yes, the West had a disastrous policy regarding the Middle East and Maghreb and is partially responsible for the whole mess, but that doesn´t mean that it should not take all available and necessary domestic measures to protect its citizens until it clears up that mess. The battle has many fronts, certainly, but the domestic one is right now the number one priority hands down.

[knight66]

Absolutely, its consequences are felt even today, but it was a political and economic conflict, not a religious or cultural one. There was no significant and irreconcilable tension or conflict between the religious and cultural values and practices of a Calabrese and those of a Piemontese.

That frankly is nonsense. Perhaps you need to travel more in Italy where the North feels almost entirely estranged from and hostile wowards the South and people in Sicily don't necessarily own to the badge of Italian. It, along with Germany and several other European countries are recent constructs which have spent many centuries as separate sub-tribes, (principalities), and only a short time as any kind of supposedly integrated society.

Additionally, religion was and remains a live dividing line, or a relatively recent point of pressure in a number of countries between Roman Catholic and Protestant believers. Think of Northern Ireland in the very recent past. There the divisions only just sit beneathe the water, ever ready to explode. If historical religious issues do not form the basis of new conflict, that is only due to the secularisation of these societies.

Those or other such rifts sit in Spain, France and Italy to my knowledge. The pressures arising now will cause a polarisation which will push a number of countries to the right of where they currently sit and the regional divisions will become increasingly marked.

Mike

[Purusha]

That argument basically amounts to saying that, because there is often infighting among siblings, we ought to abolish the very idea of family, or that at any rate it "proves" the family does not create a greater sense of cohesion among individuals (even though it proves nothing of the like).

[Jo498]

Simple question: do you believe Caitlyn Jenner is a woman?

No. I think Jenner is mentally disturbed.

Do you believe homosexuality is perfectly natural and normal?

natural in the trivial sense that homosexual behavior occurs in nature, abnormal in the trivial sense that it is rare.

But what's the obvious connection? That we are incoherent because we cannot accomodate both muslims and out gays? Tolerance does not mean support, tolerance only means we do not put gays in jail or exclude muslims from becoming teachers etc. In that original sense we can and should be tolerant to both.

BTW, most maghreb or levante arabs or afghans are "white" if one wants to use such racial language; those guys on he police photos look "white" to me.