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Re: Phobia
Posted by diogenes on 2025-September-16 12:38:49, TuesdayIn reply to Phobia posted by LaudateAgno on 2025-September-15 18:48:58, Monday
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Well, there's an awful lot to get to get to grips with, but here goes. Suffice to say that I find your position on pretty much everything as the diametric opposite to my own. Let's deal with 'Judeo-Christianity' first. It is true that there were a core of countries within Europe that fought against Islam and that formed a cultural unity, but this was not a unity of something called 'Judeo-Christianity'; it was a unity of Christendom, and it defined itself both against the infidel without and the Jew within. Christianity has its roots in Judaism, but from the point when Christianity separated itself from Judaism in the first century, it ceased thenceforth to absorb any further Jewish influences of significance, and defined itself in fierce opposition to Judaism. So there has been Christendom, dominant in Europe for several centuries and defining itself against Muslims and Jews; and then later on, after the Reformation, Christianity ceased to define any sense of Europe's unity, and the Sun King could happily form (or rather revive) an alliance with the infidel Turk. From the eighteenth century onwards, Europe's civilisation became more secular and the disabilities against the Jews were removed. As a result, the Jews contributed more and more to civilisation as individuals, but not, I think, collectively, that is, in terms of the dominant culture becoming more 'Jewish'. So I think Arota is essentially correct. We can use the term 'Judeo-Christian' in contexts in which we wish to draw attention to the commonalities between the two religions – the way in which Christianity inherited ideas from Judaism. One can, for example, refer to “the Judeo-Christian prohibition of pederasty”. But there was, and never has been, a specifically 'Judeo-Christian civilisation' characterising Europe at any point in its history, and it is deeply misleading at best to say that “European culture for the last many centuries is of a coherently Judeo-Christian quality”. Pace what you have asserted, I don't see myself as defending a 'Judeo-Christian' world view, whatever that is. I am not a Christian of any variety. One thing the Church certainly did inherit from its Jewish root was its fierce persecution of pederasty. In the 1970s, there were a few churches that, influenced by the thoroughly secular culture of greater permissiveness that was growing in Europe at the time, began to be tolerant of pederasty, in places like Denmark for example; but this has not survived imported Anglo hysteria. When people talk about the common world view, or values, I share with my fellow citizens I struggle to identify what exactly they mean. Britons do not all have the same world view or values. What do I have in common with Tommy Robinson? Nothing of any consequence, despite the fact that he is a fellow Briton. I suspect that my values are closer to many an asylum seeker than to many of my fellow citizens. A “sense of place”? I'm all in favour of that. I have a love of the English countryside. This is not being threatened by migrants; it's being threatened by capitalist developers and by a government that permits the destruction of nature in the service of capitalism. Migrants are not a threat to community, because people with differing faiths can live together and form friendships over the commonalities we all share. It is the political right that deprives communities economically, and then turns people against the migrants as potential competitors for the few goods available. It is not migrants that are the threat to communities; it is the free market, hollowing out communities. The latest wave of this capitalist ideology was a cultural import from America. You write that: By “Anglo way of life” … I mean 95% of what I grew up with and loved, of incredible cultural accomplishments of infinite value and beauty, especially its music and art; of its striving toward humanistic ideals, of its defeat of Hitler, of its staying of Stalinism ...I do not see why appreciating the artistic accomplishments of European civilisation is inconsistent with having an equal appreciation for the accomplishments of other civilisations. I do not see that other cultures lack humanistic ideals, or that they are less opposed to genocidal regimes; on the contrary, it is America that currently supports genocide. I too am nostalgic for a great deal that characterised my youth – in particular, the more relaxed attitude to child nudity and child sex. But the hysteria that swept that away came specifically from America, and became most deeply rooted across the “Anglosphere”. I don't understand your paragraph where you say that the Anglosphere became anti-pederasty because it wasn't “itself enough”. A thing is what it is and not another thing. Europe was doing quite nicely in the 70s. Anti-pederasty sprang from America and was easily absorbed by the Anglosphere, taking somewhat longer to filter through Europe. You might have a preference for America before the current round of persecution; so do I. But we must deal with realities. I'm all for nostalgia, but the past is the past, and there's no going back. If Europe ever becomes less hostile to pederasty, it will be because of a rejection of Anglo values and America, not because of more America. I don't agree that Muslims as individuals have made no contribution to Europe “economically, philosophically, scientifically, artistically”, and I am sure they will make further contributions as their numbers in Europe increase. Your claim that you oppose genocide as much as I do is false if you support the genocide in Gaza. You may not call it genocide, but that is nevertheless what it is. I am uninterested in the intellectual contortions you go through to justify your failure of empathy for the people of Palestine or your blindness to the obvious injustice and cruelty of the Israeli state. Islamophobia is a very real phenomenon in my country and “Nazi-like hatred against individuals” is exactly what it is. And people like Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson who spread demonstrable lies in order to fan the flames of interfaith violence are not standard-bearers of civilisation, but of its destruction. The far right in Britain is highly American, and apes the American right. Farage is very much copying Trump's line on immigration. Once again, it is America that is destroying civilisation.  |
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