Eugene Volokh raises a dispute over the writing of a Catholic cleric who maintains that the Muslims have a point about the moral deterioration in the USA justifying the label of “Great Satan”. The article was specific in mentioning homosexuality, and took the position that, “One, however, does not have to agree with the gruesome ways that the fundamentalists use to curb the forces that undermine their culture to admit that the Islamic fundamentalist charge that Western Civilization in general and the U.S.A. in particular is the “Great Satan” is not without an element of truth.” And that at least the Muslims were willing to die for their religion.
Volokh’s response was one word: “Appalling”; however, many commenters took to their keyboards with interesting points of view, including those of a couple of avowed homosexuals.
One of the more interesting arguments in the comments to the Volokh post maintains that, because the Catholic Church in Massachusetts shut down its adoption program rather than be forced by the state to place children in gay households, the Catholics are violating one of their standards (adoption) in order to preserve another (man/woman monogamy). And, the arguer maintains, this is, paradoxically, moral relativism, a tenet of the Right, not of the Left.
But the argument fails to consider that the program was stopped in order to prevent its usurpation by government decree into violation of the church’s standards. That of course is the opposite of what the arguer maintains. It was a coherent decision based on complying with the church’s internal standards. Not to take action to prevent violation of its standards would have been non-coherent. The action was not self-contradictory or paradoxical. So the argument is false.
Another interesting argument is that the Muslim suicide bombers might be motivated by more than just religious fervor. The male bombers are rewarded in heaven with 72 houri “perpetual virgins” for their sexual pleasure; their earthly families receive a large monetary compensation for the martyring of their children. So is it the religion or the compensation package that motivates the brutality? Likely it is somewhat both, coupled with a culture of hate that is inculcated from early childhood.
In fact, Islam itself is far from coherent, in the sense that first, the Qur’an was compiled not by Muhammad, but by a disciple who reconciled differing texts, then destroyed the originals; second, there are numerous conflicts and contradictions in the Islamic text(s), which are decided by either superceding later writings or by interpretations of the local imam.
But this is a digression from the point Volokh makes in a second post, that freedom dictates tolerance. In this case, the tolerance refers to tolerating homosexuality.
So, the argument of “complete tolerance” comes into play here: Should a free culture tolerate abominable behavior? What if the abominable behavior is pederasty? What if the abominable behavior is “honor killing”? Clearly there is no point to declaring total tolerance of every behavior. So there is a line to be drawn and the questions arise, what behaviors will be discriminated against, and who will decide that those behaviors are abominable?
The battle is Nietzschean when it veers from absolute standards into the mud of relativist variabilities. Only the most powerful will dominate, and the standards of abomination will be their personal proclivities. Refusing to acknowledge that homosexuality is aberrant behavior is a prime example. The battle front moves from non-discrimination, to special legal categorization (hate crimes), to teaching that homosexuality is a valid lifestyle choice in government schools, complete with instructions and implements for safe sex. And other aggrieved schools of behavior are heartened, and fight for their own ultimate legitimization.
In complete tolerance, there is no standard remaining, save the standard of complete tolerance itself. It is another definition of incoherence, of chaos or even anarchy. It is a direct and specific result of the drive for secularism, the concept that there are no absolute morals to be considered in public life.
Allowing any and all behaviors to be tolerated is prelude to cultural destruction due to non-coherence. If there are no standards to defend, there will be no defense. Degenerating standards are as bad, because this gives support to those defending current “abominable behaviors”, in their fight to liberate their particular abomination.
And the Will To Power will in fact surface to assert control: the presumed drive toward moral libertarianism or anarchism will actually breed totalitarians and the culture will be too feckless to stop them. It has happened before. Lessons of history for those who will learn.
But is that, valid as that argument might be, the real motivation for designating the USA as the “Great Satan”?
If the “Great Satan” is a psuedonym for a nation without fixed (absolute) values, then the USA increasingly qualifies, although so do most European nations, Britain, Russia and China. And these are all under attack by Muslim killers.
And the USA would also qualify for the “Great Satan” appellation even if it were exclusively Christian, both culturally and governmentally. Islam does not tolerate non-Muslims. So the term, from an Islamic perspective, is tautological for any culture or belief system that is not contained fully within the Islamic world, and even there the Sunnis and Shias would likely designate each other as Satans. So it makes no difference from the perspective of ”so what… we are defined as such no matter what we do”. We are the enemies of Islam by their very definition, just as we are becoming the enemies as defined by our own state.
Conclusion: Let it go and oil your guns... which enemy will we be forced to engage first?
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