Friday, September 01, 2006
Islamofascism and cognitive dissonance
I've been sort of waiting for Rush or another commentator to make this point. Haven't heard it, so I'll put it on the record.
There's a very specific reason why 'islamofascism' elicits such a screechy response from American leftists.
Any time you hear an explosive and screechy response - [from someone who is normally calm] - some version of cognitive dissonance is usually at work. The screech arises from the friction of two deeply-held but inconsistent beliefs rubbing together in the brain.
In this case, the old left was proud of its role in resisting Hitler, even though it was purely accidental. (If Stalin and Hitler had remained allies, the left would have supported Hitler, but they're still entitled to celebrate.) The new left continues to use the term anti-fascist on all of its protest signs, even though their beliefs are MUCH closer to Mussolini than to Marx. The post-1968 left relies on Identity Politics, which Mussolini called Subjectivism: the notion that different races, classes, and genders have mutually incompatible forms of thought, and can never understand each other. When you start from this axiom, you inevitably end up with some form of genocide. And for separate reasons, the genocided group always ends up being Jews.
This inconsistency has been exposed by several old leftists, such as Todd Gitlin and Fred Siegel, and it's certainly an active 'pressure point' in the mind of every thinking leftist.
Welding Islam and Fascist into one word forces the leftist to think: "I'm for those poor oppressed non-privileged Muslims, but above all else I'm against Fascism, but I know those poor oppressed Muslims are actually close to Fascist, but I know my own beliefs are also close to Fascist ...." Screech!
Somebody in the Second Ford Administration - perhaps Tony Snow ? - is definitely on the ball in choosing and pushing this word.
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Incidentally, Rush himself suffered an interesting spasm of cognitive dissonance a week ago, when a caller tried to push the idea that democracy won't work on Arabs. Rush didn't even let him finish a sentence, but started screeching, calling the fellow a racist and a bigot. We can conclude that Rush is worrying about this point, but can't break loose from his team loyalty to fully acknowledge it. ¶ 10:41 AM
There's a very specific reason why 'islamofascism' elicits such a screechy response from American leftists.
Any time you hear an explosive and screechy response - [from someone who is normally calm] - some version of cognitive dissonance is usually at work. The screech arises from the friction of two deeply-held but inconsistent beliefs rubbing together in the brain.
In this case, the old left was proud of its role in resisting Hitler, even though it was purely accidental. (If Stalin and Hitler had remained allies, the left would have supported Hitler, but they're still entitled to celebrate.) The new left continues to use the term anti-fascist on all of its protest signs, even though their beliefs are MUCH closer to Mussolini than to Marx. The post-1968 left relies on Identity Politics, which Mussolini called Subjectivism: the notion that different races, classes, and genders have mutually incompatible forms of thought, and can never understand each other. When you start from this axiom, you inevitably end up with some form of genocide. And for separate reasons, the genocided group always ends up being Jews.
This inconsistency has been exposed by several old leftists, such as Todd Gitlin and Fred Siegel, and it's certainly an active 'pressure point' in the mind of every thinking leftist.
Welding Islam and Fascist into one word forces the leftist to think: "I'm for those poor oppressed non-privileged Muslims, but above all else I'm against Fascism, but I know those poor oppressed Muslims are actually close to Fascist, but I know my own beliefs are also close to Fascist ...." Screech!
Somebody in the Second Ford Administration - perhaps Tony Snow ? - is definitely on the ball in choosing and pushing this word.
-----
Incidentally, Rush himself suffered an interesting spasm of cognitive dissonance a week ago, when a caller tried to push the idea that democracy won't work on Arabs. Rush didn't even let him finish a sentence, but started screeching, calling the fellow a racist and a bigot. We can conclude that Rush is worrying about this point, but can't break loose from his team loyalty to fully acknowledge it. ¶ 10:41 AM
