Culture Wars

Mark Steyn has an excellent piece out on the culture war being waged in the world. The situation is complicated, but he very nearly gets it right. Steyn envisions a three-front war between Christianity (i.e. the culture of freedom), multi-culturalism (i.e. Humanists, i.e. the culture of equality), and Islamism (i.e. the culture of virtue).

Let me try to put the argument in a nutshell. While the Left (the political expression of the Humanist movement) is trying to destroy the Right (more-or-less the political wing of the Christian faith), in doing so it would be committing cultural suicide, for the simple reason that the Left does not sustain itself by reproduction. On average, secular types tend to reproduce at a rate that is too low for replenishment (cf. Canada's fertility problems); religious types, however, tend to reproduce at a rate that not only sustains, but grows, their population. But if Humanists manage to destroy Christianity, then without a constantly replenished population, who is going to produce all the wealth that is necessary to provide and sustain all those lovely utopian welfaristic institutions in the Western world? Who would even be remaining after a few decades? But here's the thing. The point at which this is all falling apart (and that point appears to be now), Islam steps in and takes over. If anyone doubts this, consider the surging Muslim population in de facto secular Europe, and the influence it's wielding.

Now, let's play a game where we take Steyn's points and reach some possible conclusions. Hypothetically speaking, let's say that Humanism wins and Christianity effectively dies out. What happens then?

1. The end of the human race. Once Christianity is out of the way, there can be little doubt that Humanists will train their sights on Islam, which has, until now, functioned as nothing more than a useful weapon against the pro-freedom Christian culture. If Humanism wins, then Islam is wiped out and eventually nobody is left to reproduce at a rate sufficient to sustain the population. Result: The human race simply dies out. (Somebody alert these people.)

Unless...


2. A new kind of slavery emerges. If Humanism wants to continue, then it must reproduce in some fashion, and since having children of one's own is gauche, one must convert other people's children. But, with those go-forth-and-multiply religious types now a thing of the past, who is left to reproduce? Well, that Humanist blueprint, Plato's Republic, has successfully been brought to bear in one place in the world: can anyone conjure up thoughts of perpetual mating festivals with the state collectively raising the children without thinking of America's inner cities (and perhaps to a lesser extent the low-class populations of urban Europe)? It is very much to the advantage of the Left to keep inner cities in a perpetual state of dependence that results in masses of effectively parentless children. The role of the ignorant, unwashed inner-city masses would be simply to function as slaves: perpetual baby-makers with no hope of anything more. The problem with this, however, is two-fold. (1) With a significant portion of the population consisting of dependants, who produces? (2) There's nobody left on which to blame the inner city's problems and keep the population in a constant state of victimhood. Perhaps the enslaved population rises up against the Humanist elite in protest. Result: After a brief orgy of reproduction followed by revolt, the human race simply dies out.
   
   Alternatively, what if Islam is not crushed by Humansim, but steps in as the West implodes? This means...
   
   
3. Islam covers the world. Christianity and Humanism have been mutually destroyed. Result: Islam takes over everywhere; anyone who refuses to convert is killed.

Now, here is the only weakness in Steyn's argument. He leaves out the Chinese with their culture of obedience, and it's on its way to becoming a major player on the world scene. These people reproduce like the dickens, and I'm not 100% convinced that the culture of obedience is incompatible with the Islamic culture of virtue and submission. So possibly we end up with...


4. Conflict/alliance between Islam and China. Result: Unknown (but it can't be good).
   

My conclusion? The only hope in the foreseeable future for freedom and continuation of the human race is Christianity. This by no means requires a person to be Christian, but the Christian faith must be recognized as the wellspring of freedom and prosperity. I've gone a hundred rounds with anti-Christian and/or atheist peers who believe there's another way, but if Steyn's right and I haven't made any errors in my analysis, then your only choices are:

• Humanism and annihilation;


• Islam (and/or Chinese) and submission;


• Christianity and freedom.

My father, who is pretty observant, predicts that if/when the choices become this obvious, two-thirds of the people in this country will choose freedom. I sure hope he's right.