![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Conservative Ross Douthat, in today's "liberal" New York Times:
Let's ponder what this means. Douthat is basically saying that that what happened in Norway was not carried out by a racist, bigot or fascist. Then what was he? A good man driven to radicalism by the misguided excesses of his own open society?
Ignore the token "monster" and "atrocity" labels and really think about what Douthat is saying here. In the previous paragraph, he told us that Breivik was not a bigot, racist or fascist. Here he tells us that Breivik may have been a "monster"...but he was one created by certain "realities" that have been ignored by the "governing classes" (which I suppose is a euphemism for "liberal elite").
He's also saying that atrocities like this will no doubt continue until the governing classes of Europe face up to the unpleasant realities of liberal immigration policies and multiculturalism.
In other words, Europe needs to adopt a more conservative stance on these issues to prevent further horrors. Which is exactly the goal of terrorists like Breivik -- using fear to force change. Committing explosive acts of violence to terrify a population or government into submission to their will.
Douthat does not think Breivik was a racist, bigot or fascist -- he doesn't even seem to think Breivik was crazy. No, he thinks Breivik had a point, and this atrocity, this appalling act of terrorism, should be a wakeup call to Europe -- not to root out right-wing radicalism, but to renounce multiculturalism and...think more like Breivik. Which of course, would mean that Breivik won, and that terrorism in this case, was not only justified but ultimately quite effective.
Way to go, Ross Douthat and the liberal New York Times. Way to go.
"For decades, Europe’s governing classes insisted that only racists worried about immigration, only bigots doubted the success of multiculturalism and only fascists cared about national identity. Now that a true far-right radical has perpetrated a terrible atrocity, it will be easy to return to those comforting illusions."
Let's ponder what this means. Douthat is basically saying that that what happened in Norway was not carried out by a racist, bigot or fascist. Then what was he? A good man driven to radicalism by the misguided excesses of his own open society?
"But extremists only grow stronger when a political system pretends that problems don’t exist. Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic have an obligation to acknowledge that Anders Behring Breivik is a distinctively right-wing kind of monster. But they also have an obligation to the realities that this monster’s terrible atrocity threatens to obscure.
Ignore the token "monster" and "atrocity" labels and really think about what Douthat is saying here. In the previous paragraph, he told us that Breivik was not a bigot, racist or fascist. Here he tells us that Breivik may have been a "monster"...but he was one created by certain "realities" that have been ignored by the "governing classes" (which I suppose is a euphemism for "liberal elite").
He's also saying that atrocities like this will no doubt continue until the governing classes of Europe face up to the unpleasant realities of liberal immigration policies and multiculturalism.
In other words, Europe needs to adopt a more conservative stance on these issues to prevent further horrors. Which is exactly the goal of terrorists like Breivik -- using fear to force change. Committing explosive acts of violence to terrify a population or government into submission to their will.
Douthat does not think Breivik was a racist, bigot or fascist -- he doesn't even seem to think Breivik was crazy. No, he thinks Breivik had a point, and this atrocity, this appalling act of terrorism, should be a wakeup call to Europe -- not to root out right-wing radicalism, but to renounce multiculturalism and...think more like Breivik. Which of course, would mean that Breivik won, and that terrorism in this case, was not only justified but ultimately quite effective.
Way to go, Ross Douthat and the liberal New York Times. Way to go.