There’s a great if somewhat short interview with Mark Steyn at the New Culture Forum.
Here’s my favorite bit:
NCF: We’re talking here about the culture wars. It’s a cliché that the right might have won the economic debate but that the left were victorious in the culture wars. Do you think that that is showing signs of changing? Or do we have to literally wait, to use your demographic analysis, for a generation – the so called sixty-eighters, the people who are now running the place – to, if you like, die out?
MS: Yes, I do think there is a huge problem with that generation. I think it’s almost impossible to get any sense out of them and, as you said, there are the generation which runs the Western world, which in part explains why Western civilization seems to have lost its confidence. I think that in Britain’s case there’s a danger of really appalling tragedy of a country that’s been hollowed out from within. I said the other day rather grimly that I thought it was in danger of turning into Somalia with chip shops, that’s to say a sort of husk of a state into which dangerous, malevolent, opportunist forces basically move in.
I think the scale of the problem should have been clearer to MI5 and the other authorities a lot sooner. Even today, there are far too many people at the highest level of the British State who think that it is an IRA kind of problem, that it will mean that every so often a bus will be blown up, a train will be blown up and a couple of dozen people will die but, as with the IRA, it will be manageable. And it is not, it is something far darker, more ambitious, and potentially far more transformative . . . .
Steyn is kinda vague about the steps Europe should take to stave off the coming of the new Dark Ages.
Does he outline his plan to save Europe in more detail in his book?
You can find his book here in the States already, and there are many reviews.
If you’ve read it, Dan…maybe you could give us a precis of it?
What, exactly, is he advocating Europe should do?
You can find a few book reviews linked right at Steyn’s site.
Normally I don’t buy political books unless they’re written by P.J. O’Rourke, but I may make an exception this time.
I don’t know why I should answer the retarded telephone pole in training, but his questions seems genuine.
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but Steyn does not have a solution for Europe. He is generally a pretty optimistic guy, but he fears Europe is lost.
question
sspunkyboi isn’t even remotely genuine—assuming it’s not a plant, the little bitch needs to go read the book instead of trolling around here. And naturally Steyn has no more a plan for sad little Europe than Kerry did for solving Islamofacism.
It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of how we’re going to protect ourselves from this point forward.
About that, monkyfucktard lacks moral will, not comprehension, thus proving at least one of Steyn’s points, not to mention mine. From the link:
This isn’t going to go away. It’s not going to end pretty. monkyspunk trolling that transparent, schoolgirl interest is a lie.
That’s one of the most worrisome things about the way things are going. Five years ago Steyn was devastatingly witty cheerleader. Now he’s a fairly witty doomsayer.
Just ignore him Sock. The thread loses none of its continuity if you just pass him by.
Actually he has argued that all wahabbi & salafist
madrassas be starved of funding, western civili-zation be taught in the public schools, among other points. Interestingly, Charles Allen, a long time chronicler of British imperial exploits,
has just come out with a tome, that outlines how
Wahhabism propagated to India, and points west,
in the 19th century, most notably in the North
Western Frontier (Waziristan, Bajur, et al) where
the likes of future Marshal Roberts (Umbeyla; 1858) Winston Churchill (Malakand, 1897) et al;
faced the Wahhabi or Deobandi influence. including
the expedition against the Faquir in the 30s and 40s, an endeavour fraught with many of the same
problems that the hunt for Osama has today
Hey, points for honesty. You will fight right in wearing a beekeeper outfit. Change your name to Semanticlea, and you shall be killed last.
fit*
As I believe I pointed out:
Why with all the non-sequiturs? If I say Dubai is friendly to the west, do you respond by saying some Imam from there once said Death to America? Your act is beyond tiring, monkyboy. If you expect anyone to answer your questions, for once in your life, have the decency to answer theirs.
Sorry, sockpuppet, I had to nuke several, including an insight regarding the school lunch menus in Australia, and some idiot maundering about the population bubble of boomers.
You know what, monkyboy? I will humor you. I have no fucking idea what Dubai has to do with this, which is why I called it a non-sequitur. Please explain. Unless you think Westernersget marching orders from Steyn, in which case you can go back to spanking it.
Ah, sorry Dan, I am paying more attention to USC-Notre Dame than this. I will stop engaging the poo-flingers.
I don’t think, by the way, SPiT, that Steyn lacks a solution for Europe. He just believes that Europe is too sleepy to manage it, until it requires much greater violence than he wishes to contemplate. And that is where many of us are.
There is a difference, though, between us and many others. We know what we value, we understand some of what we owe to it, and we do not lack the will to see that it is perpetuated. There are advantages and disadvantages to every consciousness, but it is fair to say that it would not be possible under the invigilation practiced in most Islamism to arrive at the kinds of self-immolating relativism that pervades Western so-called liberalism. That the idiots cannot understand that the substrate that underwrites their conception of privileged consciousness would be destroyed if we followed blindly their desire for self-loathing oblivion means nothing. We seek to deal with it now in a measured way. We will seek to deal with it later without measurement. And still they will not understand that worthiness is nothing without will, they so love the sound of their soft-soothing lies.
In case anyone’s interested, the reason that Westerners go to live in Dubai may have something to do with the salaries that are paid, since the natives haven’t enough expertise by themselves to manage a Western-style infrastructure, but have plenty of money to pay others so to do.
Also, in case anyone’s interested, Jeff’s been kind enough to be very hands-off about how I behave here. You can blame Collins if you don’t like it.
I think Jeff’s been hands off for all of the guest-posters. I think he has assumed we’ll be pretty much self-regulating, and so far it’s worked out okay.
You see how dialectic proceeds when one side is more dismissive than the other?
“You see how dialectic proceeds when one side is more dismissive than the other?”
Heil Hitler!
Hahahaha. That’s just too funny. I think I’ll leave it in.
They’re self-parodying. I still wonder why they aren’t happier now, ever since Nancy ushered in this golden age.
Honesty is in short supply.
Cleo might be a flat character in the great play that is life, but at least he’s the honest one.
Perhaps a little too honest, but then again, that’s a matter of <i>tact<>.
Crackers.
That’s just too funny.
Self-deprecation may be your best quality.
Once upon a time, there was a painter, who rented studio space where other painters worked. He would suggest a theme, and draw a vague outline, and his fellow artists would add some here, and a bit there, and eventually arrive at a picture. In the back lurked a couple of painters who produced nothing, but who wished always to deface what he and his fellows produced. This they apparently regarded as the epitome of art.
For a long time the painter and his friends put up with the missiles of paint lobbed at their canvasses by the others, but one day the painter grew tired of it. He told the defacers that he would no longer permit them to lob paint at his canvasses. At this they grew angry and said, how can you call yourself any kind of artist? You are stifling our expression. And the painter and his friends did not give a shit.
Having a Wagner airless paint gun does not an artist make. Stick to simple sentences, prose and allegories are not your strong suit.
On the contrary, cleo, having a product reference does not a rejoinder make. Prose and allegory are a much stronger suit with me than they are with you.
“Prose and allegory are a much stronger suit with me than they are with you.”
Oh…..I stand corrected.
Well. Where’s your allegory? With your Wagnerian reference, you ought to be able to take it somewhere. Or are you just lobbing paint?
Why the hell should I waste my time crafting phrases that are destined to sail with the good censorship,
Dan Collins?
If you make an honest attempt at a good work, cleo, I will not nuke it. For the pride of craftsmanship, let’s say.
Do something, lad. Do something admirable.
Boomers always get defensive when this is brought up, but even they agree: that generation is the most pernicious, troubling and damaging in history. What happened, I don’t think we’ll ever know, it’s like a madness took hold of an entire generation of kids and twisted them, and through them the whole western world.
My Generation (the one immediately after it) is no use whatsoever, I’m just hoping that long after I’m dead 2nd and 3rd generation home schooled kids will dig us out of this trench we’re merrily wallowing in.
Hi you guys! Don’t mind me as I do some sleuthing around while I investigate what I’m calling “The Mystery of the Missing Non-Sequiturs.” I’ll be sure to let you know what I find out!
A vision of “free speech” if the right would have continued in power perhaps?
hehe, you guys are all the same…
While you do, let me tell you a story. I have many friends who tell me that D.H. Lawrence is a great author. They are very bright people, and at their urging, I’ve read several Lawrence novels. And I’ve always found the experience . . . well, not excruciating, but disappointing. And I’ve always thought, I am not going to say that Lawrence is crap, because I’ve got intelligent friends who get him. And obviously he connects with them in a way that he doesn’t with me. But that doesn’t mean that there’s a problem with Lawrence, so I’m just not going to write about him, because I obviously just don’t connect with him. So I just won’t write about Lawrence.
And some of those stupid bastards don’t like Keats.
Here’s a little blast from the past that requires a simple paste and therefore seems worth my time to repeat. It may seem non-sequitur on the surface but it was appropriate in the context of Goldbrick’s usual blather about some nuanced subject only he has a grasp of.
Watch out Godstein!
All those closeted ‘Beer Putsch’ liberals who have
forsaken their ideology for the sake of winning
are gonna getcha’.
We know ProteinWife’s real name is ‘HighPockets’ and
is a double agent for the Allies. She has taken down three members of the French Resistance so far
without suffering a scratch.
We recognize the merits of the cross-dressing J. Edgar Hoover and have duplicated his little black book. We have the dirt on you and yours.
We, of the left leaning CIA set up Cheney using
Joe’s wife as bait. Hell, the Wilsons were in on it.
Cheney was just doin’ what he thought was right.
And if a few contacts were liquidated, well, it was worth it. Because we will do anything to stop
BushCo from fightin’ terrorism. Shit, those freaking loons-who-hate-pantaloons have kept us in gravy for the past 35 years. We can’t allow those
righteous fighters for truth and justice to kill
our cash cow. So we joined forces with the enemies of Democracy and Freedom to defeat the Crusaders for Justice and the American Way. If that’s not Patriotism, I don’t know what is.
Posted by Semanticleo | permalink
on 07/26 at 11:37 AM
Shorter semanticlio: I’m miffed that you’ve finally trod my holiest of holies: Unmitigated bullshit masquerading as free speech. Because all words are equivalent, especially mine, dammit.
An open invitation. Treat us to an essay on jars of urine and shit-on-a-canvas, willya semantiFlynt? monkypiss already did the base trolling.
<blockquote>
What happened, I don’t think we’ll ever know, it’s like a madness took
hold of an entire generation of kids and twisted them, and through them the
whole western world.
</blockqoute>
My father, who is 80, blames Dr. Spock’s book on raising children, “Baby and Child Care,” for the decline. It was published in 1946.
I have no idea what methods it promotes, but Dr. Spock was probably against traditional discipline.
Is that allegory, cleo? It looks like some kind of strange pastiche.
The right has not lost power.
Only the deluded think the election was evidence of what was wrong with Kansas, corrected.
Monkeys have no I.Q.; they have only reactive advantage.
It’s self-perpetuating and reproducing: It takes work to avoid the trench but superhuman effort to pull out of it. Consider the trolls here; proud to wallow, completely relative, illogical, deranged, intolerant, dishonest. All of it shamelessly—the only emotion shown is from semanticlio, who snubbed for its foolishness, goes off on an enraged self indulgence.
hehe, you guys are all the same. Bent.
“It looks like some kind of strange pastiche.”
You had to be there.
What is “malarkey”?
I’ll take “Psuedointellectualism” for $1000, Alex.
Okay. It’s its own post now. Have at it.
Have at what? There’s no there there…
You had to be there. It was, like, special.
I was there. It was special alright. In the small yellow bus sense of the word…
I feel like I am in a Weimar Republic brothel, where transvestite lesbians preach hedonism, and I cannot ignore the message unless I exit the tableau.
Monkytard,
Here’s my take on you position.
Even if you win the special olympics, you are still retarded, (see: Nancy Pelosi, AlCee Hastings).
“[and] I cannot ignore the message unless I exit the tableau”
– Best exemplified as the wonderfully obssesive “Hotel SecProgg”, where you suddenly notice, no matter how many times you check out, you never can leave.
What happens when a fantasy ends?
Pretend it’s still going on?
There is a considerable distance between being obscure and being complex which is not always understood by those whose thought processes are so vitiated by conceit and a lifetime of self delusion that they cannot tell when they are making fools of themselves.
I think Semantic leo is an irredeemable case.
No thanks.
I shit solo.
It didn’t smell any better then, I assure you.
What happens when a fantasy ends?
Pretend it’s still going on?
Posted by monkyboy |
Hows that goin’ for ya?