Judging by a review I read in the New York Times, there is some danger of Christopher Caldwell’s _Reflections on the Revolution in Europe_ being taken more seriously by some Americans than earlier examples of the Europe-about-to-become-Muslim genre. Matt Carr, writing for the Institute of Race Relations, “provides some detailed rebuttal”:http://www.irr.org.uk/2009/july/ha000011.html .
{ 30 comments }
P O'Neill 07.30.09 at 1:16 pm
Someone has to say it: Caldwell is the thinking man’s Mark Steyn.
Witt 07.30.09 at 1:27 pm
That was a really thoughtful and precise analysis by Carr; thanks for linking to it.
It’s disheartening (or something), how the human need for just-so stories doesn’t seem to change at all with increased education. The stories get a veneer of sophistication or get reframed in more polite language, but it’s the same old fear and hatefulness over and over again.
a.y.mous 07.30.09 at 1:46 pm
Perhaps, there really is a fundamental need to be tribal in nature. Perhaps, global inter-connections are not for the greater good. Perhaps, feudalism is, “for the win!”, so to speak. Perhaps, ‘growth’ is meaningless in so far as evolution is concerned, including social evolution. Perhaps, every area of the world is to be frozen in social construct, with the ‘Roaring Twenties’ as the epitome of global social structure.
Perhaps, he is right.
Tim Wilkinson 07.30.09 at 2:51 pm
A reminder that the GWOT/muslim-bashing phenomenon won’t just go away just because Cheney has. In fact probably not until Oceania switches its attention from Eurasia to Eastasia, and Goldstein loses the keffiyeh in favour of an air of inscrutable malevolence.
One detail from the article: Carr refers to Caldwell’s claim that 57 per cent of Irish Muslims want Ireland to become an Islamic state, citing a survey carried out for the Irish Independent/RTE by the Lansdowne market research company. He points out that The actual figure quoted in the survey found that 57 per cent of young Irish Muslims wanted this outcome, compared with only 37 per cent of Irish Muslims overall
This misses the worst aspect of Caldwell’s misrepresentation. The word ‘want’ suggests an element of intention or expectation. In fact the article (which is the only available report of the survey) – actually says:
More than a third (36pc) would prefer Ireland to be ruled under Sharia law, while 37pc would like Ireland to be governed as an Islamic state…More than half of young Muslims (57pc) believe Ireland should become an Islamic State.
Which is rather different (perhaps subtly – I dunno), and suggests that the poll asked the usual ‘strongly agree…strongly disagree’ type question in respect of propositions like ‘Ireland should be an Islamic State’. Not quite ‘What do we want? Sharia Law! When do we want it? Now!’. More like ‘how would you feel if you woke up tomorrow morning and found that Ireland’s national religion had become Islam? Quite pleased, or pissed off?
I wonder if there was a ‘would you like a pony?’ question. If so, I suppose Caldwell thinks Dubliners should be very worried about the looming dung problem.
[It should go with out saying (but hasn’t) that most opinion polls, with the possible expection of really clear-cut ones like ‘who are you going to vote for tomorrow’ have value approaching the square root of bugger-all. And reports of their findings are even worse especially when no link is given to the exact poll questions, methods and results themselves. In this case, even the pollsters don’t make any info available except by direct request. Second-hand reports from those with polemical aims are of course even less reliable (FWLIW, a similar point occurs in my own review of Damian Thompson’s wretched Counterknowledge.]
P O'Neill 07.30.09 at 3:01 pm
What number would a poll get asking young people whether they’d like to be ruled along the lines of the state described in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (or some appropriately updated reference)?
akatsuki 07.30.09 at 3:07 pm
Perhaps we read a different article — Carr pokes a bit at the arguments, but is only partially successful. He picks at small, anecdotal evidence provided by Caldwell and suggests that Caldwell’s “depiction of asylum seekers as devious parasites in search of the softest touch and the country with the best welfare system” is inaccurate, but really doesn’t provide much to back up what a proper interpretation is. The nit-picking on details throughout may be an attempt to show Caldwell of being a lazy researcher, but there is nothing in the article to suggest that his main hypothesis is actually wrong.
I am not arguing that Caldwell is right, more that Carr’s critique is rather pathetic.
Tim Wilkinson 07.30.09 at 3:21 pm
The nit-picking on details throughout may be an attempt to show Caldwell of being a lazy researcher, but there is nothing in the article to suggest that his main hypothesis is actually wrong. I am not arguing that Caldwell is right, more that Carr’s critique is rather pathetic.
The ‘details’ are also known as the ‘evidence’. It’s a common problem when criticising a bold and sweeping thesis backed by blithely fact-insensitive assertions, minor distortions and highly selective evidence. The aim is rebuttal, which involves subjecting the actually checkable claims to scrutiny. But the devil has all the best tunes, and the polemicist who doesn’t care about accuracy has a distinct advantage – as well as the author of the book having all the momentum. In that situation, it’s very hard not to appear nitpicky and excessively earnest.The alternative is to write a similar book with a catchy title like ‘Muslims: not actually that much of a threat, though, are they’.
Alex 07.30.09 at 4:08 pm
Caldwell is of course the man who wrote a 6-page profile of Robert Kilroy-Silk for the NYT in which he accused all the other British political parties of “country-house condescension”, drooled over RKS’s own gravel driveway, and promised that he would revolutionise European politics. He evidently hears a different drummer.
Has it actually become harder to laugh these people off stage?
Hidari 07.30.09 at 4:58 pm
Alex.I googled the NYT interview you mentioned. OMG. And this man is still in paid employment?
This blog entry has everything you need to know.
http://yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/2005/01/print-fit-thats-all-to-news.html
especially the links towards the end.
Henri Vieuxtemps 07.30.09 at 5:19 pm
I find it pretty amazing that 57% of young Irish Muslims would prefer an Islamic state. I don’t think this has much to do with Islam per se, but it seems to indicate an awfully high intensity of alienation…
Hidari 07.30.09 at 6:52 pm
‘I find it pretty amazing that 57% of young Irish Muslims would prefer an Islamic state. I don’t think this has much to do with Islam per se, but it seems to indicate an awfully high intensity of alienation…’
As oppposed to the Catholic/paedophile state they actually live in? Ha ha…he said, moving towards the exit…..
Chris Bertram 07.30.09 at 6:53 pm
There are around 40,000 Muslims in Ireland. I’m not sure how many of them count as “young” in the opinion poll sense.
Alex 07.30.09 at 9:31 pm
Hidari – I know. That’s my blog.
mart 07.31.09 at 2:29 am
Caldwell is of course the man who wrote a 6-page profile of Robert Kilroy-Silk for the NYT in which he accused all the other British political parties of “country-house condescensionâ€, drooled over RKS’s own gravel driveway, and promised that he would revolutionise European politics.
He was trying to warn of the Orange Overlords soon to overrun us…
“
Thinking Man’sSockpuppet of Mark Steyn” Fixed for you.Josh 07.31.09 at 4:28 am
Sad to say, the unearned respect given Caldwell is not unique: didn’t the NYT just praise Bruce Bawer’s version of the same argument?
jon livesey 07.31.09 at 4:57 am
“And the uncritical reception given to this artful anti-Muslim diatribe in liberal circles is a depressing reminder of the extent to which its essential assumptions have moved from the political margins to form a new mainstream consensus.”
Gosh, I wonder how that could have happened. No doubt some monkey just sat down at a typewriter, and before you know it, this obviously-wrong-and-all-right-thinking-people-know-it stuff just sort of “moved” from the margins to the mainstream. Like a turd floating into the middle of the river.
It certainly could not have been because actual people “thought” about what was going on around them. Nor could it have been that people who always thought this were marginalized and censored, but now more and more people are beginning to think: Gee, maybe they have a point. And I’m sure it couldn’t be because what moving to the mainstream means is more people thinking what only a few used to.
As we know, when right-thinking people have opinions, it’s because of their thoughts. Other people, well, it’s just sort of random noise, isn’t it. That’s the best way to dismiss opinions with which you cannot engage: label them “uncritical” or describe them as mere detritus in the unconscious flow.
Henri Vieuxtemps 07.31.09 at 7:50 am
@16: Is it really fair to say that islamophobia is marginalized and censored; what about Phillips, Steyn and all the rest of them? They are in the mainstream and have been for a long time. Seems to me what Matt Carr is complaining about the uncritical reception by intellectuals, who should know better.
Z 07.31.09 at 8:43 am
If the level of abuse endured by people of arabic descent or even with names sounding vaguely “arabic” or “muslims” to untrained ears was not so depressing, there would be something highly amusing about this EUrabia business. It is a rare case of a community of people bemoaning the decline of another community of people altogether. It is mostly a case of people living in North America obsessing about the decline of Europe, the obvious question being: why do you care so much, when we Europeans mostly don’t?
My intuition is that (some) Americans actually feel a sense of decline in their country and communities (not so much because of the lack of economic growth in my view, but rather because the balance between public and private goods is so tilted that an increase of the latter leads to only marginal improvements in quality of life), but prefer to project that feeling on Europeans rather than facing it: all what they don’t have, and maybe secretly long for, (affordable health care and education, less violent crimes, social mobility, a relatively relaxed attitude towards gays and minorities), they turn in the reason of our imminent descent into chaos.
Steve LaBonne 07.31.09 at 1:07 pm
Give that man a cigar. American conservatives are all about projection. In domestic politics, you can be sure that anything they accuse their opponents of doing is something they want to do or actually have done. Naturally they carry their projection habit over to their “thinking” about international affairs.
Daniel 07.31.09 at 1:48 pm
>>American conservatives are all about projection. In domestic politics,
You are so right. Americans have projected Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom’s success in the Netherlands. Projected them right into office.
des von bladet 07.31.09 at 1:58 pm
You are so right. Americans have projected Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom’s success in the Netherlands. Projected them right into office.
Perhaps you could remind us what office Geert Wilders currently holds? (Were you thinking of Danmark’s Pia Kjærsgaard?)
Jacob Christensen 07.31.09 at 2:17 pm
Technically speaking, Pia Kjærsgaard (or the Danish People’s Party) doesn’t hold government office. That said, they control the Danish public and political agenda pretty effectively. For those reading Scandinavian or willing to try a web-translator:
Interview with DF’s #2 Kristian Thulesen Dahl
Ralf Pittelkow about Islamic Ireland. (Much could be said about Mr. P, but in a way he’s Danish Neo-Conservatism light – started out as a revolutionary socialist in the 1960s, moved right, and right, and these days he’s an op-ed writer in Jyllands-Posten).
Jacob Christensen 07.31.09 at 2:19 pm
Dang, I forgot … Pittelkow started out as a revolutionary Sozialist…
ajay 07.31.09 at 3:47 pm
16: jon, I think it is worth pointing out that there just isn’t the evidence to back up fears of an Islamic takeover of Ireland. And beliefs which are not supported by evidence probably should be ignored and dismissed.
bert 07.31.09 at 4:17 pm
I just read the NYT review I assume you’re referring to.
Representative sample: “Like an action-movie hero he walks calmly away from his own detonations while fire swirls behind him.”
To call it a rave doesn’t do it justice. It’s more of a leg-hump.
I think you’ve picked the right target. Matt Carr by contrast complains about the equivalent British response, and has far less of a case. The review by David Goodhart that he complains about explicitly criticises Caldwell for “recycling a mild version of the neoconservative Eurabia thesis”. It’s a polite review, containing more than a few compliments, but it’s clear about what’s wrong: “the book is really two essays – one an insightful probing of Europe’s confusion about postwar immigration; the other a rather cartoonish polemic about the potential Islamic takeover of Europe.”
The polemic is tailor-made for an ideologically precommitted American audience. It’s pandering to a market. The rationalisation Caldwell and others have hit upon for explaining why the Eurabia industry has had less success in the European marketplace is interesting. Self-censorship, driven by political correctness and cowardly self-preservation, is trumping free speech. That’s the kind of thinking Karl Popper used to call unfalsifiable.
Unlike Carr, I think the balance of Goodhart’s review is about right. If in fact Caldwell is getting comparatively gentle treatment from the bastions of British liberalism, as Carr suggests, it may be largely as a result of his having arrived at the FT shortly after the departure of Amity Shlaes. Sure he’s an American right winger, goes the reasoning, but at least he ‘s not a horn-honking halfwit.
Donald Johnson 07.31.09 at 10:35 pm
“Sad to say, the unearned respect given Caldwell is not unique: didn’t the NYT just praise Bruce Bawer’s version of the same argument?”
Yes. They also published another review in the same issue of a book about Israel which the reviewer said was fair, except perhaps to the Arabs.
P O'Neill 08.01.09 at 3:07 pm
We have a new problem
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/books/review/Ajami-t.html
Daniel Rosa 08.01.09 at 5:58 pm
Yellow peril, red menace, eurabia… The lyrics change, the song remains the same.
sg 08.02.09 at 9:53 pm
I’m struck by how much the authors of this genre seem to equate the US and Islam. When they speak of a culture that is anchored, confident, and strengthened by common doctrines I can really feel them contrasting the US and Europe, as well as Europe and Islam. I think quite a few of them do it explicitly. It’s really disturbing how they admire what they hate.
bert 08.02.09 at 11:48 pm
sg, Dinesh d’Souza is a case study, nuttily testing the limits of this approach.
He thought he was onto a winner with The Enemy at Home.
His mistake was to make matters so explicit he wound up calling for an alliance.
His foreignness hadn’t handicapped him before. But once he crossed that threshold, he ran out of defenders fast. It turned out to be too much even for the NRO.
Within defined limits, though, contempt for the despised euroweenie and admiration for the indomitable Other have proved to be fruitful ground.
Comments on this entry are closed.