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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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What is the future of Islam in the West and the future of the West with Islam?

  • Popular youth figures Andrew Tate and Sneako became Muslims and made it a part of their media personality, which frequently gets millions of unique views with the audience mostly impressionable young boys.

  • Muslim memes are becoming popular online. Muslim terminology is becoming popular online — I have seen cases of Muslim expressions like inshallah and mashallah entering terminally online lexicon (which is the first step to normie lexicon).

  • Unlike Christianity, there is a confluence of significant factors that lead to Islam retaining strict behavioral and cultural rules. Mosques and scholars are funded by wealthy Arabs who have a monetary, political, and genetic influence in the spread of the religion; imams have children, the more strict the imam the more children, and dynastic imam families are not uncommon; the center of the religion is the Middle East where there is a constant threat of violence if leaders stray far enough from orthodoxy; the practice of excluding women from decision-making means that feminine-coded tolerance is sidelined; the religion itself highly emphasizes the following of strict tradition and punishments for “innovation”.

  • We are seeing the influence of Muslims in the criticisms against Israel, in a London street draped with Ramadan signs on Easter, and so on.

It’s interesting that “Islam is a threat” discourse has died down relative to a decade ago, despite the influence of the religion increasing. Is it because so many people have lost faith in both liberalism and liberal Christianity that they no longer care? I think that could play a part. Is it just laziness? Has there been a fundamental shift in assessment of Muslims?

Is it because so many people have lost faith in both liberalism and liberal Christianity that they no longer care.

Speaking only for myself: yes. I'll take the Taliban over the current batch of western elites.

Interesting you say that, because I as an actual practicing muslim (and coethnic) would far rather have the current batch of western elites over the literal Taliban ruling the place.

Sharia law really isn't something you want in the modern world. The prohibitions on interest alone would destroy the economy far worse than what current elites are doing by not listening to economists/giving in to populists.

What can I say? All things considered they're a bit strict for my taste, but they do what they say on the tin, which I tend to consider strictly superior to the vague and fluent rules of the west. The way of life they want to impose might not quite be my of tea either, but I recognize it as humane, while the western seems to aim for abolishing humanity.

They do what they say on the tin, meaning rule over an unproductive peasant economy that is one of the poorest nations in the world? No, it is clear modernity is still better than the Taliban if the goal of organized human society is some kind of technological or industrial advancement.

And the Taliban haven’t even been able to stop ISIS terror attacks, which continue regularly under their authority. The first duty of any state is to order; the Taliban cannot even accomplish this. You may wish to be ruled over by illiterate, destructive tribesmen descended from Buddhists converted by Arab conquerors in the distant past. That opinion may not be widely shared in the West, though.

I don't know how much clearer I can make it that they're not my first choice, but if western elites expect me to fight for them in any conflict with radical Muslims, they're in for a surprise. If they don't like that, maybe they shouldn't have imported so many of them back when people like me were saying it might not be a great idea.

Isn't that cutting your own nose off to spite your face? Your opponents finally come around to your position, to the extent they are now willing to violently oppose the Islamic people/world you also dislike and wanted to keep out, which was one of the key disputes you had with them...

And you switch sides to side with the people you were against in the first place?

Why would you expect to be taken seriously? I hate that you won't go along with my position so much, that I would side with the people that we had opposing views on? That seems like simple spite. At which point despite being correct you can't be taken seriously in any kind of political coalition. If you don't get your own way, you side with the people you were against?

Setting aside any moral issues, pragmatically there is no reason for your opponents to ever consider your ideas. If you hate them when they disagree, and hate them when they agree, then you aren't leaving much space for change, even when you are actually right.

For one, they haven't actually come around, they're still importing them wholesale.

Why would you expect to be taken seriously?

Right back at you. I don't believe the only reason we have all this promotion of "diversity" is to foment conflict in society. The fact that the progressive elites are siding with the Muslims (for example) right up until the point I decide I won't fight them in progressives' name, is proof positive I was being taken for a ride. It's your fight now, have fun.

Sure, if they don't change their mind then that makes sense. But this is predicated on them doing so.

That said I understand now I think. I'd suggest the elites wouldn't be changing their minds BECAUSE you decided you won't fight the Muslims. In fact, given I have worked with what might be called the elite in the UK, I can almost guarantee they aren't thinking about you (and your peers) at all, or that they are trying to take you for a ride at all, because they don't think about people like you or me much at all. (Which to be clear is a big problem, hence why I quit politics, its just not the same problem you think there is).

As for me, I don't think it will come to a fight at all. At least due to internal Muslims. I have extensive experience with Pakistani communities in the UK and they are being "corrupted" by western secular values quite substantially.

To be clear Islam is in my opinion a terrible religion and globally a much bigger problem than Christianity. But I expect it to lose power as its main countries advance and modernize. Reducing birth rates even in Islamic countries show it is not immune. To me the West is clearly the strong horse here. You can bribe native Pakistani and Afghani muslims with Man Utd strips. We've won so hard a tiny Westernised nation can essentially hold off the whole of the Middle East on its own.

Islam is dying. Just as Christianity is. Sunnis and Shi'ites in fight, Pakistan has problems with the Taliban. They are not united.

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