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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?

In the US, no, I don’t get the sense of Islam as being a common ‘get religion’ thing at all. Most Americans still think of Islam as uniquely predisposed to violence and savagery, converts to Islam mostly come from prison, and Americans who want to make the sacrifices required by Islam can join Mormonism for something 10,000X more appealing and less foreign.

Now I don’t think the dogmas of Islam are the reason- people bring up female submission and the like but the fact remains that women immigrated to join IS from first world countries. That doesn’t happen in any other case, ever. You don’t have women immigrating to Iraq and Syria unless they plan on joining IS. Likewise Mormons have no problem getting converts who are willing to give up alcohol and caffeine.

Instead Islam is just foreign and a refuge of losers. American Islam has an uphill battle to overcome its association with criminals, barbarians, and lunatics. The Islamic terms in online discourse come from MemriTV, well known for its general insanity, after all.

Most Americans still think of Islam as uniquely predisposed to violence and savagery

Like the sixty-something year old woman I heard (IRL) expressing confusion as to why people are criticizing Israel's actions towards civilians in Gaza, when "there are no civilians in Gaza" — because, as she sees it, there's no such thing as a Muslim civilian.

A more charitable interpretation is that Muslims who don't support Hamas are rare enough that they shouldn't be taken into account when forming policy.

Nobody short of the lizardman constant means "literally no such thing" when they say "no such thing" and it's not some kind of science or math problem.

A more charitable interpretation is that Muslims who don't support Hamas are rare enough that they shouldn't be taken into account when forming policy.

If the bit I quoted was the only thing she'd said, then sure. But there was also a 'little snakes grow up to be big snakes'-type statement about how Gazan children are valid military targets because they're all "future terrorists."