I woke up to the news of the Christchurch mosque shooting and was deeply disappointed in my fellow "Whites", as I suppose the terrorist gang would identify themselves. The leader of the gang described his parents as being of Scottish, Irish and English stock. Add a splash of German, and that's my ethnic background, too. And since people call upon the Islamic communities to sort themselves out, it's only fair that "white people" or "people of European descent" should condemn mass murder carried out in our name.
No, this is not virtue signalling. This is responsible online journalism.
As long-term readers know, I never name mass shooters in print because one of the reasons they do what they do is get their names in print. They love the media. This Australian terrorist in Christchurch filmed his murders--which is exactly what Islamic terrorists do--to inspire the likeminded--which is exactly why Islamic terrorists do it, too.
Terrorists are almost always men and their subordinate female partners or relations, so I am really not sure what I could say to "White" guys in danger of shooting up a mosque or church of ordinary people. My hypothesis of influence is that the vast majority of women have a dramatic influence on only a very small number of men--usually their sons, grandsons, brothers, boyfriends and husbands. If you want to influence hundreds of thousands of young men, you're going to have to recruit men at least slightly older than them to do it.
There are exceptions, of course. Here in the UK Margaret Thatcher had an enormous influence on any number of conservative young Englishmen. But then Thatcher was exceptional. Middle-class Englishmen loved Thatcher whereas middle-class American men loathe Hilary Clinton. Discuss.
Anyway, as far as the majority of women are concerned, it is up to mothers, grandmothers, sisters, girlfriends and wives to have conversations with their menfolk about how they should respond as men to political and cultural instability. I suppose highly favoured aunties could have that conversation, too, if asked.
I haven't been asked, but if one of my nephews or courtesy nephews were to complain to me about the low white European birthrate, I would point out that siring, raising and educating five European babies would be the best and most effective way of fighting that.
Imaginary Monologue to At-Risk Imaginary Nephew
Obviously, the most super-effective way to raise the European birthrate would be to have as many babies as possible with as many willing European women you could find and then let the various European nanny states deal with their needs. However I cannot see the point of propagating a "race" for the sake of its genes. Skin cancer and light-sensitivity--whoo hoo.
I concede, Imaginary-Nephew-at-Risk-of-Whiteism, that white people of European descent number about 750 million, which is a tenth of the global population. So, yes, white people of European descent are indeed a minority.
However, what makes European descent at all interesting are the actual European cultures white people of European descent inherited, whose strengths rely on virtues that any human being of reasonable intelligence can adopt and indeed can be found to a greater or lesser extent throughout the world. The virtues depend on upbringing, and the cultures depend on education.
Please don't tell me any nonsense about IQ, Imaginary-Nephew-at-Risk, as the sort of people who study that sort of thing have discovered that the countries with the highest IQs are East Asian.
The Australian-in-Christchurch mosque shooter, I'll point out, testified that he didn't have much education. Possibly he had lousy teachers. Possibly the curriculum was at fault. Possibly local education ideology concentrated only on the needs of girls. All that said, if he cared that much about France (as his manifesto claims), it would have made a lot more sense to learn French and become, in however large or small a way, an Australian ambassador for French culture: French governance, French literature, French music, French horticulture, French cheesemaking, French viniculture, French couture, French cooking.
England's francophile Elizabeth David preserved thousands of classic French recipes. She didn't shoot up a mosque.
Me, I like the idea of distinctive, unifying, familiar European cultures. I grew up in Toronto, so I find relative monocultures fascinating. I dig a bit and discover slight variations in culture from geographical place to geographical place in a relatively ethnically homogenous country.
I'm a fan of geography-dependent cultural differences. I don't think every nation in the world should become as multicultural as Toronto. But the multiculturalism of Toronto is also, I've discovered, different from the multiculturalism of London and of Boston, so multiculturalism is not the McDonaldization of the world I used to think it was. I'm for cultures developing naturally but slowly. I am (somewhat) sympathetic to Quebec's heavy-handed mission to stay French-speaking, but I don't like social engineering.
Well, I guess I don't like liberal social engineering. Hungarian tax breaks for families and pensions for mothers-of-four resonate with me, but Wear a Hijab day does not.
Migration is a fact of life, but I think mass migration is inherently destablizing. I gave myself a terrible shock while speaking with a Free Presbyterian pal when I realised the extent to which Irish Catholic mass migration had destablized 19th century Scottish society. Scotland still feels the aftershocks to this day. But my ancestors were Famine Irish themselves: they went west to the USA with the thousands of other Irish Catholics who inadvertently destabilised Boston and New York.
Migration (particularly from east to west) is a human constant, and the speed and size at which it is happening today is one of the defining questions of the still-young 21st century. I don't think anyone has the solution as to how to cope with the inevitable fall-out.
Given the complexities of human migration, I suggest, At-Risk Imaginary Nephew, that you think about what it is that you want and what it is that you fear and then set about finding out as much as you can about both. One of the great gifts of Western Civilisation is that idea that anyone, no matter how poor or disadvantaged, can and should learn to read and then use his powers of reason to determine what is true.
Meanwhile, shooting unarmed people is always and everywhere evil and cowardly.
Update: This, about the rejection of Christianity by the alt-right, is important. More on this later, I hope.
Update 2: This, from Rod Dreher, is also insightful. I haven't read the entire manifesto--just a couple of pages I first found on Twitter. Don't miss the French Canadian song he links to. In an earlier edit I said I wished the Quebecois hadn't eroded their culture by moving en masse to the cities, going on the Pill and throwing their religious faith and traditions out the window.
Rod added an update by a deeply shocked and grieving Christchurch resident who, understandably, seems to believe this is the time for feeling, not thinking. I think that is true for Christchurch, but not for everyone else. Rod makes a good argument that just as we need to examine the ideology of Islamic terrorism, we need to examine the ideology of the Christchurch massacre.
Update 3: I found the manifesto and skimmed it. If I write more about this, I'll take the time to read it properly. It's disturbing because it's much different from the ranting of mass shooters of women. I've read documents left by two anti-women killers, and they revealed self-absorbed, mentally unbalanced nitwits seething with self-pity. The Australian shooter (who professes indifference for fame and believes his name will soon be forgotten) was willing to sacrifice his life because he thinks he is part of a war. Well, off to see what Jordan Peterson has to say.
OK, so I didn't want to comment on this, but I feel compelled to.
ReplyDeleteFirst, yes, these clowns killing a bunch of Muslims at prayer is awful terrorism, and we must condemn it and try prevent such actions.
Second, women have far more influence over friends than they realise. Disapproval of the shooters sentiments about violence as a political solution to falling birth rates of Europeans by a girl he knew, probably would have put him off the idea, if she could articulate an alternative well. Men hate to be thought badly of by women.
Third, migration is the most powerful force on earth. It impacts on all aspects of a society, and mass migration can transform or even result in colonisation of a nation. The latter underpins the shooters concerns, and those of many Trumpers and Brexiteers.
While New Zealand has small numbers of Muslims (c. 30,000 I think), so Muslims are not taking over soon, the shooter was making a point about all the West, and trying to spark civil conflict.
Fourth, your claim that 'siring, raising and educating five European babies would be the best and most effective way of fighting' low European birth rates, is precisely what the shooter claimed in his manifesto would be ineffective, due to high migrant and low Euro birth rates.
To convince your nephew, you would need to show him that it is viable to retain European people and culture by raising their birth rates, *and* limiting migration. The shooters point was migration was so fast, and potential migrants outnumber Europeans by 10-1, that simply doubling European births will not suffice. Macron has said he wants hundreds of millions of African migrants! An extra 10 million Euro babies does not offset that.
The shooters 'logic' would see today as victory - he killed 49. Far more than he could sire, especially in traditional Christian marriage to one woman. That is how he redresses the imbalance of (Muslim) migrant to natives. It is up to us to show how Europeans can survive without resort to mass murder of civilians. Mass deportation of Merkels fake refugees may be needed; Italy appears ready to start.
Finally, do not let your own migrant background deter you from speaking against mass migration, especially multi-cultural 'diversity' rhetoric.
It is not hypocrisy to point out the devastating impact the loss of ones own culture and genes would be. Imagine a world without blondes or redheads, no blue or green or grey eyes, or pale skin and freckles. That is where the diversity crew are leading, for their own profit (they imagine they will survive in guarded gated compounds).
Ironically, the shooter has set back rational, open discussion of these issues dramatically. But then, he gave up on democratic change when he saw the level of migration in France, and when he rejected the civic nationalism of le Pen (which he noted was also rejected by the French voters).
I note the shooters rejected Christianity, whose morality may have otherwise deterred them. May God convert their hearts in jail - I doubt they will ever be released.
I didn't mention Christianity because I assumed that my Fictional-At-Risk-Nephew wouldn't be swayed by Christian arguments, but yes. Anyone who truly believes in Christ cannot shoot up a room full of unarmed people doing peaceful activities.
ReplyDeleteI missed the part of the manifesto where the Australian terrorist says having children would be ineffective. But if he had five children young, and each of his children had five children young, that would would be 30 descendants before he was an old man. He might even live to see his grandchildren's children, who could number 125. My math is really terrible, but that looks to me like 155 descendants in total so far.
Naturally he and his children would have to impress upon their children that having, raising, and educating 5+ children is a glorious and rewarding thing to do, and that being a patriarch is better than being a wannabe rockstar, etc.
Well, I don't support mass migration within Europe, or illegal migration anywhere, so my migrant background isn't getting in the way. It is the rare urban Canadian who doesn't have migration on the lower branches of his family tree, even if that is a heartbreaking move from Newfoundland or Nova Scotia to Toronto. I am all for controlled, gradual migration, and also for people flourishing and working for better conditions where they and their ancestors were born. It's sad that so many countries lose their "best and brightest" to richer countries.
I should probably mention that Quebec's borderline illegal treatment of les anglos is something my family members have to subvert in order to flourish, but at the same time I glumly acknowledge that the Quebecois are right to protect their endangered culture. I just wish they hadn't so thoroughly endangered it themselves by abandoning the countryside, going on the Pill and chucking L'Eglise out the fenetre.
I agree that the loss of my, or any other, European culture would be terrible. And it would also be sad to be the last blue-eyed redhead in the world. And, since many world cultures prize golden hair and white skin, I can see the aesthetic loss--which, ironically enough, would make the human race less diverse. However, blue eyes are not a genetic advantage, and red hair is a genetic advantage only if you live in dark and gloomy countries, and I'm much more disturbed by the idea that Christianity might have to go underground or that pig-farming may be banned or that the French will forget how to make wine or the English the principle of free speech or the Germans the work of Beethoven.
Oh well, this is all very hypothetical. With 750 million people, neither white Europeans nor their cultures are on the brink of extinction, and many of the New Europeans, the ones who really love Europe, or one of its many countries, will help preserve Western Civilization themselves. The poorly educated Australian terrorist may have seen many Algerians in Paris, but he probably didn't see the ones studying Cordon Bleu cookery.
Hmm.
ReplyDeleteI can't recall source, but I saw stats for European birth rates, and they are generally 1.5 children per woman of reproductive age (2.1 is replacement; 1 child for father, 1 for mother, and 0.1 for kids who die before reproducing). That is skewed however, by far higher migrant birth rates, typically 5 children per woman for Muslims, so Euro rates are lower!
The relevance is, it is not simply physical characteristics of Europeans we lose if they are subsumed by migrants, but their culture. Physical factors offer aesthetics, but mostly just represent the DNA trend from sustained breeding within a stable population, which connotes a stable culture.
And European cultures have offered the world a great deal, despite a German lecturer I had stating German culture offered nothing and she would be happy to see it die out (I thought of Mozart, Beethoven, Liebnitz, and was stunned; we'll skip Luther).
So your nephew having 5 kids would barely keep up with the migrants, which is what depressed the shooter (according to his script) sufficiently to try even the odds by mass murder. Tragic. Ok, the shooter didn't know your nephew, but you get the point ;)
That is also why controlled gradual migration is dangerous. You can take some migrants, but sustained moderate migration eventually colonises. Look at the US, where Latino migration has been small as a percentage annually, but after 50 years, Latinos are now about to permanently shift voting patterns in the US to Democrat. And shift culture. The US may become primarily Spanish speaking.
Finally, 750 million people can go extinct very fast. Bluntly, when couples age past 35 or so, fertility vanishes, but it takes decades more for the true effect to be revealed, as their parents and grandparents die off over the next 30-40 years. Once past that fertility end though, nothing can be done to boost population except migration.
That is why schol classes in Sweden and Netherlands with virtually no ethnic Swedes or Dutch is a concern - 10 more years and their parents can't have any more, and the cycle is set.
Japan is showing this trend now, and as they bar most migration, their population is set to drop from 120m to 80m in the next 2 decades or so. That tanks the economy, and leaves them weaker as a nation.
Sorry this is depressing, but if people don't discuss it, the West will not exist in 50 years. Europeans (compared to Japanese, say) face the double challenge of having recessive genes, and the physically dominant characteristics anecdotally seem to dictate the culture the child is raised in.
On the cheerful side, there will be a great incentive for young men to propose to young ladies soon! (especially when the 'spare' 34m Chinese men hit the market; women spoilt for choice).