It's deja vu all over again

[fpb]

I have often found myself in the position of having to say: "You are talking nonsense. I know what Fascists are like. I have met them in considerable number since I was a child. I was born in the same country as Fascism. I have studied Fascism as a historian. [insert personal or group name] may be a detestable person, and his/her/their views may be obnoxious, but they are not Fascist. Do not cheapen real evil."

Now I am worried I may have to start saying: "You are talking nonsense. I know what Communists are like. I have met them in considerable numbers since I was a child. I was born in a country where Communism was a power in the land. I have studied Communism as a historian. President Obama may be a detestable person - or not - and his view may be obnoxious - or not - but he is no Communist. Do not cheapen real evil."

You don't believe me? http://townhall.com/columnists/LauraHollis/2009/10/21/they%E2%80%99re_all_communists

Comments

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

They were fans of Christianity, too (or at least, drew on Christian references when it suited their purposes). Ditto several other religions.

I could just as easily refer to certain extreme branches of Christianity as "Christofascism."

"Fascism," as I thought you understand from your previous posts, has a specific meaning, and it is not just totalitarianism under any given ideology.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Islam is not Christianity. In fact, it is about as distant from Christianity - especially its central Catholic expression - as any religion can be. It can be argued that it has been built up to be opposed to Christianity, and certainly its central documents are built around a theology that denies the central tenet of Christianity (the mediation of Christ) and attacks Christian ideas by name. Now I know from a certain debate a while back that you are tone-deaf and colour-blind when it comes to religion, but one religion is not like another - not in content, not in organization, not in claims, not in the ground it covers and its sociological impact; and the mere fact that Christianity has no traditional law would be enough to show the difference. Please do not let your anti-Christian animus get in the way of obvious fact.

As for Hitler and Mussolini, they murdered 6000 priests between them, and millions of believers. It is only because their massacre of Jews was even greater that people do not notice how savage their hatred of Christianity was - and how practically effective. They did not murder a single Muslim preacher, and in fact they protected the most murderous specimens, because they both admired the "manly" and "fighting" qualities of Islam. Unlike you, they were perfectly aware of the difference between one religion and another, and loathed Christianity specifically, because of its emphasis on humility and equality. These are all things that are in the evidence and that anyone who made a decent study of Nazism knows. And please don't disgrace yourself with any allusions to "Hitler's Pope" or similar lies - I have dealt with that piece of shit several times over.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

You really shouldn't make assumptions. You're frequently brilliant when writing about history and religion, but you're terrible at inferring the knowledge, motives, and mindset of other people.

I am quite aware of the differences between Islam and Christianity.

When I said that "Islamofascism" is as accurate as "Christofascim," I did not mean Islam and Christianity are the same. I meant that neither Islamic extremism nor Christian extremism can be accurately called "fascism." While they both share many common elements with fascism (as all totalitarian ideologies do), they also differ from fascism in many important ways.

Using the term "Islamofascism" is just buying into the same ignorant mindset you derided above: it was a term coined by rabid ideologues who know little more than that fascism is bad, and therefore attach the label to everything they don't like.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I have followed the writings both of Robert Spencer and of his enemy Charles Johnson for years. Likewise Daniel Pipes. I know what they say and why they say it. I disagree with both Johnson and Spencer. But to call either of them an "ignorant" ideologue is nonsense. When you can write a commentary to the Qur'an as Spencer can, then you will have the right to comment on his being ignorant or otherwise.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

While I haven't read Spencer's books, I do occasionally read his blog and his columns.

He's very critical of Islam, but I don't recall him ever using the term "Islamofascim," and his criticisms are quite specific. Likewise Daniel Pipes.

But because they are so critical of Islam, they are darlings of David Horowitz and his crowd, who are the ones who propagated the term "Islamofascim."

Now, clearly Spencer and Pipes are willing to go along with the people who butter their bread, which is why Spencer participated in "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." But I'll bet if you sat him down in private and discussed it, he'd agree that "Islamo-fascism" is an inaccurate pejorative that essentially renders the term "fascist" meaningless.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I'll bet the opposite. My beef with Spencer is that he does very little indeed to discourage the racists and hate-mongers who make up a considerable amount of his following. I volunteered to be moderator on his site for a few months, and gave up in despair, because the amount of hate, sometimes to genocidal pitch, was simply too much. Spencer may feel, because of his own background, that anything will serve so long as it serves to fight Islam; I do not. And then there is his friend Fitzgerald, the intellectual leader of Jihadwatch, who advocates the expulsion of all Muslims from the West and the transformation of the whole Muslim world into a kind of gigantic ring-fenced Indian reservation; an attitude I find both absurd and criminal. So yes, I do not think that Spencer would greatly object to "Islamo-Fascism". For that matter, Horowitz's arguments for assimilating Islam and Fascism are based on Umberto Eco's account of the Fascist mind, which is arguable but certainly not ignorant. (I wonder what he would do if he realized that Eco is an old-time leftie on the edges of Italian Communism?)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

P.S.: as far as I am concerned, your colour-blindness to religion was established when you joined the group of people who were calling me a "fundamentalist" because I insisted that Christianity was Christianity and not what any person claimed for him/herself. If you insist that a thing can be both itself and its own contradiction, I cannot call your attitude to it perceptive.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

You're incorrect in every respect. You misunderstood me then, you misunderstand me now, and I did not say what you keep saying I said.

If you really want clarification, and not just to rehash the whole argument, PM me. I notice that in public debates, you become increasingly blustery and hostile, no matter the topic, and inevitably it results in dramatic flouncing and defriending, which is why I usually try to avoid arguing with you.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Heck no. I don't have the time, and I don't think I got you wrong the first time. And as far as I can remember, I was not the one who flounced off in a huff.

....the author is defining "Christianity" as "My personal Christian belief system."....the author has basically written an essay that has more in common, philosophically, with Jack Chick than with any great Christian thinkers. "If you don't believe the way I do, or you write fiction that doesn't conform to my worldview, you are not a Christian" is a statement of personal opinion, and a rather shallow one, not a theological argument.

I hope that, whatever you think, you have by now at least realized that this was so much nonsense, unless you think that I have personally invented Catholicism and Thomism. As for invoking Jack T.Chick... well! When I pointed out - in three long paragraphs - that you had got a number of things wrong, and that I was disappointed to find someone like you lining up on the (at best) Unitarian-Deist side of people who had called me all kinds of names because I took Christianity to be Christianity and not Deism, you accused me of saying that you were ignorant - which is the one thing I had not in fact said or meant - and closed in three sentences flat; which is close to my definition of flouncing off. You showed neither a great understanding of my views nor any great desire to acquire it. So I suggest that you do not charge me with your own sins. Apart from anything else, it makes you look sillier than you ought to be.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Okay, let's do this.

I think reasonable people will disagree on who looked sillier in that exchange. However, I stand by what I said in the above quote, especially this part:

If you don't believe the way I do, or you write fiction that doesn't conform to my worldview, you are not a Christian.

That was my primary objection to your essay: not that I think Christianity is "whatever I say it is," or even that you were necessarily wrong in arguing that the metaphysics of Rowling's universe are inconsistent with orthodox Christianity. But you went from there to concluding that Rowling herself is not a Christian.

Now, first of all, even if everything you concluded about the Christianity or lack thereof in the Potterverse is correct, how do you know that it actually represents Rowling's personal understanding? Have you never heard of authors who are capable of writing about imaginary universes that do not fully reflect their own personal beliefs? I do this myself. So let's say that Rowling deliberately wrote a "non-Christian" universe. Does that make her a non-Christian? Only if, as I implied above, your mindset is like that of Jack Chick, who believes that anyone who fails to express Christianity (specifically, one particular version of Christianity) in everything they do is in fact not a real Christian.

But alternatively, let's suppose Rowling is in fact as theologically ignorant as you assume (and as you assume I am), and that she actually thinks her universe is perfectly Christian. Does that make her not a Christian? No, it makes her like 99.99% of believers in the world, someone with a rather shallow understanding of her own religion, who has never delved much into philosophy and theology. It might make her ignorant, but if believing things that are contradictory to your understanding of Christianity is sufficient to exclude someone from the Real Christians Club, then you must be in a lonely club indeed.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That would be a good point had I ever said, or intended to say, anything else. Since I said from the beginning that what puzzled me was that the lady herself was reported to be a Christian and a churchgoer, and that my point was that her work showed no evidence of it, one might have concluded (were one in the last charitably disposed towards me) that the only thing I had actually said was that I found the inconsistency between her reported faith and her work puzzling. For the record and in no uncertain terms, I never said that JKR could not be Christian. I did say that her work belongs in the area of noble paganism.