Losing Our Religion

A good friend of this blog has found himself unable to publish a lengthy piece of writing because it touches on a certain taboo topic that even conservative web outlets are reluctant to discuss.

No matter how disappointing their behavior, such fastidiousness on the part of online magazines cannot in any way be considered “censorship”. No law restrains our friend from publishing his views. If he is unable to find another publisher, he is quite free to amass the necessary capital and start his own publishing house or website, from which platform he could write and publish whatever he wished.

Yet, although they lack the force of law, our cultural taboos are nonetheless quite real. They make it all but impossible to engage in public discussion of forbidden topics, which means that such debate is confined to the lunatic fringe, where it may be safely ignored by the broad mainstream of political thought, both liberal and conservative. The unwillingness to broach these subjects — which are backed by scientific data and reliable sociological statistics — is itself a sign of collective lunacy on the part of the “mainstream”.

In other words, we are living in an era of mass insanity.

What other explanation can be adduced for the seemingly suicidal urges that drive Western Civilization towards its imminent destruction?

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The forbidden topic is, of course, race, along with a constellation of related issues.

The primal horror evoked in the minds of urban literati by the dread word “racism” is enough to strangle any discussion of these ideas before it can begin. To broach the topic in polite society is to risk an ostracism fiercer than was once directed at serial adulterers and public atheists — back when both behaviors still evoked strong public disapproval.

One can’t say certain things. Everyone knows it, and few people are willing to break the taboo, regardless of what the law ostensibly allows. Anyone who values his job, his pension, and the approval of his peers simply avoids the issue.

Yet everybody also understands the nature of the official lies about race. No one believes that “affirmative action” mandates that more Norwegian men be placed on the first string of major basketball teams. None of us thinks that Jewish women are under-represented as housekeepers, or that there are too many men of Chinese descent earning PhDs in particle physics.

No, the issue is about sticking it to the white man. Everyone knows it, but almost no one is willing to discuss it.

The conceit is that Europeans and their descendants, in creating Western Civilization, have somehow attained an unfair dominance over other races. The doctrine further maintains that the European ascendancy was made possible only through the “racism” of white people.

These assertions are the cornerstone of what is generally referred to as Politically Correct Multiculturalism. They are assumed as premises, yet they do not admit of any testing to establish their accuracy. The basis of the reigning PCMC doctrine thus becomes unassailable and unquestionable. It possesses an absolute truth that can only be conferred by rigid orthodoxy.

Yet other reasonable and scientifically sound explanations exist for the success of the white race. We already accept genetically based distinctions between groups of people involving any number of characteristics, including the capacity to digest certain foods, resistance to or predisposition towards common diseases, and the ability to withstand extreme cold.

We are even willing to examine differences that correlate with what is commonly known as “race”. The descendants of West Africans make better sprinters. Peruvian Indians are genetically adapted to low-oxygen conditions at high altitudes. Central Asians possess a gene that enables them to survive and flourish on a diet that consists almost entirely of milk products. And so on.

Yet the overwhelming evidence that human intelligence has a significant genetic component is disregarded. We are required to ignore the fact that variation in IQ strongly correlates with the distribution of physical characteristics that are generally associated with “race”. Anyone who wishes to discuss these facts — and their implications for public policy — is shunned. This is true even in “conservative” venues, as our friend discovered. Unless one is willing to keep company with dedicated Jew-haters, it’s virtually impossible to write of these matters and expect to be read by a significant audience.

This blind devotion to multicultural doctrine is understandable, in a way.

To admit that “racism” does not explain differences in group achievement is to declare that fifty years of public policy have been in error.

Reversing course would require an acknowledgement that hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted in an attempt to remedy something irremediable.

It would mean that all the enormous bureaucracies dedicated to fighting “discrimination” should be dismantled.

It would force us to accept that racial parity in most fields can never be achieved through public policy.

Official attempts to achieve an equality of outcomes can only lead to further dishonesty, distortion, coercion, and eventual totalitarian governance — towards which we are rapidly heading, especially in Western Europe.

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The brittle and unsustainable nature of the PCMC premise is made obvious by the hysterical, irrational, and sometimes violent responses by its adherents to those who question it. Dissidents who refute the dominant paradigm risk their livelihoods and personal safety by doing so. Being intellectually honest in public these days may require adding a bulletproof vest to one’s standard wardrobe.

What could possibly explain such deranged and violent reactions to the questioning of the dominant paradigm?

It has become obvious to many people — including ordinary folk of common sense, and not just cranks — that our current trajectory leads inexorably towards societal destruction. To hang on to the PCMC dream is insane and foolish. Why, then, are so many people in thrall to what is essentially suicidal madness?

The answer is obvious: Politically Correct Multiculturalism is a religion.

PCMC is devious and deceitful, because it claims not to be a religion. It recognizes no supreme being or supernatural moral force. It assumes the mantle of “science”, but its dogma is actually that of Scientism, which elevates certain allegedly scientific premises to the status of unquestionable orthodoxy.

The Western world is now entering what may be a terminal decline, and its self-destruction is driven by a form of religious mania. Zealous disciples of PCMC orthodoxy are so frenzied in their devotion that they are willing to die for it — they would literally prefer their own deaths, and the death of their entire civilization, than to be perceived as “racist”. Fjordman has catalogued a number of specific examples of individuals in thrall to the PC death-wish.

Why fight so viciously on behalf of such a dangerous and destructive ideology?

People who are comfortable and secure in their faith are unlikely to respond violently to those who hold other beliefs. A vicious reaction to the questioning of one’s religion is an indication that the believer is deeply afraid.

Why this fear? If he truly examined the premises of his faith, what might he discover?

What if he were in fact wrong about all that he had previously held to be true?

The need to guard against this dreaded outcome requires the projection of violent tendencies on all those who question orthodoxy. Thus, in the eyes of those who believe in it, the only alternative to accepting the Multicultural lie is to promote a race war. Referring to inherent differences among the races inevitably prompts the invocation of Hitler. At the very least, according to PC disciples, the acceptance of racial differences must lead to renewed oppression and “discrimination”.

In fact, to affirm a person’s inherent individually-held capabilities, regardless of any genetic category to which he might belong, is the opposite of “racial discrimination”. To acknowledge that whites will always be statistically over-represented among accomplished mathematicians, and that blacks will always be statistically over-represented among great athletes, is not inherently discriminatory. People simply differ in their abilities, and those abilities are at least partially based in their genetic makeup.

I am an American of European descent. When I learn that Ashkenazi Jews and East Asians are more intelligent on average than people of my race, it doesn’t make me feel inferior. My self-esteem is not harmed. These differences are statistical and not individual; why should anyone object to that?

It’s crucial to remember that statistics do not mandate any special treatment, good or bad, of a particular individual. They simply state certain facts about humans in the aggregate, which is where measurable group differences can be detected.

No individual need be punished or rewarded for the statistical characteristics of the genetic group he happens to belong to. Everyone deserves the same chance at life based on his own abilities.

Why is that notion so radical here in the second decade of the 21st century? Fifty years ago it was the commonly-accepted norm.

Today, however, the priests of Political Correctness shout down anyone who voices such sentiments. Their doctrine requires equality of outcome at any cost. Equality of opportunity is not good enough, because then all races would not be proportionally represented among lawyers or neurosurgeons.

This is the orthodoxy that must be defended to the death.

And not just the death of those who believe in it, but yours and mine as well.

It’s time to put aside this death-cult. The first step on the road back to sanity is losing our religion.