Sunday, June 17, 2007

Robert Spencer “used to think...”

A most revealing comment was made by Robert Spencer in an introduction to one of his articles on Jihad Watch today (June 17, 2007) concerning a recent survey by the Barna Group of Americans that compares and contrasts atheists/agnostics with Christians of “active faith”.

One finding of this survey is that “...most atheists and agnostics (56%) agree with the idea that radical Christianity is just as threatening in America as is radical Islam.”

About this finding, Spencer makes his telling comment:

I used to think that this moral equivalence between Christianity and Islam was the province of just a few fanatics, a tiny minority of extremists. . . and was just a small and irrelevant distraction in the defense against the global jihad.

When Spencer says “I used to think”, it is reasonable to assume that he is referring to his state of mind prior to having seen this Barna survey. This is highly disconcerting—but, alas, not at all surprising. It is simply one of the many signs of his myopia to the nature and scope of a dominant and mainstream PC Multiculturalism in the West. The fact that he can have spent many months working on a new book (Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t, which will be published in August of this year) that directly deals with this issue (as well as other aspects stemming obviously from its title), and yet this thought had not occurred to him until now, demonstrates on his part a woeful ignorance of, and lack of imaginative perspicacity about, the problem of PC Multiculturalism.

Aside from this painfully glaring lacuna in Spencer’s thought, there are a couple of other problems with his comments introducing the Barna survey, and with that survey itself:

1) Spencer adduces the percentage among atheists/agnostics for agreement with the idea that “radical Christianity is just as threatening in America as is radical Islam”, but he fails to note the fact that the Barna Group failed to supply the percentage about that idea for the contrasting group they surveyed, the Christians of “active faith” (defined, as their website states, “as simply having gone to church, read the Bible and prayed during the week preceding the survey”); surely, this would be a very important statistic: not only for Spencer’s point that constitutes one pillar of his book (as well as, apparently, his personal opinion as a Christian)—to wit, that relatively religious Christians tend to be less PC about Islam—but also for a better appraisal of the magnitude of the scope of PC in general, about which Spencer seems unconcerned as long as it contravenes his stubbornly held views about sociopolitical reality. (Indeed, one wonders whether Spencer was able to allow his mind to be opened about PC by this Barna survey only because it couched this glimpse of the wider scope of PC in terms of favorably contrasting Christians with atheists/agnostics.)

2) Another significant inadequacy of the Barna survey similarly goes unnoticed by Spencer: the survey, by its definition of the contrasting group (“Christians of active faith” as defined above) effectively brackets out three major sub-populations of interest for the sociological problem of PC:

a) “Christians” who are in various stages of cultural decomposition—less active (do not go to church much, rarely read the Bible, etc.) and more doubtful about, and/or less concerned in their daily life and thoughts with, the doctrines of their faith;

b) Christians who are oriented positively toward PC, often with significant Leftist colorings (e.g., the National Council of Churches types, and/or the types who would nod in solemnly self-righteous agreement with the treacly political correctness of a Bill Moyers, etc.);

and

c) Americans who, for want of a better term, fit roughly under the umbrella of “New Age” spirituality—a spiritual orientation that comes in a wide variety of flavors, ranging all over the map, including an interest in zen Buddhism, in Hindusm, in the Tao, in American Indian spirituality, in the pagan religions of natives more broadly speaking anywhere in the world (whether Celtic or Mayan or Australian aborigine, etc.), in some kind of spiritual “connection” to “mythic truths” as purveyed by the likes of Joseph Campbell, in Sufi mysticism, in “mysticism” in general, in Gnostic heretics and other sectarian religious movements (including magic, alchemy, witchcraft) that were “oppressed” by the Christian “authorities”, in theological beliefs that one can categorize more or less vaguely as polytheistic and/or pantheistic, and so forth (I am sure my list has not exhausted the wonderful panorama of New Age spirituality). Oftentimes, individuals under this umbrella demonstrate a relatively semi-coherent mélange of all of the above flavors sampled from the ecumenically syncretistic Cafeteria of World Religions. Members of this sub-population, as should be garnered from my description, are not monolithic: they vary in commitment—some merely dabbling in these samplings from the wonderful menu of world religions, others on a continual “spiritual quest” leading them from one thing to another, others more intense in their pursuit, leading them to actually spend time living in a zen monastery in Japan or following a Hindu swami around in Calcutta or going on a retreat with some Tibetan Buddhist yak-herders, etc.

With these three sub-populations calculated for their views on the idea that “radical Christianity is just as threatening in America as is radical Islam”—among other closely related and important PC ideas about Islam—it is very likely that even more data would fall into place indicating a far deeper and broader nature and scope of PC Multiculturalism. And perhaps such augmentation of data would lead the willfully stubborn Spencer to adjust, at his snail’s pace, what he “used to think” about the problem of PC even more.


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hesp,

Thanks for pointing out this important limitation in the data presented by Barna and then relayed by Robert. I had raised the same points, e.g., that the levels of 'equivalencing' in question are probably not much lower among other groups such as Christians. I find it remarkable that neither the Barna article nor Spencer supplied the corresponding results for Christians. I suspect that it is less, but not dramatically less, than the 56% shown by the atheists/agnostics (and others?) group.

Another issue is 'What were the other options in the question? (and what were the results for those parts?)' One possible scenario is that the 'radical Islam- radical Christianity' equivalency option was included amongst other options such as 'radical Christianity is a greater threat', 'radical Islam is a greater threat', and [the standard] 'don't know' or 'refuse to respond'.

It is also clear from the data I've examined (some of it cited in the thread in question) that Americans as a whole are consistently much more hostile toward atheists than they are toward Islam and Muslims...and this is reflected in many of the comments in the JW thread.

Anonymous said...

From Barna [excerpts]:

"In the study, the no-faith segment was defined as anyone who openly identified themselves as an atheist, an agnostic, or who specifically said they have "no faith." In total, this group represents a surprisingly small slice of the adult population, about one out of every 11 Americans (9%). However, in a nation of more than 220 million adults, that comprises roughly 20 million people."

"Interestingly, only about five million adults unequivocally use the label "atheist" and, when asked to describe the nature of God, staunchly reject the existence of such a being. In other words, most of those who align with the no-faith viewpoint harbor doubts as to the existence or nature of a supreme deity but do not express outright rejection of God."

In other words, in a thread devoted mostly to ad hominem directed at atheists, and some atheists' attempts to respond to those claims, it turns out that the subsample of non-religious were three-quarters agnostics or others, and only one quarter were atheists.

Also, as to the sheer magnitude of the PC problem, it seems likely that Christians who exhibit the PC Islam-Christianity equivalency probably constitute a much larger percentage of the general population than do non-believers (who combined only represent 9%; and only about half of those--maybe only about 5% of the general U.S. population, and thus atheists of this view could at most represent about 1.25% (that's assuming that 100% or nearly 100% of atheists agree with the equivalency claim...more realistically, in my experience I would suggest it is more like about 50% of atheists that might agree with equivalency, which puts the atheist equivalencers at roughly 0.75% of the general population.

...I am willing to bet that the number of Christians in the U.S. who will state that they agree with the PC Islam-Christianity equivalency would comprise much more than 5%!

Anonymous said...

correction:

If the estimated population of atheists in the U.S. is indeed 5 million, as this poll indicates, that means that a maximum of about 2.27% of the population could be comprised of atheist 'equivalencers'. That's assuming that all of them, 100%, are equivalencers. More likely it is closer to half that (based on the 56% figure), i.e., about 1.3% of the general population. That is genuinely a tiny minority, and, although they have an erroneous view, their influence is practically inconsequential. Rather, it is the much larger percentage of the population, comprised of PC Christians who have positive views toward Islam, that is responsible for most of the current PC perspective and policies toward Islam.

Another observation:

What we are dealing with here viz these "equivalency" responses is a generalized opposition to religion, which means that these non-believing people might be more likely than their believing counterparts to oppose Islam. That's the key. It doesn't matter much whether people oppose Christianity or not; that is mostly in the realm of discussion and does not represent a significant threat to western civilization. Opposing Islam is much more important, given the west's current predicament.

Hesperado said...

Kab,

I agree with most of your comments here, with a couple of exceptions:

1) To me, the variables of the PC problem (whether it's Christians and/or Jews (or Hindus like D'Souza) who might for certain religious reasons tend to frame the problem of Islam in equivalency theory or might tend to unthinkingly whitewash Islam; or whether it's certain atheists and/or Leftists who do the same for their own reasons -- to me, these factors exist, but they are of less importance than the general atmosphere of PC by which everybody across sociopolitical boundaries tends to frame the problem of Islam in equivalency theory or might tend to unthinkingly whitewash Islam, because:

a) were there not a larger atmosphere of PC, such equivalency theory and/or whitewashing of Islam would be a flaky minority view, not one generally countenanced and blessed with a mainstream aura;

and

b) the peculiar reasons why the above-mentioned subgroups tend to do indulge in such equivalency theory and/or whitewashing of Islam are, in my view, largely redundant and tend to blend in with the PC axioms around the members of these subgroups.

Of course, again, I'm not denying that many Leftists (and some atheists) have a particularly aggressive stance in favor of equivalency theory and/or whitewashing of Islam and add their own activist axioms to the general PC pool; and I'm not denying many Christians/Jews do the same with respect to their religious/morality reasons. But at the end of the day, these groups would be -- with specific respect to the problem of Islam -- as strange a minority group as Robert Spencer and his followers in fact are, were there no larger PC atmosphere all around them in Western socieities to sustain and nourish and comfort them (with this specific respect, among a few others).

2) You wrote:

"It doesn't matter much whether people oppose [also] Christianity or not; that is mostly in the realm of discussion and does not represent a significant threat to western civilization. Opposing Islam is much more important, given the west's current predicament."

The problem is that when people oppose Islam only in the context of opposing religions in general, they usually cannot help but render the problem in the abstract and avoid the mountain of data out there that clearly shows that Islam is not merely worse than other religions, but far worse, by a long shot. Anyone who cannot see this extreme disparity between Islam and other religions is of dubious value to our cause, if they lack such elementary grasp of observation and logic. Something else -- ideologically motivated -- must be operating in their minds for them to be so stupid as to fail to see this disparity (and, of course, I'd say this "something else" is mostly nourished by the PC paradigm).

Anonymous said...

Another correction: The U.S population is not 220 million. It is 301 million...not sure how I missed that, but the Barna study reported the adult population. Anyways, the above calculations are for the adult population.

Hesp,

I've been going through the polls at PEW getting opinions on Islam, Muslims, atheists, and some other issues. The results that suggest to me that what Spencer/Barna has presented is either inaccutate or misleading comes from another larger poll for which more complete data was provided:

"Asked whether, in their view, the Islamic religion does not encourage violence more than other major religions, only 31 percent of evangelicals agreed, while 57 percent of mainline Protestants, 54 percent of seculars, and 43 percent of Catholics took that view."
source
In other words, seculars are about the same as mainline Protestants.

This same poll suggests that seculars actually have a less favorable view of Muslim-Americans than do Christian respondents:

"Majorities of evangelicals (52 percent), mainline Protestants (53 percent), and Catholics (61 percent) said they had favourable opinions of Muslim-Americans, while seculars (49 percent) were the least favourable."

Regarding PC in the west vs other non-western countries, here is a sampling from two western countries, and Russia and China:

Fav = Favourable, unfav = unfavourable
View of Muslims: Fav, Unfav
U.S. 57, 22
Canada 60, 26
China 20, 50
Russia 55, 36

I would glean from this that China at least is much less affected by a PC view of Islam. It should also be added that China does not have a majority Christian population that is PC about Islam.

Another general point that Spencer didn't touch on was the fact that a majority of secularists (non-religious) tend to view religion as a significant factor in the cause of wars, whereas most Christians don't agree with that.

Evangelical Christians are most likely to have unfavorable views of anyone outside their group, though this group shows by far the strongest unfavorable views toward atheism, not Islam. Indeed, Evangelicals have a more unfavorable view of Buddhism than than they do of Islam. To the extent that Evangelicals do not view Islam favorably, this may be due to generalized dislike of people not in their own group, rather than an educated view based on factual information. Thus, when we consider again the Barna claim of a large "gap" between non-believers and those of "active faith"--a gap which they do not quantify for the comparison of interest here--it is more likely that the active faith group would have more Evangelicals than other Christian groups, and these Evangelicals are much more likely to have negative view of Islam than mainstream Christians.

Another point: Atheists and non-religious people generally are more likely to have college education or higher. It appears that those who are college educated (or more) are more likely to express a favorable view of Islam. This, not necessarily atheism or agnosticism per se, is probably a significant factor contributing to the results reported uncritically by Robert/JW.

Another significant factor is age. Younger people tend to be more approving of Islam, and younger people are more likely than older people to be non-religious. Thus, some of the result for non-religious people reported by Barna could be partly due to age and education level--factors correlated with being non-religious.

Still another possible factor is contact with Muslims--a factor which increases favorable opinion of Muslims greatly. Those who attend college or live in large cities are more likely to meet and know Muslims, and again college educated and urban-dwelling people are more likely to be non-believers. Thus, again, here is a factor associated with greater acceptance of Islam/Muslims that could be contributing to the Barna results, but is unaccounted for.

Hence, the more I look into this, the more I find serious fault with Spencer's presentation. One has to wonder why he, or JW, would post such incomplete and possibly misleading data.

Anonymous said...

...I would also add that those additional unaccounted-for variables, namely youth, college/university education, knowing a Muslim personally (and the factors associated with the probability of that occurring), are also, I suspect, correlated with greater levels of exposure to PC ideology.

Anonymous said...

Hesp,

"Anyone who cannot see this extreme disparity between Islam and other religions is of dubious value to our cause, if they lack such elementary grasp of observation and logic. Something else -- ideologically motivated -- must be operating in their minds for them to be so stupid as to fail to see this disparity (and, of course, I'd say this "something else" is mostly nourished by the PC paradigm)."

The fact that they lack knowledge about Islam and are affected by PC does not change the fact that they are oppositional toward religion (particularly in regard to blocking its intrusion into the public sphere), including Islam. That's the key. I'll give you an example of how such non-believers could be helpful: In some western countries, Muslims are pushing for Islamic schools for their children instead of secular schools. Christian and Jewish groups who are also permitted to have their religious schools have in many cases joined with Muslims to help them get their Islamic schools. Non-believers/secularists widely oppose this. The most expedient way to prevent Islamic schools from being established without discriminating against Muslims--and here it is not just an issue of PC but is a legal issue--is to not have any such religiously-based schools. Now, one may argue, as Spencer and others have, that that is unfair to the Jews and Christians. But which is a more desirable scenario for the defence of the west? Clearly, it is most important to uphold legislation to block Islamic schools.

Something similar happened with the Islamic activists' attempt to introduce sharia in family and personal law for Muslims: Once again Christian and Jewish groups sided with Muslim activists, so that they could keep their own religious legal provisions. Fortunately, the general public in Canada overwhelmingly opposed the sharia scheme, and they also opposed, by a majority, such religiously-based legal schemes, which the government then claimed it was going to abolish across the board (i.e., one law for everyone).

The flip-side to the "all religions are bad" myth is the "all religions are good (and certainly better than disbelief)" myth. The latter myth, which is held by many Christians in the west, is potentially more damaging than the former. The latter leads many Christians to view Islam in unrealistically and uncritically positive ways.

Anonymous said...

Just one more comment for today:

The questions used on these polls and surveys are so vague, broad, and ambiguous that it is difficult to get a handle on what the public, and specific subgroups among the public, actually believes in regard to Islam. Much more precise questions are needed in regard to specific policies, rather than vague generalities such as whether one likes Muslims, etc. Thus we should have questions about the blasphemy laws, apostasy laws, etc., as well as specific questions on issues such as Islamic schools, immigration from countries that implement Islamic law to any extent, and so on.

Hesperado said...

Kab,

Thanks for your comments; you picked up on a lot of details I hadn't noticed or taken the effort to figure out. Much of your interpretations I agree with, although I'm a little leery of the way you word things when it comes to "PC influence" on people, which can (though you may not necessarily be doing this) tend to imply something "out there" (whether Machiavellianly manipulated by elites or not) impinging on people, as though the people aren't colluding themselves.

But more specifically, there was just one of your responses to one of my quotes, however, demonstrates a misunderstanding, or perhaps just a slip:

I wrote:

"Anyone who cannot see this extreme disparity between Islam and other religions is of dubious value to our cause, if they lack such elementary grasp of observation and logic."

And you responded:

"The fact that they lack knowledge about Islam and are affected by PC does not change the fact that they are oppositional toward religion..."

Note, however, that my quote you were responding to was not talking about people who don't "know" about Islam (though of course it may include people of varying degrees and stages of such knowledge), but rather about people who

a) either should know by now about the preponderant data that makes Islam worse

b) who even after being exposed to such knowledge will find ready-to-wear ways to fit any such new information into the mechanism of their already extant PC paradigm from which the equivalency theory (or its strange cousin, the Western Inferiority theory) stems.

Re: two of your other comments:

I agree about the legal issue of enforcing church-state separation across the board, such that non-Islamic religions would be equally afected, and I agree this is a beneficial tack, However, the dangerous hostility with which Muslims treat non-Islamic religions (with nothing remotely equivalent coming from the other side) will continue to exert itself as an ongoing factor in this global confrontation; and it's not merely a matter of Muslims oppressing their own subpopulations which wouldn't necessarily impinge on the West in terms of danger -- it's also a significant factor in the Islamic ideology that motivates their ongoing trans-national jihadist emotions and ideology.

One of your sub-points, however, relates to my previous response to you:

"The flip-side to the "all religions are bad" myth is the "all religions are good (and certainly better than disbelief)" myth. The latter myth, which is held by many Christians in the west, is potentially more damaging than the former. The latter leads many Christians to view Islam in unrealistically and uncritically positive ways."

I don't see this as a peculiarly Christian (and/or Jewish) problem: Christians by and large were not this myopic about Islam from the 8th to the 17th centuries -- only a tiny minority were. Now that has been reversed: now, it's a small minority that is appropriately suspicious, condemnatory and outraged by Islam, while the vast majority are, as you say, warm towards it as a fellow religion. The factor that has changed is that Christianity and Judaism has evolved and modernized, which means -- for the last 50-odd years -- they have become PC. (There seems to be a similar phenomenon among Hindus, though that might certain different historical reasons; however, to the extent that Hindus have modernized (modernization is unavoidably Westernization) over the past 50-odd years, they will have become enculturated with PC.

Nobody said...

Kab: The most expedient way to prevent Islamic schools from being established without discriminating against Muslims--and here it is not just an issue of PC but is a legal issue--is to not have any such religiously-based schools.

Kab

I don't know about the situation in Canada, but in the US, there are two major issues with the idea of non religious schools. This is based on the debate largely revolving around the public vs private school issue, with the public schools being secular, courtesy the Americans for the Separation of Church & State, and other such organizations, while private schools are mostly religious. At any rate, the two issues are:

- Non-religious schools tend to be more Liberal than Conservative - and as it is, a lot of people are so riled about the Liberal indoctrination in schools (on not just things like global warming, but Islam as well) that they've either prefered private religious schools, or home schooling; Even among private schools, non-Religous schools tend Liberal rather than conservative.

- The issue of literacy and school performance is a sore subject, and in CA, the widespread discrepancies in standards between schools sometimes within walking distances pretty much dictates property values. While this may seem as a side issue to this discussion, the fact that to enforce something like this, private schools would have to be banned.

And as was illustrated recently in a CA school where students were made to play 'Muslims' for a week, doing things from wearing Arabic apparel to doing salat and zakat to even waging their own jihads (I understand in this case that it was shown as an inner struggle), the church-state separation argument doesn't continue to hold. The notorious Ninth Circuit Court upheld the school's decision, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal against it - thereby setting a precedent that other schools could follow. So if your idea of banning religious schools were enforced, public schools would freely be teaching islam (from a Muslim POV), while blacking out any positive teaching of Christianity.

Erich

I don't think that Christianity & Judaism modernizing has been the problem - I mean, was Christianity and Judaism pro-Islam before the 1950s? Rather, the emergence of Communism after WWII, and its virulent athiesm and its hatred of all religious people pretty much encouraged Christians to team up with Muslims, and that may be one of the reasons that Jews have traditionally been Liberal. Also note that historically, Muslims had less influence and support with Democrats, and vice versa: in fact, in 2000, President Bush won more of the Muslim vote then Gore and less of the Jewish vote - a trend that was reversed in 2004.

In fact, I think that for much of post WWII history, Kab is right, and that the pro-Christian Right has tended to support Islam on the basis of being anti-Communist in many places - Afghanistan against the Soviets, Pakistan vs India, Turkey vs Greece, as well as regimes in Indonesia, and GCC countries. While Israel may seem like an exception, what drove that was the fact that after 1956, it was clear to the Soviets that Israel, despite the kibbutzen, wasn't going to turn Communist, while Arab Socialists like Nasser, Assad, Saddam and Gaddafi were coming to power in the Mid-East, making the Soviets almost unchallenged there. Hence, Israel turned out to be the counterfoil, but once Sadat came to power in Egypt, the US was only too happy to grease those in Cairo and Riyadh.

It's only post 9/11 that the chasm between Muslims vs Judeo-Christians have widened. Also, Erich, as far as Hindus go, they are today more hostile to Islam than they ever were: between 1947 to 1989, the pro-Hindu BJP was nothing but an asterisk, while today, it's one of the two alternatives. While there is plenty of dhimmitude in that party itself, India's modernizing has widened the economic gap between Hindus and Muslims. Also, not only have terrorist acts by Muslims in India have made Muslims less popular among the less Westernized of Hindus - terrorist acts by Muslims against the West have turned a segment of the Westernized Hindus too against the Muslims, whereas previously, Westernized Hindus tended to be more solidly 'tolerant' about Muslims.

P.S. Erich, Dinesh D'Souza is an Indian Catholic, not a Hindu. D'Souza is a Portugese/Goanese name

Hesperado said...

Nobody,

I think your opening comment to me demonstrates a misunderstanding of the history of PC (at least as I see it):

"I don't think that Christianity & Judaism modernizing has been the problem - I mean, was Christianity and Judaism pro-Islam before the 1950s?"

My points to illuminate this may be listed:

1) PC as a dominant and mainstream phenomenon throughout the West is only approximately 50 years old.

2) The sociopolitical phenomenon of PC is part of the broader movement of modernization in the West.

3) Western modernization, of course, goes back much farther than 50 years: indeed, one could say it goes back to the Renaissance, if not even to the High Middle Ages. Even the most conservative and strict application of a historical boundary of a beginning to the movement of modernization would likely be more than the past 200 years.

4) While Judaism and Christianity were, during the long process of Western modernization, often antagonistic and regressive forces, they also were, paradoxically, formative partners with modernization: and certainly within the past century, Judaism and Christianity "grew up" or "evolved" sufficiently to become full-fledged partners with modernization (with exceptions that prove the rule).

5) To return to Point #1: PC is part of the ongoing process of Western modernization: given Points #1-4, then, we can see how even if Judaism and Christianity were participants in Western modernization prior to PC, they have become (like most everybody else) participants in Western PC to the extent that PC is part of modernization.

I will return to some of your other points soon, time willing.

Anonymous said...

Hesp,

To be clear, I don't believe the general public in the west are merely passive recipients of PC. They (a substantial percentage of them--I am not sure of the exact percentage and with respect to what issues) have the PC memeplex in their brains to varying extents. My view is that the elites have it to a greater extent and have a greater role in passing it on and enforcing it.

Nobody,

The ruling allowing Islam to be taught in that way in a public school from the Muslim POV without a critical assessment, without role-playing of people were slaughtered, raped, subjugated, and enslaved under Islam, is simply an erroneous judgement on the part of the court. This should not happen in a public school, and people should appeal the decision. People should continue to criticize those lessons and keep up the pressure. The fact that it happened is a reflection of multiculturalist PC and lack of knowledge about Islam.

As for leftism, if everyone was under one system, the conservatives would be in there to balance it out. That of course would not necessarily remove PC. The important point is that we need ways to stop Islamic schools (and other Islamization) now; we don't have time to wait until the public is fully educated. The problem of non-Muslim kids having to do a role-playing game in a public school is not as serious as the problem of Muslim children in the west being cocooned in an Islamic school where everything is taught from an Islamic point of view and the children are segregated from the non-Muslim society. Islamic schools produce kids who hate non-Muslims; their whole world-view revolves around Islam, being a Muslim, and fending off disbelief and disbelievers.

Hesperado said...

Kab,

"My view is that the elites have it to a greater extent and have a greater role in passing it on and enforcing it."

At the risk of perpetuating a tug-of-war disagreement we might be having, my response to this is to repeat what I have said before: elites would not have the ability to pass it on and enforce it (to any significant degree), were there not a sociological reality out there conducive to their efforts.

This is not to say that such elites are not, and have not been, a significant part of the problem. But to me, factors that enable a problem are more "front-burner" than the problem itself. This was my epiphany about the problem of Islam which I had a few months ago: that which enables Islam to insinuate its effective traction in the West is a more important problem than Islam itself. And it is PC that so enables Islam. Therefore, PC is our #1 problem, not Islam.

Analogy:

When you come home and see your house on fire, that fact of your house on fire is of course your #1 priority and problem. But if, as you began to try to do something about it (like get to a phone to call the firefighters), your neighbors surrounded you and out of some perverse reason prevented you from doing anything about your burning house, then your priorities shift: the #1 priority & problem is no longer the burning house: it is getting around these neighbors who are preventing you from attending to your original priority.