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Is Steyn held back by PC?
Regarding my critique of Mark Steyn’s end-of-Europe article, “It’s the demography, stupid,” appearing in The New Criterion, several readers have found mitigating factors for Steyn’s failure to suggest anything that Europe could do in its own defense, such as cut back on Muslim immigration. They said the reason he didn’t call for immigration reforms is that he himself is in fear of PC, or, alternatively, that he would lose his syndicated columns in conservative publications. The first response to this is, if Steyn himself is in such fear of PC that he won’t say what he believes, even to the point of not calling for a reduction of Muslim immigration (which is not an extreme position), then he has no business calling on the Europeans to fight back against PC, as he did in his article. Furthermore, as I indicated in my critique, Steyn’s idea that Europeans need to resist PC, combined with his complete silence about what they should substantively do to protect themselves once they had overcome PC restrictions, showed how unserious he really was. But it’s even worse than a lack of seriousness or courage, because the assumption that Steyn wants Europe to fight back is highly questionable. As I pointed out the other week, Steyn has said that he views the Islamization of Europe as a positively good thing for America. How do we process this amazing fact into the discussion? Instead of saying, “Steyn wants stronger measures in defense of Europe but is held back by fear of offending his editors,” it looks more like, “Steyn wants to see Europe extinguished, and so he announces, in gleeful, almost sadistic tones, its inevitable and imminent death, and doesn’t suggest anything Europe can do to save itself from this fate, because that’s what he himself wants to see happen.” It reminds me of the scene in the James Bond movie Goldfinger, in which Goldfinger has strapped Bond to a table where a laser beam, destroying the surface of the table as it moves, is slowly moving up between Bond’s legs toward his crotch, and then Goldfinger, to Bond’s increased alarm, starts to leave the room.
Bond: Do you expect me to talk??Bond is Europe. Goldfinger is Steyn.
The analogy is not perfect, of course, since Steyn is not actively seeking to destroy Europe. Yet he has said that he would like to see Europe Islamized, i.e., destroyed, and he gleefully announces that Europe is being destroyed, and he doesn’t offer Europe any advice on how to save itself. The latter is analogous to Goldfinger’s telling Bond that he doesn’t want Bond to say anything to save his own life, he just wants Bond to die. Email entry |