The Mark Steyn phenomenon continues

For Mark Steyn, the West’s Islam problem is not about Islam, and it’s not about the open borders policy that brought the Islam problem into the West, and it’s not about the modern Western belief in non-discrimination that mandated open borders. It’s about birth rates. According to blogger Rick Darby, Steyn in his new book on the Islam challenge, America Alone, totally ignores immigration and says it is low Western birth rates that have made us vulnerable to Islam, and high Western birthrates—equaling those of Muslim countries—that can save us from Islam:

What’s the alternative? Mark Steyn’s. He thinks we ought to be doing our damnedest to outbreed the Muslim world, and presumably have more babies to keep the welfare state going…. If that means continuously going above replacement rate, then Steyn in effect bids us to keep growing in population forever. Forever. A world of seven billion, 10 billion, 20 billion … ad infinitum.

Steyn doesn’t want to deal with things like civilizational identity and religious differences, since that is not neoconservatively acceptable; neocons are indifferent or hostile to the West as a distinct civilizational entity, they only care about America as the embodiment of money-making and the universalist idea of democracy. So he reduces everything to the making of more bodies, at an industrial rate. Somehow if we have enough bodies, we will be too “full-up” for “them” to get in or for us to need their supposed tax-revenue producing abilities. But of course the U.S. birth rate was high at the time of the 1965 Immigration Act which initiated mass Third-World immigration. The low birth rates in the West are a serious problem, but high birth rates by themselves will not restore the Western people’s national identity, national will, or anything else of a spiritual and moral nature. High birth rates are a symptom of confidence in the future, not the cause of it, and the surest way to replenish Western confidence would be to stop the mass non-Western immigration which tells the peoples of the West that they have no future.

Steyn, a person devoid of political ideas except a general preference for less government control over more, has found a gimmick that makes him seem profound in his or at least his readers’ eyes (see the rave reviews for his book at Amazon, where his readers regard him as the most important conservative of our time). He thinks he’s found the material determining factor that controls history, namely birth rates, and all we have to do is get behind that factor and drive it, and all else will take care of itself.

Imagine an American people that took Steyn’s prescriptions serously. Such a people would do precisely nothing to defend themselves from Islam. They would not change their immigration laws, they would not deport jihad and sharia supporters, they would not shut down extremist Mosques, they would not create a more unfriendly environment for Muslims that would encourage Muslims to leave. What would such an American people do? They would start manically pumping away trying to create as many babies as possible, in the faith that the sheer number of babies would somehow, magically make the Islam problem go away by itself (just as the neocons including Steyn believed that holding an election in Iraq would somehow, magically, make the terror insurgency go away by itself). And while we are waiting for this population boom to occur, which would take a generation for its first cohort to reach adulthood and make any difference, and while we are waiting for the Islam problem to disappear somehow by itself, we would continue to do nothing to defend ourselves from Islam.

So is Steyn seeking to save America, or put it to sleep?

Steyn’s birth rate rap is yet another non-Islam theory of Islamic extremism: the problem is not Islam, the problem is birth rates. Yet just a month ago Steyn floated a very different non-Islam theory of Islamic extremism, that radical Islam is nothing but a pastiche of discredited 20th century totalitarian ideologies, and therefore (Steyn crowed) is really weak, not strong. But if radical Islam is weak, why do we need to worry about Muslim birth rates? Why do we need to increase our own birth rates to astronomical, Third-World levels in order to save ourselves from the Muslims? Such contradictions are further evidence that Steyn and more than a few of his fellow neocons don’t mean a word they’re saying. They are not thinkers, they are not patriots, they are promoters who keep picking up whatever handy gimmick comes along that will help advance themselves and prevent the West from defending itself. Let us never forget Irving Kristol’s admission in his 2003 article, “The Neoconservative Persuasion” (discussed by me here), that the purpose of neoconservatism is to change conservatism into something more suited to the modern world, i.e., to bring conservatism into conformity with the postnational, borderless future sought by the neocons themselves.

Steyn’s crockery about fertility is not the only destructive thing about his book. I took a look at America Alone in a bookstore yesterday (it is, by the way, the thinnest, lightest hardcover book I have ever held in my hands), and in the first chapter he recycles the passage from his widely noted article in last January’s New Criterion, “It’s the Demography, Stupid” (discussed by me here), in which he states with cold and indifferent finality that within our lifetimes European countries such as Netherlands and Italy will cease to be countries and become nothing other than “designations for real estate.” Imagine how it would feel to those Europeans who perhaps are just awakening to the scale of the threat they face from Islam and are looking about for allies in their struggle for survival, and they open a book by this very popular “conservative” writer from the Anglosphere and see themselves written off.

People have sometimes told me that I should not criticize Steyn so strongly, because, after all, he is “on our side.” I do not agree that he is on our side. A writer who with chilly Schadenfreude consigns Europe to doom, instead of expressing horror at the situation of Europe and looking for ways to save it, is a traitor, period. That this traitor to our civilization is a huge conservative star is one of the more disgusting realities of our time. Shame on every conservative who applauds him.

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(A reader sent an intelligent defense of Steyn, and gentle chastisement of me for my attack on Steyn, which was too long to be included here, so I have posted it in a separate entry.)

Gintas J. writes:

You said, “Shame on every conservative who applauds him.”

That would be about everyone. It’s as if he read a review of Buchanan’s Death of the West, thought, “Hmm, excellent notion. (Ponders notion for five long seconds…. ) Hey! that’s Spenglerian!!!,” and writes a column. His talent is to spin out superficial understandings in a stylish manner. And why shouldn’t he change from column to column? He can only retain one superficial understanding at a time, and it’s of the last “whoa!!” thing he’s read. And when I consider that most conservatives are in thrall to Steyn, it’s fitting that it’s a gray gloomy day here in the Pacific NorthWest.

The declining birthrates are a real concern to Western elites, mostly because 1) their Ponzi scheme of welfare is going to collapse catastrophically, and 2) they are importing non-Westerners to make up the shortfall. Putting a brake on the importation would probably lead to a swing back to something more healthy, naturally.

Charlton writes:

I agree with you that Steyn is dangerous. He seems to be deliberately attempting to mischaracterize the Muslim onslaught so that it WILL succeed in Europe. And his indifference is unsettling, as you say. Would you care to delve into the reason he apparently is secretly harboring a hatred for Europe? Is there something in his history, background or family that might be leading him to do this? He will not answer my questions.

LA replies:

I don’t know what motivates him. My best take on him is that he is a classic figure out of literature, the trickster, a person without a real self, who gets pleasure out of never being caught, yet attains great success by keeping people entertained. Combine that with the neocon dislike of Europe and of historic Christendom.

Scott B. writes:

Steyn says that in the absence of a strongly asserted Western cultural identity Muslims will opt for the alternative of a strong Muslim identity instead—radical Islam.

But why on earth wouldn’t they opt for asserting a strong moderate Islamic identity? If moderate Islam were realy a meaningful identity, why couldn’t that be asserted to fill the supposed cultural vacuum?

Because by Steyn’s own reckoning, moderate Islam is itself such a weak and insubstantial identity that it can be supplanted in no time by radical Islam. (This Steyn implicitly acknowledges, though he doesn’t acknowledge that moderate Islam is so weak when confronted by radical Islam because it has no theological basis by which to challenge it.)

But if moderate Islam is so weak an identity, so prone to being supplanted by radical Islam, then even accepting Steyn’s bogus claims that the West is a complete nullity, there’s no reason to suppose that, in rectifying this void, the meaningless moderates would fill their own void by assimilating to the Western identity rather than choosing a strong identity from out of their own cultural heritage—true Islam.

I was just talking on the phone to a friend and mentioned that I had called Steyn a traitor. The friend gently disagreed, saying, “Well, he’s gloomy.” Right after I hung up, this e-mail came in from Igor R. which perfectly explains the difference between gloominess and something more blameworthy.

Igor writes:

You wrote:

“Last spring the open-borders crowd was telling us that the passage of Bush’s immigration plan was inevitable. But it was not inevitable. A person who says the Islamization of Europe is inevitable is guilty of a monstrous betrayal. When that person is also extremely popular and influential, SOMEONE must talk about this.”

Sometimes saying something is inevitable can rouse a civilization to awaken and defend itself, but perhaps it depends on how it is said and the tone. Let’s compare Mark Steyn to Bat Ye’or for example.

Bat Ye’or thinks Eurabia is inevitable, in fact she thinks it has already happened, it just hasn’t manifested itself in all its glory yet, but unlike Steyn she doesn’t report this fact with glee or indifference but with gloom. Also, unlike Steyn, she doesn’t blame Europeans as a whole for the mess they have found themselves in but the real traitors: the bureaucrats, universities, media, and churches. She documents all the written agreements, secret meetings, and focus groups in her book “Eurabia” with great detail to prove her point that Eurabia is a reality and not a conspiracy theory.

Bat Ye’or thinks that Eurabia is inevitable because the political orthodoxy in Europe has not changed in spite of all of the terrorist attacks and intifadas that have occurred on that continent. Steyn thinks that Europe is doomed because it is nihilistic and effete. Bat Ye’or’s reasons for her dismay are too numerous to go into detail here but they are far more precise and realistic than Steyn’s stereotypes. When you read “Eurabia” you can sense Bat Ye’or almost screaming behind the lines: “Wake up! Prove me wrong Europe!.” I have never sensed the same thing from Steyn’s articles.

Steyn’s “suggestion” for the West is done in bad faith. If he honestly thinks that a modern Western society that places a lot of emphasis on planning for the future can outbreed a Third World culture that is essentially fatalistic and technologically backward, he’s insane. The only reason he is making this suggestion to Europe is because he knows that the Europeans will fail miserably.

Overall, Bat Ye’or wants to show Europe why their elites have sold their birthright for monetary gain and multiculturalism whereas Steyn wants berate Europeans for being such wimps.

Shrewsbury writes:

You wrote:

“But of course the U.S. birth rate was high at the time of the 1965 Immigration Act which initiated mass Third-World immigration. The low birth rates in the West are a serious problem, but high birth rates by themselves will not restore the Western people’s national identity, national will, or anything else of a spiritual and moral nature. High birth rates are a symptom of confidence in the future, not the cause of it, and the surest way to replenish Western confidence would be to stop the mass non-Western immigration which tells the peoples of the West that they have no future.”

Very well done.

For immigration itself, especially immigration from grotesquely alien cultures, has the effect of lowering native birth rates in European societies (that is, societies anywhere which have been formed by the European race). After all, when your neighborhood fills up with hostiles, when crime surges, when your income drops, when your schools fill up with lice-ridden children who can’t speak your language, and when housing costs reach unapproachable levels, your average white person is certainly less likely to feel like trying to fill up his (now needle-strewn) yard with moppets.

Thus, for Mr. Steyn to affect to treat exhaustively of the low birthrate of Europeans everywhere, without considering that this is one of the innumerable evils influenced by mass non-white immigration, is a dishonest and depressing evasion for which he should be held to account….

John H. writes:

By happenstance today I turned on the radio and caught Mark Steyn live on the Howie Carr show in Boston. I called in but he was only on for 40 minutes so I did not get to ask him if he would like to elaborate on just when Italy and France were going to disappear? During the show he mentioned several times that France and Italy had five, or perhaps ten years left.

I was going to ask him which was it, five years, or ten years, and how did he figure this all out? He’s entertaining, I’ll give him that, but in the end as Bob Seger has often sung, he’s a poser, a small town hustler, a shadow dancer, and nothing but a beautiful loser.

LA replies:

I don’t see him as a loser. He seems to have the world at his feet. And that’s the problem.

Buddy writes:

There’s one quick and easy rebuttal to Mark Steyn’s theory that birth rates/population growth are critical to civilizational survival: In the mid-1300s, Europe lost one-third of its population to the Black Death. And yet, within a few decades, the Renaissance was underway in Italy and later spread to the rest of Europe.

Civilizational confidence does not depend on population growth. As you and many of your commenters noted, population growth is an effect, not a cause, of cultural strength.

LA replies:

Excellent point.

By the way, there is something almost silly in discussing Steyn’s ideas as though he and his readers have any serious conviction as to their truth. Consider the mindless confidence with which Steyn and his fellow Bush supporters for four years kept telling us that the Iraqis were rushing to adopt democracy, and that this democracy was the cure for Muslim extremism. Did any of these people have a serious, thought-out conviction that what they were saying was actually true? No. Did any of them ever address the serious questions about the truth of their idea? No. They were operating on the intellectual level of cheerleaders at a football game—literally. “Coddling dictators led to 9/11! Therefore democracy is the answer!” That was it. That was the full content of their thought process. And our debate-free, post-rationality, post-modern society allowed them get away with it, until reality itself caught up. And now that the democracy thing has run its course, Steyn has found a new mindless, high-energy slogan to fuel his columns and keep his fans dazzled.

LA continues:

I should add that on the rare occasions over the last few years when prominent Bush supporters would reply to my critical questions about Bush’s democracy policy instead of ignoring me, their answers consisted for the most part of flagrantly escapist sloganeering. “Freedom is the answer!” “Don’t you believe in freedom? “Progress is being made!” “What are the alternatives?” (I would give them alternatives, but they dismissed them.) Occasionally they would give voice to what sounded like serious doubts, and then would revert to full-bore embrace of the Bush policy, because, they said, there was no other alternative—an attitude that kept them from thinking critically about the current policy and coming up with a genuine alternative. See, for example, this exchange I had with a Beltway Bush supporter, posted in January 2005.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 17, 2006 05:10 PM | Send