Spencer issues a non-liberal defense of Western national identity

Making the same points I made here last week, Robert Spencer writing at FrontPage Magazine says that Tony Blair’s recent speech on multiculturalism was hardly the rejection of multiculturalism that a less-than-thoughtful reporter at the Telegraph said it was. Blair’s modifications of multiculturalism represented the bare minimum required for rule of law and national survival: no tolerance of sharia and jihad and terrorism—something that should have been Britain’s policy a long time ago. Blair still wants tolerance for everything else, with such tolerance defining Britain’s “heritage” that Blair claims to support. But, as Spencer points out:

It is disappointing that Blair defines, at least in this speech, Britain’s national character almost exclusively in terms of the “tolerance” that “is part of what makes Britain, Britain.”…

As events rush on, [Britain’s leaders] will increasingly see that Blair’s watery vision of mutual tolerance is not enough to ensure national self-preservation, and that multiculturalism must be discarded altogether in favor of a forthright and unapologetic assertion of British and Western civilization as something worth defending, and as something superior in numerous particulars to the alternative offered with increasing stridency by the Muslim immigrants in Britain. At that point, if it is not too late, it will be impossible to criminalize discussion of the violent elements of Islamic theology and tradition, for discussion of them will be an obvious national necessity, inextricable from the defense of the nation. If it is not too late, we may hope that Britain may then reemerge not just as a geographic location for anything at all and nothing in particular, but as a dynamic exponent of the Judeo-Christian civilization that has always been the focus of Islamic jihad efforts.

Spencer here is arguing against the liberal definition of national identity, the same kind of definition for which I’ve so often criticized him. Also, Spencer has recently ceased writing to me complaining that I have been misrepresenting his position whenever I said he was liberal on this or that issue. Among other things, his silence indicates that he has realized that I had not committed a “calumny” against him when I made an innocent descriptive statement, in the midst of defending him from Ralph Peters’s insane attacks, that I had used a conservative definition of nationhood and Spencer had used a liberal one. Indeed, instead of continuing to insist that I was misrepresenting him when I said that he had a liberal definition of national identity, Spencer has adopted a conservative definition of national identity himself. With cautious hope, I sense a positive change.
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Have I given Spencer too much credit? It’s possible. Bruce B. writes:

Spencer wrote: “If it is not too late, we may hope that Britain may then reemerge not just as a geographic location for anything at all and nothing in particular, but as a dynamic exponent of the Judeo-Christian civilization that has always been the focus of Islamic jihad efforts.”

This is a positive step for Spencer, but is it enough? Is it adequate to define our civilization in terms of Judeo-Christianity? After all, you have argued that Christianity is at the core of Western Civilization but does not and, just as importantly, cannot constitute the entirety of it. He doesn’t mention Britishness or Englishness or common culture, language, or (dare we say it!) blood. You have argued the case that Western Civilization formed as an amalgamation of Christian, Classical, and Germanic elements. He seems to neglect the latter two and seems to forget that Christianity cannot govern a society apart from external elements.

Also, you have written about how he flirts with reality but cannot “finish.” I think this is because of his liberal Christianity. Remember in your exchange at Jihad Watch how he kept (haughtily I thought) reminding us of the fact that he is a Christian. His invoking of the “equality of rights and dignity of all people.”

LA replies:

Bruce may be right. But we have to admit that Spencer was using a somewhat different language from his usual line about “the West is equal rights and tolerance.” He is at least moving in the direction of a more substantive, i.e., a traditionalist, definition of Western societies.

Bruce replies:

Yes. I don’t mean to pick at him when he’s making progress.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 14, 2006 02:22 PM | Send