Our Cultures Are Incompatible

But not always. Sometimes, the value systems of cultures are so diametrically opposed that there is little or no possibility of peaceful coexistence. Sociologists can tell you better than I can about what they consider the specific parameters, but at some point, it becomes clear that two cultures possess enough fundamental differences to make peaceful coexistence impossible.  

In contemporary times, the three most influential cultures happen to exist in a state of perpetual opposition. Broadly speaking, these three cultures are Western culture, Islamic culture, and Leftist culture.

(And no, I’m not trying to denigrate the peripheral third world by not including the vast contributions to the advancement of humanity by the noble and indigenous people of southern Sri Lanka and other such unacknowledged outliers, but… come on.)

I’m not here to argue for the superiority of Western culture, which is self-evident. If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t be witnessing millions of people fleeing Leftist cultures and Islamic cultures to live in the West. As it stands, nobody is crossing oceans in life rafts trying to get to Somalia or Venezuela.

Rather, I’m asserting that these three cultures are not only in competition with one another, but that none of these can peaceably co-exist with the other two. These three cultures will continue to fight until one emerges definitively victorious over the other two.

At present, the leftist and Islamist cultures exist in a temporary alliance of convenience against Western culture. These two cultures are even more incompatible with each other than they are with Western culture. But both rightly consider Western culture to be their more powerful adversary, and hence the bigger threat to themselves.

But their alliance is an interesting one. It goes one way. The Leftists make constant concessions to the Islamists to keep the alliance intact. The Islamists make no concessions whatsoever to the Leftists. Islamist restraint in far-left European and American regions is not a sign of tolerance or moderation. It’s a sign of discipline and strategy. They’re biding their time.

Leftists increase the surveillance state, but only against the West. Never against Islam. Leftists actively work to foment chaos and disorder, but only against the West. Never against Islam. Leftists sacrifice children upon the twin pillars of diversity and sexual hedonism, but only their own. Never those of Islam.

Internally, Islamists laugh at the Left’s broadsides against the Patriarchy, against the System, against Christian Nationalism (whatever that is), against value and norm and decency and tradition and family and history. They look forward to the day when their Islamic rule makes all of us evil MAGA fascists look, in comparison, like the grand marshals of a non-binary drag queen parade through San Francisco.

And, like clockwork, when one of the feistier jihadi boys crosses the line of scrimmage before the ball is hiked and hacks apart a few Jews or gays or uncovered women, the Left doesn’t get mad at Islam. The Left gets mad at the West’s remaining defenders for bringing attention to the crime and the patterns that underlie it.

So which is the bigger threat to the West? Leftist culture or Islamic culture?

Leftist culture is clearly the weaker of the two, for three main reasons:

1. Leftist culture is destructive, but it is also self-destructive. By the contradictions inherent in its ideology, the Left inevitably devours its own. Ascend the slope of the intersectional victim/oppressor pyramid to its zenith, and you’ll come to one group more “oppressed” than anyone else, making everyone else an “oppressor” to one degree or another. Follow the train of leftist thought to its inevitable conclusions, and you’ll come to one comrade more “woke” than any other comrade, making him and him alone enlightened enough to tyrannize over all the others.
2. Leftist culture is grounded in the shifting sands of fleeting emotion. Envy. Resentment. Hate. Vengeance. Spite. These are passions that offer momentary strength and a false sense of purpose, but upon which no productive system will ever flourish. They lead to either Stalinist totalitarianism or nihilistic atomization.
3. Leftist culture exists in a reality that is purely material, in which there is no spiritual depth. Leftism lives for vulgar pleasure masked as “rights.” Leftism creates slaves to impulsive vice, not disciplined adherents to a transcendent power. As such, it lives in the moment, in whatever feels good right here, right now. They can’t see past tomorrow, and they can’t feel beyond the boundaries of their own carnality.

Which of those two cultures will be running the show a hundred years from now? The culture whose members are so narcissistic and self-centered that they consider bringing a child into the world an act of evil? Or the culture whose members sacrifice their own children as human shields in order to kill as many of us as possible? One group buys animals and calls them their children. The other group breeds armies of suicide bombers.

If leftists didn’t have the West to protect them, they would have already been relegated to the eunuch class by now. In a clash of civilizations, Islam would mop the floor with the Left and then head back inside for breakfast.

So that means Islam is the bigger threat to the West, right?

I would argue otherwise. I would argue that the Left is the bigger threat.

Islam is stronger, more fanatical, and, in all honesty, braver than the Left. But it possesses systemic weaknesses that make it extremely vulnerable. First and foremost are its own inherent prejudices. By relegating everybody who isn’t an orthodox Muslim male as less deserving of liberty, opportunity, or even life, it creates a permanent handicap in the race of scientific and societal advancement. Jews aren’t rushing to build IT labs in Afghanistan. Christians aren’t clamoring to build universities in Sudan. Women aren’t tripping over each other in the rush to find quality husbands in Saudi Arabia. And Islam itself is antithetical to science, making any “advancement” of theirs purely stolen or purchased from the West.

 Another weakness of Islam is borne of its fanaticism. They don’t believe in any “slow march through the institutions.” They don’t believe in incrementalism. Whenever they take over a city (Dearborn), a state (Minnesota), or a country (England), they don’t pussyfoot around. They get straight to the Sharia, the child brides, and the massacre of infidels. They aren’t “done” pretending because they never pretended to begin with. They always made their intentions perfectly clear from Day One. As such, they make themselves that much easier to spot from a distance.

Lastly, Western culture will always be foreign to Islamism. They’ll never fully defeat us because they’ll never fully understand us. They don’t know what makes us tick, and they don’t deign to care. We’re infidels, and that’s all that matters. Had they taken the time to know their enemy, as Sun Tzu advised, they might have more success to the point where they don’t lose every single military engagement with us.

Unfortunately, the weaknesses of Islamic culture happen to be the strengths of Leftist culture, and they are used against Western culture to a more devastating effect. Any two-bit gaggle of Islamic psychopaths can fly planes into buildings or gun down pedestrians. But the Left is willing to play a different game. They don’t have orders from Allah, and they’re not concerned with the state of their soul in the afterlife. They serve the golden calf of their own ego.

As such, they can fight Western culture in ways the Islamists can’t. The Left, by virtue of birth, upbringing, and full immersion, understands the West, even as it hates it. Leftist culture knows the weak spots of Western culture – our tolerance, our acceptance, our forgiveness, our optimism, our generosity – and they turn our virtues against us. Keep in mind that the only reason Islamists are killing Westerners on our own soil is because Leftists deliberately let them in with the full expectation that the Islamists do exactly that.

Leftist culture can “speak” our language, they corrupt our laws, they create our entertainment, and they bias our media. They walk among us. They smile at us across the fence while secretly wishing us harm. They serve us our food and hope we choke on it.

And, not content to co-exist peacefully even across state boundaries, they pursue us. They move from state to state, destroying it as they go, much like Mr. Smith’s virus speech in The Matrix. Colorado and Virginia used to be solidly red and, believe it or not, there was a time not too long ago when Oregon and Washington were considered swing states. Leftists moved in and are in the advanced stages of completely gutting each of these states. Once finished, they’ll move on to the next red region and start the process over again.

We can stop Somalis and Afghans from coming. But we can’t stop Leftists. And where the Leftists push us out, they welcome the Somalis and Afghans in.

Related: This Is War

I'll concede that in some theoretical apocalyptic final battle between civilizations, it would be easier to defeat Islam than it would the left. If we were honest with ourselves, we could have already easily defeated Islam and got that buzzing mosquito off our ear long ago. We simply lack the will to do what’s necessary. We start out strong, and then we get bogged down in negotiations and “peace” processes and nation building and schools and roads and hearts and minds and insane rules of engagement that make Girl Scout water balloon fights look like a war crime.

But if we really wanted to, we could end the Islamist problem in a month. Not so with Leftism. Again, if we were to be honest with ourselves, defeating domestic leftism would be much harder than defeating overseas Islamism. For all the tough guy talk on our side about civil war, the fact remains that the idea of gunning down fellow Americans for their political beliefs would find very few takers on the Right.

We all say we would. But we wouldn’t. And that’s a good thing.

Self-defense is one thing. But who among us would gun down our neighbors in cold blood because they are Democrats? Whose kids play with your kids? Who shop in the same stores and enjoy the same sporting events? Would your neighbor need to be pointing a gun at you for you to shoot him? His wife? His kids? Would we target only active combatants, or are sympathizers fair game? Where would we draw the line?

The disadvantage to us is that Leftist culture (not liberal culture; leftist culture) would have no qualms about doing that to us. Western culture considers it a weakness and a crime to murder people for their opinions. Leftist culture considers it a weakness and a crime to NOT murder people for their opinions.

And that’s why Western culture and leftist culture are incompatible. Our values are rooted in the spiritual, theirs in the material. Our values are rooted in individual rights, theirs in group rights. Our values are rooted in rationality, theirs in feelings.

Western culture and Islamist culture are also incompatible. Our values are rooted in freedom of conscience, theirs in forced conversion. Our values are rooted in open and civil debate, theirs in dogmatic orthodoxy. Our values are rooted in gender equality and minority rights, theirs in misogyny, segregation, and, ultimately, murder.

Rest assured, neither Islamic culture nor Leftist culture is compatible with the other, either. But regardless of whichever one we consider the bigger threat, the fact is that both of them have determined us to be the bigger threat, and have temporarily allied accordingly. We’re fighting a war on both fronts and can’t afford to beg for a permanent peace that neither of them wants.

We cannot peacefully coexist with Leftism, and we cannot peacefully coexist with Islamism. This conclusion is the logical result not of any “phobia,” but of their actions and their stated goals. I’m still convinced we can win this battle through peaceful, democratic means. But it requires many more conservatives and a whole slew of milquetoast “independents” to appreciate the gravity of the situation in which we find ourselves.