Ukip's topping of the European elections, the first time any other party than Labour or the Conservatives have won a national election in over a hundred years, has brought the dilemma facing the established parties into sharp focus.
Ukip's popularity is largely based on it's anti-immigration, anti-EU stance; but more than that, for its supporters it stands for a straightforward honesty talking about issues that have become closed-off by the political establishment.
"A Frankenstein's monster"
An interview with one of the original founders of Ukip, respected academic Alan Sked, revealed much about how Ukip's message has changed (for the worse?) over the years, as well as the accusation that Ukip had become a vehicle for Nigel Farage's omnipresent (and multi-faceted) personality.
Reading the interview inadvertently brings comparisons with past political entities becoming hijacked by hypnotic and overbearing personalities; while it's an unfair comparison, it bears considering that the likes of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin were all people who were marginal figures who took over the reins of their respective parties through a combination of charisma and ruthless opportunism (the "Anton Drexler" comparison with Alan Sked here seems too tempting not to mention, even if it is unfair on Sked). The various nationalist groups that are gaining momentum in Europe (more on that later) all have at least some kind of tenuous link to the politics of Fascism and extremism.
Farage has long been aware of the accusation of Ukip being a one-man band; it's for this reason why he has promoted (to varying degrees of "success", depending on how you measure the term) other faces to the media. With Ukip now having hundreds of councellors across England, and two dozen MEPs, it gives plenty of space for this multitude of individuals to make a name for themselves. As has been evident for some time, Ukip candidates are not shy about plainly (and sometimes bluntly) speaking their minds.
But this is the point; for the British electorate (at least those that vote Ukip) this "speaking your mind" is something of a novelty; but a novelty that a significant section of the electorate are happy to indulge. In a sense, Ukip has become the perfect pressure valve for people who have grown tired of the "PC straight-jacket", and tired of being called racists for wanting to talk about immigration and the EU. These people want to have MPs that speak like they do in Westminster.
Ukip is no mere "protest vote". The evidence is that Ukip will be around for quite some time. The tectonic plates are shifting beneath the feet of the MPs in Westminster.
A dinosaurs' graveyard
While Ukip is on the rise, the MPs in Westminster are scrabbling around to play catch-up (at least, the ones who are not in complete self-denial).
But those MPs in the Westminster are in a "damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don't" situation. The three main parties have both tried to indulge the immigration worries raised by Ukip's popularity, as well as dismissing or attacking those selfsame worries as misguided and delusional. Judging from the local council results, the ones who are really delusional about British people's worries are those in Westminster; for they think that everyone in Britain thinks the same as people who live in London.
But the Westminster "catch-up game" is doomed to fail, because what characterises the typical Ukip voter is their disregard for whatever comes out of a Westminster politicians' mouth. David Cameron is perhaps a bigger hate figure than even Ed Milliband (only Nick Clegg is despised more). The main reason for this is Cameron's track record of saying whatever is convenient at that moment, and conveniently come up with an excuse to forget it later on. In this sense, he is the epitome of the abject failure of Westminster politics to bring forward genuinely passionate people who have a real idea about how to take the country forward. David Cameron is the archetypal "career politician" of Britain in the early 21st century. Worse, as the "heir to Blair", he took Blair's "managerial" style of politics, and applied it in a even more superficial and misguided way to the Conservative party.
In many ways, David Cameron has done more to destroy the Conservative Party than Tony Blair could have wished for; worse, is the damage he has done to his standing as the leader of his party and his country. The Conservatives are now a cosmetic and hollow entity for Cameron's vacuous personality. It's clear that many Conservatives are "Ukip-lite", who would secretly wish to defect to Ukip if they felt it was worth their while. Well, after the 2015 election, it may well be.
The current generation of Westminster politicians are like a set of skilled workers that have grown complacent over the years and haven't bothered to "re-learn" new skills needed, and are now hopelessly behind the curve with passing events and advances.
Ironically, in this sense only, they do reflect some of the changes that have happened to many workers in Britain in the last thirty years: left behind by globalisation because the government never bothered to invest in their skills when the time was right. Like these "left-behind" in society who are now drawn to Ukip, those in Westminster may soon be as unemployed and socially-dislocated as some Ukip voters are now.
Revenge can be poetic indeed.
A "French Ukip" or a "British FN"?
The stand-out event of the European elections has been the simultaneous rise of Ukip in the UK and the FN in France, as the largest parties in their respective countries. This in itself should surely send a terrifying message to those in Brussels; when the second and third largest countries in the EU are dominated by anti-EU parties, something is very wrong.
The rise of the far-right and the anti-politics movement has been brewing for some time; the financial crisis demonstrated the intellectual poverty and the particularly complacent and weak quality of those currently in the European political establishment, who have resorted to negative tactics to smear those who refuse to accept the political orthodoxy. UKIP, the FN in France, and others, are the beneficiaries of this set of circumstances. This was also true of politics in Europe after the Great Depression.
Nigel Farage refuses to do any "deal" with Marine Le Pen. The main reason here, Farage likes to point out, is that Ukip are not an openly-racist (and anti-Semitic) party.
On the surface, Farage speaks the truth: Ukip have more in common with the "Tea Party" in the USA than the old-style FN in France. What separates Ukip and the FN is that Ukip are primarily a movement driven by economic arguments to their case; the FN will as likely use social and cultural (i.e. racial) arguments to back up their case. Ukip's economic argument is what drives its opposition to an open labour market with the EU; it is this, as well as its libertarian principles that make it more like the "Tea Party" in the USA than the FN, or "Golden Dawn" in Greece.
And yet for all that, under the surface, racism and prejudice is apparent. Speak to some of Ukip's candidates, and it doesn't take long for open prejudice to emerge, whether it be racism or homophobia. In that sense, Farage is simply a charismatic front-man for a deep well of latent prejudice. It could all be harmless banter; or it could be the tip of a very unpleasant iceberg.
But, who knows for sure? Only time will tell.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
UKIP and the 2014 local election results: what this tells us about England
With most of the results now in for the local elections, the predicted "earthquake" that Nigel Farage talked about has happened.
In 2013, UKIP came from nowhere to gain nearly 150 council seats, mostly in the East and South-east of rural England. Now it has been the turn of the towns and cities, and there has been a similar surge of UKIP support across the length of England, from North to South. For both Labour and the Tories, it now looks that UKIP can get chunks of their support from almost anywhere.
The London Bubble
Much of the support for UKIP has come from voters disaffected with the "Westminster machine": a professional class of politicians that no longer seem to speak for everyday concerns, or even talk in the same way. Although Europe and immigration are the two main issues that UKIP is most famous for (more on that here), many people vote for UKIP as a vote against a political establishment that no longer seems to think as they do, detached from their lives and concerns.
UKIP failed to make much impact in London, but conversely did extremely well outside of London, from neighbouring (but economically disconnected) areas such as Essex, all the way up to Rotherham in Yorkshire. This is the best way of showing in a concrete way how the "Westminster machine" and the London-centred media reflect the views and thinking of those living in London, but not really anywhere else. When we talk about the "liberal" mainstream, which was talked about during the New Labour years, and into the "heir to Blair", Cameron administration, we really mean the London mainstream. UKIP isn't popular in London because London is more liberal that most other parts of the country. Put another way, unlimited immigration (from the EU) is seen in London as a bonus for the city, whereas in other parts of the country it's seen as dragging down the prospects of everyone else.
The spread of the UKIP vote is therefore a clear indication of the concerns that people have. Londoners aren't concerned about immigration because the London economy is unique in Britain. Few places outside of London have been able to successfully replicate the "London model". The main reason for this because even if they wanted to, they couldn't; the economic structures of regional cities are fundamentally different, and have been for decades, ever since the end of the Empire. Put in another way, UKIP votes are a (perhaps illogical) vote against the effects of the EU and modern neo-liberalism experiment that Britain has been put through since Margaret Thatcher came to power. As illogical as this is for many UKIP voters (given that UKIP are a self-confessed neo-liberal "libertarian" party), this seems to be what some are thinking, especially in the traditional Labour heartlands.
The Tories economic strategy is to make the rest of the country more like London: a kind of international and European collecting tray of those who can't get work elsewhere. This then leads to a widening gulf between the poorly-paid, unskilled (and semi-skilled) worker, and the massively overpaid professionals in finance and related industries This strategy makes sense to Tories because it is what they know; most of those in policy positions have little idea of how the local economies outside of London work (or used to, when they had industries). These same Tories talk about the example of Germany, forgetting that Germany today has nationalised transport, rental controls, much lower rates of property ownership, and a much stronger, collaborative union approach in the workplace. The Tories are laughable when you compare their ideas to how Germany is ran. Also, Germany strove to keep its industries competitive and efficient; in the UK, successive governments let them rot. Many UKIP voters also have this at the back of their mind.
Throwing the cat amongst the pigeons
Looking at the spread of votes more closely, we can see that UKIP are challenging the Conservatives as the opposition to Labour in the North of England; in the South, they are biting at Labour's heels for second place there, too.
To put it another way, this makes things nightmarishly-complicated for next year's general election, and potentially for the foreseeable future if UKIP's vote share stays around ten per cent or higher in the longer-term. Such a vote share effectively denies the Tories a chance of getting a decent number of constituencies in the North, meaning that they would have to rely on a much bigger share in the south and midlands; which is effectively impossible. Conversely, there is also a danger that Labour may lose out on some of its "key" seats next year in the South, in order to gain an overall majority, due to some Labour voters transferring to UKIP.
This would make the Midlands the most heavily-fought for part of the country, if the Conservatives and Labour understand that UKIP may well deny them seats that they might normally be expected to win in order to gain a majority.
UKIP therefore may well have the side-effect of making Labour and Tory "heartlands" effective no-go areas for the rival main party, where the only real opposition is UKIP. This would make the north-south socio-political divide even more glaring.
The effect of UKIP also means that all "conventional" methods of predicting results are possibly useless in some cases. Political analysts like neat formulas that say "if Party X wins here, they'll get X number of seats in a general election". These formulas do not factor in UKIP, and as UKIP's effect is so new that it's hard for many experienced analysts to accurately dissect, this means that a potential new era of four-party politics means that all the old political assumptions may have to be thrown out of the window.
UKIP is making English politics a hell of a lot more complicated for everyone else.
England turning into a European democracy?
The local elections have also confirmed all the signs pointing to a potentially historic realignment, and the establishment of a four-party political system. Since the 1990s, Wales and Scotland have already had this; England can now say it has it too.
Comparisons have been made between UKIP now and the SDP in the 1980s. But is a false comparison, because UKIP voters are not the same people as who voted for the old SDP. UKIP voters today represent both the rural and urban working class, some semi-skilled workers, as well as more marginal parts of society. This is why UKIP is radically different (and more dangerous) in threat to both the Conservatives and Labour. In the 1980s, the rise of the SDP split the Labour vote, without having much effect on the Conservatives. This is partly what led to Thatcher winning the 1983 general election. But UKIP have now shown that they can take votes almost equally from both Labour and the Conservatives.
This shift in political allegiances is the biggest since the inter-war period, when Labour gradually began to take the place of the Liberals between the wars. The three-way split of that period resulted in a number of coalition governments; the current four-way split looks like it may be having the same effect now. Political analysts, factoring in UKIP votes, are now understanding that a hung parliament is more than possible, even probable, given the leeching-away of support from both Labour and the Conservatives for UKIP. Labour way well be the largest party, but are likely to fall below the threshold needed for single-party government; allowing the Liberal Democrats (assuming they don't lose a catastrophic number of seats next year) to stay in government as the junior partner to Labour.
So the rise of UKIP may have the ironic effect of making England (if Scotland votes "Yes" in the referendum) politically look more like a European state, with successive coalition governments, with four main parties in the political ring.
The problem this brings of course, is that Britain has an electoral system designed for only two main players, or three at a push. Does the rise of UKIP therefore bring back to the surface the issue of electoral reform? This would doubtlessly feed the perception that Westminster is a closed shop, barred to real people; a corrupt and creaking establishment that is ran by a bunch of out-of-touch mediocrities using whatever dirty tactics they can to preserve their privileges.
So UKIP's rise could have potentially huge consequences in the long-run.
In 2013, UKIP came from nowhere to gain nearly 150 council seats, mostly in the East and South-east of rural England. Now it has been the turn of the towns and cities, and there has been a similar surge of UKIP support across the length of England, from North to South. For both Labour and the Tories, it now looks that UKIP can get chunks of their support from almost anywhere.
The London Bubble
Much of the support for UKIP has come from voters disaffected with the "Westminster machine": a professional class of politicians that no longer seem to speak for everyday concerns, or even talk in the same way. Although Europe and immigration are the two main issues that UKIP is most famous for (more on that here), many people vote for UKIP as a vote against a political establishment that no longer seems to think as they do, detached from their lives and concerns.
UKIP failed to make much impact in London, but conversely did extremely well outside of London, from neighbouring (but economically disconnected) areas such as Essex, all the way up to Rotherham in Yorkshire. This is the best way of showing in a concrete way how the "Westminster machine" and the London-centred media reflect the views and thinking of those living in London, but not really anywhere else. When we talk about the "liberal" mainstream, which was talked about during the New Labour years, and into the "heir to Blair", Cameron administration, we really mean the London mainstream. UKIP isn't popular in London because London is more liberal that most other parts of the country. Put another way, unlimited immigration (from the EU) is seen in London as a bonus for the city, whereas in other parts of the country it's seen as dragging down the prospects of everyone else.
The spread of the UKIP vote is therefore a clear indication of the concerns that people have. Londoners aren't concerned about immigration because the London economy is unique in Britain. Few places outside of London have been able to successfully replicate the "London model". The main reason for this because even if they wanted to, they couldn't; the economic structures of regional cities are fundamentally different, and have been for decades, ever since the end of the Empire. Put in another way, UKIP votes are a (perhaps illogical) vote against the effects of the EU and modern neo-liberalism experiment that Britain has been put through since Margaret Thatcher came to power. As illogical as this is for many UKIP voters (given that UKIP are a self-confessed neo-liberal "libertarian" party), this seems to be what some are thinking, especially in the traditional Labour heartlands.
The Tories economic strategy is to make the rest of the country more like London: a kind of international and European collecting tray of those who can't get work elsewhere. This then leads to a widening gulf between the poorly-paid, unskilled (and semi-skilled) worker, and the massively overpaid professionals in finance and related industries This strategy makes sense to Tories because it is what they know; most of those in policy positions have little idea of how the local economies outside of London work (or used to, when they had industries). These same Tories talk about the example of Germany, forgetting that Germany today has nationalised transport, rental controls, much lower rates of property ownership, and a much stronger, collaborative union approach in the workplace. The Tories are laughable when you compare their ideas to how Germany is ran. Also, Germany strove to keep its industries competitive and efficient; in the UK, successive governments let them rot. Many UKIP voters also have this at the back of their mind.
Throwing the cat amongst the pigeons
Looking at the spread of votes more closely, we can see that UKIP are challenging the Conservatives as the opposition to Labour in the North of England; in the South, they are biting at Labour's heels for second place there, too.
To put it another way, this makes things nightmarishly-complicated for next year's general election, and potentially for the foreseeable future if UKIP's vote share stays around ten per cent or higher in the longer-term. Such a vote share effectively denies the Tories a chance of getting a decent number of constituencies in the North, meaning that they would have to rely on a much bigger share in the south and midlands; which is effectively impossible. Conversely, there is also a danger that Labour may lose out on some of its "key" seats next year in the South, in order to gain an overall majority, due to some Labour voters transferring to UKIP.
This would make the Midlands the most heavily-fought for part of the country, if the Conservatives and Labour understand that UKIP may well deny them seats that they might normally be expected to win in order to gain a majority.
UKIP therefore may well have the side-effect of making Labour and Tory "heartlands" effective no-go areas for the rival main party, where the only real opposition is UKIP. This would make the north-south socio-political divide even more glaring.
The effect of UKIP also means that all "conventional" methods of predicting results are possibly useless in some cases. Political analysts like neat formulas that say "if Party X wins here, they'll get X number of seats in a general election". These formulas do not factor in UKIP, and as UKIP's effect is so new that it's hard for many experienced analysts to accurately dissect, this means that a potential new era of four-party politics means that all the old political assumptions may have to be thrown out of the window.
UKIP is making English politics a hell of a lot more complicated for everyone else.
England turning into a European democracy?
The local elections have also confirmed all the signs pointing to a potentially historic realignment, and the establishment of a four-party political system. Since the 1990s, Wales and Scotland have already had this; England can now say it has it too.
Comparisons have been made between UKIP now and the SDP in the 1980s. But is a false comparison, because UKIP voters are not the same people as who voted for the old SDP. UKIP voters today represent both the rural and urban working class, some semi-skilled workers, as well as more marginal parts of society. This is why UKIP is radically different (and more dangerous) in threat to both the Conservatives and Labour. In the 1980s, the rise of the SDP split the Labour vote, without having much effect on the Conservatives. This is partly what led to Thatcher winning the 1983 general election. But UKIP have now shown that they can take votes almost equally from both Labour and the Conservatives.
This shift in political allegiances is the biggest since the inter-war period, when Labour gradually began to take the place of the Liberals between the wars. The three-way split of that period resulted in a number of coalition governments; the current four-way split looks like it may be having the same effect now. Political analysts, factoring in UKIP votes, are now understanding that a hung parliament is more than possible, even probable, given the leeching-away of support from both Labour and the Conservatives for UKIP. Labour way well be the largest party, but are likely to fall below the threshold needed for single-party government; allowing the Liberal Democrats (assuming they don't lose a catastrophic number of seats next year) to stay in government as the junior partner to Labour.
So the rise of UKIP may have the ironic effect of making England (if Scotland votes "Yes" in the referendum) politically look more like a European state, with successive coalition governments, with four main parties in the political ring.
The problem this brings of course, is that Britain has an electoral system designed for only two main players, or three at a push. Does the rise of UKIP therefore bring back to the surface the issue of electoral reform? This would doubtlessly feed the perception that Westminster is a closed shop, barred to real people; a corrupt and creaking establishment that is ran by a bunch of out-of-touch mediocrities using whatever dirty tactics they can to preserve their privileges.
So UKIP's rise could have potentially huge consequences in the long-run.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
How To Spot A Psychopath
Psychopaths are generally thought to exist in a low percentile of the population (but no lower than 1 per cent, and potentially double or triple that). Given that their syndrome affects a larger segment of the population than schizophrenics, and given the wide coverage of the subject in academia, popular culture and the media, it would be wise to know when you've met one.
"What is a psychopath?"
An article here talks about how a psychopath views the world, and how they interact with the rest of society. In essence, psychopaths are like "psychological vampires", but no two psychopaths may be the same. While there are a common set of personality behaviours and characteristics, Kevin Dutton suggests that "psychopathy" operates on more of a "sliding scale", and with a "mixing deck" of attributes.
Generally speaking, we can isolate a number of stand-out characteristics that together may allow someone to suspect they have encountered a psychopath:
Snake eyes
Psychopaths are known for having a lack of the normal range of human emotions. While a normal person displays a range of emotions throughout the day, psychopaths are instinctively unable to reproduce it. They may well be able to successfully mimic (more on that later), but psychopaths naturally have "a predator's eye". Past victims of psychopaths, once they become aware to the reality of who they are dealing with, have told of the emotional "emptiness" they see in the psychopath's eyes. They see the world in a different way to a normal person, and more in the style of a predator hunting his prey. Related to this is the fact that psychopaths are naturally very cool under pressure; which explains why they tend to disproportionately exist at the top end of business and society. It also means they can make decisions unclouded by emotional attachment. This lack of empathy also means that they are easily capable of acts of sadism that a normal person would have grave hesitation about doing, ranging from a "psychopath CEO" coolly firing half of his staff without notice, to someone in a position of high office ordering mass murder.
A natural charmer
One thing that many people in the know can agree on is that psychopaths are charming and charismatic. Funny, persuasive, and manipulative, psychopaths know how to get what they want. They are easy talkers, often being able to even charm their own interrogators when in custody. Having such skills, they can usually talk their way out of any compromising situation (often to the astonishment of others: "how did he get away with that?"), while similarly being able to talk up their attributes into getting promotions or favours far beyond what they actually deserve.
Lie, and lie again
Psychopaths are typically pathological liars. Often their lies come out instinctively. They will shamelessly lie to get what they want, or to get out of an awkward moment. When their lies are found out, they will spin the lie into something entirely new, or make their interlocutor feel like they're going crazy as the psychopath pretends that the lie never existed in the first place. Used in conjuction with their persuasive and manipulative charm (see above), it makes the psychopath a very difficult individual to pin down.
Rules are for other people
Psychopaths use their skills to get away with doing what they want, when they want. They believe that "rules" are for someone else, and that anyone who doesn't understand that they are "special" or "different" from others is just stupid (see narcissism). Bystanders and colleagues will usually be stunned by the amount of shocking and disruptive behaviour a psychopath will carry out; this can include practically anything, including actions at the workplace that would normally be sufficient for dismissal. At the worse end of the scale, of course, such people may also be serial adulterers, violent, etc.
A high sex drive
While it's not always clearly stated, psychopaths like sex, and usually with lots of different people over a period of time. Tying in with the idea that they are moral vacuums, psychopaths are "charming bastards" that like to play around with sex. Like the narcissists they are, they treat their sexual partners as objects of gratification, to be explored, used, and discarded without a moment's hesitation when things get too "difficult" for them. A "well-adjusted psychopath" may well be satisfied with serial adultery after carefully choosing a suitably-pliant wife (or if he's very lucky, a partner with similarly loose ideas); in the middle range of things, another psychopath will shamelessly bounce from one woman to the next; in the worst case, a psychopath can be a serial rapist or worse (see Jimmy Savile and former rock singer, Ian Watkins).
"I invented the piano-key neck tie!"
The quote above is from a funny scene from the comedy film "Zoolander", where the character Mugatu (a fashion king) angrily loses his patience at others' perceived failings. It's a silly scene, but reminds us of how crazily narcissistic a psychopath can be compared to others. Psychopaths usually have completely unrealistic notions of how they are perceived by others, how their lives will be perceived, and of their future ambitions. It's not unusual for them to think it a realistic aim for them to be a future statesman or athlete, in spite of their complete lack of qualifications or planning. But their lack of planning leads to another related attribute...
Plans are for losers
Psychopaths change their ideas frequently, and rarely think far ahead into the future. There are documented cases of psychopaths, whose long-suffering partners listen to their ideas for making millions suddenly appear from nowhere, only to disappear again a short time later, to be replaced by some other "great idea". In this sense psychopaths ideas seem to rest on bursts of activity, only for them to quickly get bored of the idea or the actual work required ("boredom" is another thing that a psychopath suffers from). This explains at a more prosaic level why psychopaths jump from one sexual partner to another, jump from one job to another, or suddenly decide to completely change the direction of their career, or even where they live. This lack of planning also relates to how they often get into trouble when their many lies catch up with them (by failing to think ahead). Impulsiveness naturally stems from this behaviour as well.
Anger management problems
Relating to the idea of impulsiveness is the fact that psychopaths have low levels of control of their temper. While psychopaths cannot be said to have "real" emotions, they do have sudden bursts of "contrived" emotion when suitably provoked. The provocation may be something seemingly trivial, but to the psychopath, that "trivial" event (in his mind) may be seen as something deadly serious. A psychopath is capable of lashing out seemingly for no reason; in the worst case, killing at a whim, or without any real control of his own actions (being "ruled" by a sudden flush of temper). This behaviour indicates a person who is not following (or capable of following) the normal rules of society, and is a potential danger to those around him.
A leech on society
Lastly, psychopaths are famous for their parasitic lifestyle. In other words, they are talented for living off the efforts of others. Using their various skills (as described above), they are able to wheedle money, food, accomodation, sexual favours, or other "benefits" from people they encounter. While all of us may do this from time to time (when the situation demands), psychopaths make this a habit, and some of them use it practically as a survival technique.
Interestingly, while the vast majority of psychopaths are men, a small proportion of them are women. While female psychopaths may well have the same "core" attributes to male psychopaths, a female psychopath may well use her attributes and sexuality in a manner different from a male psychopath (and for different ends), due to their physical and biological differences. Cultural assumptions (and playing to stereotypes) may also play a factor.
"What is a psychopath?"
An article here talks about how a psychopath views the world, and how they interact with the rest of society. In essence, psychopaths are like "psychological vampires", but no two psychopaths may be the same. While there are a common set of personality behaviours and characteristics, Kevin Dutton suggests that "psychopathy" operates on more of a "sliding scale", and with a "mixing deck" of attributes.
Generally speaking, we can isolate a number of stand-out characteristics that together may allow someone to suspect they have encountered a psychopath:
Snake eyes
Psychopaths are known for having a lack of the normal range of human emotions. While a normal person displays a range of emotions throughout the day, psychopaths are instinctively unable to reproduce it. They may well be able to successfully mimic (more on that later), but psychopaths naturally have "a predator's eye". Past victims of psychopaths, once they become aware to the reality of who they are dealing with, have told of the emotional "emptiness" they see in the psychopath's eyes. They see the world in a different way to a normal person, and more in the style of a predator hunting his prey. Related to this is the fact that psychopaths are naturally very cool under pressure; which explains why they tend to disproportionately exist at the top end of business and society. It also means they can make decisions unclouded by emotional attachment. This lack of empathy also means that they are easily capable of acts of sadism that a normal person would have grave hesitation about doing, ranging from a "psychopath CEO" coolly firing half of his staff without notice, to someone in a position of high office ordering mass murder.
A natural charmer
One thing that many people in the know can agree on is that psychopaths are charming and charismatic. Funny, persuasive, and manipulative, psychopaths know how to get what they want. They are easy talkers, often being able to even charm their own interrogators when in custody. Having such skills, they can usually talk their way out of any compromising situation (often to the astonishment of others: "how did he get away with that?"), while similarly being able to talk up their attributes into getting promotions or favours far beyond what they actually deserve.
Lie, and lie again
Psychopaths are typically pathological liars. Often their lies come out instinctively. They will shamelessly lie to get what they want, or to get out of an awkward moment. When their lies are found out, they will spin the lie into something entirely new, or make their interlocutor feel like they're going crazy as the psychopath pretends that the lie never existed in the first place. Used in conjuction with their persuasive and manipulative charm (see above), it makes the psychopath a very difficult individual to pin down.
Rules are for other people
Psychopaths use their skills to get away with doing what they want, when they want. They believe that "rules" are for someone else, and that anyone who doesn't understand that they are "special" or "different" from others is just stupid (see narcissism). Bystanders and colleagues will usually be stunned by the amount of shocking and disruptive behaviour a psychopath will carry out; this can include practically anything, including actions at the workplace that would normally be sufficient for dismissal. At the worse end of the scale, of course, such people may also be serial adulterers, violent, etc.
A high sex drive
While it's not always clearly stated, psychopaths like sex, and usually with lots of different people over a period of time. Tying in with the idea that they are moral vacuums, psychopaths are "charming bastards" that like to play around with sex. Like the narcissists they are, they treat their sexual partners as objects of gratification, to be explored, used, and discarded without a moment's hesitation when things get too "difficult" for them. A "well-adjusted psychopath" may well be satisfied with serial adultery after carefully choosing a suitably-pliant wife (or if he's very lucky, a partner with similarly loose ideas); in the middle range of things, another psychopath will shamelessly bounce from one woman to the next; in the worst case, a psychopath can be a serial rapist or worse (see Jimmy Savile and former rock singer, Ian Watkins).
"I invented the piano-key neck tie!"
The quote above is from a funny scene from the comedy film "Zoolander", where the character Mugatu (a fashion king) angrily loses his patience at others' perceived failings. It's a silly scene, but reminds us of how crazily narcissistic a psychopath can be compared to others. Psychopaths usually have completely unrealistic notions of how they are perceived by others, how their lives will be perceived, and of their future ambitions. It's not unusual for them to think it a realistic aim for them to be a future statesman or athlete, in spite of their complete lack of qualifications or planning. But their lack of planning leads to another related attribute...
Plans are for losers
Psychopaths change their ideas frequently, and rarely think far ahead into the future. There are documented cases of psychopaths, whose long-suffering partners listen to their ideas for making millions suddenly appear from nowhere, only to disappear again a short time later, to be replaced by some other "great idea". In this sense psychopaths ideas seem to rest on bursts of activity, only for them to quickly get bored of the idea or the actual work required ("boredom" is another thing that a psychopath suffers from). This explains at a more prosaic level why psychopaths jump from one sexual partner to another, jump from one job to another, or suddenly decide to completely change the direction of their career, or even where they live. This lack of planning also relates to how they often get into trouble when their many lies catch up with them (by failing to think ahead). Impulsiveness naturally stems from this behaviour as well.
Anger management problems
Relating to the idea of impulsiveness is the fact that psychopaths have low levels of control of their temper. While psychopaths cannot be said to have "real" emotions, they do have sudden bursts of "contrived" emotion when suitably provoked. The provocation may be something seemingly trivial, but to the psychopath, that "trivial" event (in his mind) may be seen as something deadly serious. A psychopath is capable of lashing out seemingly for no reason; in the worst case, killing at a whim, or without any real control of his own actions (being "ruled" by a sudden flush of temper). This behaviour indicates a person who is not following (or capable of following) the normal rules of society, and is a potential danger to those around him.
A leech on society
Lastly, psychopaths are famous for their parasitic lifestyle. In other words, they are talented for living off the efforts of others. Using their various skills (as described above), they are able to wheedle money, food, accomodation, sexual favours, or other "benefits" from people they encounter. While all of us may do this from time to time (when the situation demands), psychopaths make this a habit, and some of them use it practically as a survival technique.
Interestingly, while the vast majority of psychopaths are men, a small proportion of them are women. While female psychopaths may well have the same "core" attributes to male psychopaths, a female psychopath may well use her attributes and sexuality in a manner different from a male psychopath (and for different ends), due to their physical and biological differences. Cultural assumptions (and playing to stereotypes) may also play a factor.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Islam: moderates versus extremists. Why are the extremists winning?
In a recent article about Islam, I discussed what drew some Westerners to become Muslim. Indirectly, I also posed the question "what is "wrong" with Islam?".
The main "problem" within modern Islam is the ideological battle between moderates and extremists. With the rise of "Islamo-fascism" in recent times, and the increasing influence that extremists have over the direction of Islam, it is clear that the extremists are "winning".
Silenced into submission
The extremists are winning within Muslim society mostly because of the passivity of the (far more numerous) moderates. To use a famous quote, evil,wins when good men do nothing. The same can be said of religious extremism: extremism wins when moderates do nothing.
To talk of "Muslim society" is a simplification. But broadly-speaking, most Muslim societies, whether they are a majority of society (such as in the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia and North Africa), or a minority (such as in Britain and Europe), are roughly divided into "moderates" and "extremists".
Apologists for Islam's poor image in the world argue that it is not a problem with the religion in itself, but with the misuse of the religion by people (almost always men) who use Islam as a weapon to attack anyone who displeases or defies their will.
This is a poor argument, because it simply shows how easy it is to manipulate Islam for evil intent. The same inane defence could be made for any ideology or religion; it excuses the responsibility of those in positions of ideological/religious authority to properly guide their flock into moral behaviour. It is the "a few bad apples" argument" that resolves nothing.
That in itself is a poor reflection on the ease that its teachings can be abused; due to the attitude of "playing to the gallery" by those in authority, or those in authority choosing the easy path and simply turning the other way in the face of inhumanity.
From the "Trojan Horse" conspiracy in the UK, to the expansion of "sharia" law to places like Brunei, moderation in Muslim society is on the wane. There may be a number of factors (and arguments used by the radicals) that explain the "passivity" of the moderates:
Islam is under attack: since the "war on terror", Islam around the world has been identified by various governments, directly or implicitly, as an "enemy". As a result, Muslims should be seen to clearly unite. As the radicals present the most forceful and "pure" interpretation of Islam, the onus is on the "moderates" to fall into line.
It's time to rediscover our faith: The radicals, following from the previous point, may well argue that, as Islam is "under attack", it's an opportune moment for moderates to put down their beer and start reading the Koran again, properly. And that means listening to the "purest" interpretation of the writings.
Simplicity is easy to follow: The easiest way to follow Islam, as the radicals would explain, is to simply do what the Prophet said in his writings and in the "hadiths". The fuzzy and ambiguous "liberalism" and "modernism" of the moderates means they would find it more difficult to explain how they interpret their faith. Radicals therefore win arguments simply from quoting the Koran.
Cultural differentiation: Relating to the second point, the "renaissance" of radical Islam can also be justified as a way to, in the multi-cultural, "Godless" world of globalisation, have a clear identity. This is also true of what I said previously about Western converts to Islam: it's the easiest way to give yourself a definitive identity, separate from the crowd. It's a form of cultural rebellion against globalisation.
If in doubt, bully: if the above tactics don't work, use aggression instead. This seems to be how many Islamic moderates have been cowed into submission. From Britain to Brunei, radicals have seized control of the agenda by threatening unpleasant consequences. This is how unpleasant people have always used religion as a weapon of control and fear.
In the contemporary world, Islamic fundamentalism is just the most potent and visible form of religious intolerance and control. There are others, such as Hindu radicals, Christians and Orthodox Jews, but they seem to pale in comparison in terms of their effect on the world at large.
A history of violence
Islamic radicalism only really came to the world's attention with the fall of the Shah in Iran. While the Gulf States had been ruled by extremely conservative Islamic governments (ruling dynasties), the influence of Islam as a radicalising agent was seen as almost microscopic, and no-one took it seriously.
The fall of the Shah changed all that in 1979, as well as the attack on the holy sites in Mecca by Islamic fundamentalists. The Islamic revolution in Iran led to a horrific, US-backed war by its neighbour, Iraq. Yet conversely, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led to the US covertly financing and supplying military hardware to Islamic radicals (later known as "Al-Qaeda") to fight against them. A few years later in Syria, there was the attempted Sunni uprising against the secular (Alawite-led) government. Also in the early eighties, there was the creation of (Iranian-backed) Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the creation of Hamas, a radical Islamist group, that countered the secular power of Fatah in Palestine. So by the end of the Eighties, Islamic fundamentalism had become far more overt in its presence compared to ten years previously.
The end of Communism brought about further "opportunities" for radical Islam. The break-up of Yugoslavia led to radicals gaining a foothold during the war in Bosnia, while over in the Caucasus, wars were raging in Karabakh and the Northern Caucasus (Chechnya and Dagestan); in the latter, radical Islamists had gained a very visible presence, while in the Karabakh war, Islamic radicals used the bitter war between Azerbaijan and Armenia as another "playground".
In the last years of the twentieth century saw "Al-Qaeda" become a household name with the East Africa terror attacks of 1998. Since the turn of the century, radical Islam has spread at an ever greater rate across the Middle East and North Africa, especially since the aftermath of the "Arab Spring".
Put into this context, it is beyond reasonable doubt that radical Islamists are "winning" the war within Islam itself.
Apart from the Arab states of the Middle East, Turkey's own form of Islamism (in government since 2002) has been seen to be becoming increasingly uncompromising and polarising over time. With Turkey's Islamist government being so clearly allied to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, it looks ever more so that Erdogan was simply playing a cunning waiting game, until it was too late for the secular moderates in Turkey to turn back the clock. The "mask of moderation" that Turkey's government had used effectively for some years, has now well and truly been discarded.
As things stand, the future of Islam belongs to those who are prepared to fight for it. The moderates look to have long given up the fight.
The main "problem" within modern Islam is the ideological battle between moderates and extremists. With the rise of "Islamo-fascism" in recent times, and the increasing influence that extremists have over the direction of Islam, it is clear that the extremists are "winning".
Silenced into submission
The extremists are winning within Muslim society mostly because of the passivity of the (far more numerous) moderates. To use a famous quote, evil,wins when good men do nothing. The same can be said of religious extremism: extremism wins when moderates do nothing.
To talk of "Muslim society" is a simplification. But broadly-speaking, most Muslim societies, whether they are a majority of society (such as in the Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia and North Africa), or a minority (such as in Britain and Europe), are roughly divided into "moderates" and "extremists".
Apologists for Islam's poor image in the world argue that it is not a problem with the religion in itself, but with the misuse of the religion by people (almost always men) who use Islam as a weapon to attack anyone who displeases or defies their will.
This is a poor argument, because it simply shows how easy it is to manipulate Islam for evil intent. The same inane defence could be made for any ideology or religion; it excuses the responsibility of those in positions of ideological/religious authority to properly guide their flock into moral behaviour. It is the "a few bad apples" argument" that resolves nothing.
That in itself is a poor reflection on the ease that its teachings can be abused; due to the attitude of "playing to the gallery" by those in authority, or those in authority choosing the easy path and simply turning the other way in the face of inhumanity.
From the "Trojan Horse" conspiracy in the UK, to the expansion of "sharia" law to places like Brunei, moderation in Muslim society is on the wane. There may be a number of factors (and arguments used by the radicals) that explain the "passivity" of the moderates:
Islam is under attack: since the "war on terror", Islam around the world has been identified by various governments, directly or implicitly, as an "enemy". As a result, Muslims should be seen to clearly unite. As the radicals present the most forceful and "pure" interpretation of Islam, the onus is on the "moderates" to fall into line.
It's time to rediscover our faith: The radicals, following from the previous point, may well argue that, as Islam is "under attack", it's an opportune moment for moderates to put down their beer and start reading the Koran again, properly. And that means listening to the "purest" interpretation of the writings.
Simplicity is easy to follow: The easiest way to follow Islam, as the radicals would explain, is to simply do what the Prophet said in his writings and in the "hadiths". The fuzzy and ambiguous "liberalism" and "modernism" of the moderates means they would find it more difficult to explain how they interpret their faith. Radicals therefore win arguments simply from quoting the Koran.
Cultural differentiation: Relating to the second point, the "renaissance" of radical Islam can also be justified as a way to, in the multi-cultural, "Godless" world of globalisation, have a clear identity. This is also true of what I said previously about Western converts to Islam: it's the easiest way to give yourself a definitive identity, separate from the crowd. It's a form of cultural rebellion against globalisation.
If in doubt, bully: if the above tactics don't work, use aggression instead. This seems to be how many Islamic moderates have been cowed into submission. From Britain to Brunei, radicals have seized control of the agenda by threatening unpleasant consequences. This is how unpleasant people have always used religion as a weapon of control and fear.
In the contemporary world, Islamic fundamentalism is just the most potent and visible form of religious intolerance and control. There are others, such as Hindu radicals, Christians and Orthodox Jews, but they seem to pale in comparison in terms of their effect on the world at large.
A history of violence
Islamic radicalism only really came to the world's attention with the fall of the Shah in Iran. While the Gulf States had been ruled by extremely conservative Islamic governments (ruling dynasties), the influence of Islam as a radicalising agent was seen as almost microscopic, and no-one took it seriously.
The fall of the Shah changed all that in 1979, as well as the attack on the holy sites in Mecca by Islamic fundamentalists. The Islamic revolution in Iran led to a horrific, US-backed war by its neighbour, Iraq. Yet conversely, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led to the US covertly financing and supplying military hardware to Islamic radicals (later known as "Al-Qaeda") to fight against them. A few years later in Syria, there was the attempted Sunni uprising against the secular (Alawite-led) government. Also in the early eighties, there was the creation of (Iranian-backed) Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the creation of Hamas, a radical Islamist group, that countered the secular power of Fatah in Palestine. So by the end of the Eighties, Islamic fundamentalism had become far more overt in its presence compared to ten years previously.
The end of Communism brought about further "opportunities" for radical Islam. The break-up of Yugoslavia led to radicals gaining a foothold during the war in Bosnia, while over in the Caucasus, wars were raging in Karabakh and the Northern Caucasus (Chechnya and Dagestan); in the latter, radical Islamists had gained a very visible presence, while in the Karabakh war, Islamic radicals used the bitter war between Azerbaijan and Armenia as another "playground".
In the last years of the twentieth century saw "Al-Qaeda" become a household name with the East Africa terror attacks of 1998. Since the turn of the century, radical Islam has spread at an ever greater rate across the Middle East and North Africa, especially since the aftermath of the "Arab Spring".
Put into this context, it is beyond reasonable doubt that radical Islamists are "winning" the war within Islam itself.
Apart from the Arab states of the Middle East, Turkey's own form of Islamism (in government since 2002) has been seen to be becoming increasingly uncompromising and polarising over time. With Turkey's Islamist government being so clearly allied to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, it looks ever more so that Erdogan was simply playing a cunning waiting game, until it was too late for the secular moderates in Turkey to turn back the clock. The "mask of moderation" that Turkey's government had used effectively for some years, has now well and truly been discarded.
As things stand, the future of Islam belongs to those who are prepared to fight for it. The moderates look to have long given up the fight.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
UKIP, the European and local elections: why are they so popular?
With less than two weeks to go before the combined Euro and local elections, it looks like it's brown trousers time for the three main parties.
A recent national poll puts Ukip on a fifth of the popular vote, with signs that their vote is impervious to attacks from other parties, as well as any seemingly self-inflicted wounds. What is going on?
Tell it like it is
A recent investigation into what the man in the pub thinks discovered that one reason why more and more people respect Ukip is the honesty of their message. The fact that their candidates and members say things that sound "racist" or "sexist" is a sign to many voters that Ukip people actually say what they think.
This tells you as much about popular disaffection towards the main three parties as it does about Ukip. A significant portion of the population simply don't trust what they three main parties say. By contrast, Ukip's popularity is at least partly a result of their "genuineness". The gaffes and "un-PC" statements by Ukip simply demonstrate that the party is ran by real human beings who have their own imperfections and flaws. Due to the level of distrust with the "big three", their human flaws are working out counter-intuitively to be an advantage.
In contrast to the "professional politicians" of "LibLabCon", Ukip look like real human beings in contrast to the usual robots that churn out the agreed party line. And when they're not doing that, the "professional politicians" are saying whatever they want to say just to stay in power; in other words, lying. Much of the public may have known this for some time, but only recently have seen Ukip as a genuine (and serious) alternative to the establishment. This explains Ukip's rise in the last eighteen months.
This puts the big three in an impossible situation. As they have so clearly lost the trust of a significant part of the voting public, the only way they can get them back is if they radically overhaul their approach to politics. To an extent, Labour is trying to do this, by trying to overhaul its ideas to fit the economic times. But they, like the Conservatives (the LibDems are already near death), are playing catch-up.
It will take years for the "big three" to restore the "credibility gap"; the 2015 election is already likely to have Ukip playing a huge role on the sidelines. Until the big three start acting like they're parties run by real people, Ukip will take credit for simply "telling it like it is".
Am I allowed to say that?
One of the most curious social changes in the last fifteen years or so in Britain is the effect that "political correctness" has had on what people say in public.
The term "political correctness" came into the social sphere in the nineties, so that by the time of "Blair's Britain" and "Cool Britannia", there was an unprecedented light shone on the negative effect that prejudice had had on British culture. The Blair administration can now be seen as the high-water mark of how government used legislation to purge prejudice from the minds of everyday people. After the decades previously, this looked like a huge step in the right direction for inter-racial relations, as well as acceptance for the gay community, and the culture of casual sexism that still existed in the workplace and on the streets.
This was where the term "political correctness" came in. The problem with trying to use forms of government sanction to purge prejudice was that is was bound to eventually lead to a polarisation of society. At Blair's party speech in 1999, he railed against the "forces of conservatism" (i.e. small-minded prejudice), which only served to rile the likes of the "Daily Mail". Before long, it was the norm to see regular headlines in that newspaper, and others like it, about "Political Correctness gone mad".
But the real effect that the idea of "political correctness" had on society was that it made people aware of their own form of self-censorship. People would catch themselves wanting to complain about, for example, asylum seekers or immigrants in conversation, but then then ask their interlocutor "Am I allowed to say that? Is it racist?".
The real question here is: is it "racist" to complain about the effects of, say, immigration? Or even, say, the perception that Muslim rights sometimes seem to supersede secular rights?
The urban and rural working class are on the front line of these issues today, and it is they who are turning to Ukip in droves.
The appearance of "self-censorship" during the Blair administration led to the view in the establishment that, because "Middle England" was now relaxed about things like immigration, it meant that it had become taboo to talk about its potential negative effects. The effects of "multiculturalism" were similarly off the table. The same was true of the EU. On this basis a "consensus" developed amongst the "big three" that certain issues were agreed upon, and were therefore not worthy of debate.
It is into this vacuum of debate that Ukip has now entered.
Because of the perception fed by Westminster that in Britain, "we're all middle class now", the political establishment began to believe their own rhetoric. The abject dishonesty of this claim is now bearing fruit, and for those in Westminster, it is a very unpleasant-smelling fruit.
For those in Westminster, the rise of Ukip may well lead Britain into a very uncertain and dark place, but they only have themselves to blame.
A recent national poll puts Ukip on a fifth of the popular vote, with signs that their vote is impervious to attacks from other parties, as well as any seemingly self-inflicted wounds. What is going on?
Tell it like it is
A recent investigation into what the man in the pub thinks discovered that one reason why more and more people respect Ukip is the honesty of their message. The fact that their candidates and members say things that sound "racist" or "sexist" is a sign to many voters that Ukip people actually say what they think.
This tells you as much about popular disaffection towards the main three parties as it does about Ukip. A significant portion of the population simply don't trust what they three main parties say. By contrast, Ukip's popularity is at least partly a result of their "genuineness". The gaffes and "un-PC" statements by Ukip simply demonstrate that the party is ran by real human beings who have their own imperfections and flaws. Due to the level of distrust with the "big three", their human flaws are working out counter-intuitively to be an advantage.
In contrast to the "professional politicians" of "LibLabCon", Ukip look like real human beings in contrast to the usual robots that churn out the agreed party line. And when they're not doing that, the "professional politicians" are saying whatever they want to say just to stay in power; in other words, lying. Much of the public may have known this for some time, but only recently have seen Ukip as a genuine (and serious) alternative to the establishment. This explains Ukip's rise in the last eighteen months.
This puts the big three in an impossible situation. As they have so clearly lost the trust of a significant part of the voting public, the only way they can get them back is if they radically overhaul their approach to politics. To an extent, Labour is trying to do this, by trying to overhaul its ideas to fit the economic times. But they, like the Conservatives (the LibDems are already near death), are playing catch-up.
It will take years for the "big three" to restore the "credibility gap"; the 2015 election is already likely to have Ukip playing a huge role on the sidelines. Until the big three start acting like they're parties run by real people, Ukip will take credit for simply "telling it like it is".
Am I allowed to say that?
One of the most curious social changes in the last fifteen years or so in Britain is the effect that "political correctness" has had on what people say in public.
The term "political correctness" came into the social sphere in the nineties, so that by the time of "Blair's Britain" and "Cool Britannia", there was an unprecedented light shone on the negative effect that prejudice had had on British culture. The Blair administration can now be seen as the high-water mark of how government used legislation to purge prejudice from the minds of everyday people. After the decades previously, this looked like a huge step in the right direction for inter-racial relations, as well as acceptance for the gay community, and the culture of casual sexism that still existed in the workplace and on the streets.
This was where the term "political correctness" came in. The problem with trying to use forms of government sanction to purge prejudice was that is was bound to eventually lead to a polarisation of society. At Blair's party speech in 1999, he railed against the "forces of conservatism" (i.e. small-minded prejudice), which only served to rile the likes of the "Daily Mail". Before long, it was the norm to see regular headlines in that newspaper, and others like it, about "Political Correctness gone mad".
But the real effect that the idea of "political correctness" had on society was that it made people aware of their own form of self-censorship. People would catch themselves wanting to complain about, for example, asylum seekers or immigrants in conversation, but then then ask their interlocutor "Am I allowed to say that? Is it racist?".
The real question here is: is it "racist" to complain about the effects of, say, immigration? Or even, say, the perception that Muslim rights sometimes seem to supersede secular rights?
The urban and rural working class are on the front line of these issues today, and it is they who are turning to Ukip in droves.
The appearance of "self-censorship" during the Blair administration led to the view in the establishment that, because "Middle England" was now relaxed about things like immigration, it meant that it had become taboo to talk about its potential negative effects. The effects of "multiculturalism" were similarly off the table. The same was true of the EU. On this basis a "consensus" developed amongst the "big three" that certain issues were agreed upon, and were therefore not worthy of debate.
It is into this vacuum of debate that Ukip has now entered.
Because of the perception fed by Westminster that in Britain, "we're all middle class now", the political establishment began to believe their own rhetoric. The abject dishonesty of this claim is now bearing fruit, and for those in Westminster, it is a very unpleasant-smelling fruit.
For those in Westminster, the rise of Ukip may well lead Britain into a very uncertain and dark place, but they only have themselves to blame.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Islam and Western converts: from the "Trojan Horse" to the Danish Cartoons, what is "wrong" with Islam?
I recently found out that one of my old acquaintances converted to Islam. I listened to his explanation of his decision with polite respect, and was intellectually interested to discover his reasons for becoming Muslim.
This experience got me thinking more about why Westerners in particular become Muslims. As with many people who are religious in general (I am not), the most common explanation for the attraction of Islam to Westerners is the moral and ideological certainty inherent in the faith. In Islam, there is little room for equivocation; for the most part, there is only right or wrong - halal and haram.
In many cases, Westerners who convert to Islam are either people who were non-religious (and usually morally lax, or even entirely absent of morality), or people who were religious (eg. Christian) but had fallen out with their former faith. In these circumstances, the appeal of Islam is obvious: such people are attracted to the certainties of the moral guidance that Islam provides. Submit, and be happy.
Can't you take a joke?
There is a reverse side of the coin to this. After what has happened in the Islamic world in the last fifteen years, it is hard to see how Westerners can convert to Islam, and yet ignore (or rationally explain) the reality that Islam has brought to the world compared to other major world religions. There is little objective doubt that in the contemporary world, Islam is the most uncompromising, polarising and extreme of the major faiths on the planet.
I should emphasize from the last sentence the part "in the contemporary world". Islam was not always so uncompromising or extreme in its methodology, but gradually became so over the last hundred years (more on that here). But the radicalisation of Islam in the last fifteen years or so is impossible to refute or ignore. Compared to other major world religions (Catholicism and its many Christian Protestant off-shoots, Hinduism and Buddhism), Islam is the most-feared religion in the world today. And for good reason.
There is a stereotype that Muslims are cheerless, and take their religion and life too seriously. Unfortunately, this "stereotype" is often proven to be truth in many cases. Recently, some British Muslims made a version of the Pharrell song "Happy". The response to this from some quarters of the Muslim community was less charitable, calling it "haram". This has then led to a debate about whether the idea was "haram" or not. Seriously. This tells you the mentality of some Muslims, living up to the stereotype of being cheerless and taking things too seriously.
Much more controversial was the "Danish Cartoons" issue, that provoked outrage across much of the Muslim world. The worst that can be said of some of the cartoons is that they were in poor taste, but some of the cartoons featuring "Mo" were actually helpful to the agenda of moderate Muslims: one cartoon featured the Prophet at the gates of heaven, saying to two suicide bombers "I'm sorry, we've run out of virgins".
The best way to refute the ideas of extremism is to ridicule and lampoon them.
The controversy about picturing the Prophet Mohammed is that the prophet's face isn't shown because it is considered idolatrous in Islam. And yet "Mohammed" is the most popular name given to men in Islamic countries. There was also a controversy some years ago in Sudan when a female English teacher was arrested for allowing local children to name a school teddy-bear "Mohammed".
Yet why is it not idolatrous for parents to name their children after the prophet? Surely this should be "haram" too, for encouraging the idolatrous idea that the boy is equal to the prophet himself?
A "Trojan Horse"
The most recent scandal relating to Islam in Britain was the unearthing of the so-called "Trojan Horse" project within the school system in urban areas with a high number of Muslims. Again, we see an example of what might be called "Islamic exceptionalism": Muslims being given ground to change the teaching of the national curriculum (as well as breaking schools policy, if not the law) in state schools. The creeping Islamisation of Britain has been going on for decades, but its only in the last ten years that people have paid any attention to it.
Another example is the "halal" controversy just uncovered in some of Britain's biggest food chains. Some food companies had been serving "halal" meat to its unwitting, non-Muslim customers for years. Regardless of the "animal rights" aspect to this issue, which I'll ignore for the sake of the argument, there is the central issue of a) choice, and b) minority rights subverting majority rights. In a supposedly democratic, free-market society, it is extraordinary that private companies are happy to autocratically decide what their customers should eat, out of fear of the wishes of a small minority of their customers.
These two examples demonstrate what is "exceptional" about Islam compared to other contemporary major religions: the disproportionate amount of bullying some of its adherents use to get what they want from society, and the fear that they create in the rest of society. Apart from isolated cases of fundamentalist Christians in the USA, or occasional stories about conservative Hindus in India, the prevalence of this aggressive attitude that emanates from many Muslims is unprecedented in modern society. Of the theocratic states that exist in the world, almost all of them are Islamic; of the most religiously-conservative nation-states that exist in the word, almost all of them are Islamic.
Rebels with a cause
I've digressed from the original theme of this article, which was about why Westerners convert to Islam. Apart from the "moral" reasons, there may well exist a more superficial one. Because it is the ultimate act of rebellion towards "Western values".
Back in the days of the Cold War and the earlier threat of Bolshevism, some Westerners became drawn to some idealistic romanticism of equality and morality that they saw in the principles of Communism. Some journalists had a word for these types: "useful idiots".
While I don't wish to make direct comparisons, it is a self-evident truth that some "real" (i.e. born into the faith) Muslims have a wariness towards Western converts, being initially sceptical of the converts' true belief in Islam. They are wont to "test" them. On the other hand, Western converts often turn out to be much more uncompromising in their Islamic faith than those actually "born into it", often shocking even "real" Muslims about how seriously they take things.
Those imams that are responsible for a Westerner's conversion to the faith often use the strategy of preying on those Westerners that seem pliant and willing to listen to an alternative telling of the "accepted" Western world-view. Tied in with the moral underpinning of Islam is the implicit politics of the faith: that, like Communism, becoming Muslim is the ultimate act of rejecting the "New World Order".
Modern Islam is fused with the politics of conspiracy theories: like Communism (and Fascism), it uses conspiracy theories to argue that Muslims are the world's great "victims", have been oppressed, and that "the Jews" can be squarely blamed for much of it.
It goes without saying that some of these imams are responsible for radicalising converts into suicide bombers or for fighting "Jihad".
The irony these days is that Islam's biggest "war" is not against non-Muslims, but fighting a sectarian war against the Shia Alawite government of Syria. After fighting a "jihad" against the West for ten years, radical Sunnis like Al-Qaeda and others are now fighting a civil war against Shias in Syria instead.
Then again, there is a further ideological divide within the Islamic world, at least in the Middle East. Apart from the sectarian Shia-Sunni civil war in Syria, there is the wider, ideological "cold war" between those supporting the Muslim Brotherhood (such as Qatar and Turkey), and those opposed to it, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
So for those Westerners converting to Islam, please understand what kind of world you're signing up for.
This experience got me thinking more about why Westerners in particular become Muslims. As with many people who are religious in general (I am not), the most common explanation for the attraction of Islam to Westerners is the moral and ideological certainty inherent in the faith. In Islam, there is little room for equivocation; for the most part, there is only right or wrong - halal and haram.
In many cases, Westerners who convert to Islam are either people who were non-religious (and usually morally lax, or even entirely absent of morality), or people who were religious (eg. Christian) but had fallen out with their former faith. In these circumstances, the appeal of Islam is obvious: such people are attracted to the certainties of the moral guidance that Islam provides. Submit, and be happy.
Can't you take a joke?
There is a reverse side of the coin to this. After what has happened in the Islamic world in the last fifteen years, it is hard to see how Westerners can convert to Islam, and yet ignore (or rationally explain) the reality that Islam has brought to the world compared to other major world religions. There is little objective doubt that in the contemporary world, Islam is the most uncompromising, polarising and extreme of the major faiths on the planet.
I should emphasize from the last sentence the part "in the contemporary world". Islam was not always so uncompromising or extreme in its methodology, but gradually became so over the last hundred years (more on that here). But the radicalisation of Islam in the last fifteen years or so is impossible to refute or ignore. Compared to other major world religions (Catholicism and its many Christian Protestant off-shoots, Hinduism and Buddhism), Islam is the most-feared religion in the world today. And for good reason.
There is a stereotype that Muslims are cheerless, and take their religion and life too seriously. Unfortunately, this "stereotype" is often proven to be truth in many cases. Recently, some British Muslims made a version of the Pharrell song "Happy". The response to this from some quarters of the Muslim community was less charitable, calling it "haram". This has then led to a debate about whether the idea was "haram" or not. Seriously. This tells you the mentality of some Muslims, living up to the stereotype of being cheerless and taking things too seriously.
Much more controversial was the "Danish Cartoons" issue, that provoked outrage across much of the Muslim world. The worst that can be said of some of the cartoons is that they were in poor taste, but some of the cartoons featuring "Mo" were actually helpful to the agenda of moderate Muslims: one cartoon featured the Prophet at the gates of heaven, saying to two suicide bombers "I'm sorry, we've run out of virgins".
The best way to refute the ideas of extremism is to ridicule and lampoon them.
The controversy about picturing the Prophet Mohammed is that the prophet's face isn't shown because it is considered idolatrous in Islam. And yet "Mohammed" is the most popular name given to men in Islamic countries. There was also a controversy some years ago in Sudan when a female English teacher was arrested for allowing local children to name a school teddy-bear "Mohammed".
Yet why is it not idolatrous for parents to name their children after the prophet? Surely this should be "haram" too, for encouraging the idolatrous idea that the boy is equal to the prophet himself?
A "Trojan Horse"
The most recent scandal relating to Islam in Britain was the unearthing of the so-called "Trojan Horse" project within the school system in urban areas with a high number of Muslims. Again, we see an example of what might be called "Islamic exceptionalism": Muslims being given ground to change the teaching of the national curriculum (as well as breaking schools policy, if not the law) in state schools. The creeping Islamisation of Britain has been going on for decades, but its only in the last ten years that people have paid any attention to it.
Another example is the "halal" controversy just uncovered in some of Britain's biggest food chains. Some food companies had been serving "halal" meat to its unwitting, non-Muslim customers for years. Regardless of the "animal rights" aspect to this issue, which I'll ignore for the sake of the argument, there is the central issue of a) choice, and b) minority rights subverting majority rights. In a supposedly democratic, free-market society, it is extraordinary that private companies are happy to autocratically decide what their customers should eat, out of fear of the wishes of a small minority of their customers.
These two examples demonstrate what is "exceptional" about Islam compared to other contemporary major religions: the disproportionate amount of bullying some of its adherents use to get what they want from society, and the fear that they create in the rest of society. Apart from isolated cases of fundamentalist Christians in the USA, or occasional stories about conservative Hindus in India, the prevalence of this aggressive attitude that emanates from many Muslims is unprecedented in modern society. Of the theocratic states that exist in the world, almost all of them are Islamic; of the most religiously-conservative nation-states that exist in the word, almost all of them are Islamic.
Rebels with a cause
I've digressed from the original theme of this article, which was about why Westerners convert to Islam. Apart from the "moral" reasons, there may well exist a more superficial one. Because it is the ultimate act of rebellion towards "Western values".
Back in the days of the Cold War and the earlier threat of Bolshevism, some Westerners became drawn to some idealistic romanticism of equality and morality that they saw in the principles of Communism. Some journalists had a word for these types: "useful idiots".
While I don't wish to make direct comparisons, it is a self-evident truth that some "real" (i.e. born into the faith) Muslims have a wariness towards Western converts, being initially sceptical of the converts' true belief in Islam. They are wont to "test" them. On the other hand, Western converts often turn out to be much more uncompromising in their Islamic faith than those actually "born into it", often shocking even "real" Muslims about how seriously they take things.
Those imams that are responsible for a Westerner's conversion to the faith often use the strategy of preying on those Westerners that seem pliant and willing to listen to an alternative telling of the "accepted" Western world-view. Tied in with the moral underpinning of Islam is the implicit politics of the faith: that, like Communism, becoming Muslim is the ultimate act of rejecting the "New World Order".
Modern Islam is fused with the politics of conspiracy theories: like Communism (and Fascism), it uses conspiracy theories to argue that Muslims are the world's great "victims", have been oppressed, and that "the Jews" can be squarely blamed for much of it.
It goes without saying that some of these imams are responsible for radicalising converts into suicide bombers or for fighting "Jihad".
The irony these days is that Islam's biggest "war" is not against non-Muslims, but fighting a sectarian war against the Shia Alawite government of Syria. After fighting a "jihad" against the West for ten years, radical Sunnis like Al-Qaeda and others are now fighting a civil war against Shias in Syria instead.
Then again, there is a further ideological divide within the Islamic world, at least in the Middle East. Apart from the sectarian Shia-Sunni civil war in Syria, there is the wider, ideological "cold war" between those supporting the Muslim Brotherhood (such as Qatar and Turkey), and those opposed to it, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
So for those Westerners converting to Islam, please understand what kind of world you're signing up for.
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