Euphemism Piled Upon Euphemism
Identity, eh. Identity, identity, identity – how sick we all are of hearing about it. The hell with identity. Get over it – you are what you are, never mind what your precious ‘identity’ is, just get on with it, do something useful, make a difference, forget about your darling self for five minutes, think about something more interesting.
Eve Garrard says a few words on this subject at Normblog.
Human rights are an indispensable part of a morally decent society (though the eager embracing of victimhood is not, and there’s no doubt that the discourse of human rights has, along with multiculturalism, encouraged many to regard the status of victim of rights-violation as the most attractive one going, and hence to reach for it at the slightest provocation).
That’s the one – the thing about regarding the status of victim of rights-violation as the most attractive one going. That’s one of the problems with the (often frankly formulaic and mindless) repetition of the ‘alienation – rage – grievance’ trope. It creates the very thing it’s talking about – and then uses the created thing as a reason to go on talking about it, thus creating more of it, thus having yet more pretext to go on talking about it, ad infinitum. And then the victim-status that’s been invented can curdle and warp and go stark staring mad, and then look what happens.
The New Republic has an article on some inspiring people. It’s about three ‘clerics’ in the UK: Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, Abu Hamza Al Masri, and Abu Qatada. But the authors keep saying a strange thing, despite their lack of admiration for these ‘clerics.’ They say it repeatedly – which I find odd. Not surprising, because I see it all the time, but very odd. Stupid, in fact.
In fact, German law enforcement documents we recently obtained indicate that Abu Qatada has provided much of the spiritual inspiration for Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the most effective Iraqi insurgent leader…Abu Qatada is the mentor and spiritual authority for many militant jihadists, including the notorious Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi…Abu Qatada’s central role as the spiritual guide of European jihadists was highlighted by the fact that the members of the Spanish cell who killed 191 Madrid commuters on March 11, 2004, tried to reach him three times by phone before they blew themselves up a couple of weeks after the Madrid attacks. Indeed, the Spanish judge who indicted Abu Qatada characterizes him in the indictment as “the recognized spiritual leader of numerous extremist groups.”
I daresay you’ve spotted the strange thing I have in mind. What’s all this ‘spiritual’ nonsense? What do people mean ‘spiritual’? They mean religious, so why don’t they say that? Why do they want to pretty it up? Religious is a hooray word these days anyway, why is there this compulsion to make it even hoorayer? They wouldn’t call Hitler a spiritual inspiration, so why the honorific for these bastards? Spiritual inspiration (same word is the root, there – it means breath), spiritual authority, spiritual guide, spiritual leader. Why so respectful? Really, it’s baffling.
Another knee-jerk honorific got on my nerves yesterday. An irritating little item on the need to keep religious schools in the UK – only of course they’re not called that. Why? Because that would make it too obvious what a bad stupid idea they are? Yes, probably. When your case is feeble, resort to manipulative language. It works, too.
Abolishing faith schools is not the way to create harmony between different communities in the wake of the London attacks, Tony Blair has said…He stressed that he backed faith schools, including Muslim schools, which were part of the “proper” school system. And he insisted the schools did not teach children to “look at children of other faiths in a bad way” and often contained some pupils from other religions. Mr Blair said parents were attracted to such schools because they provided a “strong ethos and values”.
Yeah, because people like you go on implying that religion has a monopoly on ‘values.’ Another self-perpetuating self-creating trope, just like identity and victim status. I think this is where we came in.
Are the writers being ironic in referring to the terrorist handlers as ‘spiritual’? I can’t say for sure, because the article in question is for subscribers only.
In any case, euphemisms tend eventually to become tainted by the very things they are supposed to disguise. Perhaps ‘spiritual’ and ‘faith’ will one day become synonymous with ‘vicious’ and ‘intolerance’. Lord willing.
Blair’s children went to RC shcools because Mrs Blair is a bloody catholic and that’s what catholic parents insist. Indoctrination atop indoctrination: and this is a cycle that is long overdue cessation.
The article has gone subscription? Drat, sorry – it was non-subscription yesterday. No, the writers were definitely not being ironic – that word is just standard news boilerplate: that’s how the religious ‘leaders, authorities, inspirations’ etc behind terrorist gangs are invariably labeled.
Yes, cessation long overdue. And all this linguistic cuddling and cherishing by journalists just helps ‘faith’ maintain its default position.
Brian: Try http://www.BugMeNot.com for free passwords.
A little mass murder now and then is a small price to pay for that warm comfy sense of spirituality. It beats your cold inhuman rationality any day. Stop being such a wimp, OB. And before you go on another one of your rants against faith, why don’t you try a little of it? Who knows, you might even like it. I’m told burkhas are quite empowering.
OB – It doesn’t have to be mass – being done to as you would do to others – many would gladly put a bullet in his head.
“Is it possible that militant religiosity is at least partly a reaction by those who fear their sexual control is threatened?”
You could say that!
I’ve been saying it for quite awhile, actually. So have Maryam Namazie, Azam Kamguian, Homa Arjomand, Azar Majedi and others whose articles B&W has published.
Thank you, Karl. You’re right, Ophelia. The continual use of ‘spiritual’ is just some mindless tic by the writers. They do not seem to understand how ridiculous it is to describe these fascist propagandists as ‘spiritual’. I don’t know whether to laugh or vomit. Perhaps I shall do both.
I should have thought it obvious that what really angers these fanatics is losing control of the one segment of the population over which they can exercise complete dominance: their women. Take away that dominance and they are absolutely the low men on the totem pole, so to speak.
Whoa, pay attention at the back. Sorry, OB, got to musing at the key board.
Oh, quite all right, Don! I wasn’t rebuking – just agreeing and pointing out that so do a lot of people. People who don’t get enough of a hearing, but they do exist.
“Take away that dominance and they are absolutely the low men on the totem pole, so to speak.”
And they might even have to do some of the domestic work. It’s worth martyrdom to avoid that, obviously.
By the way, while we’re all looking for the roots of this madness, I’ve found it odd that in all the blogs I’ve scanned, no-one has mentioned ‘Among the Believers’, VS. Naipaul’s examination of resurgent Islam, (1981). Am I the only one to remember it?
No – I have a curling old copy of it on the shelf, and I mean to read it one of these days. But with a lot of caution and wariness, because I’ve read in a lot of places that Naipaul sees Muslims as…not-Hindus. That in other words he brings some pro-Hindu bias to the subject.