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The (Non)-Meaning of Orlando
It does not appear to be a coincidence that Omar Mateen was Muslim, nor that he pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State as he massacred patrons at the Pulse nightclub. But as documented in lengthy profiles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, Mateen spent his entire life spooking and alienating nearly everyone around him, often through threats of violence.
While some of these incidents had a religious tinge, all of them were colored by craziness. As a 14-year-old, he cheered the 9/11 attacks in class … while claiming to be bin Laden’s nephew. While training to become a corrections officer years later, he exploded in anger when a piece of pork touched his hamburger at a cook-out… and subsequently threatened to murder all his classmates. Years after that, he was reassigned from guarding the Port St. Lucie courthouse after claiming (out of the blue, it seems) to have links to both Sunni and Shia terror groups. Even as he pledged his allegiance to ISIS during the massacre, he stopped to tell his victims that “I don’t have an issue with the blacks.” These are less the actions of a devout Muslim extremist than of a Muslim who — if not actually unhinged — was in possession of some profoundly loose screws and a deeply violent soul. What’s most surprising to me is that it took him 29 years to kill someone.
The Left has cast the Orlando massacre as a hate crime against gays, while much of the Right sees it as nothing less than a terrorist attack inspired by the Islamic State. But if the newspaper profiles shed any light on the matter, it was simultaneously both of these things and neither of them. Rather, Omar Mateen was likely one of those people who would have eventually murdered a roomful of people under one pretext or another, regardless of his upbringing or religion.
Everything that was true the day before the Orlando attack is still true today: Jihadists are evil and should be destroyed, and nut jobs will occasionally murder a bunch of innocents out of some combination of derangement, cowardice, anger, and frustration. That Islamism and insanity overlapped here, unfortunately, tells us very little about either that we didn’t already know.
Published in General
To answer: It’s because these folks actually think that they can role-model their opponents out of their needs, desires, addictions and boundless lust for power. This approach has failed and its adherents are delusional.
They remind me of the parent of an unruly child who tries to use reason with the toddlers’ tantrums, and obviously has a history of using this tactic, since the parent ultimately gives the child the candy, but assures the child that next time, they won’t. Then the parent continues to feel superior to those who would spank their child or actually discipline the child. In the end they have harmed the child, harmed themselves and harmed greater society by foisting and encouraging this behavior into adulthood.
You expect life to be fair?
Probably not. So, you just expect this aspect of life to be more fair? You believe you can make it more fair by raising a specific kind of Holy Hell?
Later, you say,
If we’re talking tactics, maybe not all conservatives have the same idea of how to fight to make this aspect of life more fair?
Confession: it’s that moral preening that really gets me fired up! It’s not enough to follow a flawed strategy and employ self-defeating tactics. No, they feel compelled to add chests puffed-up by self-congratulation.
Yes, we can tell!
I must be missing your point b/c you seem to be saying we shouldn’t resist unfairness since fairness can’t be expected in the first place. Would that reasoning extend, say, to taxation without representation? Slavery? Yes, like the American revolutionists and American abolitionists, I think a certain kind of Holy Hell can produce outcomes that are more fair. Sometimes that Hell is gruesome indeed, such as our Revolutionary War and our Civil War. Today, however, we are a long, long way from armed conflict. But the principle remains that freedom and fairness must often be fought for with deadly force.
Confession: Me, too!
Did they always agree on the best way to raise that Holy Hell?
And of course raising Holy Hell is sometimes warranted, but how do you tell when it is and when it isn’t? And when people disagree on whether raising Holy Hell will be an effective tactic, or might there be a better way, is that a disagreement people can have in good faith?
Booker T Washington was born too late to be an abolitionist, but Jim Crow was no picnic, either. His irenic “Atlanta Compromise” was both widely lauded as smart and widely derided as not militant enough. Many conservatives had once thought Booker T smart, though. It’s possible to argue an irenic strategy like the “Atlanta Compromise” should look stupid to modern-day conservatives, and I think that’s what you’re arguing. But it doesn’t follow that those who disagree with you and think the irenic strategy is more likely to succeed actually want to lose.
I wasn’t trying to say they want to lose. If I did, I’ll have to rethink how I phrased something . . . for the record, I don’t doubt the good faith of those I disagree with if by that you mean their good intentions or sincere belief their path is best for the nation.
Rather, I object to their judgment with respect to: (a) truth; what actually happened in Orlando; and, (b) strategy and tactics for gaining positive political change.
Your analogy—if I’m understanding it correctly—is not apt. There’s no irenic compromise possible with core ISIS or its far-flung adherents in this (or any other) country. Acceding to the Left’s demand that Orlando be assessed as “insane closeted gay shouldn’t have access to assault weapons” promotes a demonstrably false assessment of the murderer’s motivation. It is also an utterly self-defeating narrative from the standpoint of furthering conservative political goals. Other than that, as they say, Mrs. Lincoln enjoyed the play.
Have I unfairly impugned motivation(s)? Perhaps I’m being obtuse but I don’t see it. I did mention the Stockholm Syndrome, speculating as to what deeper psychological accommodations might be going on. If correct, however, that’s an unconscious motivation that doesn’t reflect dissembling or insincerity.
You had written, HVT,
Thus, it seemed to me you were speaking of the Left as the enemy, not of ISIS or Islamism, and calling those who use what you perceive to be language that takes precautions to make itself understood by other people whose views have probably been shaped by Leftism in the culture “detached from seeking victory”, taking “pride in mischaracterization”. Yes, you mention Stockholm Syndrome and low awareness – even calling it “zero awarness” at one point. But pride (in this case in mischaracterization) and disinclination to seek something typically thought desirable (in this case, victory) are not wholly unconscious actions.
For some reason, even though you called the Left the enemy, and it was in that vein that I brought up Booker T Washington, you somehow got the idea that I was trying to analogize Booker T to appeasing ISIS, rather than communicating with fellow Americans marinated, alas, in Leftist culture?
I think we must have had a mutual misunderstanding, because I’m pretty sure you don’t think of me as an ISIS-appeaser, and I haven’t said anything in any case about the killer’s motivations and do not fully agree with Tom on this anyhow.
It seemed to me you had previously attributed some degree of conscious will to lose (indeed, even taking self-righteous pride in losing!) to conservatives who prefer gentler persuasive techniques, but if that is not the case, I apologize for having misunderstood you.
So, I’ll have to break this down . . . and let me say upfront that a battle of wits with MFR is not fighting from a position of strength. May the Lord have Mercy Upon Me. }:-))
Yes, enemies foreign and domestic: the former ISIS, the latter the Left. Equally pernicious, both highly destructive, not co-equals in terms of physical violence. Which more greatly threatens? President Hillary will do more damage to the Republic in her first 100 days than ISIS can do in 100 (maybe 1000) years.
Wow, is that what Tom was doing? Making himself relatable to those infected by Leftie culture? Not obvious to this sloe-wit on first reading. My rejoinder: exactly why do we need to take these “precautions”? How does that advantage a truth-based narrative? Seems to me it concedes the Left’s main points in order to … do what, exactly? Win points from them for high-mindedness? Increase our social capital? Puhleeze … delusional to think the Left credits our concessions then chips in a few of their own. If I’m overly jaundiced, what’s the evidence I’m failing to grasp?
It’s fair to say that it’s not wholly unconscious…’twere better, perhaps, for me to have said “instinctive” which connotes compulsion yet mindfulness. Yet I fear we quibble.
My point was that among the intelligentsia there’s enormous cultural pressure to only color within the Left’s lines. Center-right members of said intelligentsia are no less subject to pressure and censure. No matter how at odds with commonsense; no matter how deep the double standard (would a Christian spree-murderer of 49 LGBT patrons similarly be detached from his religion by the intelligentsia?); no matter what pretzel-logic must be invoked (is it sensible to utterly discount what the killer himself claims as motivation?), the Left’s narrative is what we …. well, Tom … are talking about.
My point is that we should resist/undermine/oppose/decry/ subvert the Left’s capacity to set parameters for acceptable intelligentsia discourse. It’s important to the fate of this Republic that we do. Tom’s post tends to reinforce rather than confront the Left’s Orlando myth-machine.
That’s what you think I think about this?
In this particular OP? Perhaps less that than simply advancing a pet theory of his. But generally, yes, this is Tom’s habit. A habit I have cultivated as well – because it works.
In order to communicate a truth, it helps to communicate it in a way the recipient is likely to both listen to and understand it. Have you ever heard of contextualization in cross-cultural evangelism? Well, “pandering” a little to those who’ve had to live in a Leftist cultural environment – which really means understanding why Leftish ideas might seem normal to them and working around that to establish trust – is the same sort of thing. It’s a willingness to accept a less-than-ideal situation in order to change it.
But not everyone exposed to the Leftist milieu is the Left. Many are not, really, it’s just all they know. Even among Ricochetians, conversion stories – “I used to be dumb and passively accepting of Leftism, then I wised up!” – are a dime a dozen, probably for a reason.
You ask, “exactly why do we need to” do this? As in, we shouldn’t have to do this – it is unjust for our culture to be so hostile to conservatives, intolerably unjust. Fair enough. It is unjust. Fighting to remedy this injustice, rather than just evangelizing, has obvious appeal – insurgency and domination – subjugation – if it were possible, would satisfy our thirst for justice in a way mere evangelism wouldn’t. Let’s try to marginalize the Left the way the Left has marginalized us and so on.
Yet what if evangelism does work, though admittedly it doesn’t slake our thirst for righteous punishment?
Your claim is, I think, “But it doesn’t work. That’s the problem.” Well, does/doesn’t work might not be monolithic. Tom may prefer to evangelize rather than subjugate because evangelism is what has worked best for him.
There is a precedent for both methods working, after all: Christianity spreads by evangelism and Islam by subjugation.
No.
I do think, however, that your thesis reflects rather than challenges the Left’s self-serving, counterfactual mythology. Your thesis overlaps with theirs. Specifically, you contend that this murderer’s Islamic fanaticism was tangential to his motivation, rather than central to it. You say—putting it simply but I hope not oversimplifying—he was a psycho-killer just waiting to happen and Islam merely provided a convenient store front from which to operate.
It’s as though he might just as well have settled upon climate change and attacked the Coal Producers Association or some such group. This is what Obama, Lynch, and Clinton are desperate for us all to believe b/c it means the solution is to make sure no guns are available rather than keeping out Islamist refugees from, say, Syria.
On the contrary, I think this guy’s hatreds and obsessions were shaped, promoted, and funneled by Islamic extremist doctrines.
No, it means “why” as in what benefit accrues to my side. I don’t consider cultural elites’ hostility to conservatism unjust. It’s injurious, and perhaps fatally so, to our survival as a nation of freeborn citizens. But unjust? Now, immigration policies that benefit the donor class and punish the working class—that’s unjust. But we digress into policy particulars . . .
I think the disconnect between us relates to where I understand this evangelism you champion to be directed. It’s directed at social, intellectual and cultural elites I presume, because the majority of Americans don’t doubt what commonsense tells them about Orlando. People are funny. When someone says, in so many words, ‘I’m doing this because I believe in all that Islam’s death cult stands for and pledge allegiance to its leader’ they tend not to see too much ambiguity there.
To require an evangelical intervention in order to understand what happened at Pulse nightclub means—in most cases—one of two things: (a) you have a political purpose that’s not served by the reality of what happened; (b) you are very well educated but as a consequence have lost the ability think clearly. These two conditions often combine—see for example Obama, Lynch, Clinton.
A typo in original had this as “… his sloe-wit.” It’s corrected now, as reflected above. It was always intended to be self-deprecating . . . not sure what the hell it might mean in it’s uncorrected form … regret the confusion.
I don’t have a subscription to the WSJ but the NYT sure wasted a lot of words to avoid the obvious. Why bend over backwards to not see this as what it is plain and simple: a jihadi attack by a muslim.
For the author of this post to say that there is no meaning in this murderous jihadi attack (that is what the title implies) is as preposterous as the DOJ wanting to censor the 911 transcripts – they tried to scrub any clear meaning as well. It is plain as day what happened and why it happened.
Yes, and people still twist themselves into pretzels trying to avert their eyes from the underlying cause: Islam.
We are doomed as a civilization if we don’t realize this.
After reading through HVT’s excellent comments, I’m inspired to go back and address these points made by Tom:
The idea that someone needs to be “devout” and pious in order to be considered as acting in the interests of ISIS or of radical Islamic extremism in general is an interesting notion. In a way, it seems to accept the belief that the more devout a Muslim one might be, the more prone to act-out in ‘justified’ violence against infidels and that he must be a perfect student of the Koran and a veritable Imam in order to be tagged with being primarily motivated by ‘Islam’ or even radical Islam.
However, what matters most is what others in Islam believe, and too many of them believe this despicable act is justified and righteous, enough to have inspired him in the first place and enough to create a climate to encourage and accept more of it. That it would perpetrated by those more prone to violence would follow as a natural self-selecting subset.
Of course those who carry out these heinous acts will by nature be the more ‘unhinged’ subset of this larger group.
Well, that’s a relief.
Pretty darn close, yes (though I’d say that his Islamism appears to have been more a contributing factor to his actions, rather than tangential).
There are several problems with this interpretation.
First, it’s a classic appeal to consequences. My argument (supposedly) helps the Left so, therefore, it is wrong or should not be made.
Second, the Leftist policy proposals you describe do not logically follow if my conclusion is correct. Gun-grabbing is still wrong — both practically and morally — and bringing in refugees from Syria is still a bad idea in my book.
Rather than ascribe some sort of poorly-concealed motive to me, how about considering that we disagree on the particulars of this case?
I didn’t ascribe any motive to you, I said you are avoiding the obvious by stating there is no meaning in Orlando.
I wouldn’t for a second deny that Mateen’s actions weren’t the interest of ISIS. Very clearly, they were. That’s a separate question from whether his actions are better understood as a spree-murder or a terrorist attack (though they had elements of both).
I agree it’s interesting and there seem to be different models. There certainly is a type of Islamist who finds violence through radical Islam, though there are also others where the causality seems to run in the other direction (i.e., they’re bad eggs to begin with and radical Islam provides them with moral justification for their bad ways). The former would have been decent under better circumstances; the latter would have been bad news anyway (though radical Islam makes him worse).
Ahem:
Clearly, my actions — by your reckoning — have motive; otherwise, I wouldn’t be going to the efforts described in your metaphors.
I’m curious to know what you think it is.
This is a bold statement which has no supporting evidence.
One could easily use this rationale for each and every act of violence that emerged in a religious context. Religious fanatics are by nature not wholly rational. Almost every human being has had displays of anger in his history, celebrating 9/11 attacks (which we know there’s no evidence that Muslims – at least living in New Jersey – participated in) is another example of insanity here, no 14 year-old boy has ever made grandiose claims, and no second-generation ethnic groups have ever gotten the details of actual historical conflicts wrong, and no fanatics have ever displayed some nuanced quirk that separates them from the perceived mainstream of their religion.
Meaning is what we ascribe to thing. Events have no meaning other than what we give them. This is factually true. Things just happen. The OP is talking about the meanings people are trying to place onto this event, from both sides.
I don’t think there is anything more than that.
How is this different from claiming that the volunteering kamikaze pilots were not representative of most Japanese (and indeed they weren’t) and that they had existing suicidal tendencies and delusions of heroic grandiosity combined with an irrational hatred of anti-Imperialist devils?
The most animating force behind this man’s actions was radical Islam. The fact that it doesn’t make sense to us is not solved by our delving into Freudian psychologizing as though this man would have found some other cult to use as a rationalization for acting out on his violent tendencies.
Were he a Christian, would he have shot up an abortion clinic?
I suspect not. And the reason is ___________ .
I’ll let you figure that out.
Thank you, Bryan.
I don’t know what motivated you to write this post. I didn’t ascribe motive to you. I asked why you are avoiding the obvious – that this is jihadi slaughter. Bending over backwards and twisting oneself into a pretzel were metaphors I used to show what I see is avoidance of the obvious – pointed at you and the NYT.
I will certainly agree with you that I strongly disagree with your OP.
We are back to square one.
This was a random act of violence? It was what, dance-club violence?
Of course, we can ascribe individualized motives to to every act of Islamic terror and mayhem. This one was delusional, that one insane, this one predisposed to violence, the other hated his co-workers, these men were poor, these men were too rich for their own good, these men were victims of oppression. Whatever.
They all said Allah u Akbar.
Treating these events as one-offs and individual crimes is an absurd reaction. This is especially true when a significant number of like-minded souls are actively engaging in and celebrating these events.
Gosh, I thought I was clear that my objection is to your interpretation of the facts. Highlighting consequences is important (Ricochet is a political forum, and consequences is the essence of politics) but it’s not where we principally disagree as to what caused this atrocity. That’s summarized in the next line in my post: “I think this guy’s hatreds and obsessions were shaped, promoted, and funneled by Islamic extremist doctrines.” You think he was murder-crazy first—presumably for some reason of insanity such as schizophrenia—and just glommed on to ISIS as a convenient venue, as it were. We fundamentally disagree on our interpretation of facts we agree on.
My larger point is that we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if the murderer affiliated with Christianity, homophobia, or white racism. That’s the point—IMO—that needs deeper reflection and which highlights a sickness in our political culture . . . a sickness that’s quite capable of tearing this country apart. How long can any one group live under political and cultural rules that demand different groups be judged by different standards? People tend to rise up against such officially sanctioned bias (see, for example, the U.S. Civil War and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement).