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Ayaan Hirsi Ali vs. Western Narcissism
Part 1: The Narcissistic Wolf
Narcissus was shot by Cupid’s arrow while staring into a reflective pool. He fell in love with his own reflection to such an extent that he starved while staring at himself.
For this reason, narcissism is usually associated with intense self-love. But there is a variant of narcissism that is equally obsessed with self-hatred. As the great German writer Herman Hesse wrote in Steppenwolf, “that self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair.” Steppenwolf can only see himself.
In Steppenwolf, the titular character hates himself and becomes so narcissistic that he can’t relate to other people. Self-hatred might be more destructive or less destructive than self-love, but it functions quite similarly. Steppenwolf feels superior to other people in many respects, but he hates himself for being unable to befriend them. I suspect he is an Aspie so he has higher intelligence and finds humans quite frustrating to get along with.
But enough with the great works of literature from a bygone age- let’s descend into modern drivel.
Part 2: Lileks and Ayaan Hirsi Ali tear at the heart of Fashionable Wokism
I suspect that the modern antiracist idea is a kind of narcissism on mass, and it based both on self-love and self-hatred simultaneously. The main point isn’t to feel good or bad but to feel self-important.
Recently, James Lileks in his interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali mentioned that non-white Empires were guilty of abuse of the weak and violence against the other and misogyny, and pretty much everything that European Empires are accused of. Such accusations directed at European Empires are often well-deserved, but that is not Lilek’s point. He rightly notes that Western societies are judged by very high standards and that non-Western societies are exempted from such standards.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is probably much more bothered by this than Lileks is. She had Female Genital Mutilation done to her at a young age and her father would have forced her to marry her cousin had she not escaped to the Netherlands. The silence of white upper-class feminists with regard to women in her position is deafening.
Many have interpreted this as being rank oikophobia (irrational fear or revulsion of the local) or the more commonly termed white guilt. This is accurate as far as it goes but to paraphrase a great Catholic thinker, “When someone says that he is ashamed of his race or culture, what he really means is that he feels superior to others of his race or culture.” As Quillette writer and former soldier Spencer Case has noticed while observing Fullbright scholars, they consider themselves, “Globally-minded” liberals who are eager to distinguish themselves from the flag-waving rubes. This implies an ability to see your country at a cool distance. Condemning America demonstrates a transcendence of parochial loyalty. Hostility may not be objectivity, but it certainly isn’t slavish devotion, and that’s the main thing.” Even an unreasonable animus towards one’s country is more fashionable than unreasonable devotion. With the exception of conservative intellectuals, superiority complexes are common among the academic types.
Since time immemorial, the literati have felt superior to the common working man. They often feel that they are above their country as well. In the fourth century B.C. there Diogenes referred to himself as a citizen of the world. Western intellectuals are unique only in that they think that their society is uniquely bad.
As far as I can tell, the West is unique in that after they conquered various peoples, they felt bad about it around the late 1800s. I have never heard of any civilization feeling bad about winning a war until then. Herodotus’s lamentation for Melos comes close, but it can easily be interpreted as suggesting that the world is so brutal that it just sort of happens that the weak get conquered by the strong.
There is a series of comic novels starring the English soldier Harry Flashman. Flashman is a coward and a cynic and he isn’t a hero in any typical sense. But because of the flaws in his character, he has deep insight into human nature. He overheard a respected Anthropologist in an English club praising the Indian peoples of Americans and condemning the,
Yankees’ barbarous treatment of the Plains tribes after the Uprising, and their iniquitous Indian policy in general, the abominations of the reservation system, and the cruelties practiced.” He speaks of the Indians as being, “helpless nomads who desired only to be left alone to pursue their traditional way of life as peaceful herdsmen, fostering their simple culture, honouring their ancient gods…
Flashman because of his indecency, knows that this is nonsense.
If you think [the whites] were a whit more guilty than your darling redskins, you’re an even bigger bloody fool than you look. What bleating breast-beaters like you can’t comprehend… is that when selfish, frightened men — in other words, any men, red or white, civilised or savage — come face to face in the middle of a wilderness that both of ’em want… then war breaks out, and the weaker goes under. Policies don’t matter a spent piss — it’s the men in fear and rage and uncertainty watching the woods and skyline, d’you see, you purblind bookworm, you!
I imagine Herodotus and many Confucian scholars looking very sad for a moment and then agree with Flashman.
I theorize that the sentiment of feeling guilty for victory in battle emerged from Christianity. Christ was an abused minority and a poor celibate who failed to make friends with political connections. Christ himself seemed cooly indifferent towards political power and unlike some of the earlier Jewish prophets, he wasn’t much of a political figure. It is unsurprising that Christianity first spread among the poor people, women, and slaves.
Still, this doesn’t fully explain the strange roots of Western guilt. To answer that question, we have to go to the first story of guilt ever in human history.
Part 3: Falling towards judgment
There are a few very beautiful medieval songs that praise the fall of man. The idea is that falling from grace allowed for G-d to return as Jesus Christ to bring us closer to G-d. According to Mike Duncan, one of the most influential podcasters ever and historian of Rome, some Romans felt more connected to Jesus because they were responsible for his death. Killing the only truly innocent man who was also the word made flesh and persecuting his followers connected Rome to the one true faith according to their citizens. At first, this celebration of sin seems bizarre. But, it parallels the Garden of Eden.
To oversimplify a fathomless story that one can spend a lifetime interpreting, original sin, knowledge of good and evil and the possibility of redemption were all the same fruit. Humanity became capable of understanding good at the same time that it felt guilt and shame and at the time they trespassed against goodness. Though this fall was painful, the knowledge gained from it put them closer to G-d and allowed them the possibility of redemption.
What does this have to do with Ayaan Hirsi Ali and white guilt? Well, it explains why Woke Western intellectuals don’t care about the evils of the non-Western world. When a white guy mistreats a lady in Europe America or Israel, he should know better; but other non-Western or non-white people aren’t really capable of sin. They are treated like Adam or Eve before the fall. Children who don’t know sin and cannot be judged like adults.
To the best of my reckoning, this explains the fundamental contradiction of the kind of the academic left going from Edward Said, through Foucalt to the modern woke movement. Post-modernists pretend to believe that there is no good or evil and everything is based on what groups decide is good or evil. Only sociopaths actually believe that. Postmodernists believe that rape, slavery, and genocide are evil but they pretend to not believe it. They might even believe that they believe it but in their souls, they hate what they perceive as evil. In my experience, postmodernists universally do not believe in the absence of good and evil and they fetishize white bigotry. Notably, postmodernists aren’t arguing with the Woke left over the Woke’s narrative. In a similar fashion of cognitive dissonance, the Woke left will never complain about how Fidel Castro imprisons homosexuals and ignores how Maduro starves the poor and then goes on about how they champion minorities and the oppressed.
The only reasonable explanation is that they don’t believe what they say they believe. Observation and deduction would suggest that the left thinks that whites and western civilization are uniquely capable of being judged.
Part 4: The folly of the intellectual class
Now it is plain to anyone who took a world history course that, all humanity has had racism and wars and misogyny and so on. So how is it that a great multitude of Western Intellectuals can ignore it? According to Paul Johnson, Mark Camp, and other commentators on influential leftist academics, it is never about the poor and the wretched of the world- not really. It’s about how the academic elite feel about the world and about how the societies that they live in full below their standards. The victims of oppression and bigotry from non-whites or non-Western aggressors don’t elicit the same feels and therefore don’t count.
As Milton’s rebel angel put it, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” The opportunities afforded by Western Civilization can be made into utter bigotry and the cruelties of everywhere else can be imagined away in the intellectuals’ heads.
They say that the mind is a terrible thing to waste but wasting a mind isn’t half so terrible as misusing it. All the books and all the education in the world can’t dissuade a fool gifted with a high I.Q. Overwhelmingly, our intellectual class has misplaced their minds and cannot be relied on for anything approaching solid moral reasoning. They have failed us and our culture and our progeny will suffer for it.
Part 5: What is to be done?
Western Civilization is probably the best Civilization because we were the first peoples to give up slavery and the first people to think that conquering the weak was bad. I would like to continue to judge cultures based on liberal Enlightenment principles of individual rights, freedom of conscience, and fair play. I think you should as well. We must hold even tighter to these self-evident Truths since our narcissistic elites won’t. The arbitrary denial of life, liberty, and property to any human individual is evil regardless of what country it is in what level of melanin the aggressor possesses.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been at the forefront of standing for universal liberal principles against both Islamists and guilt-ridden narcissistic leftists. She is an expression of classical liberalism at its most beautiful. With the same courage that she wielded to defy her forced marriage and Islamist misogyny, she refuses the leftist lie that there are two distinct categories of people with some capable of reason and morality and some innocent and incapable of judgment. To her, people are people and are judged on their ideas and character. After all, what is the purpose of anything if not to aim towards what is good and True and what can be more True than the idea that men are born equal and should be free.
Another great post, Henry. Thank you.
And thanks for the photos of Ayan Hirsi Ali, one of the world’s most beautiful women — in every way.
Excellent post. I read it all the way through.
I have always thought this paradox was at the heart of the left’s delusions about themselves. Why should only we know better? That does imply a value system that is superior to others, doesn’t it? To maintain your delusion that Western Civilization is truly worse than everything else, you have to willfully ignore all other atrocities. It has to be rooted in self-hatred.
Psst. . .No ll in Lileks.
This is well put. Good post.
I’m reading into this an implied “that wasn’t His game.” Otherwise it sort of sounds like “Babe Ruth wasn’t a great ball player, how many touchdowns did he score?” If Christ failed to make friends with connections it wasn’t because He set out to do so and couldn’t hack it.
Quibble: It’s arguable that the Qing Dynasty edged out Europe when the Yongzheng Emperor started emancipating the slaves in the 1720s.
But was that full emancipation? Were all kinds of slavery illegal?
I have always wondered how all the white intellectuals going around spouting “white guilt”, and writing such drivel as “White Fragility” never seem to apply their doctrine to themselves. They should feel all depressed and guilty for their whiteness and wealth.
They should feel depressed for being human. Whites aren’t too special one way or another.
I’m not an expert, but Wikipedia says he emancipated all the slaves in the territories under his rule. His motive was likely to shore up his popularity and undermine any would-be usurpers, but still. It’s also argued that the 1720s emancipation led to the waves of Chinese immigration in the 1800s, the emigrants largely being the descendants of former slaves who still couldn’t catch a break back in China.
Mad respect. Though he still could have used the Scottish enlightenment to make his people less Haka-dirt poor.
Why would you think that Jesus did not have influential friends? Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Zacchaeus, possibly Lazarus.
The whole getting executed out of political expediency is sort of indicative.
No, it’s not. This is a serious misunderstanding of the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus.
You think he had enough political clout to get out of the execution? I always heard that he did not. I mean, it’s hard to build up connections when your rich buddies to give up their wealth and follow you.
Outstanding article, Henry.
Beautifully written Henry, and any post that contains references to both Steppenwolf and Flashman wins style points right away, regardless of its content. Most of which I find unobjectionable. Of course I have some quibbles.
White liberals are not uniquely self-absorbed. In fact even liberals are not uniquely self absorbed. In fact even people in the West are not uniquely self-absorbed. It’s a universal human tendency. We’re all tempted to see the world in a way that shores up what we believe about ourselves. If I believe that I’m more charitable than most then I’ll tend to see other people’s actions as uncharitable, even if there are other plausible explanations for their actions. If I believe that I’m more practical and hard headed than most then I’ll tend to see other people’s actions as impractical and unrealistic, even if investigation might show otherwise (I won’t investigate).
Charitable people generally don’t like to believe that they punch down, and this is what holds them back from articulating critiques of what they perceive to be victimised groups. Is it always helpful? No. Are they consistent? Certainly not. And ‘who is’ a victimised group has increasingly come to be defined tribally. Along with being self-absorbed we have a tendency to consensus with “our” group – however defined. And to prefer flat narratives.
Just from wikipedia, but you may find it interesting:
But he didn’t ‘give it back’ so…