The Kristallnacht of the Altruist Nazis

Via Cox and Forkum, I have learned that an excellent TIA Daily article by Robert Tracinski on the French Intifada is now available online. (It was also picked up by Jewish World Review.)

The standard view of Nazism is that the root of the Nazi atrocities was an excess of certainty and selfishness, which gave the Nazis the confidence to impose their interests by force. In reality, even a cursory examination of Nazi propaganda shows us the opposite. Rather than advocating of rational certainty, the Nazis were dogmatic subjectivists--Hermann Goering famously declared that "two plus two makes five if the Fuhrer wills it" -- which inspired their hatred of the mind and their worship of brute force. (An Italian Fascist would declare that "when I hear the word 'culture,' I release the safety catch on my revolver.") And as for self-interest, the Nazis were thoroughgoing collectivists, who held that the interests of the individual must be ruthlessly sacrificed to the interests of the race. Hitler declared "Du bist nichts, dein Volk ist alles" -- "you are nothing, your race is everything."

But what happens if you think -- as do most academics and those in the mainstream political left -- that certainty and selfishness were the fundamental vices of the Nazis? You will be ready to accept any of the real fundamentals of Nazism -- so long as they are cast in a more skeptical, self-deprecating form.

That is precisely what Europe has done. The Europeans have accepted ideas that derive directly from Nazism -- both in their philosophical fundamentals and in their historical pedigree -- but in a more "politically correct" version.

The ideology of these altruist Nazis is Multiculturalism.

Tracinski and others, most notably Mark Steyn, have been developing the important thesis that multiculturalism is giving militant Islam a huge assist. This is an extremely perceptive and important observation. I regard this article as required reading since currently, it is the Islamofascists who understand this fact better than most Westerners.

The ultimate survival of our civilization depends on most people gaining an understanding on some level of what is wrong with multiculturalism and so rejecting it.

-- CAV