This just in from L1 commentary that so infuriated me I had to repeat over here:
Sometimes I worry that we’re losing our culture. That we’re losing interest in tradition, and just making things up as we go. We tend to attach inflated importance to whatever is popular at the time, as we lose track of our history and other things that are really important.
Hey OP author, you’re just now coming to this conclusion? Very, very soon it will become too little too late.
I’d like to hear less observation and more bold, serious solutions. The Trumpsters knew this all along but I suppose you’d have been deleted from L1 for claiming any such thing.
ST UnWoked & UnVaxxed! 
Liz, they’ve devolved from rabbit to turtle mode: cutting edge to catch-up.
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You must have read my mind! I was kvetching to Simon a couple of weeks ago that the impressive Ayaan Hirsi Ali has her own podcast on the site now, but over 10 years ago, when I was attending all her book signings and wrote not one, not two, but three posts on her, there was nary a comment to be had…
I kid you not- she was too dangerous for those boys to deal with then because her fatwa was very active!
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This is emblematic, Liz: I didn’t get there until late-’11, so I’m not sure I saw your AHA posts. I certainly think she should be at the forefront of a reboot of Islam – as Christians and Jews have already experienced – so I wouldn’t have purposely ignored those.
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I’m sorry we failed to cross paths here. In any case, AHA was the victim of mutilation, honor killing (cousin) and forced marriage to a first cousin from whom she escaped to the Netherlands and legalized an annulment. Hoorah for the Western world!
She initially caught my attention describing her first attendance at a Protestant wedding in Holland.
Quoting loosely:
” Men and women were not only sitting next to one another but were sharing the same space in the chapel! The bride was glowing and happy and did not look as if she was being dragged off to yet another prison.”
Sorry to let you know Nanda, but she has since rejected all religion and has self-identified as an Atheist. Who could blame her? But she is the ultimate cheerleader for Burke, Locke, Hume, et. al. and is frankly incredulous that Westerners have so little appreciation for their philosophical ancestry.
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I’m aware of her renunciation, Liz and I understand it; all the more reason for her – and other scholarly ‘non-theists’ like Tom Holland to peel away the distortions/cultural accretions from it. If only to let people understand what they’re accepting/rejecting, to make an informed choice about it.
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Point taken.
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P. S. “Western Civ” has theist/Judeo-Christian roots anyway, so she’s responding to those like Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Murray – to mention two other well-spoken, reasoning non-theists have. 🙂
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I totally get the atheism thing. It’s hard to think of any good religions have done in the world, even our “Western “ religions. Judaism has an OT history of conquest , but it never has proselytized, it’s just fir Jews. Christianity began with simple, selfless interpersonal charity but morphed into the Church Militant. Islam (and if Judaism and Christianity are “western”, then so is Islam, their bastard offspring) was a religion of conquest from the beginning.
Even lookin’ East: a Hindu emperor, Ashoka, killed so many people in a certain battle that he converted to Buddhism in remorse. But Buddhism eventually morphed into “Imperial Buddhism”.
And here’s a prediction about Ukraine: we’re gonna see that giant polity fracture along religious lines: Russian Orthodox vs Byzantine Catholic vs Roman Catholic. At least. Now, the ancient religion, the Rodnovery ( native faith) is on the rise again. They worship the Vedic deities like Perun the thunder god.
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Sando, I assume you are a Hindu and you must educate us a bit more about the dates of important holidays so we can return our best wishes.
You’ve been awfully supportive of our country/ culture and I’d like to return the favor.
So Merry Christmas mon ami because as my Jewish friends invited me to countless Passovers and I so enjoyed it, I want to “pay it forward.”
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