No Subject

[Douglas <dougwils@moscow.com>]

Dear visionaries,

It goes without saying that when people do not understand their own
worldview, or, in some cases, don't even know that they have one, or they
think it a straw man invented by others, and all this in a university
town, are ill-equipped to understand the worldviews of others. As the
editor of the reprobate magazine, let me assure you that you cannot
understand the play Hamlet by reading every tenth word of
it.

But I cannot hope to persuade you of this. Consequently, let me assume
for the discussion that Joan's summaries are accurate, and that we
actually do want to make the U.S. more like Saudi Arabia, we think
that mammy had it good, and that we encourage the browbeating of
wives.

Given your professed commitments to pluralism and multiculturalism, what
is wrong with any of this? Is it bad to be like Saudi Arabia? Bad to be
Muslim? Bad to be a Saudi Muslim? Shouldn't modern anthropologists
who can defend the Aztec practice of mass human sacrifice find a cozy
place in their latitudinarian world for ante bellum Alabama? And
whatever could be wrong with browbeating a wife? Whoever said we
couldn't? Isn't that the way some cultures are? Shouldn't we respect
other cultures? No? Why not? Yes? Then what's the problem?

So if you can accommodate such diversity, then now would be a good time
to start. But if your pluralism cannot stretch that far, and actually
is a defined worldview, one that stands for definite cultural values
and rejects others, then quit pretending that it is not. By what standard
do you judge anything? We have a standard and everyone knows what
it is -- Genesis through Revelation. You make quite as many value
judgments as we do, even if it is only about us, but when pressed for
details on when and how your moses came down off your sinai, everything
goes blurry.

Incidentally, it is too funny that Fred Phelps wants to come here. We
believe that Fred Phelps and the homosexual cartel share a fundamental
faith commitment: they are both in bed with Descartes (henceforth BIBWD,
pronounced bibwhid). And I bet you didn't even know Descartes was
gay.