Ah, Christmastime. A season that holds enough innate magic to redeem fictional baddies such as Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch. It’s the time of year when even the most secular of secular humanists is supposed to be overcome by the sentiment of "peace on earth and goodwill toward men."
Unless, of course, you happen to be one of the ink-stained wretches who practice their craft within the pages of The American Thinker, a publication that has precious little to do with either being an American or actual thought. Last week, contributor Stephen Rittenberg, MD attempts to construct a case that finds common ground among the forces of jihadism, perversion and – wait for it – liberalism.
Rittenberg opens his case by alleging that "Only Islamic clerics sanction the murder of women who have been raped. Only Islamic clerics issue murderous fatwas, celebrate murder of artists, and mobilize sword-wielding men to demand death for a female teacher who allowed children to name a teddy bear 'Mohammad'. Only Islam proudly exhibits videos of throat-cutters torturing helpless victims."
Clearly Rittenberg has overlooked the shameful treatment of women in other societies. In Jesus’ day, it was not unknown for women caught in the act of adultery to be stoned to death, their partners in sexual congress conspicuous by their absence. In certain portions of India, widows were burned alive along with their husband’s remains. The sole offense in these cases was longevity.
In some Latin American countries, so-called "honor killings," the means by which a male member of a family could kill a female relative who had allegedly sullied the family name were a permissible defense for murder up until the early 1980s.
Let us not forget the dark days of the Salem, Mass., witch trials during our country’s colonial era. Students of history know that most of those accused in that theocratic kangaroo court were women. Among the tests for determining if an individual’s guilt was dunking. If an accused witch failed to get immersed in nearby water, well, that was proof that the purity of the water was rejecting their Satanic presence. If, on the other hand, the accused drowned, that was proof that they were innocent.
Oopsie. Death by pre-Revolutionary extreme waterboarding, anyone?
It’s true that we haven’t taken to spilling the blood of artists or intellectuals yet. We seem to prefer attempting to destroy their livelihoods instead. And that’s how "Dixie Chick" became more than a proper noun.
Rittenberg cites the work of the late French psychoanalyst Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, who argued that perversions are not just behavior but modes of thinking. He argues that the fear of that the fear of such differences is the root of Wahabi abuse of women.
The good doctor would have us believe that liberalism is nothing less that a concentrated effort to eliminate the difference between the sexes. This deviant goal has drawn society inexorably to a place where it remains in "denial of the difference between truth and falsehood, good and evil, superior and inferior cultures."
In reality, the opposite is true: It is in those cultures where the worth of individuals has transcended their biological roles that violence against women has waned. This would make conservatism the deviant ideology.
Civilization, Rittenberg says, has been built painstakingly on difference: male and female, yes and no right and wrong truth and falsehood. There are rules, laws, customs, hard-won scientific knowledge. Civilization is a fragile guardian of reality, which must be defended from the onslaught of barbarians wishing to abolish rules and differences, he says.
So let’s see: if an ideology results in flouting the rule of law by ignoring three judicial orders not to destroy waterboarding videotapes, it would be perverse? And if that same ideology led to adherents not understanding the difference between right and wrong on the issue of torture, if it ignored customs through presidential signing statements and reality itself on issues like weapons of mass destruction it would be perverse? And an ideology led followers to ignore scientific data about evolution, about stem-cell research and global warming, it would be perverse?
Psychoanalyst, heal thy own party.