On the soft bigotry of lowered expectations:

Brilliant writers have dedicated volumes to this theme, but few have more eloquently defined this phenomenon than Douglas Murray in his latest book, “The War on the West” in which he writes about the pathological nature of Western Anti-Westernism. Its prologue on Amazon’s website reads:

“China has concentration camps now. Why do Westerners claim our sins are unique?

It is now in vogue to celebrate non-Western cultures and disparage Western ones. Some of this is a much-needed reckoning, but much of it fatally undermines the very things that created the greatest, most humane civilization in the world.

In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows how many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric. After all, if we must discard the ideas of Kant, Hume, and Mill for their opinions on race, shouldn’t we discard Marx, whose work is peppered with racial slurs and anti-Semitism? Embers of racism remain to be stamped out in America, but what about the raging racist inferno in the Middle East and Asia?

It’s not just dishonest scholars who benefit from this intellectual fraud but hostile nations and human rights abusers hoping to distract from their own ongoing villainy. Dictators who slaughter their own people are happy to jump on the “America is a racist country” bandwagon and mimic the language of antiracism and “pro-justice” movements as PR while making authoritarian conquests.

If the West is to survive, it must be defended. The War on the West is not only an incisive takedown of foolish anti-Western arguments but also a rigorous new apologetic for civilization itself.”, end of prologue.

We live in a time when everything originating from Western Culture is deemed to be bad while all other cultures, particularly those of visible minorities, are deemed to be superior to that of our own. Where these Postmodern ideas lose their consistency lies in Postmodernism’s loathing of patriarchal condescension yet what could be more patriarchal than to expect less of other cultures you claim to prefer? Herein lies the soft bigotry of lowered expectations.

The Norwegian Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet) has a slogan, “Alle skal med!” which translates into something like “everyone together” or “no one shall be left behind” but the actual outcome of this policy is much different. It should read, “Alle må være enig!” or “everyone must agree”. It is an attempt to homogenize humanity, to create a state where all are deemed to be essentially the same. Where everyone is required to think the same. Yet when we examine the failure of the state’s attempt to assimilate cultures who hold vastly different world views, we see that “Alle skal med” has created a race to build a system which favours the lowest common denominator. I know, I attended Norskkurs (Norwegian Course) where this failure was on full display. 

I deliberately chose to attend the local Norskkurs in the small city where I was living so that I could observe firsthand how well my fellow students were adjusting to life in Norway. They weren’t and the authorities didn’t want me to adapt either out of some perverse dislike of someone whom they undoubtedly viewed as too fond of their culture. I came to understand that the socialists who dominated state run institutions were leery of anyone who admired them since the Nazis had attempted to appropriate their culture during WWII even though the Arbeiderpartiet made repeated attempts to join the Nazi puppet government led by Vidkun Quisling. A law was passed at war’s end which made it illegal for anyone to investigate who had cooperated with the Nazis.

The reason I state these things is that the self-same ideological nonsense of “Alle skal med” informs every single policy in Canada put forth by our governments federally, provincially, regionally, and locally. We are driven by a species of self loathing that has become nothing short of pathological while deliberately ignoring the work our ancestors did to help create a free, and just society under democratic parliamentary oversight and the Rule of Law.

From the Canadian Encyclopedia: “On 14 March 1793, United Empire Loyalist Sergeant Adam Vrooman violently bound Chloe Cooley, a Black woman he enslaved, with a rope. (See also Loyalists in Canada.) He was assisted by two other men — his brother Isaac Vrooman and one of the five sons of United Empire Loyalist McGregory Van Every. The men put Cooley in a boat and transported her across the Niagara River to sell her in New York State. Cooley resisted fiercely, but to no avail.

Cooley’s piercing scream alerted Peter Martin, a Black Loyalist formerly enslaved by John Butler, to what was transpiring.

Peter Martin, a veteran of Butler’s Rangers, along with witness William Grisley, reported the incident to Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe and the Executive Council of Upper Canada in Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario). Grisley, a white resident of nearby Mississauga Point and employee of Sergeant Vrooman’s, was able to provide a detailed account of the events as he was on the boat that transported Cooley but did not assist in restraining her.

Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe used the Chloe Cooley incident to introduce legislation to abolish slavery in Upper Canada.

Enslavement in Upper Canada

British abolitionists such as William Wilberforce, James Ramsay, Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson had argued against the Atlantic slave trade since the 1770s. (See also Black Enslavement in Canada.) Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe had been influenced by the growing abolitionist movement prior to his arrival in Upper Canada in 1791. By then, abolitionists of African heritage were also playing a vital role in the struggle. Olaudah Equiano (also known as Gustavus Vassa), once enslaved in England, published his autobiography in 1789 and toured the United Kingdom to speak out against the inhumanity of enslavement. These abolitionist opinions spread to Upper Canada, where Simcoe and Attorney General John White led the call for abolition in the province.”, end quote.

The eventual outcome of Simcoe’s actions resulted in making my own hometown of St. Catharines one of the northern terminuses along the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman lived in my city. It was she who acted as Moses had to the Israelites by leading her people to the promised land. Yes, Upper Canada (now Ontario) was known as Beulah Land to the folks who had escaped from the slavery inherent in the slave states of the USA. Harriet Tubman was given land by the founder of the Welland Canal, Wm. Hamilton Merritt, to build the British Methodist Episcopal Church which still stands on Geneva Street. 

From the Church's website: “The British Methodist Episcopal Church, Salem Chapel was founded in 1820 by African-American freedom seekers in St. Catharines, Ontario. It is located at 92 Geneva St. in the heart of Old St. Catharines. The church is a valued historical site due to its design, and its important associations with abolitionist activity.

The church has a congregation of approximately 20 people, and a Sunday worship service takes place at 11:00 am. Guided tours of the church and museum, which displays original documents, artifacts, and a rare book collection, all associated with the anti-slavery movement, are available by appointment.”, end quote.

Folks from St. Catharines were known to accompany Tubman during her trips into the slave states, most often Maryland, so that she could avoid suspicion by pretending to be her slave owner. This is obviously not an example of white privilege or patriarchal tyranny since the people accompanying her could easily have been imprisoned if they had been caught, yet how often does one hear of such factual accounts of bravery and fortitude where whites and blacks together worked to abolish an institution which Simcoe had declared to be an offence to Christ? The Act passed by him was the first of its kind in the British Empire which eventually led to slavery within the rest of the Empire being abolished by 1833.

I state these things to make a very concerted and clear point, slavery has continued unabated in Africa, China, and the Middle East to this day where cultures vastly different to that of our own do not view slavery as an offence to Christ since they obviously aren’t Christian societies. Every society which has ever existed has practiced slavery including that of North America’s indigenous people. Therefore, the question that must be asked, which society both denounced and abolished it first? And, as Murray so eloquently pointed out, the Postmodern answer to our tradition of Western liberalism and its insistence on individual liberty and autonomy is to replace the most liberating philosophical ideas which any society has ever created with Marxist ideology which demonstrably has resulted in the greatest injustices mankind has ever witnessed. Death and repression under Marxism exceeds that of even the murderous tyranny of National Socialism. Furthermore, we must NEVER forget that Nazism was just one more version of the species of social collectivism being foisted on us by Postmodern ideologues whose claims of creating equity visibly and demonstrably deconstruct themselves.