Posted by Dan Ewert : 3/16/2004 02:11:00 PM (Archive Link)
Conviction

From time to time, I consider a theory of mine that says that those without convictions will necessarily fall victim to those with convictions. What I mean by this is that a person who thinks positions A, B, C, etc. are all equally true (even though they may be contradictory and mutually exclusive towards each other) or are all equally false will sooner or later fall victim to the person who proclaims just A or B or C, etc. The first person has no concern about what the truth is but the second person is not only concerned about the truth but is greatly concerned with it. And so the convicted person will do whatever he can to force his view on the unconvicted person. Then one of two things will happen: A) the unconvicted will buckle to coercion and start adopting the convicted’s views or B) because of his ignorance, naïveté, and general misunderstanding of the nature of the convicted, the unconvicted will be caught by surprise and annihilated by the convicted. You see, as they care deeply about nothing, the unconvicted are often unable to comprehend the commitment and dedication of the convicted towards their views. Thus, the unconvicted make the mistake of thinking the convicted are really just like them and they are then taken by surprise when the convicted’s dedication truly asserts itself.

Now this theory generally does not hold true within Western societies. Indeed, the opposite more often seems to be the case, where the convicted fall victim to the unconvicted. Those who believe in God, definite morality, truth, and meritocracy are constantly on the losing end of battles against those who believe in no God, interpretive morals, relative truth, and rampant equality. You could probably make the case the latter folks are actually convicted in their unconvictedness, but this falls short. Rather I think it has more to do that in Western societies, the convicted groups are unwilling (and thankfully so) to work outside the system or in a violent manner to assert their views. They prefer instead to wage battle in public debate, in government, in courts, and in the marketplace of ideas. That they lose here is more a sign of the complacency that the stability of Western culture provides. The stability removes people from the traditional human experience and makes them think they are somehow different from traditional humans and they thus hold positions contrary to their nature. But, well… more on that for another time.

So, while the theory does have difficulties within Western societies, it is borne out in interactions between Western culture and non-Western cultures (by non-Western culture, I’m not referring to any one culture or “Eastern” culture as there are many different types of culture that can be lumped into non-Western). The two have been in conflict ever since Western culture began to take shape. The ancient Greeks fought against the Persians; the Romans fought against the Carthaginians and damn near everyone else; Christian Europe battled constantly against the Muslim East and Muslim North Africa; Europe during colonization battled against nearly everybody in the Americas, Africa, and most of Asia below Russia; the West battled Communism for 50 years; and now the West is battling terrorism. In the above examples, save the war against terrorism since the result is yet to be determined, the West won. This wasn’t, however, because they or their foes lacked conviction. Quite the contrary, the Western powers were very convicted—convicted of the superiority of their culture, their governments, their literature, their militaries, their religion, their freedoms, their institutions, their values, etc. They thought enough of their culture and valued it highly enough that they put everything on the line to defend it against radically different cultures that valued things quite different from them.

In each example, though, there were elements that lacked the conviction of the superiority of the West. This is generally a good thing since introspection and self-analysis is a decidedly Western trait that leads to improvements in all realms of life and also in how the West deals with other cultures. It was this self-questioning that led the West to end slavery and to withdraw from its colonial holdings. This questioning, however, centered on the nature of Western culture and not on its inherent value. It was still a good thing.

When we look at the Cold War, the West won the drawn-out conflict, but it easily could have lost it. Here was a standoff between almost equally strong powers with drastically different points of view. The West was capitalistic, democratic, religious, and placed a high premium on individuality and freedom. The Communist countries, by contrast, were socialistic, totalitarian, atheist, and believed in uniformity and collectivism. Most on both sides were convicted about the best system. The Communists were convinced that Communism was the way of the future and was the next step in the natural evolution of history. The nature of their countries also meant that there was little dissent from this opinion. If you dared speak against it, you quickly found yourself in a gulag for being a counter-revolutionary. Children were also taught from a young age the glories of Communism and the amazing exploits of the worker and whoever their leader was. Thus, you had very convicted societies. Many in the West, though, were unconvicted about the superiority their own culture. They saw the inadequacies of their own countries and were swayed by the lying propaganda of the Soviet Union into thinking that Communism was superior to what they knew. Thus, of the two possible scenarios given above, they fell into the first: they were unconvicted and buckled to the coercion of lies and propaganda to hold their opponents’ views. They became mouthpieces for the opposition. And in a free country, McCarthy accusations aside, they could support Communism.

There were others, though, that fell into the second scenario: unconvicted of the West’s superiority, and through ignorance of the convicted opposition, they risked being annihilated. Through the sixties, many became disenchanted with America and the West. They saw many good things about it but also many bad things. Join this with feelings of everybody’s the same in one great human spirit and looking at the destructive capabilities and military posturing of the West and the Communists, and there developed a tendency to create an equivalence between the two sides. The Soviets, after all, are normal folks just like us, the thinking would go. They’re just trying to live and all. We’re no better than they are. They’re reasonable people, like us, who want the same things we do. Instead of constant and strong confrontation, what was really needed was to build bridges and talk out our problems. We just needed to understand each other. These unconvicted people did not understand the convicted Soviets. They were not like us. They did not believe as we did, they did not value the same things we did, and they did not see the world as we did. And they already understood us quite well. They knew there were elements in our society who were foolish enough to betray their own culture and espouse the Communist line instead and that other elements thought they were just misunderstood good guys. These were the useful idiots, as Lenin described them. And while they encouraged dialogue and understanding, it provided time for the Soviets to make inroads and weaken the West’s convicted people. Remember that tyrannies and totalitarian regimes are established on force and power, not talking, and so that is what they understand. Fear such a regime that wants to talk because they are only buying time while they position themselves.

Fortunately for these unconvicted idiots, however, they were not annihilated by the convicted opposition because the West still had the convicted in their leadership. These people believed the West was superior to the Communists and they forcefully stood up to them. Through their perseverance and despite the unconvicted’s equivocating, the West won. This brings us to our present day situation of the war on terrorism. The current American position is to forcefully stand up to terrorists and to eliminate them wherever and whenever possible. For those of us who agree with this position, we are convicted of the value and superiority of the West and believe it should be defended against those whose values are abhorrent to our own. Already, though, there are those unconvicted among us who think the real solution is to understand and even appease the terrorists. A Guardian editorial said the following: “We need to take the fight against terror out of America's hands. We need to get beyond the them and us, the good guys and the bad guys, and seek a genuinely collective response. Europe should seize the moment that America failed to grasp.” They are unconvicted about their culture and believe, like Lenin’s useful idiots before them, that the terrorists are like us. There is no them and us, no good and bad, just a bunch of misunderstanding. If only we build bridges and have dialogue and keep talking and start to understand each other and our grievances, then we will have peace. The whole warring thing just creates problems. After all, these “terrorists” are reasonable people… just like us.

Here is the real problem. The people who are advocating this view are unconvicted about their superiority, their force, and their values. Because they believe in relativism, they hold to the idea that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. They think the terrorists are just well-meaning guys who don’t understand what the West stands for because, hey, we’re well-meaning guys who don’t understand what they stand for. They’ve developed an equivalence between them and us, such that there is no them and us, only a lot of us. These Islamist terrorists, however, are among the convicted. They have no doubts about who is superior. They have no doubts who are the good guys and the bad guys. They have no doubts about who the “them” is. And given the opportunity, they will annihilate the unconvicted. What it comes down to is that the terrorists are not like us, will not be like us, and cannot be like us. Talking with them or reasoning with people who understand only the power of violence and jihad is only an indication of weakness. Actively appeasing them is even worse. Considering that their goal is to dominate and control everything, they will not be satisfied with scraps that you throw them. Unless you are convicted of the value and worth of your own culture, the convicted opposition will slowly destroy you.