"It is a striking fact that ISIS appeals not only to young men, but also young European women, many hundreds of whom have gone to Syria and Iraq to marry Islamic State fighters. Sure, some of them, [...] may have come to regret their decision. But that hardly alters the essential point: The girls sought out IS fighters because the West seems weak and unmanly and they pine for real men who are willing to kill and die for what they believe in."
Interesting article. Comments?
I had made this one on G+ "This idea (and I suppose that it's a "feminist" idea) that girls don't like cave men, is pretty much fantasy... or at least, we'd prefer a Navy SEAL, but if strong manly men willing to kill and die for good aren't available, we'll take strong manly men willing to kill and die for bad. "Gangsters" don't lack reproductive success... "
Which isn't to say that men need to be violent to be men, but a firmness of purpose is sort of nice, even if he's a "pharmacist in Hamburg." The same might be said of admirable women. Sometimes that firmness of purpose is in standing against popular excess in a quiet way or in some other peaceful manner, but this isn't what we see promoted. What we see promoted in our culture is looseness of purpose, indolence.
It's not attractive.
34 comments:
This sounds correct. Correct in an overanalyzed way. It can describe in biological and sociological terms, or you can summarize by them all by stupidity.
And not regular 'where'd my keys go' stupidity, supreme stupidity.
A hard man is good to find.
Or something.
Interesting point, given all the Julias we seem to have.
I'm guessing that ISIS has scads and scads of webpostings lamenting that its best and brightest young tech minds can't resist the lure of the decadent and indolent secular democracies.
Just yesterday these grrls were driving around with "give peace a chance" and "coexist" bumper stickers.
Makes me think of Diana West's book.
"The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization"
From the cover of the above book, we're "A population so committed to cultural relativism that it can't fight the onslaught of Islamization"
"... The girls sought out IS fighters because the West seems weak and unmanly and they pine for real men who are willing to kill and die for what they believe in."
Q: Why? Europe’s got great health care, welfare, and lots of attractive young men and attractive women who, unlike the vast majority of women in the Middle East outside of Israel, are sexually available. So, why given a choice between a comfortable, if somewhat boring, life as a pharmacist in Hamburg, or fighting and dying in the desert, are thousands of Western Muslims opting for the latter?
Because, for all the awesome social services and consumer goods it can offer, Europe has become incapable of endowing the lives of its citizens, Muslim or not, with meaning.
A:
Ugly ideas fill space. Looking around, it’s hard not to think that the ugly, the vicious, and the stupid have the upper hand these days, with little resistance from the so-called defenders of the good.
What Europe’s disaffected youth see is that the Western powers roll over and take it, again and again. The issue isn’t that we enjoy being humiliated. It’s just that we don’t really believe there’s anything worth fighting for. And that’s why thousands of Europe’s young Muslim men have taken sides against us—and why 15-year-old girls hold us in contempt.
It's a theory.
Guilty as charged. Fortunately I never wanted to keep any bad boys around the house.
Don't you think the bigger draw is to have a purpose bigger than ourselves to which we can devote our lives? At that age it's all about finding our destiny.
We know that, but do they? How many of these girls are from fully integrated families? Is their home environment one of freedom or one where honor killings are acceptable?
You nailed it with we don’t really believe there’s anything worth fighting for.
I think Synova's analysis is spot on. The QUEEN of vapid overanalysis is TOP.
We know that, but do they?
That is the question.
I cannot begin to understand.
/Madonna made it seem so thrilling?! That's not the thrill I was expecting. dang it.
Madonna is wearing a sexy costume, glorifying subjugation.
How big of a role does pop culture play, if any?
It's hip to side with "the other".
I think Chip is on the basic truth - it's just stupidity. Sure the other lures are part of it, but there are always mistaken options laid in our paths: temptations, desires, and false prizes, but none of that is a real threat to people who simply give facts and reason just a little authority in their lives. Stupidity is basically following your emotions without any use of the rest of your brain. It is essentially NON-use of intelligence - thus stupidity.
Occam's razor: "among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected."
You don't need to try and figure out what the girls are thinking - they just aren't thinking.
There may or may not be more stupidity than before, but our society today is so insulated from the basic day-to-day challenges of living that there is little need to develop good decision making skill. Dumb, lazy people today can do quite well, even acquiring great wealth, prestige, fame, and authority, so why learn to be smart? If you are a dummy and just "follow your heart" you will still survive and nothing stops you from becoming a role model, teacher, or even President of the United States. If we are getting dumber, it's just evolution.
Sometimes that firmness of purpose is in standing against popular excess in a quiet way or in some other peaceful manner, but this isn't what we see promoted. What we see promoted in our culture is looseness of purpose, indolence.
A rare stand against popular excess...
Annie Lennox: ‘Twerking Is Not Feminism’
"Twerking is not Feminism."
Oh, I think it is - just as could be expected if one took the time to think about where it would go from the 60's.
It's feminism all right. You just don't like it once you see it through grown up eyes.
Time was when a young girl would have been told enough stories of the danger of the wolves. She would have been taught to respect the traditions of her village that always provided for her village's success and protection. She would have clear ideas about these things, or the wolves would remove her from the village early on.
Today she is taught that the wolves are just like her, but have different customs. That it is her own people and their values that are corrupt and dangerous. She is taught this by law, culture and, modern role models. It's no surprise she would try to go live with the wolves.
I don't find the attraction of young women to ISIS mysterious at all.
If some chick wants to fuck the modern equivalent of Conan the Barbarian where is she going to find it in the modern world? The "freebooters" of ISIS seem as good a place to start as any.
I mean, those guys are building a brand new state over there, and there's tons of money floating around. Some lucky girl could end up hitched to some newly-minted emir in the new Caliphate. And, since it's war, there's a good chance that her personal Muslim Conan could get pink-misted by a Coalition bomb, and the poor widow will them end up given over to fucking his buddy, Kull the Conqueror.
I think we would understand this migration better if we saw these girls as trying to get in on the ground of the latest start-up as opposed to seeing it as running away from a broken home.
A few years ago, I read a book called Prayers for the assassin, by, I think, Peter Ferrigno. It was a novel that involved a partial Islamic takeover of the U.S. in the near future. And I recall him kind of predicting this sort of thing.
I think your analysis is correct. It sorta ties in with women sending their pictures to serial killers on death row.
Of course, With 30-40 million teenage girls in Europe and the USA, you can probably find a couple hundred who will do anything- and are really, really stupid.
When Islam does take over, I'd like Madonna to be their first sex slave. You know, to set the tone for pop culture. Slavery is cool.
That Tablet article is talking about the Western Muslims who are opting for ISIS. That makes it much easier to understand the appeal, doesn't it? Especially with European Muslims, many (or most?) of whom haven't been well integrated into the larger community.
There also seems to be a correlation with where each woman is individually with their menstrual cycle when they take the plunge with the bad boy. Gotta factor in raging hormones too.
I'll overshare a bit and say that I've never ever been impressed by the Bad Boy.
One of the responses I got on G+ was that what people admire is *confidence*.
I think that might be a better way of saying it. If it's personal confidence or cultural confidence, either way.
And the West has no cultural confidence. Apparently there's a thing where Minnesotans head to the middle east to join ISIS, too. My Mom's theory is that it's just too cold for Sudanese immigrants. Granted, that might be all of four individuals and it makes the news.
The article mentions Jews in the West heading to Israel for some of the same reasons of looking for a purpose.
And people might say, look how nice it is here, look how *comfortable* you are. But comfort is a better end goal than a starting condition. When we're comfortable as a starting condition we do stupid things like forgetting what death, disease and pandemic is all about and we make our *cause* the opposition to vaccinations. (Not all of us, just the most privileged of numb-nuts.)
But the West has no cultural confidence... which is what I was starting to say. Bagoh said it well:
"Today she is taught that the wolves are just like her, but have different customs. That it is her own people and their values that are corrupt and dangerous. She is taught this by law, culture and, modern role models. It's no surprise she would try to go live with the wolves."
The article corrected that the one girl they thought to be Jewish wasn't, but there's plenty of news about non-Muslim girls converting and marrying into ISIS and how many reports in the US (or Canada!) include the term "...was a recent convert to Islam."?
It's not even necessary to be *anti* anyone else to have the cultural confidence to say that *our way is best*. But as a culture we don't dare even so much as say "It's *better* that women are equal" unless the context is strictly, *absolutely*, internecine.
April Apple said...
When Islam does take over, I'd like Madonna to be their first sex slave.
She doesn't have the ciccones to do that even. These days, she's probably shopping for plastic surgeons.
there's plenty of news about non-Muslim girls converting and marrying into ISIS
Really? I've noted they usually turn out to be Muslim, like the three girls from Colorado who were trying to get to Syria to join up with ISIS. They are Muslims of Somali and Sudanese descent.
Lydia, I'm willing to consider that I see the initial reports and not the follow-ups.
Being swept away by a Sheik of Araby has been a female fantasy for generations. There is nothing new under the sun.
True, Ken.
It's still a popular subject of romance (which is essentially fantasy). I can recognize the romance of the exotic (and the hero is always very very modern) but I've never been able to ignore it all enough to enjoy them.
The historic "Scottish Highlander" romance sub-genre has almost gotten that way for me. I keep thinking... wait... doesn't this all end very badly?
George Costanza tried to boink Elaine's secretary by being a bad boy.
Which isn't to say that men need to be violent to be men, but a firmness of purpose is sort of nice, even if he's a "pharmacist in Hamburg." The same might be said of admirable women. Sometimes that firmness of purpose is in standing against popular excess in a quiet way or in some other peaceful manner, but this isn't what we see promoted. What we see promoted in our culture is looseness of purpose, indolence.
Yeah. Only it's kind of insane that the sort of purpose in question is of such secondary consideration. A man whose purpose is evil is better than a man who couldn't care less, so saith Synova. Which kind of explains why the world is as fucked up as it is.
The analogy is that a guy could definitely go for a vixen. A hot enough woman will overpower any consideration you might have for her ethical values. Of course, women tend to be quieter and therefore sometimes more underhanded and/or manipulative about things so it's not like society encourages them to make their ethical values as obvious as it expects men to do. There's less of an excuse therefore in going for a male scoundrel than in going for a twisted temptress.
Post a Comment