“Book reviews - Green Valley News and Sun” plus 2 more |
- Book reviews - Green Valley News and Sun
- Islam, Europe and Philosophical ‘Continental Drift’ - Family Security Matters
- Ruth Brin was an acclaimed Jewish writer - Minneapolis Star Tribune
| Book reviews - Green Valley News and Sun Posted: 28 Sep 2009 12:29 PM PDT Game Over, by Gary Isaacson |
| Islam, Europe and Philosophical ‘Continental Drift’ - Family Security Matters Posted: 04 Oct 2009 11:56 PM PDT  October 5, 2009 Islam, Europe and Philosophical 'Continental Drift'The reviewers Baker, Marshall, and Laqueur, and the authors Laqueur, Caldwell, and Bawer, do not delve into the philosophical bankruptcy that could explain why Europeans cannot defend themselves from being overrun by an inimical population of dedicated Muslims, nor be able to assert why their culture and civilization are superior to Islam's. The writers dwell on subsidiary issues, and chronicle futile efforts to combat the phenomenon, such as banning headscarves in French schools and tightening immigration rules, which they concede are too little, too late. Indeed, the authors and the reviewers do not seem to be aware of the philosophical bankruptcy that is the root of the problem. The books' authors and the reviewers cite multiculturalism as one cause of Europe's impotency in the face of conquest by Islam. They do not investigate, except in a cursory way, its philosophically nihilistic nature, a nihilism which can only permit the triumph of a barbarism committed to imposing its suffocating, stultifying, and anti-life values by force or fraud. Values apologized for, denied, or destroyed cannot be defended. Multiculturalism is an egalitarian leveler; its function is to render the highest equal to the lowest common denominator. (To paraphrase Ellsworth Toohey: Enshrine the irrational, and the rational is razed.) The barbarism can take many forms: in art, a Jackson Pollack canvas of drips and scratches equal to a canvas by Jean-Léon Gérôme; in science, invalidated global-warming models equal to observable scientific fact; in politics, church-state separation equal to the mosque-state union of Islam. By the old Europeans, Greenfield means those who are beneficiaries of the welfare state, more concerned with taking advantage of their state-mandated employment perks and pensions, medical care, extra-long paid holidays, and other collectivist entitlements, all of it the result of burdensome tax rates, than worrying about the future of their countries. Let our children take the hindmost, is their attitude, but let us have fun now. As far as Europe is concerned, it is a question of whether or not religion ever was the underlying moral code that permitted the continent to enjoy the fruits of freedom and capitalism, limited as those fruits might have been by government intervention. The Enlightenment, after all, was in large part a revolt against especially Catholic Church authority.
Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (1) Old hat recycled here; the author adds nothing new to the perceived 'threat' from Muslims. Overblown and frankly becoming a bore. |
| Ruth Brin was an acclaimed Jewish writer - Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted: 04 Oct 2009 07:39 PM PDT Born in St. Paul, Brin graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and later earned a master's degree in American studies at the University of Minnesota. She taught Jewish studies at the University of Minnesota and Macalester College in St. Paul. In 1966, she founded "Identity," a Jewish literary magazine that she edited for five years. For 35 years, she wrote book reviews for publications, including the Star Tribune and American Jewish World, her daughter said. Brin, the mother of four children, was an avid reader and enjoyed ballroom dancing. She wrote a family newspaper, and when on vacations, she had her children research and write about the places where they traveled, Judith said. "She was a very creative and awesome mother, and probably the brightest person we ever knew," she said. "She was a trailblazer in whatever she did." As a member of Minneapolis Urban League, Brin led the charge to establish a day-care center in north Minneapolis. She also served on boards of the League of Women Voters and the National Council of Jewish Women, and was a founder and board member of Mayim Rabim, a Reconstructionist synagogue in south Minneapolis. In addition to her daughter Judith, Brin is survived by another daughter, Rabbi Deborah Brin of Albuquerque, N.M.; two sons, Aaron of Gays Mills, Wis., and David of Sonoma, Calif., and two grandchildren. Services have been held. |
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