Friday, September 21, 2012

Muslim Rage and the Lost Dignity of the West

It does not really surprise me that a Scandinavian magazine called Se Och Hor should be the latest in line, following publications in Italy and Ireland, to publish nude pics of the Duchess of Cambridge when she thought herself protected by elementary courtesy.
Courtesy, as we know, is formal, often hypocritical; for that very reason it is valuable, worth teaching and preserving because the human animal does not always possess the sense of dignity, which in turn produces a sense of respect for others, which finds expression in good manners.
Why not? Why is the human animal not inherently dignified and respectful of others' dignity? Probably -- I am no anthropologist -- because he is corrupt, corrupted by a lousy education that starts with lousy parents and continues through lousy teachers, school systems, and democracy as we currently practice it in our politics and our culture and our social behavior generally.
That is more that I can bear by way of theoretical introductions, and what I really mean to say is this: these gutter editors, these loutish photographers, if you were an Englishman and you ran into them in a bar or better in an alley, you would, were you brought up with proper manners, have no compunction about giving them a thrashing. And you would be right to do so, although -- as a properly mannered gentleman -- you might give them a break if they turned out to be the 99-pound weaklings they probably are (or frails without police or army training), and merely slap them just hard enough to dislocate a nose, redden an ear, or loosen a few teeth. Magnanimity is the essence of power.

Read more: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/21/muslim-rage-and-the-lost-digni

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