There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. - F. Nietzsche

If you want to know why some migrant communities, especially younger generations, become more religious in the West, I explain this here in detail, drawing on social psychology rather than default explanations like intolerance or racism. open.substack.com/pub/colinwrigh…

Now is a good moment to be reminded of the late, great thinker Christopher Hitchens, expressing solidarity with the Kurds. youtu.be/YuZ9FEveGmw?si…

Long overdue

Unlike many other groups and nations in the region, Kurds are not interested in religious or national wars. They stand out for not sacralising power, not universalising their identity, and not pairing victimhood with superiority.

The idea that Kurds are nationalist bc they want an independent state is a poor definition of nationalism. The demand for independence is not driven by ideological nationalism but by self-protection/survival, for reasons anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear will understand.

Westernophobia is a far more empirically grounded phenomenon than Islamophobia. By every major measure used in the World Values Survey and in comparative sociological research, levels of intolerance and xenophobia are significantly higher in non-Western societies than in Western.

Epstein visar exakt varför man inte kulturaliserar allt: hans brott saknar koppling till ett normativt kollektiv som gör anspråk på samhällelig giltighet. Men när narrativet går före verkligheten upphör förmågan att urskilja.

The Kurds - like Western liberal democracies - have become too tolerant of intolerant belief systems that work directly against their own foundations. At some point, a tolerant society has to stop tolerating the intolerant.

Call it celebration. Call it diversity. Or admit what it is: a parallel religious order asserting itself in public.