Thursday, August 3, 2006

pretentious poetry: a jafi's tale

Really, I'm less offended by this than I am disturbed at the reasoning behind it:

Ridicule is a powerful weapon in the arsenal of Western Civilization. The most crucial part of the struggle against the Great Islamic Jihad takes place in the media of the West itself. This is an information war, and the Jihad has a distinct advantage, since large sections of Western media are willing (even eager) dupes of the mujahideen. Hizbullah’s use of civilians as shields and camouflage, followed by the feeding of photos and video footage of the inevitable carnage to media outlets, is just the latest example of the ruthless and shrewd manipulation of the West’s information systems by the Islamists.

But we have a weapon unavailable to the jihadis: humor. Islam is humor-impaired, and necessarily so, since ridicule and satire are a threat to its very foundation. The Islamists are unable to respond in kind — have you ever noticed how relentlessly stupid their “Zionists and Crusaders” jokes are?

The Great Jihad has no defense against being made fun of.


emphasis mine. I'm sure that whatever jokes this jafi has heard about zionists and crusaders are lame indeed, but this guy actually thinks that humor is some kind of threat to the foundation of Islam? The bolded text above was clearly written for its own sake, bereft of any real meaning. I sometimes wonder if this kind of "argumentation" is really some kind of distributed Sokal Affair writ large. I should make a random Defending Western Civilization essay generator sometime; there is plenty of precedent.

Anyway, the Baron is free to write bad poetry as he pleases; he's not giving Vogons any run for their money. But to think that he is somehow striking a blow by doing so for the sake of civilization is not offensive; it's just sad.

Onward, man of the West!

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