Bruce Bawer at the PJ Tatler offered a couple links the other day to a brace of rather alarming opinion columns in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten (I’m not sure about his characterization of Aftenposten as “Norway’s most conservative” major paper; I guess that may be true, in the sense that Lenin is the best-preserved Russian revolutionary).

One was written by Stein Lillevolden, a Norwegian leftist, about the new book by Danish editor Flemming Rose, the man who published the “Muhammed cartoons.” I won’t translate the entire article, but the gist of it is that (Lillevold claims) Rose wrongly appeals to the book I Will Bear Witness to the End, by the Jewish-German philologist Victor Klemperer. Lillevolden thinks Rose misses Klemperer’s true point, and anyway it’s apples and oranges.

Original: Rose er ytringsfrihetsidealist og tror på en sivilisering gjennom fri debatt, hvor ingen mennesker har krav på noen særlig beskyttelse i åpne demokratier, og fremhever hvordan forbildet USA kun setter ytringsgrense ved tilskyndelse til vold. I boken reflekterer han lite rundt at nesten ingen amerikanske medier har videreformidlet Jyllands-Postens tegninger, noe som ligger svært tett opp til nettopp den selvsensur han i utgangspunktet ønsket å utfordre. Muligens er siviliseringsprosessen nådd lengre i USA enn i Jyllands-Postens ledelse.

Religionskritikk og satire er et ærefullt felt med mange martyrer. Men dagens tabloide religionskritikk utfordrer sjelden selve de religiøse institusjoner, men angriper heller de troende – en kritikk like individualisert som vår tid. Der religion tidligere ble sett som å være opium for folket, har Muhammedtegningene blitt amfetamin for kultursjåvinistene, der farten blir høy og selvtilliten urimelig stor.

Translation: Rose is idealistic about freedom of expression, and believes in the civilizing effect of free debate, in which no person has a right to any special protection in open democracies, and appeals to the example of the USA, which only places restrictions on incitements to violence. In the book he pays little attention to the fact that almost no American media have republished the Jyllands-Posten’s cartoons, something which amounts, for all practical purposes, to precisely the same self-censorship he started out to challenge. Perhaps the civilizing process has reached further in the USA than it has among the management of the Jyllands-Posten.

Criticism of religion and satire are an honorable field [of human endeavor], with many martyrs. But today’s tabloid criticism of religion rarely challenges the religious institutions themselves, but rather attack the believers themselves—a critique as individualistic as our age. Where religion was previously seen as an opium for the people, the Muhammed cartoons have been an amphetamine for cultural chauvinists, with velocity very high, and self-confidence unreasonably great.

Yes, obviously that’s the problem. Criticism of religion in the past was always so polite to individual believers (say, for example, Christians). Only institutions were criticized in the old days. Words that are offensive to individual believers have only appeared, for the first time in history, in our present time, in order to attack poor, helpless Muslims.

Sheesh.

Bawer goes on to link to another column, by a Norwegian “mommy blogger” Kristine Grav Hardeberg, who suggests that one thing we might learn from eastern cultures is the value of arranged marriages.

We should be open to marriages where, to quote Koht, “more than two madly-in-love, young and horny world champions  have the right to speak up.”

If everything is based on strong emotions, the relationship can be in great danger of failing to withstand the various conflicts that may arise, particularly where the two have different backgrounds, beliefs and interests.

Now this piece is something of a challenge for me. I’ll stipulate to the principle, in principle (so to speak). I’ve often said that our cultural tradition (a very new one) that says that “being in love” is the only acceptable reason for a marriage frequently produces bad marriages, marriages which people feel free to walk away from when they “fall out of love.”

(Though I’ve always been cautious about that, because I have an inkling who my father would have liked to marry me off to, if he’d had the chance. Not a partner I find very appealing, even in retrospect. On the other hand, I’d be married, which would probably be something better than my present state.)

However, my defense of the old tradition of the arranged marriage has always been set in the context of my defense of western civilization’s Judeo-Christian history.

I’m pretty sure that the defense of western civilization is not a motivation for Kristine Grav Hardeberg.

Just as I’m pretty sure Stein Lillevolden has never lifted his pen to defend Christians from religious insults (even very personal ones).

The sum of the matter, I feel confident in saying, is that the modern western left hates Western Civilization, especially its Christian foundations. Their positions are motivated not by a love of freedom, but by a hatred of their own culture.

It’s an outgrowth of the Noble Savage myth. If the savage is indeed noble, then the most admirable thing a civilized man can do is to turn on his own civilization and become a savage himself.

Update: We have received a response from Kristine Grav Hardeberg personally, in which she corrected some unwarranted assumptions on my part, in particular my assumption that she wrote from a non-Christian point of view. I stand corrected, and apologize. Her full statement can be found in the comments. ljw