Subsahāras Āfrika ir viena no civilizācijas uzplaukšanai visnepiemērotākajāmm vietām. Vēsturiski faktiski vienīgais veids, kādu varu iedomāties, civilizācijas uzplaukšanai un attīstībai starp tās iedzīvotājiem būtu bijis šo iedzīvotāju atrašanās kaut kur citur. Mūsdienās mēs redzam šī fakta sekas (kaut arī tur tik un tā pamanījās rasties un pastāvēt vesela virkne kultūru, kas (ciktāl var salīdzināt tik dažādas kultūras) ne ar ko neatpalika no vietējiem baltiem vai skandināviem).

Attiecībā uz liberālismu, pirms izsmelt šo tēmu no savas puses, es vēlētos citēt un pārfrāzēt viena no maniem pēdējā laika lasītākajiem blogeriem, mediķa un ilggadēja Less Wrong autora, A. S. Zīskinda, sacīto par precīzi šo tēmu (salasīts no vairākiem viņa rakstiem, vietām pārfrāzēts, lai izvairītos no vārdiem un jēdzieniem, kuri neizteiks neko tiem, kas nav regulāri viņa bloga lasītāji). Think of that what you will.

Liberalism does not conquer by fire and sword. Liberalism conquers by creating communities of people who agree to play by its rules, slowly growing until eventually an equilibrium is disturbed in its favour. Its battle cry is not “Death to the unbelievers!” but “If you’re nice, you can join us!”

But some people, through lack of imagination, fail to find this battle cry sufficiently fear-inspiring. I hate to invoke fictional evidence, especially since perhaps the conservatives’ strongest point is that the real world doesn’t work like fiction. But these people need to read Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Avatar.

The Universe is a dark and foreboding place, suspended between alien deities. Cthulhu, Azathoth, Gnon, Moloch, Mammon, Ares, call them what you will. Somewhere in this darkness is another god. He has also had many names. In the Kushiel books, his name was Elua. He is the god of flowers and free love and all soft and fragile things. Of art and science and philosophy and love. Of niceness, community, and civilization. He is a god of humans. All the other gods are gods of blood and fire, and Elua is just like “Love as thou wilt” and “All knowledge is worth having”. He is the patron deity of exactly the kind of sickeningly sweet namby-pamby charitable liberalism that these people are complaining about. The other gods sit on their dark thrones and think “Ha ha, a god who doesn’t even control any hell-monsters or command his worshippers to become killing machines. What a weakling! This is going to be so easy!”

And there is a certain commonality to a lot of the Kushiel books, where some tyrant or sorcerer thinks that a god of flowers and free love will be a pushover, and starts harassing his followers. And the only Eluite who shows up to stop him is Phèdre nó Delaunay, and the tyrant thinks “Ha! A woman, who doesn’t even know how to fight, doesn’t have any magic! What a wuss!”

But here is an important rule about dealing with fantasy book characters. If you ever piss off Sauron, you should probably find the Ring of Power and take it to Mount Doom. If you ever get piss off Voldemort, you should probably start looking for Horcruxes. If you ever piss off Phèdre nó Delaunay, run and never stop running. Elua is the god of flowers and free love and he is terrifying. If you oppose him, there will not be enough left of you to bury, and it will not matter because there will not be enough left of your city to bury you in.

There are those that know better and portray liberalism as Elua, a terrifying unspeakable Elder God who is fundamentally good. There are those that know better and portray liberalism as Cthulhu, a terrifying unspeakable Elder God who is fundamentally evil. And then there are the poor shmuchks that don’t even seem to realize liberalism is a terrifying unspeakable Elder God at all. It’s like, what? They are sitting there saying “Ha ha, a god who doesn’t even control any hell-monsters or command his worshippers to become killing machines. What a weakling! This is going to be so easy!”

And all you can do is watch this last group of people and despair at their lack of understanding that the other gods, their gods, get placated until we’re strong enough to take them on, whereas Elua gets worshipped.