Lileks on the Moderns

Excerpt:

So you have Swedish clothing designers putting a tag on hot jeans with a skull and an inverted cross, with the express intention of pointing out the “evil” of Christianity. "It is an active statement against Christianity," Bjorn Atldax told The Associated Press. "I'm not a Satanist myself, but I have a great dislike for organized religion."Atldax insists he has a purpose beyond selling denim: to make young people question Christianity, which he called a "force of evil" that had sparked wars throughout history.

It goes without saying that selling anti-Christian iconography to European fashionistas is a brave an act as reducing the food pellet allotment to your pet hamster; a true act of bravery would be yanking the dead wildebeest out of a lion’s mouth. Or selling jeans that have the international cross-and-bar NO symbol over the crescent of Islam. They don’t dare do that – partly because they are deeply suffused in the very racism they decry, and regard the inhabitants of their tall dead Corbu-inspired concrete ghettos as brown rabble beneath contempt and therefore irrelevant to relevant discussion, and partly because they have a nagging fear of editorials, hate-speech laws, tut-tuts from the thinking class, and the occasional unhinged fellow with a knife. But Christianity? Didn’t that die in a muddy hole in Ypres?

UPDATE:

Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds and the blogosphere’s Bigfoot comments that “This thinking betrays a certain lack of perspective.” To which I reply … HUH? What does THAT mean? Realizing that Reynolds leans Libertarian, I’m still puzzled by the phrase “lack of perspective.” Lileks perspective is that of a Christian in modern society. Reynolds may disagree with Lileks and is free to make his own argument, but to dismiss him with “lack of perspective” is juvenile.

The marriage of convenience between Libertarians and Conservatives is exposed by comments like Glenn’s. Regarding Christianity, Libertarians appear to be on the Liberals’ side. For reasons which I do not fully understand, Libertarians somehow believe that Christians have the ultimate goal of establishing a theocracy. Perhaps it’s an age thing. For centuries after this nation’s founding Christianity was the dominant creed, freely expressed and honored. Yet we were not a theocracy. As late as the 1950s most stores were closed on Sundays, schools began the day with prayer, and Christmas displays were found in public parks. Yet we were not a theocracy. From what dark recesses of the mind do these fears of a Christian theocracy spring; or, if they are not fears, why this antipathy? I wish Glenn Reynolds, who is one of the most articulate and sane adherents of Libertarianism would address this issue.

UPDATE 2:

Glenn Reynolds has replied via e-mail. He was referring to the perspectives of the people Lileks was describing, not to Lileks thinking. OK, he's back on my good side.

One of the reasons for my sensitivity is that there exists in the Libertarian camp a strain of aggressive atheism. This is very likely natural since followers of a religion, like Christianity, place themselves in subjection to a higher being. Libertarians reject being subjects as much as possible and, when they are subject to something they prefer to subject themselves to their own creations - like laws.

Thanks for your reply, Glenn.