An episode from a show based on the “Candid Camera” of the late 50s has survived in my memory. In it a child was confronted with a wired cow that “could talk.” The dialogue involved the bovine revealing that it “wants to become President.” When he heard it, the child kept a straight face and sort of wished the cow success. Subsequently, the host asked the boy what he thought of the unusual cow. His comment “That stupid cow wants to become president!” The reason for remembering is that below the surface something significant is hidden. It struck me that there is a tendency to pretend publicly what seems to be prescribed, while privately the contrary is being articulated.

Little has changed since then. Except that pretending in public what most know to be untrue, or being silent about the pertinent facts because they do not fit an agreed upon fiction, has gotten a name. Synthetic truth now carries a concise tag: “PC.” The politically correct that is divorced from the facts is more than a pious lie prescribed by someone’s social creed. PC creates an artificial reality. Public policy is made to adapt to it as though its postulates would be levelheaded. In the industrialized democracies PC prevents some actions, weakens others and provokes measures that would otherwise not be taken. As an act of voluntary self delusion, PC makes people to affirm what is not and to deny whatever is but should, normatively, not be.

In case that you are inclined to confirm that the “clash of cultures” is “on,” you are easing into an issue in which PC-induced pretensions play a significant role. Every crisis – notice that their frequency and gravity is on the rise – brings examples of how the PC colored view of the world complicates dealing with our problems. The present’s cartoon controversy proves the point. Its significance is that this is the first instance in which radical Islam demands that majorities outside of the Muslim world conform to their teaching.

As insinuated, there is a relationship between PC-derived positions in the world of the industrialized countries and their ability to prevail in the conflict the Jihadists are forcing on them. Let us at the outset agree that ideas have consequences. This is, depending on where your political home is, one of the most crucial truths known to me. [Another favorite of mine is “there ain’t no free lunches.”] Therefore, a fact-denying and reality distorting idea must lead to irrational actions. Consequently, challenging PC assumptions – regardless of how comforting they might be – is essential if the challenge is to be faced. Thinking rationally will determine the issue arising out of the clash or coexistence of cultures. This outcome will primarily be a derivate of the course of action taken in our midst. Radical Islam’s main strength happens to be our weakness to value, and therefore to defend, the essentials of our civilization. Thus, what we think of pending matters will be central in determining the outcome of the unfolding process.

The radicals of the Islamic world demand respect for their interpretation of their creed and the way of life it determines. The demand includes that “respect” be defined by their criteria. If esteem would be taken to mean to “leave alone” the Muslim world by ignoring it, there would be no problem. However, another trend that is concurrent to the clash of cultures is transforming the world and in doing so it undermines any attempt to practice benign separation. The process of “globalization” that actually started with colonization and accelerated after the end of the empires is moving cultures close to each other. Nothing that takes place in one corner of the world will remain hidden from it from the furthest point of the globe. Modern communications provides us with “awareness.” This knowledge of matters that used to be beyond our perception makes all of us virtual participants of the way of life of others. Thereby expectations, but only those, become globally shared.

Knowing how others live makes us want to participate in the way of the higher achievers. Still, as only expectations have become internationalized, the political milieu and the social order, as well as the value system that both of the former reflect, have remained very local. This creates the dilemma that the fruit that becomes coveted might remain beyond reach. The cultural adaptation and learning that presupposes getting what one wants can be hindered by self-imposed and mandated norms. The result is frustration. This discontent of rising expectations, without the creation of the means to realize them, can provoke different reactions.

One of these is slow change controlled initially by traditional ruling elites that discern the utility of modern techniques to themselves. Obviously Kim, Korea’s Dear Leader, is not one of these enlightened despots. In the process the progressive dictators are likely to create forces that replace them without violence such as it happened in South Korea or Taiwan.Peking is at the beginning of this process. The change ordered from above can be faster than society’s ability to adapt. In this case the result might be a revolution that seeks a secure future in the past. This seems to have happened in response to the Shah’s “White Revolution” in Iran. A very typical response is that the backward conclude they are unable to catch up in order to participate in the dream. This can provoke the ideological rejection of the values and way of life of norm-setting societies. Therefore these are, in a “sour grapes” reaction, declared to be decadent, predestined to fail and to lack the critic’s moral substance. The movement would thrive globally after this predicted fall that is to be speeded up by the outcome of an irrepressible struggle between the good and the bad. Examples are Russia’s Slavophiles with their religious-national dogma in 19th century, and numerous “progressive” movements that invoked Marx in the 20th. Regardless of Germany’s high degree of industrialization, some of these symptoms appear in the ideology of her National Socialist revolution.

Islamist radicals have opted for the latter approach. While theological truth is of no concern here, it is apparent that through its political-economic consequences Islam is, in a worldly sense, a failing religion. In the inflexible form it is being advocated by its radical representatives it is, ultimately, unable to adapt to or to coexist with the pioneers of the modern world. Even so, there having been genuine modernizers, such as Kemal Atatürk, who evolved out of an Islamic environment. Reactionary intransigence is not inherent in Islam. Nevertheless, retrogression is an inevitable consequence of the creed’s current popular interpretation. It is vouched for by the prevailing unity of state, society and religion – as defined by clerics.

Still, Islam, as interpreted by the Islamists, is in an unstable and untenable condition. Its dilemma is that Imam-controlled societies are unable to adapt because that involves imitation by an allegedly superior order endorsed by God. The implied change therefore is poison to the soul of the faith, which is a way of admitting that the tools required to close the developmental gap can not be touched for they dirty their users. Learning – even if only selectively – from infidels is an admission of inferiority and brings shame. In the view of Islamists this makes the relationship into a struggle and the conflict into one between mutually exclusionary ideas. The only way to save from infection the masses they still lead is to crush the source of alien bane. According to this view of the world the compromise the West instinctively seeks is, in case one accepts its result as the basis of a permanent order, a sell-out to evil. Allowing the Western order to prevail while seeking only separation from it means tolerating a temptation that can not be covered up by a collective burka. Therefore, the vindication of the faith and its security against decay becomes dependent of its ability to expand globally.

In the long run the material supremacy of modern society seems to be destined to prevail. Pursuing the acquisition of WMDs through purchase, theft or indigenous projects is, even in combination with terrorism, unlikely to shift the military balance. The battle-field is therefore on the level of contending ideologies. In this the Islamists’ best card is that to them the issue is clear and the goal unmistakable, while the means are sanctified by the cause. Additionally, although manifesting a genuine inability to fathom how democratic societies are governed, the Mullahs have an instinctive understanding for the flab in their foe’s thinking. If this is true then, for the modern world’s ability to fend-off the attack, it will be crucial that it recognizes the nature and the purpose of the challenge.

This undertaking proves to be more difficult than it appears to be. The pattern of thinking on which Islamist goals are based contradicts much that in Western civilization is considered to be self-evident. Exploiting this is a forte of Islamists – and has been a decisive card of the Nazis and the Communists. Second, the societies of industrialized democracies will need to avow that they represent something worth defending. In doing so, politicians and citizens will need to achieve clarity regarding which of their principles define their being – thereby making these non-negotiable – and worth defending. Lastly, the suggested determination and self-examination should lead to an understanding the upshot of which will prevent the selective use of distorted democratic principles for the sake of undermining liberty. In summary: the issue that the Islamists are creating will be largely determined in our midst by the extent of our commitment to our professed ideals and by the way we think as we face our time’s challenge.