Islam, which is in truth a militant political ideology, is incompatible with the West.
Religion in the West is privatized and pluralistic. Westerners treat religious belief primarily as a matter of individual conscience. A person may hold very strong religious convictions, but he doesn’t expect others to share them or organize society around them. The West is marked by religious liberty, which supports religious diversity. People of all faiths thrive in the West.
The contrast between religious attitudes in the West and those in the Islamic world could not be sharper. Islam is not simply a personal commitment. Nor is it merely a collective identity that establishes boundaries between believers and outsiders. It is intolerant of other religious faiths. Three features of Islam make it a threat to Western religious pluralism.
First, Islam is triumphalist. Muslims assert the superiority of their religion and seek its dominance over other religions. Second, Islam is aggressively proselytizing. It seeks converts, preying on the disaffected and disordered. Once it, it is dangerous to get out. Third, Islam is integralist. Muslims believe that religious principles should organize political and social institutions rather than remain matters of private conscience.
Whereas the West has established rules that maximize religious liberty, Muslims institute rules that place other religious faiths in a subordinate position to Islam. Islam is by nature incapable of religious tolerance. Therefore, an open and pluralistic society must be intolerant of Islam. Islam is to other religious pluralism what communism and fascism are to liberalism. It’s the difference between totalitarianism and freedom. Defending liberty requires rejecting totalitarian ideologies and keeping their bearers at bay.
I have noted on the pages of Freedom and Reason that a tolerant society practicing intolerance towards Islam is accused of engaging in a paradox. The paradox is only apparent. First-order tolerance is allowing people to hold and advocate views fundamentally opposed to one’s own. However, there is a second-order: tolerating challenges to the institutional framework that guarantees first-order tolerance. A society cannot enjoy first-order tolerance if it fails to protect the institutional framework that guarantees it.
Think of it this way: the distinction between (1) rules governing a game and (2) moves made within the game. Allowing every legal move does not entail permitting a player to abolish the rules governing play. In chess, one’s opponent is free to make any move he thinks will win the game as long as he moves his pieces according to the rules. The rules allow for free play.
In the West, a Christian is free to practice his religion as long as he does not make it impossible for others to practice theirs. Christians, Jews, and those of other faiths play by the rules—rules that foster religious plurality. Muslims seek to change the rules to make religious pluralism impossible.
The same is true with communism and fascism. Liberals play by rules that maximize equality and freedom. In Western societies, an individual’s fate is not predetermined. He may make of himself what he will. Westerners even help the losers. By contrast, communists and fascists control the fate of individuals. They pick the winners. And the majority loses. Authoritarians do not tolerate free play. And so liberal society cannot tolerate authoritarians.
