Why did the decaf suddenly turn into regular...? Part 2.

Actually, my title should be: "Why did the decaf suddenly turn into a quintuple espresso...?"

As I analyzed in Part 1, Hugh Fitzgerald's guesses are inadequate to explain why an anti-Islam politician in Germany, Arthur Wagner, converted recently to Islam.  Hugh is presented with a German political activist who 4 years ago left the more Left-leaning CDU party to join the more Islam-savvy AfD party which opposes Islamization of Germany -- and yet who has lately converted to Islam.  Hugh guesses Wagner must have converted to Islam either for sex or for money; or both.  (Hugh's first guess he tosses off as unlikely, that Wagner was actually convinced of the beauty of Islam.)

The problem with the sex and/or money explanation is not that it's impossible; sure, that's always possible, but it would perforce require either 1) ignorance of Islam, or 2) evil.

#2: If a Westerner is not ignorant of Islam, but knows Islam (and hence knows it's evil), then if he joins Islam for sex or money, he's also being evil.

#1: The ignorance explanation becomes strange, given that Wagner was in an anti-Islamization party for 4 years, and actively joined it in the first place.

Once we palpate #1 further, we begin to open up an avenue of a subtler, more intelligent speculation.  Are there degrees of ignorance of Islam?  There do seem to be.  I've written probably hundreds of essays (out of a total of 1,400 plus) analyzing this welter of a problem.  The more interesting end of the spectrum, to me, is the person who actually knows about Islam, or who is learning more and more about the horror, the full catastrophe of Islam, but can't quite fully follow the logic to where their growing familiarity with the data of Islam leads them.

Why can't they follow the logic of the data? Because they are afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of the thread that leads from condemning Islam to condemning Muslims. Why is that something to be afraid of? Because it would mean they would succumb to "racism".

This thought process I am unraveling is the thought process of PCMC; and it is present even in the Counter-Jihad.  A fear of enacting the paradigm shift from a problem of Islam to a problem of Muslims.  It seems to me this thought process is quite prevalent and motivates all forms of Denial in this regard.  Interestingly, this dynamic becomes more pronounced the more, not the less, one knows about Islam.  The PC MC majority in the West knows less about Islam than the person who has chosen to be "in the Counter-Jihad", but they know enough -- from the pressure of the news -- to realize, if only subliminally, that it's a horrible problem. But two factors allow them to remain in a state of relatively stable, comfortable Denial (at least consciously): 1) their habit -- reinforced by the peer pressure of their surrounding culture, suffused as it is with PC MC, of not taking the time to investigate past the PC MC mainstream whitewashing of Islam to uncover the seamier underside of Islam; and 2) their dominant PC MC sensibilities which, among other things, keeps their internal Censor strong out of a deep, peculiarly Western phobia about being "racist".

The Westerner who has embarked upon the long, complex journey of being "in the Counter-Jihad", however, doesn't suffer from these two factors, at least not in such a marked way. But #2 does still exert its unconscious force on him; and because it does, it comes into psychological conflict with his growing awareness (through his self-education) of the horrors of Islam and the obvious logical connection this has to Muslims.  The result is an incoherent attempt to have his cake (of being anti-Islam) while eating it too ("I'm not against Muslims" or some even more elliptical version of this).

Now, I am not trying to say that Arthur Wagner was "in the Counter-Jihad" per se; there is no delimited definition of that state (to a great extent because the movement itself remains incoherent). Some are halfway in / halfway out (e.g., Sam Harris).  The psychological dynamic is the same, variantly, depending on the degree of PC MC in the heart and mind of the person involved.

So my guess as to why Arthur Wagner converted to Islam may not be as colorfully specific as two of Hugh's guesses (women and/or money), but I argue it's more reasonable. In a word -- 4 words, to be more precise -- Arthur Wagner converted to Islam because of PC MC: Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism.  But wait, my readers may counter, Wagner four years ago had joined the anti-Islamization party opposed to the disastrous Angela Merkel policy of Muslim immigration; how could he be affected by PC MC...?  If my readers, or anyone "in the Counter-Jihad" has to ask that question, he hasn't fully grasped the Problem of the Problem.  This secondary problem (persistent Western myopia to the primary problem, Islam) reflects a complex paradox of fear and admiration of Islam, centrally motivated by the twin Dogma of PC MC:

Respect for the Other / Self-Criticism of the West Bordering on Self-Hatred. 

The second thing to know is that this PC MC neurosis that cripples any critical understanding of the primary Problem of Islam is not merely the province of "Leftists" over there: it is, in various degrees, in all Westerners, including those who are "in the Counter-Jihad".  And as we know from Psychology 101, if you don't realize you have a neurosis, you'll be less able to overcome it.  Those who are "in the Counter-Jihad" are particularly vulnerable to this kind of Denial, mainly because their self-identity is so dependant upon a bravado about being oh so tough on Islam.  Arthur Wagner, a political activist in the German anti-Islamization party AfD qualifies as being vulnerable in this way, even if he may not be, strictly speaking, "in the Counter-Jihad".  His previous allegiance to the party of Merkel, before he joined the AfD, likely continued to be present deep in his heart & mind; as PC MC is present in the heart & mind of nearly everyone "in the Counter-Jihad".  We can reasonably assume that Wagner's PC MC was a stronger psychological force than his new career as an "anti-Islamization" activist. So, rather than spend years developing incoherent ways of pretending to be anti-Islam while avoiding a condemnation of Muslims (as most in the Counter-Jihad seem to like to do), he found psychological release by going all the way, one way: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.