Madeleine Bunting (for, yes, it is she) once again shares her pain and bares her sweet, illiberal soul: 

Soon the state will have to turn to rationing to halt hyper-frantic consumerism.

Goodness. Not mere shopping, or even busy shopping, and certainly not the more prosaic, and rather more common, buying the things one needs. No, apparently “we” have unwittingly succumbed to hyper-frantic consumerism™. And so, bless me, the state will have to take a firm hand and save us from ourselves. Even conscientious Madeleine, surely a model to us all, will have to be brought to heel.

Is it enough to have halved family meat consumption, have foregone flights for several sun-starved years and arranged a life in which habits of cycling to work and walking to school are routine? No, it’s just scratching at the surface… The lives of our children will have to be dramatically different from everything we are currently bringing them up to expect.

Madeleine is, of course, unduly fond of the word “we” and all too willing to speak for others, even those whose views, and needs, may differ markedly from her own.

All this consumption is not necessary to our happiness… A low-consumption economy wouldn’t mean misery. But what’s disturbing is how we continue to shop when it doesn’t make us happier… The more insecure you are, the more materialistic; the more materialistic, the more insecure.

Again, one has to marvel at how dear Madeleine rarely misses an opportunity to tell us how we feel about things she doesn’t like. However, her vision of a “low-consumption economy” may not bring joy to everyone, entailing as it does “a dramatic drop in household consumption.” This unquestionably righteous end will, it seems, be achieved not by “the good intentions of individuals”, but as a result of

the government orchestrating a massive propaganda exercise combined with a rationing system and a luxury tax.

At this point one might note that Ms Bunting’s opposition to propaganda and an overbearing state in, say, matters of counter-terrorism coexists quite happily with a call for an overbearing state, overbearing to a much greater and wider extent, in spheres our columnist finds personally congenial. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bunting’s blueprint for a stricter, happier, greener tomorrow is rather short on practical detail, and shorter still on its implications. Would a “luxury tax” compensate, even remotely, for the dramatically lowered tax base resulting from severely curtailed consumerism and the spread of hair shirt ethics? What of the redistributive efforts and public services that so animate Ms Bunting and her colleagues? What, exactly, would this rationing and luxury tax cover, and how might it work?

Would the state monitor all of my purchases, and yours, and rate each one on a scale of necessity, frugality and moral uprightness? Would the thermostats of public buildings be doctored to ensure suitably modest levels of heating? And what about private spaces – your home, for instance? How, and by whom, would a person’s improper energy consumption be compiled, judged and penalised? Will there be a national, perhaps trans-national, database (in which we’ll have great confidence), monitoring each individual’s compliance with designated quotas? And will such things, as Maddy suggests, make “us” feel more secure and so much happier?

Update:

Norm ponders Maddy’s permagloom and suggests we go shopping, while the Devil is a little more… blunt in his analysis.

Update 2:

Praise Gaia, a solution is at hand.   

Related. And. 

No matter how many times I’ve read variations of the same, there remains something jarring about these lines,

The protesters gathered in Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace in the capital, many of them carrying knives and sticks. Marchers chanted ‘Shame, shame on the UK’, ‘No tolerance – execution’ and ‘Kill her, kill her by firing squad’.

being immediately preceded by this one.

The marchers took to the streets after Friday prayers.

The advantages of learning English. // Egg vending machine, Japan. More. // 1000 frames of Hitchcock. Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, the whole shebang. (h/t, Coudal.) // Bid for this bear. He’s called Muhammad. // Animals preserved in formalin. // Kim Keever’s aquarium art. // Shark versus octopus. // Underwater babies. // Animated short by Christoph Grosse Hovest. (h/t, Savage Popcorn.) // Remote control air ray. // The early aviator. Zeppelins, fantasies, aerial combat. // Aero-medicine. Part 2. (1956) // Planet Earth: plaything of sci-fi. // Batman by Dostoyevsky. // Batman Mystery Club: The Monster of Dumphrey’s Hall. mp3 (1950) // Mary Jackson on vegetarianism. “Vegans are whey-faced, cadaverous lunatics, but they are consistent.” // Devil’s Kitchen on liberty, property and the evils of Socialism. Discuss. // Peter Hitchens visits Pyongyang. “The sensation of living in an enormous institution, part boarding school, part concentration camp, is greatly enhanced by the sound of mass alarms.” // Wim Delvoye’s gothic machinery. Yes, it’s him. // Metal shutter houses. // The panoramas of Will Pearson. // A minor history of miniature writing. // Jean Pierre Lepine’s ergonomic pen. Stationary hell. // Assorted drafting templates. (h/t, Vitruvius.) // The museum of reel-to-reel tape recorders. // Rome’s museum of ancient art. // The museum of high-heeled shoes. // Robert Full on cockroach legs and robotic feet. // And, via The Thin Man, Your Feet’s Too Big.

Robert Spencer responds to Ed Husain’s Guardian article, in which he claims that Spencer, Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are playing into the hands of jihadists:

The contention is that because I – and Hirsi Ali, and Ibn Warraq, and others – point out that there is a broad and deeply rooted tradition of violence and supremacism within Islam, therefore we are marginalising other Islamic traditions and legitimising bin Laden. In saying this, Husain implies that jihadism is a clear Islamic heresy, and that there is a broad tradition within Islam that rejects violence against non-Muslims and Islamic supremacism – and that Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq and I are ignoring or downplaying it out of some base motives. Bin Laden or someone like him invented jihadism and grafted it onto a religion that has otherwise peaceful teachings.

In reality, however, while there are a few courageous reformers out there, all – not just one, or a few, but all – the orthodox sects and schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach that it is part of the responsibility of the Islamic community to wage war against unbelievers and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law (references can be found here). There is no sect or school recognised as orthodox that rejects this. It is not playing into bin Laden’s hands to point it out; in fact, it is playing into bin Laden’s hands to deny it and denigrate those who point out that it is so, for there can be no reform of what one will not admit needs reforming.

Indeed. What’s interesting to me is how Husain’s transformation from extremist to ‘moderate’ seems to involve a denial of jihad’s historical and theological lineage and ultimately hinges on a conception of Muhammad that is, to say the very least, open to question: 

For me, it is [Muhammad’s] guidance, compassion, humanity, warmth, love, kindness that rescued me, and others, from Islamist extremism… His was a smiling face. His tomb in Medina today radiates the peace and serenity to which he was called.

And herein lies a problem. Any remotely critical, contextualised reading of Muhammad’s life, rule and purported ‘revelations’ will call into question Husain’s rather sugary imaginings. Assertions of Muhammad’s “compassion” or “kindness” are easily contested, often abrogated, and do little to inhibit jihadists who know their theology and history quite well, perhaps better than Mr Husain. Those who use Muhammad’s own words and example as a mandate for violence, coercion and atrocity are unlikely to be convinced by talk of “smiling faces” and radiant tombs. And the phenomenon of global jihad, arguably the issue of the age, will not be made to go away by ignoring its deep and problematic roots.

There are, of course, countless degrees of religious affiliation and many believers will be remarkably ignorant of their supposed prophet’s life and less edifying deeds. Many will know only the sketchiest and most sanitised accounts of who and what Muhammad was. More to the point, there will among many be a strong emotional disinclination to look critically at the founder of their religion – and at what that might imply about their own credulity. The potential for dissonance and resentment – to say nothing of embarrassment – is pretty obvious.

Judging by his Guardian article, Ed Husain seems to have lurched from Islamist to ingénue without pausing to reflect on the question of whether his belief in Muhammad as a numinous figure is fundamentally misplaced. Perhaps this isn’t too surprising. If a believer were to look critically at the most reliable accounts of Muhammad’s life, it would, I think, be difficult to reconcile the man’s supposedly numinous status with his actual behaviour. Could such a questionable figure really be a timeless example and inspired by the divine? And doesn’t that kind of question risk undermining the entire, dubious, edifice?

Update: Mary Jackson has more on Mr Husain’s contortions.

Related. And. Also. Plus.

Bankroll my blasphemy.

No, not a fearsome extraterrestrial STD. Meet Kent “Toast” French, the world’s fastest clapper. 12 claps per second? 721 claps per minute? No problem.

So, does ultraclapping count as a super-power? Via Coudal.