"What dismal, minor problems people solve with religion."

Ann Althouse's snarky libertarian take on a New York Times article about white, Western Brits who convert to Islam. The article is mainly focused on young men, for obvious reasons:

The potential vulnerability of converts to extremism — especially young men —is of particular concern now, considering that 3 of the 24 people arrested last week on suspicion of plotting to use explosives to blow up trans-Atlantic airplanes were converts. Neighbors and friends of the three have said that at least from the outside, it appeared that their transformations from aimless Western youths to highly observant Muslims were bewilderingly thorough. [ ... ]

Clearly, only a minuscule percentage of converts turn to active radicalism, and there are many reasons for converting: an admiration of Islamic texts and practices; a desire by women to remove themselves from what they perceive as the aggressive sexualization of Western life; the countercultural rebellion of the younger generation against their parents’ liberalism; a sense of outrage at Western policy in places like Iraq and Lebanon.

But among young people in Britain, a common theme seems to be adolescent anomie, a longing for answers in a world full of intractable questions. [ ... ]

[Radical] recruiters who single out converts or the newly pious tend to do it [ ... ] in universities and prisons, with their captive and impressionable populations.

Don't you just love that comparison of a university to a prison? (Don't they both have "campuses"?)

Adolescents are experimenting with their identities, trying on different ones anyway -- the more extreme, in one direction or the other, the better. (See here.) But this conversion phenomenon, like the growth of fundamentalist Christianity in America, is also a commentary on just how much independence and inner strength Western life demands of the individual, while applying centrifugal force to the very institutions that build that inner fortitude. Ironically, the post-WWII generation Ann and I belong to can generally (with exceptions) handle freedom because we were brought up so tight and square. Younger people who may have raised themselves as latchkey kids in a climate of more anarchic self-indulgence and family fragmentation are vulnerable to seeking the structure outside themselves that they have never experienced and don't have built in. Add an extra layer of susceptibility to extremism if you're an ex-con (like shoe bomber Richard Reid) or an ex-addict (like Abdul Waheed, the airplane-plot suspect whose late father was a local Conservative Party official).

Ann, naturally enough, zeroes in on one of the women, Yvonne Ridley, a journalist who converted after being kidnapped by the Taliban -- a woman who's obviously suffered from Stockholm syndrome, among other things. Ann gives her an amusing scolding that assumes inner resources a younger person may not have:

The West only represented libertinism and forced you to drink and have meaningless sex, so you had to jump into a system that imposed all sorts of limits on you. [ ... H]ow about controlling your own behavior and using some judgment about who gets to entertain himself with your body? And if you hadn't figured out how to do that yet, what made you competent to select a religion that tells you [what] to do. How can you decide you don't want to be free if you haven't yet learned what freedom is?

But the swing from libertine free-fall into the tight grip of totalitarian puritanism is really quite ominous:

Where women once tended to wear head scarves — even in her hometown of Bradford, in West Yorkshire — [Ridley] says that she sees many more in garments that cover their entire bodies, including their eyes. "It’s a political statement," she said.

For young white men in economically blighted sections of the north, where jobs are scarce and disaffection is high, she said, Islam speaks to their masculinity, offering a place of refuge and a solid political base from which to reject their heritage. "The greater Muslim community is transnational and supranational," she said. "It gives them an identify and a togetherness which is inevitably going to be against the West, because of their identity with other Muslims."

Comments

[Walrus]

Ironically, the post-WWII generation Ann and I belong to can generally (with exceptions) handle freedom because we were brought up so tight and square. Younger people who may have raised themselves as latchkey kids in a climate of more anarchic self-indulgence and family fragmentation are vulnerable to seeking the structure outside themselves that they have never experienced and don't have built in.

Now there's an idea that's worth playing with a little more.

[PatHMV]

As best I can tell, most available data suggests that the fastest growing religions/denominations in the world are the strictest, most fundamentalist ones, Islam and various Evangelical groups of Christians.

Young people want guidance. They say they want independence, but they also want somebody to set some limits. As Walrus suggests, they haven't gotten much of that from the often permissive upbringings, so they're looking for it elsewhere, and they're turning not to the middle-of-the-road, namby-pamby religions, but to the religions which aren't afraid to set real guidelines for how to live your life.

Human beings need balance in all things. Without balance, society starts swinging like a pendulum back and forth between extremes. If we bring back just a little more tradition in childrearing and religion, we would go a long way toward pulling people back from the extremes.

[wj]

On the other hand, there are a fair number of historical examples where puritanism wore out its welcome after a decade or two -- specifically with a lot of the same people who embraced it previously. And was followed by a liberalization far beyond what the puritan founders thought they were fighting. For those trying to endure the swing to rigidity, that may offer a reason to hold on.

[Micah]

If you haven't already, see Europe now before it gets overrun by the Islamic hordes. Really: sometime this century.

[David]

[T]here are many reasons for converting... a sense of outrage at Western policy in places like Iraq and Lebanon.

Converting out of a sense of political outrage? That doesn't sound like a good idea.

[forestwalker]

"The West only represented libertinism and forced you to drink and have meaningless sex, so you had to jump into a system that imposed all sorts of limits on you.... How can you decide you don't want to be free if you haven't yet learned what freedom is?"

Our culture isn't capable of teaching us what freedom is because it doesn't know itself. My generation is rejecting nihilism, not freedom. More and more are learning that freedom comes from Meaning. But God help those who are seduced into fundamentalism.

[Walrus]

Actually, Pat, I was quoting Amba, so I can't take any credit.

As a general rule, I would say moderation is a wiser course. If I had my life to live over, I would be stricter on some things, more lenient on others, but I think it is an essential part of child-raising that there be limits established and enforced. The existence of limits is almost more important than the nature of them. In other words, it's more important that you're saying no sometimes than what specifically you are saying no to. Almost.