The Cosmic Coffin

clipped from www.theaugeanstables.com Perhaps the most striking element of the modern progressive concern for the “other” — and one of the great ironies of our “other”-oriented post-modern age — is that the “other” is really an abstract. He or she has no face, no autonomy, no concrete presence and personality — a mental construct. And so despite all the concern in Western thought about meeting, experiencing, and dialoguing with the “other” — itself an exceptional (and civic) cultural development — the most prominent practitioners seem the least ready to really meet, really experience, and really speak with the Muslim “other.” And anyone who dares suggest that the experience might not be very pleasant is banished as an Islamophobe. We may be committing suicide with our lack of willingness to have the courage to live up to our own values and actually encounter the “other” as an “other” and not as a pleasing projection onto the cosmic coffin of our narcissistic souls.