Behind ISIS Attacks, a Hatred of Urbanism

The car-through-a-crowd mode of terrorist attack, used to such monstrous effect in Nice, Berlin, Brussels and now London, seems chillingly appropriate to the Islamist agenda and worldview.

Far-right, ultraconservative groups like ISIS have a particular hatred of cities, those wicked seats of diversity, cosmopolitanism and tolerance. Even worse is what is symbolized by the promenade, the public gathering space, long a symbol of openness and urban comity. Here people come to relax, to mix and mingle, to revel in the beauty of nature, architecture, and each other; to see and be seen.

Ultraconservatives hate all of this. Theirs is a world of enforced modesty, rigid social conduct and single-minded attendance to a particular religious and cultural view. Diversity, whether of thought, dress or manner, is to be condemned, even attacked.

So to be able to drive a truck into the heart of a public gathering area—a plaza, a promenade, a busy pedestrian walkway—especially one where people are enjoying all the best of what urban life has to offer—must be especially satisfying to them

I see the same sentiments at work in the minds of some on the far right in America. When Adam Purinton shot two Indian immigrants in a bar in Olathe, KS last month, he was probably angry about more than just immigration policy. He felt a visceral hatred of the whole scene, so much so that his bigotry erupted into murderous anger; a loathing of the very idea that foreign men could be relaxing and enjoying themselves on the patio of a bar on a warm evening.

There’s a fear operating of a type similar to the deep-seated loathing of integration in the Old South, the idea of men and women of different races simply enjoying each other’s company. What else could account for the segregation of parks, movie theaters, restaurants, pools? Downtowns, especially, needed to be strictly controlled. Civil rights activists knew what they were doing when they infiltrated lunch counters and public plazas, popular stages of civic engagement. (That these downtowns were subsequently abandoned by the middle class for suburban strip malls, bereft of public space, accessible only by car and isolated by acres of asphalt, is no accident.)

Hatred of cities as dens of vice and loose morals is as old as cities themselves. Of course, plenty of vice and loose morals can be found in the hinterlands as well. The very existence of a stable, functional multicultural city represents, for some, cognitive dissonance they can’t easily tolerate, a living breathing affront to notions of what constitutes “proper” society, and what their ideology teaches them ought to succeed. No wonder they lash out.

Letting it be All About Trump Did Not Help Hillary

My thoughts on Shaun King’s “Why the Democratic Party seems to have no earthly idea why it is so damn unpopular,” which got a lot of play on social media a couple of weeks ago.

From a branding standpoint, Hillary’s problem is a good reflection of the Democratic party’s problem. In the last weeks before the election, in a swing state, we in Pennsylvania were treated to a deluge of ads attacking Trump for his outrageous behavior and statements. Problem is, everyone had already made up their mind by then whether they cared about his comments about women etc. and how it would affect their vote.

What we should have seen were profiles of all the good work Hillary has done over her decades in public life. The work on behalf of children and families. (For the swing vote in a heavily Catholic state) her efforts to make abortion, as she once put it, “safe and rare” through better health care options. What she did for New York after 9-11.

Democrats do a poor job of driving the narrative. This has been true at least  since Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America in ’94. Democrats support universal healthcare—hell, they passed a pretty well-known law instituting it in 2010—and minimum wage, immigration reform, alternative energy, marijuana decriminalization, and end to fracking (very prominently on the state level in PA, NY and elsewhere)… for King to say mainstream Dems are not part of these battles is not true.