Horrorism and Other Isms

Last weekend, Martin Amis published a long essay in the Observer about the “Age of Horrorism.” I have a response of sorts up on the Guardian Comment Is Free. Here is an excerpt:

Radical Islam is wholly deserving of the contempt that Amis shows it, and yet I remain unconvinced by his assurances of respect for Islam. Indeed, most of his essay is couched in classic “clash of civilizations” rhetoric, using terms that have become so hackneyed in our global culture as to lose meaning. Amis argues that the world has entered “an age of terror,” where the West, a place “where there are no good excuses for religious belief,” is under threat from the east, a region where “almost every living citizen…is intimately defined by religious belief.” Furthermore, the specific culprit within the east is “Islam,” but within the west it is “30 years of multicultural relativism.”

You can read more here.