Metamorphic MAGGOTS

 In mid-January 2015 I wrote a semi tongue-in-cheek post titled Metamorphic Muslims.

Tongue-in-cheek discourse allows one to creep up close to the edge of a lot of things that might best be left unsaid, or, even, unthought.

Such was the case with the post here referred to.

I noticed recently that this post has begun to get some new attention.

Since I wrote it seven years ago, I had no idea what it said; being curious, I clicked and read.

Here it is with a key piece of the text highlighted.

A couple of days ago I posted a brief thought about the apparently universal reaction of individual muslims to the terrorist organizations and the individual terrorists who do their actions of terror under the banner of islam.

That reaction, I pointed out, is “they aren’t muslims”.

Since that is a rather bland assertion and since it is totally contrary to the “we are muslims” assertions of those about whom they are making it, I have been puzzled.

That puzzlement led to the post about the phenomenon.

To unpuzzle it – so I could do my post – I needed to cast around for some intellectual scaffolding upon which I could hang an apparent dichotomy: on the one hand there are a lot of koran quoting individuals who claim to be muslims and indulge in acts of horror; on the other hand there are a lot of other koran quoting individuals who claim to be muslims but don’t indulge in acts of horror; the latter claim that the former are not muslims.

I couldn’t see any religious affiliation difference between the terrorists and the non terrorists.

Thus I was puzzled.

Then I found the necessary scaffolding and was able to hang the dichotomy on it and thus unscramble the puzzle.

And so the post of a few days ago.

And so the comment, “neat trick”.

The key to the trick is: the horror group are “radicalized”; the “they aren’t muslims” group are “non radicalized”.

So “being radicalized” is the difference.

Maybe that would point to “they are radicalized” as being a more accurate statement than “they aren’t muslims”, but what the heck. A neat trick is a neat trick.

That perception had the beguiling characteristic of allowing me to accept that ‘neat trick” as a valid sort of verbal and intellectual gymnastics.

Since posting that personal revelation something about it has been goading my subconscious to do a little more thinking.

I have had the feeling that I have left something out.

This morning I figured it out.

I definitely have left something out.

Two words need to be added to “non radicalized”.

Those words are “not yet”.

Given the vagaries involved with becoming “radicalized” (does this phenomenon occur only to muslims?) and given the fact that the French have six or seven million “not yets” in their midst, I can see how the average non muslim French person might have to stifle an occasional bout of paranoia.  

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From the vantage of over seven years the words in red scream at me.

The phenomenon definitely occurs outside of the muslim community.

Non-MAGGOT Americans saw a grotesque example of that fact on January 6, 2021.

And right here in Downtown Love the Constitution and Rule of Law Land we have been spared the "not yet" stage.

So we need not live, as are the French, in a Limbo of uncertainty: thirty percent or so of our fellows have jumped in one fell swoop straight on to Blood and Gore.

In our case, though, the catalyst has not been the vagaries of interpretation of sacred texts.

It has been, and continues to be, the chief maggot.

How nice.