This picture from France posted on Drudge is both sad and funny.

The Diversity Coalition marching in unity against the logical results of the diversity

The obvious humor comes from the fact that Netanyahu looks like he would rather be anywhere but in that procession with those idiots. Israel has no illusions about diversity and multiculturalism. What happened in Paris last week is what Israelis call a typical day.

Merkel looks like she is at a funeral. Hollande is hugging onto her like he is the oldest son in the family, supporting mom through it. The black guy is an ornament placed there to reinforce the multiculturalism, which was the point of the parade. The incessant yapping about unity and conformity in the face of barbarity is of course just another reminder that dissent will not be tolerated. The irony would be hilarious if not so tragic.

When I was a boy, events like this meant the churches would be busy. The regulars would be joined by the irregulars and even the skeptics. The priest or minister would remind the flock of their obligations and say a special prayer for those who suffered. That was the extent of public ceremonies in the face of tragedies and terrible events.

A quarter century ago or so the candlelight vigil got going. When something bad happened, church was taken outdoors to some public place. That way a whole bunch of strangers could “share” their feelings about the event. At first the ministers and priests presided, but they gave way to the minor public figures. I guess priests and ministers were too divisive.

Now these things have a formalized ritual where the leaders of the cult make their public acts of piety for the rest of us, like priests sacrificing an animal to the gods. All public events these days have been hijacked by this deranged religion, the post-modern version of the Totenehrung.

Go to a ball game and they take time out for various ceremonies to reinforce the one true faith. “Please direct your attention to the end of the field as we honor the first one legged lesbian Elvis impersonator of color…” Inevitably she was a victim of something and “overcame it” with “courage” to be a pest. Everyone is supposed to cheer, which they do, because that’s how this stuff works.

The insanity of the official European response is to double down on that which caused this event. Multiculturalism is the ideology that asserts biology and culture are social constructs. Therefore they can be altered and arranged by human agents to conform to the societal goals of the rulers. Since the people keep self-selecting along biological, cultural and linguistic lines, the remedy is to forcibly integrate disparate people.

The fact that the Muslims imported into Europe hate European culture and they hate Europeans is assiduously ignored. The fact that the native populations don’t much care for Muslims is ruthlessly punished. The attacks in Paris are a natural result of these policies. Yet, the public ceremony in response to it is turned into a warning to those who dissent from multiculturalism.

The other day, I read a book on the Late Bronze Collapse in the Aegean and Near East. The issue has been a topic of debate for a century or more. Every new excavation or new technological discovery clouds the issue. It was originally thought that swarms of people form the north overwhelmed these societies. New evidence of natural disasters, famine, revolts and inter-dependency suggest it was more complicated.

What seems clear to me is that the sociopolitical arrangements of the palace economy could not hold up to the march of technology. It was not that new technology disrupted the old arrangements. It was that the volume of trade and commerce overwhelmed the capacity of the palace system to manage it. Since the palace system was the pole holding up the tent, when it fell the whole system broke down quickly.

The West is facing a similar crisis. The system erected after the wars of nationalism of the early 20th century was always flawed. The efforts to address those flaws (low fertility, automation, labor shortages) have imported new problems that the original system was not designed to address. The phenomenon of “homegrown terrorism” is the result of these internal conflicts. Muslims imported to address the need for labor reject assimilation into the host country. Because confrontation on cultural grounds is officially forbidden, leaders are left with various forms of appeasement and compromise.

The only way compromise can work is if the compromise satisfies the wants of both parties. If either side feels they got short changed, they will come back for more, eventually. That’s the dilemma faced by the West. No matter how satisfied they are by the compromise, the other side is never satisfied. The only thing the West can offer the other side that will be satisfactory is their neck.

The other side is just as irrational. A Europe dominated by Islam will be just as backward and materially impoverish as every other Muslim society. The Arabs flooding European cities go there for the material benefits. A Muslim version of Dresden will simply be a much colder version of Ankara. The great conflict within Islam is the fact their religion is a cultural dead end. You can be Muslim and have an Iron Age society or you can have a modern society without Islam or a radically different version of Islam.

Just as the palace system proved to be inadequate for managing global trade and growing populations, multiculturalism is proving inadequate to address the clash of peoples brought on my globalism. No one has an alternative that the ruling class can stomach so they stick with multiculturalism, growing ever more fanatical trying to make it work. The people so fond of saying they are on the side of history may very be about to be swept away by the tide of history.