"Islamolepsy"--classic psychological response

A Canadian author writes that the West is suffering from "Islamolepsy"--the self-styled opinion-makers and elite residents of Manhattan penthouse or Georgetown digs are catatonic when it comes to the threat from Islam.

Most seem to truly believe there's no problem. After all, most of them regard religion with distaste--if not outright contempt. And they've never been hurt or threatened for doing so. Thus they've unconsciously concluded that religious people must be peaceful and gentle.

So it follows logically--to them--that Islam can't be as bad as a few nutters are saying it is. (They rationalize 9/11 as being caused by the Bush administration.)

The Canadian does note that a few "elites" almost certainly do know that Islam represents an existential threat, but they don't speak up. Part of the reason is undoubtedly the herd mentality: Bucking the concensus view of their peers will get them kicked off the "A"-list for party invitations.

But there's another reason that's worth examining--because we've all experienced it to some extent, and it probably affects us all to some degree [italics below are mine]:

What we are observing, I suspect, is the onset of a debilitating disorder which manifests as a seizure of the mental organ, a lack of elasticity in responding to complex and threatening situations. It is as if the mind has been paralyzed by a variant form of cataleptic fit, characterized by fixity of posture, obliviousness to external stimuli, loss of control, and diminished sensitivity to pain. The malady is induced by profound emotional shock accompanied by withdrawal from reality — an unconscious way, perhaps, of amortizing the great multicultural blunder for which we are responsible but cannot admit to ourselves. Knowing subliminally that we have been instrumental in soliciting our own ruin, and too weak to respond decisively, the only asylum that remains is a species of dementia that shields us from the truth.

In other words, those who suffer from the distemper, as it emerges in the social and political sphere, are simply unable to acknowledge, absorb, and confront the magnitude of what is transpiring before their very eyes. They cannot discriminate among the external stimuli or recognize them for what they are. Suicide bombings, terrorist strikes, multiple casualties, stealth jihad, ...legal assaults, ...a billion-strong adversary riding the wave of the future — it is all too much for our Islamoleptic media, intelligentsia, entertainers, and political masters to fully take in. It appears they have sought refuge from the unassimilable in a classic fugue state...

I think this is right on target.