East of Eden

Here is my review of Ian Wishart's Eve's Bite, from this week's Craccum. And, in case you are wondering, the redhead with the exotic pet in the picture is not Eve but Lilith, Adam's first wife.

It's all gone horribly wrong. They don't teach proper history in schools anymore. They promote the homosexualist agenda. They teach Evolution. They say that sex, any kind of sex, is alright. They are destroying the family. They are brainwashing us with their ideologies. They are leading the West to its destruction.

Ian Wishart's trade is investigative journalism. He publishes a glossy monthly, Investigate, which does what it says on the cover. Every month he finds a new scandal, as often as not involving the Government. Wishart doesn't like the Government. He doesn't like what is happening in this country or in the West generally. He doesn't like modern society.

In this book, Wishart gathers up all his concerns about the modern world and attempts to create a grand theory that explains what is going on. Although Eve makes a striking appearance on the front cover, showing her usual seductiveness, she doesn't have a part to play in the book. Wishart avoids making many Biblical references but this is a book written from a Conservative Christians standpoint, addressing the fears that his fellow believers share. Its argument is that the West is declining, because our Christian values have been supplanted by those of atheism and Marxism. Meanwhile, Islam is gaining strength and one day will overcome us all.

He knows who is to blame. It's the Marxists; and the Darwinists; and the Eugenicists. These atheistic doctrines, we are told, are the Trojan Horse ideologies which are destroying the West. Like Eve, they are seductive, deceptive and dangerous. They have brought us to our knees and (ironically, given their atheism) exposed us to a greater evil still, Islam. The enemy within has allowed us to fall prey to the enemy at the gate.

To persuade us of the validity of his argument he has searched Internet for evidence. This is very much an Internet book. Most of his references come from websites like his own Briefing Room, where Christian Conservatives discuss the ills of society. He has also drawn on the work of Conservative megastar writers, such as Mark Steyn and Tammy Bruce; the chapter on Evolution is preceded by a quotation from Ann Coulter, who probably is not recognised by many as an expert on Biology. However, despite the multitude of sources from which he quotes at length, Wishart preserves enough of his own breathless and indignant style to make this a readable book.

So, what's it all about then? Here's a summary. The left are using the propaganda techniques of the Nazis; the Media is biased towards liberal opinion; Evolution is wrong; Richard Dawkins is wrong, both about Evolution and the Bible; the separation of Church and State is a myth; there is a Homosexual Agenda - and Wishart has read it; Homosexuals should not have children; Homosexuals are not born that way; the Government is indoctrinating our children; safe sex is a myth; birth control, abortion and euthanasia are all wrong; Eugenics is alive and well - and wrong. All this is weakening the West, fatally. Meanwhile Islam is resurgent. The Muslims are outbreeding us. Theirs is a political religion. Muslims pretend be peace-loving but that is all part of their plan. They are determined to take over the West.

What can be done? Apparently nothing; it's late. This book offers no solutions, only the hope that readers will awaken from their slumbers; the question of whether anything can be changed at this late stage is neither posed nor answered.

This is an ambitious book, to say the least. It is also written with an extraordinary degree of certainty. Wishart is a prophet with a message. There is no space here for any doubt or reflection. Whether or not he is right is another matter. His argument is a selective one. He concentrates on those aspects of history, science and sociology which interest conservative Christians, not quite succeeding in his attempt to create an overall theory out of these various discontents. Quite how the Theory of Evolution, for example, is part of the decline of the West is something of a mystery. Wishart stamps it with the label 'atheistic,' a characteristic it shares with Marxism and Eugenics, and that is seemingly enough to condemn it. He does try to show that almost everybody working in biology is a fool for believing the theory but, even if he were right, that would hardly be enough to claim that Evolution is contributing to our moral decline.

At times, Wishart's ambition gets the better of his understanding. For example, he attempts to get the better of Richard Dawkins by claiming that Dawkins does not understand the nature of the universe. Wishart sneeringly laments that Dawkins did not consult Stephen Hawking, who apparently would have told him that "when we talk of 'natural' laws, they apply only inside the natural universe. Outside the universe is a timeless realm, something we humans simply cannot conceive. It has no past, no future, only an enduring present." Apparently, "we know this because we know all the laws we take for granted came into existence for the purpose of this particular universe." Of course, A Brief History of Time is not an easy read, but Wishart here is under the misconception that there is something outside the universe. He is also claiming that the nature of this outside is inconceivable to us mere mortals, although he writes about it with the certainty of one who has witnessed it first hand.

For much of this book, Wishart's technique is not to engage in argument but to suggest guilt by association. He is convinced that there is a ruling elite of Marxists who control everything. To demonstrate this, he shoves great blocks of text into his narrative, quotes from infamous Marxists. So a diatribe against the content of the school curriculum is interrupted temporarily by a quotation from Trotsky about supporting atheist propaganda. Other than that, he has no real claim against what is being taught in schools. He just does not like children learning about Confucius or the Suffragettes, so he suggests it is all part of a Marxist plot.

The Nazis are everywhere in this book as well, quoted mostly for their views on propaganda and indoctrination. At one point Wishart even suggests a correlation between statements made about the Exclusive Brethren by Government Ministers and comments made by Hitler about the Jews. Far from being a telling argument, Wishart's analogies collapse into bathos, such as when he suggests that teacher training in modern New Zealand is "centralised at state facilities" and thus is similar to the Third Reich's requirement that all teachers belong to the Nazi Party.

It is a facile way to make an argument, which does not stand up. For all his outrage and indignation, Wishart fails to make the case that all of us, except the author himself, are being fooled by a cabal of Marxists, using the propaganda techniques of the Third Reich.

Still, this book is a best-seller and there will be many who take Wishart's warnings to heart. No doubt, we will be hearing them repeated relentlessly on talkback radio and in the letters section of our papers.