Western culture suffers from a historical narrative of self-hatred.

What I define as a 'culture of self-hatred' is the attitude that Europeans should be ashamed of their Europeaness, in the way that the French should feel sorry for their Frenchness, according to Kinouani's article. If a migrant in Beijing would complain that the culture there is too Chinese, people would not even take it seriously. It is commonly accepted that European culture is built on three pillars: Classical Antiquity, Christianity (both Catholic and Protestant) and the Enlightenment. I think that all three have contributed in positive and negative ways to the modern self-image of Europeans. In this regard self-criticism is a great good that can be helpful in discerning the path to the future. Since the Enlightenment there has been an honest exchange of differing ideas which definitely contributed to a society that emphasizes personal freedoms. But after the Second World War, under the influence of the Frankfurter School, this exchange of ideas has been primarily destructive of the European identity and largely in favor of minority groups. What I am referring to is what the contemporary Left calls 'identity politics'. In political terms it emphasizes the identity of a person through loosely correlated social organizations based on race, gender, religion and social class. Now, in itself there seems to be nothing wrong with that; we all base our identity on categories such as these. However, cultural Marxism (the rhetorical exponent of identity politics) views these identities as being caught in an eternal warfare between ever more narrowly defined groups of offended minorities. Don't get me wrong, of course I agree that minorities should be protected, have a right to express their opinions and that they should have equal rights, but if you ask me whether they should dictate policy, my answer is strictly: 'no'. Simply because it is undemocratic. In this regard it is interesting that today the media no longer represents the opinion of the majority, but instead the ideology of a liberal elite. Not just the ideal of the 'exotic' and the 'golden age' are constructs that are lacking, reality (as it is presented in the media) unfortunately is too. Evidence of this is the 'silent majority' or so-called 'deplorables'. In other words, people who do not have a PhD and who do not have a lot of influence in the media and politics but who belong to the working and middle class. These are the people who voted for Brexit and Trump. In this respect, the silent majority is the product of an ever more omnipresent and homogeneous media landscape. On the Charlie Hebdo: the author clearly states (in the title itself) that the magazine will spark more terrorist attacks. Denying it is something else then refuting it. About the inauthentic behaviour she observed, I'm not so sure about that. As an example she gives a younger generation (who probably know the French language better) and fake their Frenchness when in fact they grew up in France and are French. But the author sees this as a betrayal of their migrant background. Concerning Jesus an whether or not He would agree: I think that Christ greatly valued the tradition handed down by the patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. However, He would not accept any interpretation of this tradition that would be contrary of the love of God. On Scott's novel: like any other novel, is a product of fiction. Therefore it does not abide by the rules of reality, but by the rules of the author's imaginary world. Scott's imaginary world is the product of a psychological construct which is distorted by his personal admiration of oriental civilization and the anti-Christian attitude of the Enlightenment (however unbelievable such a construct might be).