Another bone I have to pick—practically a whole pyramid of skeletons now—with David P. Goldman is that in his book How Civilisations Die (and why Islam is dying too) he says that we need to humiliate Iran in particular and Muslims more generally. This is a terrible idea; never humiliate a man—either kill him or leave him alone; if you humiliate him, you make him your enemy for life. If we were to humiliate Iran—Islam more generally—we would stir up permanent Holy War; not to mention the fact that humiliation is ignoble and unmanly.
Why does Goldman suggest it? The Jews—as with women and leftists—have been shown by psychological tests and Woody Allen films to be high in trait neuroticism. A neurotic person feels emotional affect more strongly—both negative and positive (Oy vey!). Hence, to their mind, humiliation is a terrible thing—neurotics are sociable people, to be humiliated in front of everyone is the worst thing they can imagine (worse than death). This is why the Red Guards put dunce hats on teachers and officials during the Cultural Revolution—leftist, feminine humiliation. Rub their noses in it!
We tend to threaten people with what we ourselves fear (so watch out when a person makes a threat, he has revealed his weakness and fear—perhaps turn it against him…). Ergo, Goldman fears humiliation—probably because he is high in trait neuroticism. However, if we followed his advice and humiliated Iran and Islam—acted like women, not men—the result would be a massive prolonged inter-civilisational war, not an end to our woes with Islam (as Goldman promises). So there is no need to befoul or spit upon the Iranians and Islam—we just have to be men about it and deal with the practical realities; and, indeed, no reality is more practical than that expressed by Jesus—a man who refrained from humiliation and vengeance, a man who refrained from the instigation of inter-civilisational bloodshed.