Refutation of the Capitalist Western Thought by Hizb Ut Tahrir

The modern, liberal movement of Enlightenment opposes the concept of sexual repression, inherited from the Church, with the concept of unleashed, sexual expression and sexual liberation. It established a new idea related to the relationship between man and woman, which is limited to masculinity and femininity i.e. confined to sexual relations between them. So the concepts of the Western people about honor, chastity and private intimate relations between the two sexes, were eroded. A sexual culture appeared that promoted eroticism and pornography, reducing women to commodities, whilst adultery and fornication became prevalent amongst men and women in European nations, from the nineteenth century CE, with some exceptions, like Victorian England, as is said. This sexual culture is amongst the manifestations of freedom and so it was not linked with marriage or the intention of child birth to form a family.

For instance, France reduced punishment for adultery after the revolution, whilst the Napoleonic Code stipulated that any sexual behavior undertaken by consenting adults, is not punishable. In the twentieth century CE, a transformation took place in the entire West, due to a combination of factors. The launch of freedom to have sex without restriction, led to the spread of obscene practices. Groups were formed according to their sexual deviations, within a proliferation, such as homosexuality, lesbianism, sadism and masochism. Industries were established for the sex trade and to promote sex through media, films and magazines. Researches and studies appeared, conducted by psychologists and psychoanalysts, such as Wilhelm Reich. Their subject was regarding strengthening sexual drive or sexual energy, termed libido by Freud, and to call for sexual freedom. Psychologist Abraham Maslow granted sex a status within his famous hierarchy of needs, alongside physiological, organic needs such as breathing, drinking and eating. The feminist movement also supported sexual liberation, which it saw as liberating woman from the shackles of marriage, motherhood, family, men and patriarchy.

All these factors accumulated over decades in the Western society, culminating in what is known as the sexual revolution, extending from the sixties, until the eighties of the twentieth century CE. The revolution ended with the gradual recognition of the rights of homosexuals, such as the freedom to practice homosexuality and marry, amongst others. Here we are at the beginning of the third decade of the twenty-first century CE, where all manner of deviant and abnormal practices are permitted, to the point that they even exceed the decline of the cities of Sodom and Pompeii, in what was recorded in history.

In fact, such a Western view about sexual relationships within humanity are based on releasing the instinct without restrictions, in a status and manner of satiation that is invalid, contradicting both the intellect and the human nature (fitra). Its invalidity appears in itself in terms of the intellectual view of the basis upon which it was established, as well as its practical results in terms of its detrimental impact on society and humans.

Western thinking has acknowledged the existence of factors that push man to satiate the instinct. The West has examined all the factors, under the name of instincts and classified them within multiple divisions. In all this, it is worth noting that the Westerners did not distinguish between two matters, in most of their research. The first is the difference between the organic needs and instincts. The second is the difference between instincts and their manifestations.

The West considered sex as a natural necessity that must mandatorily be satiated. In other words, the West views the sexual act as an organic need. The West views that preventing sexual satiation, by suppression or repression, would lead to destructive consequences for both individuals and communities. Accordingly, they unleashed satiation within what is called sexual expression, whilst agitating arousal. However, the fact is that sex is not an organic need, but an instinct. Organic needs such as breathing, eating, drinking and defecating are distinct from instincts, with respect to the necessity of satiation. Prevention of the satiation of organic needs will lead to destruction, inevitably. So, the failure to breathe, eat or drink will lead to death. However, as for the instincts, they do not necessarily have to be satiated. Prevention of the satiation of instincts does not lead to destruction and will not cause death, although it will lead to anxiety, agitation, misery and discomfort. No-one has ever died through not having sex and the evidence for that is the reality of humankind in general.

Organic needs are also distinguished from instincts, with respect to arousal by stimulus. Organic needs are stimulated by internal requirements, whilst the instinct is aroused by an external stimulus. Organic needs require satiation for internal requirements, as the body must survive. In contrast, instincts do not require satiation from within in origin, naturally, other than what is influenced from externally. So, the instincts are not aroused from internal requirements. Instead, instincts are aroused by external stimulus, in terms of a stimulating tangible reality or a stimulating thought depicting a tangible reality, including all that falls within the meaning of stimulus. If such an external stimulus was not to be found, then there is no arousal of the instinct. Furthermore, the demand for satiation in both quality and quantity is linked to the arousal. The less the external stimulus, the less will be the desire.

Furthermore, the West in general does not distinguish between the instinct and its manifestations. It is apparent from the books and studies of the Western psychologists, who carried the perception that the sexual act itself is an instinct and not as a manifestation of the instinct of procreation.

The difference between the two perspectives is critically important because of the consequences related to what is intended, according to the respective perspectives. Whoever views the sexual act as an instinct will make sex itself a purpose, whilst whoever views sex as a manifestation of the instinct of procreation, will focus on a purpose, other than the sexual act, defining its status and manner accordingly. Based on this differentiation, human behavior towards sex is determined in terms of how much influence and impact it has on the life of individuals and society. There are those amongst the Westerners who do differentiate the sexual aspect into instinct and its manifestation. They say that sex serves the purpose of procreation, whilst they assert a contradiction between the objective of nature, as they call it, and the objective of the human. They defined the objective of nature as childbirth, whilst the objective of humans is to attain the greatest level of pleasure from orgasm, as mentioned in the book, Origins of the Sexual Impulse by Colin Wilson. This Western view is invalid because it diverts the attention of man away from the actual instinct as a whole, to just one of its manifestations. Thus, the branch is focused upon rather than the root. So the objective of humans becomes to achieve sexual pleasure as much as possible, with no consideration regarding the continuity of the human species. This leads man to subversion and perversion in search of all forms of depravity, such as necrophilia, zoophilia, hypoxyphilia and others, that deprive man of his humanity.

As for the consequence and impact of this view about sexual relationships upon humanity in general and the Western society in particular, it is evident that it has led to many evils in the West. These include:

- Changing the reality of woman from her original status of being a mother, housewife and honor that must be protected, into merely a sexually desirable commodity. The West does not pay attention to her humanity, but only to her sexual femininity.

- The dominance of an artificial, visual form for woman, represented by a glamorous, sexualized body, that leads to physical and mental diseases amongst women, such as anorexia nervosa.

- The abandoning of the concept of the family and its necessity for society.

- The corruption and disintegration of family relations, failure of marriages and frequent divorce, despite falling numbers of marriages.

- The abandoning of the responsibility of fathers towards their children, whom state institutions then foster and educate. This is aligned to the concept of professional caregiving, which is held as superior to natural, familial caregiving by some.

- Fornication and prostitution became so rampant that they became norms, as did the increase in abortion and the birth of children from fornication and adultery, whom the West formerly called illegitimate children.

- The spread of marital infidelity and the lack of trust between spouses.

- The spread of homosexuality, which brought with it dangerous diseases and psychological problems.

- The prevalence of rape and frequent sexual abuse of children.

- The slowing of demographic growth and the aging of Western society. This is a result of neglecting the basis of the instinct, which is the survival of the species, procreation. This is the issue that threatens the existence of the West as a whole. In his book, The Death of the West, conservative US politician, Patrick Joseph (Pat) Buchanan warned, “the Death of the West is not a prediction of what is going to happen, it is a depiction of what is happening now. First World nations are dying. They face a mortal crisis, not because of something happening in the Third World, but because of what is not happening at home and in the homes of the First World. Western fertility rates have been falling for decades.”.

In fact, the natural sexual desire of humans can be either suppressed, unleashed or organized. Suppression contradicts the nature of the human instinct that needs to be satiated. However, unleashing, within what is called sexual expression, abandoning all constraints and focusing on satiation alone, also contradicts the reality of its nature of being a manifestation of the instinct of procreation. It is wrong to neglect the root and focus on the branch. Accordingly, it was an inevitable consequence that the community view changed in the West from the continuity of humanity, to the relationship between men and women as males and females, in other words, sexual relations alone. This community view must be changed from focusing on pleasure and enjoyment alone, to a view that makes this pleasure and enjoyment a natural, inevitable consequence of satiation. This alone makes the community focused on the purpose for which this instinct exists, which is the survival of the species.

Both the satiation and the purpose of the instinct can be achieved with this community view. Tranquility will inevitably be realized for a community that adopts this concept. This is the correct view that convinces to the mind and agrees with the human nature (fitra). Despite the West knowing the corruption of its view through the catastrophic consequences it unleashed on society, the West refuses to acknowledge the truthfulness of the Islamic view, out of its own arrogance and stubbornness, because Islam contradicts the two concepts represented as the pillars of its civilization, i.e. freedom and individualism.