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I have mentioned before that I reflect a lot on long-deceased relatives who were raised in straitened circumstances, earned college degrees, ascended to the middle class and spent the rest of their lives marveling at and extolling the civilization that made all of this possible.

As a Southerner of British and Irish heritage, I am thoroughly ambivalent about Israel and value it only to the degree that it serves the interests of the West. But I will never understand why more young people who, driven by their hatred for the civilization that has secured so many freedoms and blessings for them, would go to such lengths to abjure it, embracing a faith that in some forms embodies a searing, implacable hatred of the West and all of the civilizational, scientific and technological achievements associated with it.

I am reminded of a saying my parents repeated to me time again and again as they helped me work through one of my occasional inconsolable childhood rages and the self-defeating behavior that invariably followed: “You’re tearing off your nose to spite your face!”

This mad dash to Islam by disillusioned women is interesting within the wider context of religious history. Roughly a century ago, the British Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc perceived a similar appeal with radical Protestantism. All of this underscores how the sheer complexity of Western civilization, despite all of the material and intellectual effects it has created, is, in historical terms, radically new and, needless to say, jarring to the human experience.

Many of you likely were as affected by the classic film “Dances with Wolves” as I was and likely for the same reason: It depicted in a brilliantly disruptive and creative way why quite a few 18th and 19th century whites went “native” and why others chose to return to tribal life after being “rescued” by other whites. There really is something about minimalist lifestyles that appeal to moderns.

Speaking of movie classics, the enduring appeal of “Being There” essentially reflects a similar yearning. We – some of us, at least – find something far removed from the complexity and noise of modern life to be deeply appealing.

Perhaps it is not all that surprising a comparatively lean religion of the book such as Islam and, for that matter, very radical forms of Protestantism arguably generate the same appeal in terms of offering a more approachable form of curating all of this complexity bound up with modern life.

The appeal of minimalism among younger people also is interesting to me and arguably speaks volumes about a deep yearning to restore some mastery over life.

That is the remarkable thing about culture and civilization: It is characterized by nuance and a stunning degree of complexity. None of us ever succeed in mastering it entirely, which should not be at all surprising to any serious student of history.

Even so, speaking as a serious student of history, particularly of religion, I am not convinced that conversion to Islam, at least the radical forms of it, constitutes an adequate solution.