Harry's Place

“All peoples possess a culture, but this does not mean all cultures are equally valid and commendable.”

How obvious this is but how difficult it still seems to be for many Western intellectuals to say it. Anyone with any intellectual training whatsoever knows that cultural relativism is a ridiculous logical fallacy but still we see evidence of the cultural cringe everywhere.

And of course still the idiot far Left and their devious scum leaders go on with their garbage re “gay imperialism” and the like with results as we have seen for Peter Tatchell recently while other bien pensant liberals stick their heads in the sand and ignore the issue.

“Where some strands of multiculturalism have gone off the rails is in their institutionalisation of difference through initiatives like the state funding of faith schools, which factionalises pupils along religious lines.

Another big error by some multiculturalists has been to bow to demands for cultural sensitivity by tacitly accepting that some peoples and communities can be exempt from the norms of universal human rights.” – Peter Tatchell quoted by Brett above.

I have always seen the issue in these terms and now others who did not – and angrily at times insisted otherwise – are beginning to see these flaws in ‘multiculturalism’ in practice. A pity it has taken so long and required Mr Tatchell’s reputation to be cynically traduced for this to happen.

The obvious retort to Peter Tatchell’s concept of multiculturalism is that it is ‘eurocentric’ and at root Judeo-Christian. I embrace this willingly but I am certain others will not, whether from a ‘religious’ or ‘political’ fundamentalist perspective. For them the attraction of multiculturalism are those very aspects which occasioned Peter Tatchell’s observations in this speech.

Evenso, well done Peter. It needed to said.

A phony present condemning a phony past, in the name of a phony future.

but this does not mean all cultures are equally valid and commendable. For whom and to whom?

It’s easy to erect universal standards – I could throw a bomb into the conversation, pick on an aspect of anotehr culture some find valuable and point out how according to a universal precept it is monstrous.

By doing so I would be erecting a principle (say, choice) above another (say, community) – i.e. culture/values/morals need a gold standard. For Adam Smith it was Sympathy, for Bentham Happiness, for Marx species being, for Christians Jesus/God. We can appeal to universal biology, or like Chomsky to Cartesian precepts (morality might well be hardwired, to a certain extent).

“religious ideas based on racism, patriarchy and homophobia are unworthy of respect.”

Is Tatch thinking about any particular “other culture” by the way? I guess even he is afraid to say…evil bloody Zoroastrians.

B

The whole concept of multiculturalism is unworkable, stupid and contrary to basic reason. When you move to a new society, you have to have the willingness to integrate into that society otherwise your presence becomes divisive. People hailing from cultures where this is not possible should not be allowed to immigrate. I believe that there are universal standards, but I can also see that some cultural/religious practices impede the adoption and promotion of those standards.

Peter T is the man!!
Why should something so obvious be misunderstood by so many?

An important speech by PT it’s a pity it needs to be said, but it does.

So many people do not care for Western, democratic tolerant pluralism.

We, those of us who by dint of accident of birth are born into or imbibe this tradition, would do well to be rather less tolerant of intolerance and better at spotting those amongst us who don’t really hold to these values or merely go through the motions.

The main offenders being the Chomskyite Left, the racist Nationalist Left, the patrician authoritarian Right and Left and of course the Koranic literalists.

Hands up who can name the Distinguished French Thinker who had such kind words to say about the New Iranian Dawn under the Ayatollahs.

Or the name of the ‘Red Dean’ of Canterbury who was so enthusiastic about what the citizens of the Soviet Union were accomplishng under the genial guidance of Comrade Stalin?

Or the names of those fine thinkers all over the globe who had kind words to say about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China?

Or – best of all – the names of those who had lovely things to say about the New Dawn in Democratic Kampuchea?

A bonus point will be awarded to anyone who can name the British academic who romped off to Democratic Kampuchea to tickle Brother Number One and his murderous henchmen behind the ears and who perished in very strange circumstances.

And all this before we get cracking on saying anything none-too-pleasant about those Western feminists who shrug and mutter about stonings and female genital mutilation and honour killings in certain rather nasty but oil-rich countries.

John P.,

isn’t the actual alternative, not the assersion of a local dominant culture, a genuinely universal human culture? If you moved to anotehr country, would you abandon your values and engage in practices you found repellent and barbarous?

Incidentally, topical to the theme, a nineteenth century book by Grant Allen – “The British barbarians” findable here :

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4340

PT’s the man. A genuine hero.

The older I get, the more I think the abandonment of universal values by parts of the Left and their embrace of relativism of all kinds is the shabbiest kind of betrayal of those for whom they should be standing up – the poor, the vulnerable, the weak. (Exhibit A: grotesque relativist John Wight, who used to be found polluting Socialist Unity.)

Otto:

The western feminists who denounce myscogeny as practiced under Sharia are few and far between.

RD, why would someone move to a place who’s practices he finds “repellent and barbarous”?

Mary Ann:

Opportunity for employment, when prospects at home are lousy.

“Distinguished French Thinker”? There have been hundreds. The species, though, has experienced a decline throughout the twentieth century. As it has been with the decline in red squirrel numbers in the face of competition from their grey cousins, DFT numbers have dwindled in the face of competition from their cousins, the UFWs [Undistinguished French Windbags]. Wildlife enthusiasts find the Windbags every bit as cute as the Thinkers. Totalitarian posturing masquerading as progressive thought is thought to be particularly cute by Guardian readers and superannuated sixth formers with A levels in Philosophy.

Otto – What is “myscogeny”? Etymologically, it could be misinterpreted as something giving rise to mice. Do you mean “misogyny”?

The whole concept of multiculturalism is unworkable, stupid and contrary to basic reason. When you move to a new society, you have to have the willingness to integrate into that society otherwise your presence becomes divisive.

Um, depends how you define multiculturalism, John P. It seems pretty obvious to me that few (if any) societies are culturally homogeneous. Having to accept some sort of multi-culturalism is an inevitable fact of life – unless you want to impose total cultural uniformity upon people (do you?). The important questions are really to do with to what extent should a society accept deviations from overarching norms, what should the role of the state be in protecting/promoting different cultures, etc.

Excellent speech Peter. Hear hear. Parts of the left need to continue to hear this loudly and clearly – and soon, otherwise things are going to get worse before they get better.

“All peoples possess a culture, but this does not mean all cultures are equally valid and commendable. Some values and ideas are better than others. ”

What’s saddening is that such an obvious statement is opposed by cultural relativists.

And it’s easy to do so. Because beliefs, values and cultures are all subjective:

“The Enlightenment was better than the Dark Ages. Freedom is better than slavery. Democracy is better than fascism. Scientific knowledge is better than superstition.”

The point isn’t “what’s better” or “what’s worse”. The point is “what’s ours”.

We have to be confident of WHAT our culture is. And then we should defend it.

As General Napier reportedly said: “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”

If we only there were more people like Peter Tatchell.

It’s sad that so many on the Left abuse Mr. Tatchell just because he doesn’t go along with the “trendy bandwagon”.

Funny, because as someone who defends the rights of individuals from discrimination and oppression, you’d think he would be a hero to the Left.

Live long and keep fighting for freedom.

A good, beneficial multicultural society …

There is no such thing – the nearest, I suppose, could be Switzerland, where four languages are spoken, and each group accepts, but does not mix much with, the others. This can only work with the minimal, light touch government that Switzerland enjoys. There are common values, mostly rooted in Christianity, which keep the groups from conflict.

Switzerland is what was left in Europe when other countries had drawn their borders. The equivalent country in Asia is Afghanistan, which worked, after a fashion, until Breshnev sent in his tanks in 1980 and tore the loose consensus apart. If Afghanistan were Christian, could it have reassembled itself? I wonder.

The mistake of the bien pensants is to confuse multiculturalism with pluralism – they are not the same. Multiculturalism leads to ghettoes, poor integration, little cohesion and a very vague and confused idea of what it actually means to be (say) British. Pluralism is the acceptance of the values of others, but assumes certain ground rules. Uniquely of all cultures, Islam does not accept these ground rules, viz. tolerance, pluralism, the rule of law, democracy, due process, and freedom of speech, assembly, religion and the press.

Multiculturalism is used by Islamists as a Trojan Horse in the West. They certainly don’t want it in their own countries, and must consider us fools for accepting it, as do the Americans.

Otto:

Foucalt. Hewlett Johnson. Too many to mention. Ditto. Malcolm Caldwell.

I noted that in the thread above about the Prevent strategy, Inyanat Bungalwala talks about protecting ‘our communities’. So, each of us in in our own sacred social space and there is no overarching principle knitting us all together.

At a pro-Palestine demo Peter Tatchell held a placard saying: Israel stop oppressing Palestinians; Palestine stop oppressing gays. (There is some dispute about which of the 2 statements came first on the placard). The problem is that in Tatchell’s worldview, both Palestinians and Israelis offences are deemed to be equal. Just as the mass media thinks that Palestinian resistance firing rockets into Israel is equal to the massive firepower that Israel uses against Palestine.

Tatchell just has a problem with uniting with others on the left. He likes to think everyone is against him.

Graham wins easily!

I met that Dr Caldwell at Lancaster University and he struck me as a sound bloke; my thinking was simpler and more innocent in those days.

Here is something about some – not all – feminist Western wimmin and how they see the world …

TRY AGAIN!

http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/2535/

Of course, some here detest Mark Stein on principle!

“At a pro-Palestine demo Peter Tatchell held a placard saying: Israel stop oppressing Palestinians; Palestine stop oppressing gays. (There is some dispute about which of the 2 statements came first on the placard).”

There is no dispute. All the photos and videos from the event show the same thing.

I’m going to throw the cat among the pigeons.

There is an irony to Thatchell being one of the more articulate voices against the intellectual bankruptcy of cultural relativism.

In his excellent book, “The Home We Build Together”, Jonathan Sacks argues that unrestrained cultural relativism commenced following the legalisation of homosexuality in 1967 and was an over-reaction to the prejudice and persecution gays had experienced.

Whilst Sacks absolutely agrees that homosexuality should be legal, and that no one should be persecuted or discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, he cites the excesses of the gay rights movement in creating an environment where cultural relativism became the accepted wisdom.

Firstly, the gay rights movement formed itself into a ‘group’ movement, where people got together and defined themselves as a homogenous ‘victim group’.

As a ‘victim group’ the movement began making demands upon society. Whilst many of these demands were perfectly reasonable, for example freedom from discrimination, equality of treatment and opportunity etc., the movement started to display the pattern we see so often today.

1. Minorities define themselves as a homogenous ‘victim group’. 2. The ‘victim group’ demands to be tolerated. And usually that’s reasonable. 3. The ‘victim group’ demands that it’s culture is morally equivalent to the majority culture. Problems start here. 4. The ‘victim group’ demands that its culture should not only be tolerated, it must be ‘valued’ and even ‘celebrated’ by the majority. Here things really begin going awry.

Anyone recognise this pattern?

If you moved to anotehr country, would you abandon your values and engage in practices you found repellent and barbarous?

Of course not. The values I embrace are universal values in that they place all humans on an equal footing. That human beings are basically all equal is a self-evident truth. Any “value” that contradicts or denies that truth is not a universal value.

South Africa used to be multi culti, or otherwise known as apartheid.
It’s what we are heading to in Britain,separate development of communities and never the twain shall meet.
The emphasis needs to be on the universality of human rights in both the public and private spheres.
If however your belief system is faith based,I’m afraid in many cases human rights are irrelevant because they are not ‘god’ given.
Another reason perhaps why religious sensibilities should not trump secularism?

Keep up the fight, Peter. Despite the small group of your misguided, hypocritical and idiotic detractors, you will be looked upon in history as being “right”.

RezaV -I recognise the behaviour you described, in the UK muslim community in recent years but 100% disagree that it also applies to gay people and that the gay movement can be described in that way.

You said “The ‘victim group’ demands that it’s culture is morally equivalent to the majority culture”. It’s worth noting that sexuality is of course “naturally occuring” so to call it a “culture” is ridiculous. (while on the other hand, religions/cults are entirely a choice, so I have much less time for them demanding “equal respect”.) The fact that homosexuality was a taboo for so long is not because it’s some new modern occurence, but because of total oppression which forced almost all gay people to live “in the closet”, in hiding. The few brave enough to be open (or too obvious to hide it) were social outcasts and risked imprisonment and EXTREME social stigma. Gay people should never have had to fight for equality – it should have always been there in the first place, just like gay people have always existed. The fact it didn’t and has only been achieved fairly recently (and still has a long way to go internationally – look at the middle east and Africa) means they have every right to now celebrate in gay pride etc. Anyway don’t worry I am not accusing you of homophobia – simply giving my opinion :)

So many people here are acting as though we must consider a whole ‘culture’ as a package. Every culture has good and bad bits to it. We must promote the good bits and fight against the bad bits. A poll the other day said that 50% of teenage girls in Britain want to alter their bodies with surgery. That is *insane* but is it a reason to denounce all of ‘Western culture’?

Once you realise that every culture has problems that need to be fought, you then move onto the question of power. How does it change and who does the changing? Do you change things democratically or from a position of superior power? (I use the word ‘democratically’ in its broadest sense – nothing to do with parliamentary representation). And if you, in a position of greater power, decide it is your right to change things among those who are weaker than you, I hope to god you get *absolutely everything* right and do it *exactly* right or someone somewhere might start picking over your errors and then they might get some power and then where would we be?

Here’s to democratic improvements in all cultures…

religious ideas based on racism, patriarchy and homophobia are unworthy of respect.”

Is Tatch thinking about any particular “other culture” by the way? I guess even he is afraid to say…evil bloody Zoroastrians.

Tatchell opposes every religious culture, and Judaism, Christianity and Islam in particular. It’s fundamental to his narcissism that he sees his own conscience alone as the arbiter on all these issues, and for him, gay issues trump everything else.

This is the mindset of a left totalitarian. He sees himself as “not against people”. But people do not experience life independent of their cultures. And he arrogates to himself the right to be the judge, jury and sentencer for every culture. He’s for democracy? Not if you take what he says seriously — and of course nothing illustrates that more clearly than his own one-man dictatorship operation. Not “Peter Tatchell and Friends”– just Peter Tatchell, the one-man rescuer and avenging angel.

No, thanks.

Recently I’ve run into a person who sees Western Civilization itself as white, male, heterosexual, European, and Christian and is now claiming THAT group as a “victim group” and justifies BNP and other European fascist parties on the grounds that “dark people”, gays, women, immigrants and non-Christians are victimizing them and stealing their rights.

What people aren’t seeing is the huge power gap. Or worse they see it and want to maintain it. Members of a ruling caste system want to hang on it, hang on to power and supremacy that, in the West, has been based on color and religion and gender to an extent most of us don’t want to admit.

It’s interesting to me that identity politics are regarded as “evil” by folks who took full advantage of identity politics when THEIR identity group ruled the earth.

Now, identity politics are “evil”. Go figure.

Anyway.

Should we as Westerners celebrate customs or aspects of civilization(s) that are brutal and oppressive?

No!

But when people of a particular group have contributed and do contribute then darn tootin’ they should be recognized.

This includes of course people from the many Muslim cultures as well as other immigrants. Of course it includes the work of gays and women.

Nobody says that respecting immigrant and indigenous cultures and people means we have to disrespect modern, Western culture, it isn’t an either/or situation.

We don’t have to respect oppressive practices but the accomplishments of “the other” most certainly should be studied and respected and yes celebrated.

They’re part of the richness and wonder of our world, of humanity itself. And they’ve become, some always have been part of Western culture itself.

North Americans, particularly in the Southwest, are sometimes viciously bigoted against Mexicans even as they exploit their labor and many think Native Americans are sub-human. People in the Western Hemisphere are shockingly ignorant of Native American culture and accomplishments.

This is true South of the Border as well as North – rule by European, a caste system rewarding the pale has been more common than we want to admit.

Poor people most certainly are a victim group, I don’t care where they’re from or what color they are, and they’re often scorned by the elites particularly those of the “Atlas Shrugged” variety. Poverty is regarded as a sign of unworthiness: this is an aspect of Puritanical culture that has filtered down and it’s time we confronted it. It’s biased.

Many comments above reflect disgust with the Left. Some of us are guilty as charged.

But arguments I’ve been hearing from members of the far Right or even elements of the American Republican Party chill my blood.

I think I’d rather go overboard “celebrating”.

Whilst Sacks absolutely agrees that homosexuality should be legal, and that no one should be persecuted or discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, he cites the excesses of the gay rights movement in creating an environment where cultural relativism became the accepted wisdom.

Firstly, the gay rights movement formed itself into a ‘group’ movement, where people got together and defined themselves as a homogenous ‘victim group’.

That’s precious coming from a Jew.

“Where some strands of multiculturalism have gone off the rails is in their institutionalisation of difference through initiatives like the state funding of faith schools, which factionalises pupils along religious lines…”

Tatchell’s is opposed to faith schools because the main religious faiths have traditionally stigmatized homosexuality. But he won’t admit that this is the true reason for his position, so he pretends to oppose them for the spurious reason that state funding of them “factionalises pupils along religious lines…”

He thus rides roughshod over the rights of taxpaying religious people, especially members of minority religions, who have to contend with the fact that their religious culture is a minority culture and who have to struggle constantly against assimilation and deculturisation of their communities. Taxpayers, in his view, should not be able to use tax money for faith schools. So religious education is to be penalised financially.

But taxpayer subsidies for gay pride parades, gay outreach programmes, education about gay concerns, etc. are fine by his book.

SWP-John:

“The problem is that in Tatchell’s worldview, both Palestinians and Israelis offences are deemed to be equal.”

The Palestinian national movement evolved from exclucivist to dispossessivist to eliminationist. Hamas’ agenda still is. If Israel were not strong she would not exist. SWP ideologues like John choose to ignore the dispossessive and eliminationist qualities of the Palestinian national movement, and choose to put all the blame on Palestinian and Israeli Jews.

That is a form of discrimination, if not racism. That is why, to all intents and purposes, antisemitism today is anti-Zionist.

As to Cast-Lead and the Israeli siege of Gaza, easy: stop with the eternal jihad until the extinction of any kind of Israel; stop with the rockets.

As Maureen Lipman said, What’s Proportionate? There is no international law to that effect, and Israel is perfectly reasonable compared to the US and NATO in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sri Lanka with the Tamils, Russia in Chechnya.

And Israel treats Israeli Arab Christians and ,Muslims better than any Jew anywhere in the Arab Islamic world. Only the Jewish state of Israel the cowardly, hypocritical SWP John seeks to perfect out of existence, while making love to sundry Islamicist or Islamic national movements and regimes.

Poor SWP John has a “thing” about the second or largest, and certainly most obviously, Jewish community in the world.

Thanks but not thanks. But, by all means, fight to the last drop of Palestinian blood, you neo-Christian crusader.

Sophia, why did you lie about my positions in our discussion? Why do you feel it necessary to villify and slander certain groups, including American Conservatives?

I was making similar arguments to what Reza and Alcuin and others have made here.

Have you no shame?

We admire Peter for his indefatigability and his undiscouragability!

However …

It is not long – weeks rather than years – since Peter wrote [he may have switched his brain onto autopilot at the time] about the cruel and ruthless Hanoi regime engaging in a “war of national liberation” against “the American invaders” and one is entitled to wonder whether he actually really believes such stuff or merely repeats the sort of infantile rubbish many of us believed in 1968.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE FACTS:
The Hanoi regime was determined to reunify Vietnam under the tyrannical rule of the Hanoi regime, no matter how much suffering was inflicted on Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians or anyone else.

Actually, I AM rather inclined to admire those people whom I knew 4 decades ago who have stuck with crank politics through thick and thin – Don Milligan and Charlie Pottins even have websites these days.

I hope SWP-John is a troll – it’d be very disturbing if he is actually as deluded as the views he’s expressed on this site suggest. Completely out of touch with reality.

“1. Minorities define themselves as a homogenous ‘victim group’. 2. The ‘victim group’ demands to be tolerated. And usually that’s reasonable. 3. The ‘victim group’ demands that it’s culture is morally equivalent to the majority culture. Problems start here. 4. The ‘victim group’ demands that its culture should not only be tolerated, it must be ‘valued’ and even ‘celebrated’ by the majority. Here things really begin going awry.” – RezaV 6.55 p.m. 5th November.

This is the conversion of a principle, equality, which all pluralist governances apparently now accept, to one of parity, a rather different notion altogether. Useful references, thanks.

“He thus rides roughshod over the rights of taxpaying religious people, especially members of minority religions, who have to contend with the fact that their religious culture is a minority culture and who have to struggle constantly against assimilation and deculturisation of their communities. Taxpayers, in his view, should not be able to use tax money for faith schools. So religious education is to be penalised financially.” – Ben 8.44 p.m. 5th November 2009

This is in its own way the argument against exclusivity in brief. In fact this is where we are today and the result is increasing sectarianism and internal exile – one who grows to feel himself divorced from not merely culture but the true meaning and reality of life (”against assimilation and deculturisation”), only to be recreated in isolation at best.

I may not like it or wish it were not so, but the major ‘religion’ in this country is agnosticism. Why should agnostics continue to be happy paying for other people’s faith particularly when that faith refuses to concede anything to the prevailing broad social sphere? Hand over the money and keep their mouths shut?

Of course not. The values I embrace are universal values in that they place all humans on an equal footing. That human beings are basically all equal is a self-evident truth. Any “value” that contradicts or denies that truth is not a universal value.

Save us from parochial universalists. Consistent scientific racists fully agree with your second claim, they just think that some folk who look human aren’t actually. For most of the history of mankind, slavery of one sort or the other has been unquestioned — some very clever people indeed thought it was self-evidently justified — so it’s clear that equality isn’t self-evident…

How obvious this is but how difficult it still seems to be for many Western intellectuals to say it. Anyone with any intellectual training whatsoever knows that cultural relativism is a ridiculous logical fallacy but still we see evidence of the cultural cringe everywhere.

Really? Really?

In any case, is this a fight you really need to pick? What you really want is to make people in other cultural groups conform to your norms. Whether or not that’s a good idea is more or less independent of both moral relativism, and the comparative value of cultures.

The new Metamorphosis

“Peter Tatchell awakes one morning in his apartment to find himself inexplicably transformed overnight into a gigantic insect called Robert Kilroy-Silk!”

Let us hope then that the first thing he does is devour the rancid fat bedbug Farnos.

emmanuelgoldstein:Consistent scientific racists fully agree with your second claim, they just think that some folk who look human aren’t actually. For most of the history of mankind, slavery of one sort or the other has been unquestioned — some very clever people indeed thought it was self-evidently justified — so it’s clear that equality isn’t self-evident…

You know your name always reminded me of my time in anonymous forums years ago. There were always extreme antsemites, nazis who would take the most stereotypically Jewish names they could think of, like “goldstein”

Now I’m thinking that it wasn’t a coincidence that you reminded me of those people.. Scientific racists? Oh god.

I can’t help thinking, while I read these comments, that there are a lot of xenophobes about.

[quote]The point isn’t “what’s better” or “what’s worse”. The point is “what’s ours”.

We have to be confident of WHAT our culture is. And then we should defend it.[/quote]

This smacks of nationalism; this isn’t about what’s universally right or worthwhile, or defending the liberties of oppressed peoples – it’s just xenophobic. It’s the ever-growing attitude, especially during the recession, that we should defend our culture [i]because it’s ours[/i], and not because it’s in some way more valid than another. It doesn’t leave any room for the idea that maybe we do some things wrong.

I actually totally agree with PT’s point, but I think there are a lot of racists, Islamaphobes, and xenophobes who are going to use this to prop up their own bizarre ideas.

edit: I’m sorry, I don’t know the markup for wordpress comments, so I’ve left BB tags in my text instead.