For Easter: Multicultural Cuckoo's Eggs (II)

Since this series of posts are consecutive I'll not provide back-links ... just scroll away. We left off yesterday with the definitions. Considering confusion is rife on this subject it is vital we know what we are talking about. You are of course free - in fact I urge you, to do more reference work on these definitions. If not ready at hand, you can find a number of links to encyclopedia and dictionaries in the Store Room.

1. What is the essence of relativism?
Relativism is the pseudo philosophy that posits that all points of view are equally valid. In ethics, this amounts to saying that all moralities are equally good; in epistemology it implies that all beliefs, or belief systems, are equally true; in anthropology that no culture is more superior than any other. Reality depends on your point of view, who you are and where you are: it is subjective. It follows that there isn't any standpoint that is uniquely privileged over another. Thus: there is no objective reality or truth, nothing is true or false in itself, there are no lies, mistaken opinions or "wrong" points of view belong to a murky past. To borrow an apt line of Ann Coulter's: "Truth is a discredited scientific theory from the Victorian age".

A great number of things may be said about this, not least of which - and I keep stressing this point because it is so familiar but no one seems to be aware of the cause - this is what makes debates in the Western world at present so very frustrating and pointless: in the absence of objective truth it a discussion over personal preferences. The one likes red, the other blue: you cannot convince the other that red is better, because it isn't. Denying the most basic of all philosophical tenets - true or false - has far reaching consequences indeed. It undermines the very basis of reality and it is what makes this fallacy so toxic: I have written extensively, but clearly not enough about it.

2. What is the definition of multiculturalism?
Contrary to popular belief multiculturalism is not the definition of a society with more than one culture: the definition politicians like to dish up to the average citizen, who takes it to mean, something vaguely like 'being nice to immigrants'. Rather, said to be rooted originally in the black civil rights movement in America, it was first adopted as an official policy in Canada in 1971. Multiculturalism's "principle aim is to assure the peaceful cohabitation of populations of different ethnic or racial origins on the same territory" - a useful point of view - for a huge, thinly populated semi continent of an immigration country without a history, a tabula rasa in all respects.

"In multiculturalism, every human group has a singularity (remember the collective soul or tribal spirit, the totem?) and legitimacy that form the basis of its right to exist, conditioning its interaction with others. The criteria of just and unjust, criminal and barbarian, disappear before the absolute criterion of respect for difference. There is no longer any 'eternal truth': the belief in this stems from naive ethnocentrism - reason why multiculturalists grow fangs at hearing the word 'dogma'. It demands that we see our values simply as the beliefs of the particular tribe we call The West. Multiculturalism is the result of this process."
N.B. the bold passages highlight some of the infamous contradictions, inherent in the ideology.

Europe, at present gravely at risk by its open door and (re)uninification policies of the last forty years, which they mistook for close-up charity (read: development aid) (or Eurabia theory, if that's your cup of kaghwa), have silently and quite undemocratically adopted multicultural policies in a last ditch effort to stave off civil unrest. But, if anything, this exacerbates the situation. Efforts in the opposite direction, of assimilation, have had the same contrary effect so far due to the overwhelming numbers: you can assimilate one person into the environment of ten people, but this gets progressively more difficult as the number of people to accommodate, increases.
For those interested, here's a colourful lecture on the subject of multiculturalism.

3. What is Liberalism in the original sense?
Since even far left green parties, with a history in pacifism and radical leftist Protestantism, have now adopted Liberalism as its basis, and multiculturalism is as well making efforts in that direction, I think it is wise at this point to go back to basics. To return to the original Classical Liberalism as it was meant to be, and leave the steady build up of leftist ideas that have been thrust upon it, for the time being aside. Later on I will provide a chart that shows the havoc the leftist cuckoo's chicks have brought upon the liberal nest.

Liberalism is the belief in liberty, as long as it does not conflict with the freedom of others. Its coin is the individual. People are endowed with a number of negative rights [1]; people have these rights in themselves, meaning they weren't granted by a government, but that every man is born with these rights (which stems from the Christian teaching that man was created in God's image). The people can form and dissolve governments whose sole purpose is to protect the rights and the realm. Liberalism's economic theory is based on free-market, ideally laissez-faire. Contrary to Radical Liberalism, Classical Liberalism was from the outset never anti-theist: see my post on The Impossible made Possible: the Dictatorship of Liberalism [2].

4. What is Socialism in the original sense.
Socialism is an economic and political ideology based on collectivity, on public ownership of the means of production and distribution of wealth. It stresses the privileges of the many over the rights of the few, i.e. the rights of the few (the individual) are subordinate to the good of the many (the collective). As per its economic theory, the purpose of the government is raising taxes over private wealth, coupled with social policy or directly via nationalisation and public ownership. While Socialism is anti-theistic in character, and many leading Socialists (most prominently Karl Marx) have been critical of the role of religion which they criticize for lending support to an unjust social order, there has been considerable interplay between Christian and Socialist ideas, which Christians hope soften the harsh free-market laissez-fair approach of Liberalism (as a consequence, we have never seen how entirely free markets actually work). Pope Benedict XVI has declared liberation theology anathema as inconsistent with Christianity.

Now that we know what's what, we can do some comparative work. How Liberalism ended up as a leftist philosophy is made clear by Dr Pat's chart, which I will once again borrow from her.

The left hand column lists what Classical Liberalism originally set out to be; the right hand column shows what the leftist adoption of Liberalism has made of it. It is almost beyond recognition; in fact, it's the very opposite on all fronts.

The chart also solves the puzzle of the Unholy Alliance, the axis of the (far) left and radical Islam, together against the West: they share all right hand side traits.

This multifunctional chart also shows that multiculturalism, far from being on the side of the individual, the dissidents, the Ayaan Hirsi Alis of this world, is on the contrary on the side of the collective, the tribe, the group, the singularity.

While we are on the subject of spacing, remember Star Trek's Prime Directive [2]? That's the only law that might - just might keep the peace in a world consisting of loose singularities. Also multiculturalists should at long last explain how they hope to persuade radical Islam to stay within their singularity and not break out in posses for a spot of conversion by the scimitar.

And while we're clearing up, which inherently and uniquely bad Western hegemonic achievements would they like to abolish first? Should we be thinking of environmental hazards like electricity, refrigerators, the combustion engine and water closets, or are we more likely to find ourselves in want of vaccinations, water purification, or inalienable human dignity?

~Tomorrow we'll return to Jesco Delorme's philosophical musings in defence of the multiculturalists. ~