- 23 Oct 09, 19:45#165154
Ayrton Senna: WDC 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991
McLaren: WCC 1974, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2007
McLaren: WDC 1974, 1976, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2008
From: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 886174.ece
The chatter of the chattering classes fades to a whisper whenever cultural difference comes up. That’s why extremists flourish
Antonia Senior
Philosophy, despite the best obfuscatory intentions of philosophers, occasionally seeps out of the ivory towers and informs our lives. We may not be able to cite the theorists whose theories we live by, but culture is shaped by great minds as much as by our collective will.
The dominant philosophical framework of the postwar era has been moral relativism; the notion that there are no universal truths. Truth, and moral worth, are entirely relative to a culture or society.
I think bacon is divine; you are a vegetarian; he thinks pig meat is an affront to God. Each of these positions is true, because truth is in the eye of the believer. I think Nick Griffin is a buffoon; you think he is a dangerous fascist; he thinks he is a fearless hero of the Right.
It is so easy to be a moral relativist. It means never thinking through an argument, never offending anyone, never feeling as if you are channelling the unsavoury views of a lunatic fringe. Relativism has a long tradition; the Greek historian Herodotus had some relativist sympathies in the 5th century BC.
It took off in the 20th century, prospering in a haze of post-colonial guilt, feeding off a desire to atone for our forefathers’ racism and assumptions of superiority.It is a moral code for those who do not want to be impolite or rude. It’s the ideology of holding hands in a circle or drinking tea together. Small wonder it has been so seductive within these shores. Moral relativism, as philosophies go, is just so nice.
It’s a shame, then, that it is also incoherent, logically flawed and utterly tired. Few philosophers take it seriously any more. Yet having escaped the ivory towers, it has taken on a life independent of the theorists. It sits at the heart of our society like a jolly, beaming tumour, eating away at our ability to take on the BNP and their ilk.
The incoherence is laughable. The relativist’s position is that all cultural views are equally valid, unless your culture is that of a white, male racist. In which case, you are wrong and the relativists are right, despite the fact there is no objective right and wrong, only cultural practices. Eh?
The logical flaws are also obvious. Take female genital mutilation. I think it is an abhorrent, evil crime. Yet the woman slicing out the clitoris of a child with a rusty knife thinks she is doing the right thing. Clearly, one of us is absolutely right and one of us is deluded. If your culture believes in genital mutilation and mine does not, then my culture is right and good and yours is wrong and bad.
This is an argument made persuasively by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch MP and political activist. Ali argues that Western feminists retreat into silence when faced with the subjugation of their Islamic sisters, hobbled by their unwillingness to criticise other cultures. Germaine Greer famously accused the critics of circumcision as launching attacks on “the cultural identity” of the circumcised. “One man’s beautification is another man’s mutilation,” she said.
But Greer’s defence of the indefensible was ten years ago now. Consciously or not, we have moved away from a world where she could say something so absurd and be taken seriously.
It’s impossible to be a cultural relativist when faced with daily examples of other cultures getting it wrong. There is no validity in any view of right or wrong expressed by the Taleban. There is no truth in any cultural creed that treats women as inferior, let alone those that mutilate them. There is no cultural excuse for child abuse disguised as exorcism.
Relativism is in retreat, but there is no coherent moral framework taking its place. It helped us move from the certainties of the imperial age into a more tolerant era, but it’s almost impossible to work out what comes next.
For those of us who grew up with a ubiquitous relativism, it is incredibly hard to break its bonds, even though we know we must. We are squeamish about dealing in moral absolutes. It feels counter-intuitive and unbearably arrogant to stand up and say: “I am right and you are wrong.” It feels embarrassingly strident to be vocal about the facets of British life that are better than elsewhere; such as women’s rights and freedom of speech and the fact that Mehmet Goren is on trial for the suspected honour killing of his daughter, where elsewhere the lack of a body would have been a convenient excuse to let it lie.
Part of this squeamishness comes from a fear of being accused of racism. My generation is terrified of being accused of racism, not because we’re all secret racists afraid of being outed, but because we find racism shocking and offensive. But the problem is also a more general unease with dealing with moral absolutes: fascists and fanatics have monopolised certainty.
There seems to be no middle ground between an absurd relativism and a shouty, strident nastiness. This poses a problem: the chattering classes stop chattering as soon as a culturally sensitive topic comes up.
The only way to decide if a proposition is true or not, or if an action is right or wrong, is to test it and debate it. This takes more rigour than a lazy assumption that all views are truth and rightness is relative. It’s also tricky if you are an atheist, as so many of us are. Religion is like a moral short-cut, providing a template against which you can test moral propositions. Without God, certainty is even harder to come by. Who am I to say what is right or wrong? A little divine back-up would be useful, if only I could find a scintilla of faith.
So, paralysed by our inherited relativism, fearful of seeming racist and adrift in a Godless world, we fall silent just when we should be debating and talking. Into this silence strides Nick Griffin, Britain’s own fascist hobgoblin. If he is the only one talking about immigration, or the role of women in Islam or the sense of alienation and disenfranchisement felt, rightly or wrongly, by some white Britons, then his voice will be amplified. He is shouting while we whisper. If his voice is heard above ours, we have only ourselves to blame.
Ayrton Senna: WDC 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991
McLaren: WCC 1974, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2007
McLaren: WDC 1974, 1976, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2008
