How to start this without sounding like a moaning old bastard despite still being in my twenties?
There is a severe problem with ethics in modern day western society. It's not people getting drunk and shagging, it's not even immigration, (the sincerest form of flattery), nor is it the gradual collapse of religion, (which if you've read some of the previous posts you would see I view as a positive). The problem is the pathetic loss of confidence in the values that we do have. There have been many causes of this but the one that has been most problematic for our code of ethics is the rise of moral and cultural relativism. Back in the day, (when this were all fields), we had no problems with saying "your system is crap, we're much better" but now you have to place everything in it's cultural context before making a judgement. You can see how this came about, you cannot have a true appreciation of history let alone the present day without being able to suspend your own judgement and view things through another's eyes. Perhaps we just got too good at this and found that when we tried to pull back we had lost the ability to have confidence in our own position.
This is not to say that we had a once flawless system that has become corrupted. Not only was it far from perfect but such systems should gradually evolve to take new ideas into account and hopefully work towards better views for the day in question. The problem now is that though there is the rump of a belief set remaining, it is not strong enough to be an effective challenge to the idiot systems out there. This is shameful because we have more to be proud of than ever and all of it based on respect for the individual and noninterference unless one person infringes on the rights of another.
What we have to stop is the creeping depression of apologist little shits like Trevor Phillips who's latest assertions are more than ably debunked by Not a Sheep. There is room for multiculturalism up to a point but that point was reached long ago, (have all the fun, frolics and festivals you like but don't turn violent if people take this piss).
We have to be able to stand up and say that Islam is a fucking horrible, oppressive religion, that Darfur is a genocide in action and that we value our culture above others. Why is this so difficult for so many people and particularly for our political parasites? There is the very British desire not to offend, there are the realities of realpolitic and then there's the need to wake up and stop being spineless. It is the last of these we need to concentrate on.
Libertarian meat eater, right wing in the sense of conservative with a small c.
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4 comments:
Garr.
I've left a comment about one of Not A Sheep's silliest points at his sites (the bit where he claims that Tower Hamlets and Brixton are US-style ghettoes, despite TH being 42% white, 37% Asian, 6% black and 15% others, and Lambeth being 62% white, 25% black, 5% Asian and 8% others).
But more generally, I don't get your problem with Wor Trev, who's repeatedly (contra Not A Sheep) condemned woolly multicultyness and suggested people ought to integrate into British society.
He's factually mistaken about the Turks and the Armada, which is a shame because it's a good story - but I don't see how teaming up with the Turks to attack the Spanish diminishes our culture. Rather, it's one of those amusing-but-entertaining facts-about-historical-enemies-as-allies-or-vice-versa, like the way the Dutch sailed into Chatham and burnt the Navy...
In short - he's on ur side, celebrating ur British values and condemning ur segregationists. So why have a go at him?
I R condeming him because his stupid comments about the Armada and the Turks, (where the fuck did he invent that from the twat), illustrates the point I was trying to make. That the cringing we do over our history and culture has reached the point that I am fed up to the back teeth. Yes we've done/do bad shit but there's alot of good stuff too. We should stand up for that rather than continually tring to rewrite history and reinvent ourselves.
As an American, I think I can safely say that the U.S. in one step behind western Europe in the gradual path toward the obliteration of religion in the public sphere and the general moral degradation to which you refer.
"Back in the day, (when this were all fields), we had no problems with saying "your system is crap, we're much better" but now you have to place everything in it's cultural context before making a judgement. "
True.
"We have to be able to stand up and say that Islam is a fucking horrible, oppressive religion, that Darfur is a genocide in action and that we value our culture above others. Why is this so difficult for so many people and particularly for our political parasites?"
Yes, what's happening in Darfur is genocide. So is what's happening in Somalia, and the Congo, and innumerable other embattled states. And yes, I think our (and by "our," I mean "Western") societies function far more morally and fairly than theirs.
But this is closely tied to the demise of religion. This is a postmodern era. The cultural subjectivity of ethics to which you allude is a direct result of the death of absolute truth.
Without a single absolute standard by which to measure human morality, any real sense of "right" and "wrong" goes out the window. Ethical judgments become as subjective as value judgments or aesthetic preferences, based solely on extenuating circumstances or cultural consequences.
So my short answer to this: " Why is this so difficult for so many people and particularly for our political parasites?" is that with the slow demise of shared religious beliefs has come an emphasis on experience, subjectivity and consumption-- to the exclusion of any notion of absolute truth.
Ruthie, interesting stuff.
I think that you are probably right about the rise of relative morality being connected to the death of the absolute truth. However, the current position is not a necessary result of this loss. There never was a real "absolute truth", just the intellectually lazy "God said it". The change is that it now requires work and serious thought to justify your beliefs. The fact that most people can't be bothered to do this is the problem
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