Peter Tatchell: Not all cultures are equally valid and commendable
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Independent Minds
A good, beneficial multicultural society is one in which everyone has the freedom to pursue their own different ethics and lifestyles, while in the public sphere all citizens are treated as equals and are bound together by a shared commitment to universal human rights, regardless of the differences in their personal morality and private lives. I do not, for example, insist that people of faith approve of homosexuality, but I do expect them to not discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation.
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.
Moral and cultural relativism have gained ground. We are told every community is different. All these differences are equally valid and must be respected. To question them, we are admonished, is to impose our way of life on others – a form of cultural imperialism.
It is true there is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for all societies and communities. But are there no universal humanitarian values that should be defended in all cultures at all times? Is everything relative? Should we accept practices in other communities that we would never accept in our own? Allowing people in developing countries to suffer indignities that we would never tolerate in our society is a shameless double standard. It smacks of racism.
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. The Enlightenment was better than the Dark Ages. Freedom is better than slavery. Democracy is better than fascism. Scientific knowledge is better than superstition.
While all human beings deserve human rights, not everyone's beliefs and traditions deserve respect. Political and religious ideas based on racism, patriarchy and homophobia are unworthy of respect. They need to be challenged, not tolerated.
This is an extract from a lecture at the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, last week
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Comments
Culture and tradition are 'gods with clay feet'. To respect something (for an extreme example: female circumcision) just because it is a religious or cultural practice is wrong. To respect something just because it has 'always been done' is wrong. We should evaluate cultural, religious and traditional practices on their merit and disregard those found to be harmful to us and to others.
Yes, but the left wing lovies will start mithering on about the human rights of people to behave badly if their culture/religion demands it. e.g.Cutting their women, hiding them away, selling their daughters, murdering any of their young people who love differently, well we could go on but how long is a piece of string? Here our government encourages them to moan and sue anyone who steps on their wretched'religious' toes. Human rights lawyers grow fat and bloated while our secular strand of society grows weaker.
Multiculturism is moral and cultural relativism, thats why they're gaining ground.
A contractiction in its meaning
having been forced upon us without choice we now have to tolerate cultures alien and incompatible with our own.
it is aone sided show
we have really is ethnic imperialism in all its intolerant forms
A woman cannot have china ornaments on her window cill becaus eit offends a muslim passer by
an established frican Pentacost church must close down because another muslim complains to his local authority.
Whilst the host ethnic groups of our islands are denied an identity other white other.
A black friend of mine insistst he is English as that is where he is born. He is denied the right tick box to be English but government forms go through enormous detail for some groups and not others?
Why the obsession with government on all this demarcation. It does not occur in France wher one is French or not
While Britain may have dark ages Islamic universities were busy in Europe.
Multiculturalism was well under way in Asia Pacific some races ae each other ,some worshipped numerous gods or pagan Europeans
Yet others taught no god, tolerance and the eightfold path,in China zen deeloped alongside Confucian morality.
Sadly like so mnay well meaning liberals the hard working and thirsty Mr Tatchell equates liberty with licence.
A hierarchical Cof E as a metaphor for the apostlic Cattholic tradition has no role fro priestesses nor pastor who lead lives at odds with the doctrine they preach.No wonder so many are moving to an even deeper and more rancid cult from Rome.
Cultural Relativism and the mulit-cultural navel gazers are on the way out. Their rhetoric has been discredited and dismissed.
I agree that there are many positive aspects that I'd like to see in the Anglosphere. Long-term planning, family values and and aversion to hedonism being some that srping to mind.
That said, I think it's self evident that dispite the huge flaws, Western Culture is the finest to be had.
Oh, and while I welcome those who immerse themselves in it to everyones benefit, I declare anyone who trys to dismantle it in place of an alien culture my enemy. Sounds oh so extreme, but isn't is what anyone at any point in time would declare?
Progress takes time.