Making a Virtue of a Vacuum
From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Fri, 2006-12-29 14:33
A quote from Brendan O’Neill at spiked-online, 28 December 2006
In elevating tolerance above all else – as an end in itself, the value to end all values – the authorities are effectively making a virtue of a vacuum, and attempting to put a positive spin on the profound uncertainty about what Britain stands for today. So the collapse of common values gets re-presented as ‘diversity’, and the inability to say what Britain represents is sexed-up and repackaged as ‘tolerance’ for other cultures and ways of life. Tolerance becomes a default position, adopted not from a standpoint of openness and experimentation, but from a position of doubt.
Secondly, and more ominously, Official Tolerance is censorious rather than genuinely tolerant. It is about stifling debate rather than encouraging it. It is a demand that we do not rock the boat or ask probing questions, instead just respecting everything. Except, that is, those who are judged to be intolerant. They can be slapped down and censored with impunity. Tolerance has become a new moral code that you transgress at your own risk.
[...] The government’s Religious Hatred legislation, which makes it a crime to ridicule or offend Islam or other religions, is Official Tolerance put into practice – a law that says public speech must be restricted in the name of ‘tolerating’ all cultures. That is a flagrant attack on the hard-won right in our secular society to speak out against superstitious nonsense, and a flagrant attack on genuine tolerance of people’s views and right to express them.
Vacuum in ethics is stupid
Submitted by logicalman on Sat, 2006-12-30 09:47.
Advocacy of no right and wrong is simply stupid. Period.
Man has conscience in general. Most people agree that killing or stealing is bad. To say there's no right is to say our conscience doesn't matter. Not to be able to discern something is bad or wrong is the beginning of the end of civilization. History is full of such examples. e.g. The Romans had gladiators fight each other or beasts to death, or Nero burned Rome. Well Roman empire is no more. Before that, King Belshazza drank from sacred vessels made of gold when the hand writing appeared on the wall and the Mede took over Babylon that same night, etc...
Muslims are in their present sorry state because they don't recognize the Quran is full of satanic verses.
Oh let's have pity for people who live under Official Tolerance, for their power discernment now is suppressed. Pretty soon laws and order will be no more.
Intellectual Foundations for P.C. & Multiculturalism
Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Sat, 2006-12-30 06:19.
It is commonly believed that liberal Western values are derived purely from those of the political left; however, this is a fallacy. Before the 1960s, with its drug culture, sexual liberalisation, and civil rights movement, there was the era of Anglo-Saxon supremacism, from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Despite its denigration of the Welsh, Scotch, Irish, and continental Europeans, this supremacism was mainly a fusion of romantic, cultural, and economic English nationalism with the following beliefs and predictions:
*All points marked with an asterisk are those directly pertaining to Anglo-American Westernization.
These tenets explain seeming contradictory Anglo-American policies, namely cultural imperialism abroad, and cultural relativism at home. Essentially, Blair is convinced that liberal values and economics are the zenith of human civilizational development, and that while the UK must combat opposition abroad by military, economic, and socio-political means, extremism and opposition can be smothered at home. Ultimately, he values abstract principles above individuals or groups. The American political establishment is similar, allowing self-segregation and illegal immigration at home, and enforcing liberal democracy abroad.
Blair's principles
Submitted by Bob Doney on Sat, 2006-12-30 18:08.
KA: "Ultimately, he values abstract principles above individuals or groups."
I don't believe this is so. There is no consistency in his beliefs except one - he sees himself as a mover and shaker of great events. He will bury a previously held principle in a second if he sees a different route to personal glory. For example he was a paid-up member of CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). He now sees nuclear power as essential to our energy needs, and wants to renew or replace the UK's nuclear deterrent. Where's the principle in that?
So the guiding principle of his life is ego. This is why he can see nothing wrong in selling peerages or taking bribes from the likes of Ecclestone. They enhance the glory of his project, and he cannot see that they are the actions of an amoral man. He literally can't understand why others disapprove, and has absolutely no sense of guilt. When he sacks ministers like Blunkett and Mandelson it's not because they have done wrong or lied; it's simply that his personal prestige is threatened.
Time after time he in effect tells us that he doesn't have to justify his decisions: he simply knows he is right. A deeply dangerous man, and the sooner he goes, the better for the rest of us.
Tolerance
Submitted by dethule on Fri, 2006-12-29 20:15.
I fully consent to Mr. O'Neill in terms of this issue. The so called tolerance ( along with political correctness) has long evoled into a political weapon by which esp. right-wing politicians are often silenced. These days, tolerance has got nothing do to with its original meaning anymore( lat. tolerare endure).
The same thing is beginning
Submitted by sonomaca on Fri, 2006-12-29 22:47.
The same thing is beginning to happen here in the US, although it's going to be tougher to enforce than over there.
The sort of tolerance which requires a soft authoritarian enforcement mechanism (soft for now) has its limits. I think these will be tested in Europe in the coming years. Authoritarians are wont to end up hanging from lamp posts.
Crazy you say. In the 1990's, when the Clinton administration overreached in terms of efforts to limit gun ownership and other liberties, in the US there formed a host of rural militias which declared war on the federal government. Of course, Timothy McVeigh was a product of the militia movement.
I don't think that it's out of the question that if a President Clinton or Obama moves to restrict the 2nd amendmant or attempts to overly restrict speech, the militia movement could be reborn.
This kind of armed response could and probably should be seen in Europe.
Remove from Politics 60% of Women, and all Homosexuals
Submitted by Mission Impossible on Fri, 2006-12-29 17:19.
Brendan O'Neill has certainly penned some wise analyses in his Spiked article. I enjoy reading people who are hitting nails on the head. Congrats to BJ for finding and posting it.
Whilst some will drearily accuse me of being a misogynist and a homophobe, my take on the reasons for our dilemma is that we suffered a collective mental blackout during the 1970s and 80s, and gave too much respect and political power to feminists, misandrists, and mincing gays.
You will recall New Labour's first Cabinet was disproportionately stacked with gays: it even attracted the attention of Robert Mugabe. I don't know how influential Gays are in the politics of other country's, but it should be a cause of immense concern for us all.
Solution? Simple. Re-assert male authority across the board and then watch how quickly all this touchy-feely tolerance mush evaporates from the political scene.
Nice quote, but there's more
Submitted by Jim Kalb on Fri, 2006-12-29 15:24.
It's worth noting that the vacuum has a function. As O'Neill suggests, it makes communication impossible -- discourse can't exist in a vacuum -- and shuts everyone up. It also makes cooperation outside official channels all but impossible, since informal cooperation relies on informal common understandings that multiculturalism disrupts and in effect criminalizes. To rely on a common understanding is to attack diversity, since those from other backgrounds may have a different understanding, and so is an offense against the established order. The result is that the position of the ruling classes becomes absolutely impregnable.
That, I suppose, is one reason it's now thought so desirable to increase diversity, and thus the vacuum of common understandings O'Neill mentions, through mass third-world immigration.
Jim Kalb (http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000)