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Multiculturalism, Judeo-Christian Values, and the Broken Clock

October 19, 2010 by  

Apart from the unbeatable “Just Right” weekly radio program hosted by Robert Metz and Robert Vaughan, I would argue that John Oakley’s daily broadcast on AM640 (Toronto) is the best radio has to offer. Every morning, just after the 9:00 AM news, John has a themed debate. Every Tuesday, the debate is called “Culture War”, and it normally involves two Christian ministers: one a liberal atheist who seeks to spread Christian morality sans Christ, and one a conservative theist, obedient to the word of his or her god. Normally, both believe that government – to one extent or another – should be influenced by Christian views concerning morality.

This morning, the topic was German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speech last Saturday, in which she declared multiculturalism a failure. The panelists agreed that multiculturalism is inherently morally subjectivist. John then identified what he believed might be the fundamental question: is it time for government and society to end its attachment to “secular humanism” and to instead adopt “Judeo-Christian values”. The phone lines were jammed. I wrote, instead, the following.

Hi John:

I listened – with great frustration – to your Culture War segment today (I try to listen to all of your 9 AM segments, actually: the best thing in mainstream talk radio…but I digress into compliments when I want, instead, to air a beef). Sorry, in advance, for the length of this…had I time, I’d have written a shorter letter.

1. It’s certainly true that multiculturalism is inherently morally subjectivist. What must be understood, though, is that the destruction of moral judgment – of valuing one thing higher than another – is its *purpose*. It is only after a society is unwilling to judge anything as better or worse, and unwilling to judge anything as good or as evil, that oppressive government can proceed without being thought of as oppressive; without being resisted.

Multiculturalism starts by saying all ideas are possibly true (i.e., that man cannot be certain of anything: a deliberate defamation of the efficacy of reason), such that no ideas can be rejected as false, or condemned as evil (the true being the good, the false being the evil). Having dispensed with the valuation of ideas and assertions – having dispensed with the thing that differentiates man from beast: the power to think and choose) – multiculturalism attempts to divide us into collectives defined not by our ideas or actions (since multiculturalism deems them to be indistinguishable), but according to non-intellectual, unchosen (or allegedly unchosen) characteristics: the colour of our skin, our sex, our sexual orientation etc.. There is, of course, nothing about having one colour of skin (for example) that makes one better than another person, so the stage is set: multiculturalism declares that no thing and no one is any more *deserving* of anything, than is anyone else.

Having destroyed valuation per se, multiculturalism destroys any connection between thoughts and actions on the one hand, and the physical values upon which survival and happiness depend on the other. The man who spends his day chopping down trees or inventing an internal combustion engine is judged – by multiculturalism – to be no more deserving of wine, women, and song than the man who instead sat on the beach all day, smoking weed and praying to The Most High for lumber and transportation. At the end of the day, says multiculturalism, all men must have his equal share of wood and transportation because, hey, how can we judge one man to be more deserving than others when man can be certain of nothing, including the value of things?

2. Which takes me to your debate today. Your set-up for the debate pitted “secular humanism” against “Judeo-Christian values”. This raises a number of problems.

Whereas it is arguable that “secular humanists” are little more than agnostic, multiculturalists (i.e., anti-reason collectivists who: declaring war on the ability to know anything, deny the ability to know whether or not an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient entity exists), it is utterly false that if you want a separation of church and state you want what humanism wants: multiculturalism, collectivism, etc. Take me as an example. I’m an Objectivist: think of me as a doubting Thomas, except that a ghostly Jesus has never appeared to me. I consider no claim or belief to be true or “possible” if there is ultimately no physical evidence to support the claim. Reason, as is demonstrated by the invention of the radio, is clearly effective: man *can* be certain of things, he *can* hold knowledge, and *reason* (as opposed to divine revelation, or group consensus) is his *only* effective tool for discovering what is true/false, good/evil. In short: I value the true, and give no value to the false: the true is the good, the false the evil…or, as they say: Every IS implies an OUGHT. And, it is *because* I value reason and the demonstrable facts of reality, and hold up as the good all decisions a man must make rationally to pursue his own happiness, that I seek the separation of church and state: secularism, if you will, minus the humanist, multiculturalist, anti-reason, anti-morality BS.

If a man is to be able to pursue his own happiness, the government must not be using guns, fines, and imprisonment to enforce laws founded upon claims of good and evil that are founded not upon facts proven with physical evidence, but upon tales set out in religious texts. It must, in making laws, entirely ignore a claim that the Wonderful Wizard of Oz commands all earners to share their products with non-earners. It must turn a blind eye to claims that The Great Gazoo wants women to cover themselves so that men with sexual insecurities don’t have to worry as much about another guy picking up their good-looking wives.

Judeo-Christian values – like all religious values – are a mixed bag of dogmatic assertions, allegedly having their origin in the mouth of a supernatural being. Just like multiculturalism, religion tells man that he cannot think and judge for himself; he cannot be certain of anything; he lacks the ability to discover what is good and what is evil; what will allow him to live and achieve happiness, and what will cause him pain, suffering, and death. Religion tells man that his role is to obey what The Most High tells him to do, even if his own rational judgment of the facts – supported by physical evidence – indicates that The Most High is wrong about something. Like multiculturalism, religion defames the efficacy of reason. It proclaims the existence of realms and supernatural powers undetectable by man, and tells man to adopt a code of behaviour suited not to pursuing happiness on this earth, but for enduring suffering and loss in this life as the price of obtaining an afterlife filled with unearned happiness. It tells us not to produce physical values, but to deny ourselves those values and to give them to others who have not earned them (“it is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle”). It tells us to do *exactly* what multiculturalism tells us to do: to have nothing that ones neighbour lacks, and to give to ones neighbour that which he lacks if you have more than enough to satisfy your basic needs (you are your brother’s keeper).

In conclusion: John, your discussion was about whether “we” should replace one form of anti-reason, anti-egoism, pro-collectivism (multiculturalism, or “secular humanism”) with another form of anti-reason, anti-egoism, pro-collectivism (obedience to religious dogma). It was about replacing one form of government oppression (secular collectivism) with another form (religious collectivism): each serving to violate the lives, liberty, and property of individuals who are not harming anyone, but who are – by thinking and acting rationally – producing values and achieving happiness not achieved by some others…others who choose not to go to the bother of thinking and acting, but who still expect to have a hot meal for dinner and a 3 bedroom home to live in.

It’s not multiculturalism per se, that is the problem, John. It is, more fundamentally, the assault on reason. Oppression – as has always been true in history – is the necessary result of that constant groping for endarkenment.

As evidence: just watch as Europe’s backlash against multiculturalism turns, once again, into the embrace of a system – another collectivist system – that groups people according to race, and that values people according to race. The pendulum swings, yet nobody seems to notice that the clock is broken.

Cheers,

Paul

Comments

2 Responses to “Multiculturalism, Judeo-Christian Values, and the Broken Clock”

  1. Martin Gasser on October 19th, 2010 6:20 pm

    Hear hear,

  2. Kenneth Simmons on November 10th, 2010 6:19 pm

    Paul,
    It is NOT TRUE that religion (specifically, Christianity) tells man to abrogate his own reasoning, or to eschew happiness here on earth. It does encourage man to rethink his priorities, because left entirely to our own inherent self-centredness and selfishness the world would be a sorry place.

    It also tells us to love God with heart and soul, body AND MIND.

    It was through sheer force of logic – his own reasoning – that C. S. Lewis was converted from devout atheism to Christianity. He writes about this process in great detail in “Mere Christianity”.

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