Thank you for your post!…

Profit seeking, neo con christians who would sell their grandmothers for a barrel of oil
and
3rd Wave feminists writing dreary anti- male literature, launching speech codes, behaviour pamphlets and generally waging war on the above.

Personally I can’t decide which is worse and I certainly wouldn’t choose to have dinner with either.

I’m not sure I was positing a zero-sum/false dichotomy/strawman argument, and I don’t have an issue with Islam per se, but with the idea that unquestioning acceptance of it, or worse, adaptation of culture to accomodate it, is a desirable, or even necessary position. My question is what’s the end game ? What does a “post Islamist” UK society look like ? For me any change has to have net benefits, and I don’t think it has.

Personally I think cultural relativism is bollocks - how can you argue that all cultures are equal without having some sort of absolute against which to measure that equality ?, To use a mathematical analogy; 2+2 can only be deemed as equal to 3+1, if we have a shared and absolute understanding of what 4 is….

Having said that I accept relativism as a coherent intellectual position, IF it is properly applied. What annoys me is how selectively it is deployed, for example, genuine cultural relativism would say it is inappropriate to judge the Empire by contemporary cultural norms, and yet we are supposed to beat ourselves up about it constantly. Cultural relativism would say that white working class culture is as valid as minority “Identity politics”, and yet there there is a perpetual open season on white working class culture. Relativism has been hijacked by the liberal left and used selectively as a stick to beat cultures which are deemed to be undesirable or problematic.
Trying to have it both ways is a bogus and indefensible position, you cannot simulataneously claim that relativism is valid whilst casting judgements on cultures you dislike, once you exercise judgement, you are no longer in the relativist paradigm.

Just like the debates over Israel, I think to be anti-American is rather meaningless unless you point out precisely which America (or rather, what facets of it) you dislike…

You should know very well that it is not my usual point. Its just because you find everything wrong with the Islamic world (or rather, any world-view that does not match your own) that you attribute extreme, zero-sum, absolutist positions to everyone else.

Or to put it another way…

You’re right, though, to suggest it is analagous to a lot of my blogging here, since I often bang the relativist drum. Charles comment is thought provoking for that very reason - the Americans only have a problem if they give a shite about what the rest of the world, Europe especially, might think of them. I’ve tried to explain before why they may care about Europe in particular, and why Europe cares particularly about America.

In seeking to define multiculturalism, I constantly come back to ideas of subversion, evolution and change. Since I tend to post thoughts about what is going on in the UK, and because I am a white middle-class heterosexual English man, then it is probably going to be what we might call ‘mainstream British culture’ that I am going to discuss and debate most frequently. But as Charles shows us, the door swings both ways. I would be interested to see which parts of my writing you think would give succour to an Islamist.

Good point, and an ironic inversion of Robs usual stance on Islam (it is the UKs problem in not accomodating it, rather than any intrisic issue with an alien ideology). If we “must” accept Islam as beneficial then why not the US, which is far more tangibly beneficial to the UK than Islam will ever be ?

Personally I see the UK as a function of both US and European culture - so we have Starbucks, Gap, easy jet and chewing gum, but also the faux intellectalism, snobbery and the failed social model we imported from the French. Since WW2 at least this countyry has lacked the confidence to develop a strong identity, leaving it open to the influence of a multitude of influences, some see this as a strength, but maybe the US influence is an example of it being a weakness.

Charles Barton seems to equate criticism with denigration and hatred. While the latter are perhaps not very nice, and often ill-founded, the former I would say is a pre-requisite of a just and free society. Strange that someone from “the land of the free” seeks to attack others’ freedoms like this. This type of behaviour is exactly why some people don’t like the USA.

While England is “free”, Charles Barton, I reserve the right to be anti- anything I fancy, to criticise anything I think deserving of it, and to hate anything that harms people. I’m anti-American and proud of it. And if I think you’re superficial, I reserve the right to say so.

All the best.

What i take to be your anti-American attitude is all to evident in your statements You state, ” If, for example, I complain about western consumer culture, then the US is likely to be the whipping boy, as the most visible example.”

Of courst, one of the standard bugaboos of European anti-Americans is our consumer culture. your assumption is that consumers should not have access to a free market where they can buy anything they choose. Our American consumeri economy insures that Americans are far more likely to have full employment than Europe does with its anti-consumer attitudes. You support an economic sustem that limits employment, and criticizes one that encourages it. Oh how European.

You say, “I see no problem with criticising and complaining about a country in proportion to its influence over the rest of us.” My responce is that maybe you ought to see American Influance on Europe as a European problem and not a problem with American culture. From my puint of view, the biggest source of Eurpopean problems stems from old and embeded anti-Democratic tendancies in Europe.

Again I will mention EU Vice-President Margot Walstrom statement suggesting that Americans take a shallow approach to communications. But I’ll bet that Walstrom does not have the slighest idea how really sophisticated governmental communications is in the United States. I don’t read of the EU Commission holding hearings all around Europe to determine public views on the effects of proposed regulations as Amerucan Federal govenmental agencies do.

I do see evidence that the EU Commission is highly corrupt, and thus is not an instrument of Democracy. The EU Commission has not instituted a fundamental measure that woulod assure the integrity of its operations. i refer to double entry book keeping. The EU’s books have not been audited in well over a decade, That would be inconceivable in that land of shalllow consumerism, the United States.

I find it truely amazing that Europen intellectuals are more concerned with attacking American consumerism, than in exploring the potential for truely massive corruption in ther EU Commission. By making the United States your whipping boy, you are creating an appearance of moral order, while ignoring evidence of moral disorder in Europe that has nothing to do with the United States. In doing so you are sherking your duty to the citizens and consumers of Europe.