Richard Dawkins

vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Isn't that a bit of a straw man, though?

Firstly, in that Christianity, for e.g., can draw on 2000 years of tradition, plus Judaic, Ancient Greek, Islamic traditions, etc, etc, etc...

Secondly, in that modern secular liberalism is not so different to Mainline Protestantism, just with fewer references to God.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
"Mainline Protestantism"? There has to be a "crystal Methodists" joke in there somewhere...

I dunno what you mean. Mainstream in the US or UK?
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Mr. Tea said:
So what I'm trying to distinguish is an active programme for secularization that safeguards people's right to practice religion without encouraging them to think of their faith as defining their cultural identity in toto - as opposed to the default "liberal" position that assumes that as long as we have a "Muslim community" and a "Jewish community" and a "black community" all living in the same country, then we are "multicultural" and can pat ourselves on the back for being all liberal and progressive and stuff.
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I guess the French system could be said to be defined along the former lines, but it can obviously go badly wrong.

Yep, there is a dearth of places anywhere that could be described as multicultural in any meaningful way. Grudging tolerance on the surface doesnt' cut it.
 
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vimothy

vimothy

yurp
That is a link to a Wikipedia page on "Mainline Protestantism", which is basically the mainstream of liberal Christianity in the US.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
vimothy said:
Can't we describe the UK as "multicultural"?
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We could on a broad statistical level sure, but there are so many overwhelmingly culturally homogenous spaces within it (and more to the point, within its largest and most 'mixed' cities), and so much correlation between race and social status, that mere statistical multiculturalism doesn't mean an awful lot.

To take an extreme example, apartheid South Africa was pretty multicultural in one sense.
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
baboon2004 said:
I guess the French system could be said to be defined along the former lines, but it can obviously go badly wrong.

Yep, there is a dearth of places anywhere that could be described as multicultural in any meaningful way. Grudging tolerance on the surface doesnt' cut it.
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Yes, I would say the French system - from what I know about it - gets it badly wrong, probably wronger that Britain's laissez-faire MC-ism (to the extent that you can quantify these things).

Interesting what you say about tolerance. I think the meaning of that word has changed. To tolerate something you put up with it; you're not required to like it. It used to be the case that as a good liberal you were supposed to respect other people's right to hold beliefs that are different from yours, but somewhere along the line it became important to respect the beliefs themselves. Which I vehemently disagree with. I mean, I don't like seeing women walking around draped from head to foot in black cloth, I think it's fucking horrible - but I disagree with calls to make it illegal. I think it should be tackled by, for instance, banning faith schools. I mean, how "multicultural" is a school where every pupil and teacher is a Sunni Muslim, or a Catholic or a Jew? Probably not very "liberal" of me, but there you go - as I've said above, the word is problematic and is often used as a way of sweeping thorny issues under the carpet.
 
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Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
vimothy said:
That is a link to a Wikipedia page on "Mainline Protestantism", which is basically the mainstream of liberal Christianity in the US.
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Yeah yeah, I get it. Not sure how it's "basically the same as liberalism, only with God" (or liberalism is mainstream protestantism, without the God). So moderate tendencies within religions are closer to secular liberal ideals than radical ones...true, but pretty obvious. Tautological, really.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I guess most systems pretend to have a position on something ('secular', ;religious', 'free market' etc etc), but wheedle out of it when it suits them.

Too much emphasis on tolerance alone also becomes a way to ignore structural inequalities/reality while still taking the moral high ground.

Mr. Tea said:
Yes, I would say the French system - from what I know about it - gets it badly wrong, probably wronger that Britain's laissez-faire MC-ism (to the extent that you can quantify these things).

Interesting what you say about tolerance. I think the meaning of that word has changed. To tolerate something you put up with it; you're not required to like it. It used to be the case that as a good liberal you were supposed to respect other people's right to hold beliefs that are different from yours, but somewhere along the line it became important to respect the beliefs themselves. Which I vehemently disagree with. I mean, I don't like seeing women walking around draped from head to foot in black cloth, I think it's fucking horrible - but I disagree with calls to make it illegal. I think it should be tackled by, for instance, banning faith schools. I mean, how "multicultural" is a school where every pupil and teacher is a Sunni Muslim, or a Catholic or a Jew? Probably not very "liberal" of me, but there you go - as I've said above, the word is problematic and is often used as a way of sweeping thorny issues under the carpet.
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vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Mr Tea: Modern liberalism didn't just fall out of the sky! Like all our institutions, it has a history. It developed. It evolved. It came from somewhere--and where it came from is the anglo nonconformist tradition.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
vimothy said:
Baboon,

Okay, so what do you mean by "homogeneity" and what do you mean by "multiculturalism"?
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What I meant about homogeneity is that (taking London here), a rhetoric of 'multiculturalism' (in this rhetorical sense meaning little more than that the city's population is varied re race, religion, culture; I'd argue if multiculturalism is to be linked to value judgments it needs to mean something more than this) conceals the fact that many places, leisure spaces particularly, are segregated by race and/or class. People rarely seem to mix with people who they perceive are not like them, and the way they overwhelmingly seem to judge whether people are 'like them' appears to be by perceived class and/or perceived race, even in cities deemed 'multicultural'.

i've never been anywhere (any city/country) this isnt' true, but would like to hear of anywhere that could buck the trend.

Edit: of course, in London there are some places that are genuinely quite mixed, but they're shockingly rare in my experience.
 
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B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
vimothy said:
Mr Tea: Modern liberalism didn't just fall out of the sky! Like all our institutions, it has a history. It developed. It evolved. It came from somewhere--and where it came from is the anglo nonconformist tradition.
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i think this is important. There is a religious zeal attached to many tenets of liberal culture, particularly around the innate value of work.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
baboon2004 said:
i think this is important. There is a religious zeal attached to many tenets of liberal culture, particularly around the innate value of work.
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Interesting. And when you look at which countries in Europe are royally fucked at the moment...
 
C

comelately

Wild Horses
Mr. Tea said:
I think you're doing liberalism a disservice with this definition - or perhaps confusing liberalism with "liberalism": a sort of depoliticized non-stance that doesn't say much more than "why can't we all just get along?" and has very little to say about serious social issues. I think this position (if you can even call it a position) was a big part of New Labour's laissez-faire multiculturalism, which effectively helped ghettoize immigrant communities by defining them first and foremost by their ethnicity and hanging on the every word of so-called "community leaders", who were almost invariably unelected, frequently clergymen of one stripe or another and often very conservative and socially inward-looking.

And I don't think liberalism is about pleasing all the people all the time - or rather, it shouldn't be - and if it tries, it's bound to fail, since this is of course impossible. Yes, there will be losers in a liberal society, but if those losers are fascists, racists, religious bigots, then...so what? There are limits to tolerance. Intolerance should not be tolerated.
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You're assuming way too much. When I talk about liberalism, I'm talking about economic liberalism as much as I am talking about social liberalism. I agree it is sometimes useful to separate them, but sometimes they need to be considered together. Primarily when I think of liberalism, I think of 'negative liberty' and I remember that it's the sort of thinking that built the workhouses. But that's just me. You do not have to be a bigot to be a loser in a society run according to liberal ideology.

And I think, more importantly than that, there's a difference between a society being run according to a liberal ideology and a society being run using the ideology of liberalism as propaganda. Arguably a fascist could be quite the winner in a so-called 'liberal society'. The true liberal society is an utopian fantasy.
 
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