Bigotry gets a bad press doesn’t it? Yet how are we supposed to know if one culture or one matrix of social norms is superior to another if we don’t compare and contrast and attempt to come up with a few answers? To do so is often condemned as bigotry however rational any analysis may be. Surely we must defend what is felt to be good in our culture while being prepared to compare it with other possibilities.
For example it is fairly obvious that Islamic immigration into the UK ought to be debated in the public arena. If there are social and cultural difficulties then these should be tackled openly. Not only that, but the potential for unsatisfactory integration has been obvious for decades and that too should be on the political table.
However, a well-known problem arises in that many social trends such as this are not open for unfettered mainstream debate and to point this out is the label oneself as a bigot. Many people accused of bigotry are actually opposing bigotry. They may be bigoted in one sense, but opposing bigotry in another sense.
Oh well. Decades ago a popular put-down was to accuse someone of making a value-judgement, a weird accusation which seemed to deny an essential fact of social life. Of course this was merely a fashionable put-down made from another value-judgement, a slightly more refined way of saying ‘shut yer gob’.
It is amazing how double-sided these things so obviously are, even though supposedly intelligent people will stick rigidly and even sanctimoniously to one side only. Even though their fundamental argument stripped to its bones is little more than ‘shut yer gob yer bigot’.
4 comments:
Ah, yes! I'd forgotten the "value judgement" thing! Presumably, it escaped the notice of most people that the undesirability of making value-judgements was in itself a value-judgement. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to the "bigot" label.
There seems to be a general drift towards a situation in which to prefer one state of affairs over another in seen as undesirable. We would all be up shit creek if that didn't undercut itself as well, and we should point this out to people as often as we can.
An obvious example is from Gordon Brown's assertion that someone disagreed with his party mantra, therefore was a bigot.
He probably lost more votes for his ridiculous stance, than any other throwaway comment.
But of course, it was the wrong sort of bigotry he was discussing with his helper...
There must be a degree course in it somewhere these days. But is it a BA or BSc? Of course at the Oxford and Cambridge colleges they have long had one. Only they call it PPE, politics, philosophy and economics.
Sam - I agree, we should point this out to people as often as we can while we can.
Scrobs - yet the wrong sort of bigotry can be just as valid as the official version.
Demetrius - good point. The tide of history may be against us.
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