ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL
An Absolute Value at the Heart of a Multicultural Global Civilisation
Multiculturalism is a sentimental delusion since no civilisation can function which encourages conflicting relativistic values. Some historians have made the absurd claim that we have reached the end of history, certainly the end of ideology. I wish to point out in this short essay that not only is there is an absolute value at the heart of our global civilisation but that unlike other civilisations it is not inculcated by socialisation within the family but is imposed by force by the ruling elite. This is not to be confused with the Rule of Law which is not concerned with creating or sustaining values but with the fairness with which existing laws governing behaviour are applied.
He who pays the Piper
In the recent past Europeans and Americans believed they were Christians. Most people living there were taught to believe in what they were told were Christian values. These values were based on the Gospels, with some variations in interpretation, were encouraged by the ruling establishment and had been part of family and community socialisation for hundreds of years. Now things have radically changed and the idea that they are Christians is regarded with repulsion by leading intellectuals and teachers and journalists. We are now “human” and can demand human rights. But who decides what the word “human” means in terms of values to live by? The only intellectuals qualified to give us an answer are the anthropologists and they cannot provide one. They are well aware that there is no such thing as a non-relativistic definition of the meaning of such an ambiguous concept as “human”. Moreover the secular state authorities who provide their salaries, would not look kindly on any of them who publicly criticised the current human rights definition. The idea of Human is like an ideal form of Plato, an absurd notion by a dangerous idealist. When accelerating material progress became the absolute value in industrialised states, replacing the previous absolute value of steady-state agricultural fertility in religious monarchies, the core value at the cultural heart changed with it.
Maximum rapid economic progress is the outward “proof” of the success of our global civilisation which is based on the core value of Human Rights. This is based on the ideology developed in the Eighteenth Century by the radical Whig intellectuals of the Enlightenment. The Industrial Revolution was putting enormous pressure on the existing value system following rapid urbanisation and alienation from traditional rural religious embedding.
After many years of conflict the right to vote, to own personal property, to divorce, to move to a new community etc. were achieved by all adults. However since there can be no “rights” without reciprocal “responsibilities” or “obligations”, to be meaningful any transgressions against codified human rights must be punished just as firmly as transgression against codified human responsibilities. Is anyone prepared to make the case that this is truly so? Any imbalance would have serious consequences.
