Socialist Pecking Order

The irrepressible Dr. Sanity writes today about the socialist pecking order:

From the perspective of the socialist utopian, what matters more than Women's rights or Gay Righs [sic] are the rights of a designated culture. The dogma of multiculturalism trumps the dogma of women's superiority. This is probably because for the socialist utopian, might makes right and the needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few--and the few better remember that fact, or else. In the socialist utopia, there is no room for individuality or personal preference; or tolerance for differences. You always must subsume yourself to the collective; and the bigger the collective, the more power victimization can be exploited.

But the first (and only) lefty "virtue" is furthering social justice, and when you realize that there are more women than jihadists, it must be that jihadists are more oppressed than women. In lefty logic, allowing jihadists to abuse women furthers social justice.

In The Happy Chains of Individualism I tried to lay out the case for individualism as the basis for success in the American experiment. But the leftist multicultural agenda, being all about groups, has no room for individualism. The group is considered autonomous, its will inarguable. Dr. Sanity notes that there is a conflict between accepting the premise that all cultures should be considered equal and the obvious fact that in some cultures, we would not be able even to mouth the words that all cultures should be considered equal.

The discussion brings to mind the downfall of Tolerance: since all things should be tolerated except the intolerant, the only state of mind allowed should be toleration. To the pathologically tolerant, no rule or guideline can hold sway, because it would be intolerant to impose rules. Toleration as a basis for living is as disingenuous insipid as it is cowardly.

Yet Dr. Sanity is not the first to note the fundamental conflict between multiculturalism and liberalism. Paraphrasing Salman Rushdie, a voice of some gravity in liberal circles:

Western liberal intellectuals have become accustomed to believing that those the world over with darker skin are oppressed by the lighter-skinned ones. That almost instinctual belief is so intertwined with what it means to be a good liberal that all an African or South Asian demagogue need do is decry Western imperialism or oppression, and Western liberals will buy it hook, line, and lead-free sinker.

So Muslim extremists, with very illiberal points of view, engage the Western liberal media as willing allies simply by asserting the common enemy of Western dominance.

A parallel development is equally troubling to Rushdie, and that is the growth of multiculturalism. There is a pointed difference, Rushdie says, between rejoicing in the many and varied cultures we find thrown together in an increasingly global, mobile, interconnected world, and refusing to place boundaries of acceptability around behavior.

Those identifying with their own oppressed victim group should take note how quickly, if some culture wishes it, their socialist brethren will send them back to the kitchen, the closet, or the back of the bus.

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