In this era of silliness, what was once sheer commonsense now stands as an epiphany. It was not so long go ago that it was deemed to be manifestly obvious that respect between people and groups and cultures has to a two-way street. It would have been deemed plain ludicrous for the members of any group to suppose that they are entitled to respect from all others, but they do not owe anyone respect. Yet, that is essentially what tolerating many minorities groups has come to mean.
Well, it seems that the Dutch or the people of Holland have had an epiphany. They hold the following radical view: If the Dutch are to be respectful of Muslims, then Muslims must be respectful of the Dutch. Indeed, it is the Left in Holland that has had this extraordinary insight. The interesting question is this: What took the Left in Holland so long to reach what is surely an obvious truth?
The question is particularly poignant for the Left, be they in Holland or elsewhere, since it is the Left that tends to insist that there are no objective values; and that it is simply matter of mutual consensus as to what is right and wrong. For if there are no objective values, then it can make no sense at all that it is the values of minorities—Muslims, for instance—that are valorized by the Left time and time again while the values of others are systematically trampled upon.
As a purely logical point, the absence of objective values does not favor those who happen to be on the outside trying to get in.
There is a thin, but ever so important line, between self-deprecation and self-criticism; and it seems to me that one way to characterize the Left is that they invariably cross over to self-deprecation whilst engaging in self-criticism. If the problem with the Right is that they do not submit their views to sufficient self-criticism, well it may very well be said that the Left more than compensate for the lack on the part of the Right.
Or to put the point more forcefully: If the Right suffers from bloated self-love, then the Left suffers from fulsome self-loathing.
The lesson from Holland is a very simple one, namely that in the name of respecting Muslims, the Left was effectively trampling upon the rights of others. This happen as a result of the flippant use of the expressions “I am offended” or “I find that offensive”.
In terms of lifestyle, the Dutch are known for not finding much that is offensive. One can smoke grass there, parts of Holland are known for their areas of public prostitution, gays can be married there, and so on. And guess what: Religious Muslims find all of the foregoing offensive.
But wait! It is not also true that observant Christians and Jews also oppose the above mentioned behaviors? Why, of course, it is. And this gets us right the heart of the point.
Most significantly, the Left never gave any thought to the reality the observant Christians and Jews found the above-mentioned behavior morally bankrupt. Observant Christians and Jews just had to learn to get on with life in spite of these things. But the concerns of Muslims, alas, became a crusade on the part of the Left to protect practicing Muslims from the offensive life of the Dutch. And there is the rub.
In a secular society, what is the argument for privileging one group’s concerns that something is offensive over another group’s concerns? And the answer quite simply is that there is none.
What is more, to privilege consistently one group’s concerns about what is or is not offensive over those of another group is effectively to unravel the basic moorings of society by undermining the ideal of mutual respect for all. Indeed, to respect only Muslim concerns and to ignore the concerns of non-Muslim is to engage in none other than a form of ideological slavery with non-Muslims being held as hostage.
To their credit, it is this sublime truth that has, at last, been grasped by the Left in Holland. The Left in Holland has come to the profound insight that tolerance does indeed have its limits. In a secular society, what everyone has to live with, interestingly enough, is some aspects of society which he or she finds offensive (though no direct physical harm is involved). Muslims do not get to have society arranged just for them. Indeed, a society so arranged is no longer a secular one. Nor is the American hybrid of secularism and Puritanism. It is none other than a form of fascism in the name of Islam.
The insight of the Left in Holland is that they were protecting Muslims to the very death of the society which they the Left love. The Left in Holland discovered that protecting Muslims to the exclusion of others was not making the Dutch society more open, as no doubt the Left thought it would. Rather, it was rendering the Dutch society more closed. And there in lies the limits of tolerance for the Left in Holland.
Alas, this turns out to be an instance of genuine moral progress, which follows from the basic precept of mutual moral respect.
More so than any other ideology, the liberalism of the Left has lost sight of the fundamental truth that having been a victim does not excuse a person from respecting others. One of the worst mistakes that the Left has made lies in supposing that victimhood status somehow constitutes a genuine moral excuse for failing to show respect for others.
Indeed, with the exception of the wrongdoer who caused the harm, it is not even clear that being a victim necessarily makes it more difficult to show respect. After all, many people are victims of wrongs committed against them by members of their own culture. Yet, no one thinks it follows from this that it is thereby impossible for the victim to respect other members of her or his culture who did not commit the wrong.
Quite simply, there is no surer way to undermine the very fabric of democratic society than to sanction the view that being a victim constitutes a genuine excuse for failing to show respect for others.
It would appear that the Left in Holland has learnt this ever so valuable lesson. If mutual respect is not the foundation for tolerance, then tolerance is not worth the breath that it takes to utter the word. One can only hope that Holland’s change in this regard will have a positive influence in the United States.
