Key Quotes on Cultural Relativism

Of course all cultures are not the same:

Relativism is almost always poisonous. And it is self-refuting. If everything is relative, then there is no objective standard by which to judge and assess anything. Epistemological Relativism is the idea that there is no absolute truth. Moral Relativism is the view that morality is subjective, based on individual preferences. Cultural Relativism is the belief that one cannot judge other cultures; each one is right in its own way.

This article will look at that last form, especially in relation to things like multiculturalism, immigration, and public policy. What I offer here are 27 quotes by 20 thinkers on this matter, arranged alphabetically by author:

“Culture is more than cuisine or clothes. It’s also customs which may be at odds with British values. We cannot be naïve and assume immigrants will automatically abandon ancestral ethnic hostilities at the border, or that all cultures are equally valid. They are not.” Kemi Badenoch

“Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal.” Michael Barone

“There are objective differences between cultures which mandate barbaric mutilation of women and ones that neither permit nor wish it; between cultures which permit freedom of speech and open discussion of religious and other values, and ones that do not; between cultures of economic freedom and ones of economic unfreedom. People who deny these differences cannot usually be argued with. As G. K. Chesterton said, if you argue with a mad person you will very likely get the worst of it, for your opponent’s mind is unhampered by humour or proportion or common sense. A ‘multiculturalism’ which seriously holds all cultures are equal, that all cultures should be welcomed holus-bolus into our so far exceptionally unified continent is mad.” Hal G. P. Colebatch

“Multiculturalism is only in the West. We are absorbing a large number of Muslims in the west and at the same time the Christians and the Jews and other minorities are fleeing the Middle East, churches are being burnt, nobody is talking about it. Where are the religious freedoms of the minorities.” Mark Durie

“Multiculturalism is a good reminder that when standards are relative, there are no standards at all.” Victor Davis Hanson

“In Holland I have seen well-meaning, principled people blinded by multiculturalism, overwhelmed by the imperative to be sensitive and respectful of immigrant culture, while ignoring criminal abuse of women and girls.” Ayaan Hirsi Ali

“What was it that they wanted to replace the nation state with? The radical pursuit of heterogeneity in the name of multiculturalism and diversity. International and supranational entities designed to transcend or sidestep the nation states, such as the United Nations or the European Union. Some even dreamt of world government—the globalists. There were other alternatives to the nation states too. For example, Islamists argued, and continue to do so, that the caliphate should be restored and Sharia law imposed. But these visions of a post-national world are delusional. The international and supranational bodies turned out to be dysfunctional—tyrannical rule of bureaucracy and wasteful, chronically prone to fraud and abuse. The experiment based on the vaunted theory of multiculturalism to bring about heterogeneous societies in Europe has, in large measure, failed.” Ayaan Hirsi Ali

“All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls’ genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs or stones them for falling in love. A culture that protects women’s rights by law is better than a culture in which a man can lawfully have four wives at once and women are denied alimony and half their inheritance. A culture that appoints women to its supreme court is better than a culture that declares that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism, and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better. In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse. Many people genuinely feel pain at the thought of the death of whole cultures. I see this all the time. They ask, “Is there nothing beautiful in these cultures? Is there nothing beautiful in Islam?” There is beautiful architecture, yes, and encouragement of charity, yes, but Islam is built on sexual inequality and on the surrender of individual responsibility and choice. This is not just ugly; it is monstrous.” Ayaan Hirsi Ali

“Why doesn’t multiculturalism work? The answer is that multiculturalism is essentially a form of relativism in which morality is relative to culture. The corresponding belief is that the members of one culture have no right to make judgments about the rightness or wrongness of another culture’s traditions or practices. . . . Because of its inherent divisiveness, the multiculturalist model would eventually fail in any society. But it is particularly fatal to a society that has in its midst an aggressive cultural group that refuses to subscribe to relativism. By neglecting to stand up for their own values, traditions, and religious heritage – indeed, by denigrating them – European countries left themselves almost defenceless against a resurgent Islam. Islam’s success in Europe has been built in large part on European self-doubt.” William Kilpatrick

“If truth is contingent upon the society in which we live…there is nothing intuitive or universally or absolutely true about freedom from torture or freedom from slavery; our society just happens to have come up with these values over time.” Stephen McAndrew

“While we all may have a sense of what is evil and what is good under the philosophy of cultural tolerance, evil and good can only be relative ideals. Without an objective truth—a set of universal moral values—good and evil are defined by the individual, community, or society. Therefore we have no moral basis by which to judge another person, community, or nation for what they do or don’t do.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell

“The most dangerous lie of the 21st century was that all cultures are interchangeable. Sweden is the irrefutable proof that they are not. As an Iranian who watched my own country fall to extremism, the tragedy unfolding in Scandinavia feels like a recurring nightmare. I have seen a civilization commit suicide before, and the symptoms are always the same: a fatal tolerance for those who explicitly wish to dismantle your way of life. We are witnessing the total collapse of a utopian fantasy. Sweden now rivals nations like Mexico in bombing frequency for a country not officially at war. This is not merely a crime wave. It is the sound of a society fracturing under the weight of imported conflict. It echoes the silence that eventually fell over my own homeland when the vibrancy of culture was traded for the rigidity of dogma. Sweden is the canary in the coal mine. It demonstrates that tolerance cannot extend to the intolerant.” Armin Navabi

“Many journalists are influenced by a myopic multiculturalism that is suspicious of anything Western, while giving the benefit of the doubt to non-Western societies.” Nancy Pearcey

“The West must very soon recognize that: 1) All immigrants are not equally likely to assimilate; 2) All immigrants are not equally likely to be a net benefit to the host society; 3) All immigrants are not equally likely to be a net existential danger to the host society; 4) All cultures are not equal; 5) All religions are not equal; 6) A religion that seeks to destroy your society, civilization, religious heritage, and freedoms should not receive protection under the First Amendment; 7) You don’t owe it to said religion to capitulate in the name of tolerance, compassion, and suicidal empathy; 8) Our freedoms and liberties are being used to erase our existence. It is time to wake up. Every day that passes without the necessary auto-corrections is ensuring that our children and their children will live in a world that is astoundingly darker than anything that the West has ever known. Have a great week.” Gad Saad

“The view that all cultures are equally valuable is called ‘cultural relativism.’ For this, anthropologists must take much responsibility. What began as a research effort to see other cultures without bias and through the eyes of their members, became an extremist moral and ethical relativism, the view that someone from one culture cannot judge what happens in another culture. In this view, no criteria may be applied from one culture to assess other cultures; above all, no judgments may be made indicating that some are better than others.” Philip Carl Salzman

“So what happens when people whose identity is fixed by creed or kinship immigrate into places settled by Western culture? The multiculturalists say that we must make room for them, and that we do this by relinquishing the space in which their culture can flourish. Our political class has at last recognized that this is a recipe for disaster, and that we can welcome immigrants only if we welcome them into our culture, and not beside and against it. But that means telling them to accept rules, customs, and procedures that may be alien to their old way of life. Is this an injustice? Surely not. If immigrants come it is because they gain by doing so. It is therefore reasonable to remind them that there is also a cost. Only now, however, is our political class prepared to say so, and to insist that the cost be paid. And it may be that this change of heart comes too late.” Roger Scruton

“When you import people, you import cultures. Those cultures no longer give way to the American culture when ‘multiculturalism’ is a dogma and its apostles and activists make it necessary for American laws, language, and culture to give way, or at least accommodate growing alien enclaves in our midst. A nation is more than a collection of whatever population happens to reside within its borders. Something has to unite those people if the country is not to degenerate into the kind of unending internal strife brought on by Balkanization in many countries around the world, not just in the Balkans. Unity and patriotism are not luxuries. Survival in an international jungle depends on them. What are dangerous luxuries are the open borders which erode national solidarity. The fact that we are already at each other’s throats over the immigration issue is an ominous sign.” Thomas Sowell

“[Multiculturalism] is a cult of tolerance in which you demonstrate your sensitivity to other cultures by being almost totally insensitive to your own.” Mark Steyn

“At the heart of multiculturalism is a lie: that all cultures are equally ‘valid.’ To accept that proposition means denying reality—the reality of any objective measure of human freedom, societal health, and global population movement. Multiculturalism is not the first ideology founded on the denial of truth.” Mark Steyn

“[D]iscussing cultural relativism with cultural relativists is like playing tennis with some guy who says, ‘Your ace is just a social construct’.” Mark Steyn

“If all cultures are equal, then cannibalism is just a matter of culinary taste.” Leo Strauss

“The list of people sacrificed on the altar of multiculturalism or diversity is endless, and you’d never hear about it in the media, they’d like to cover it up.” Eva Vlaardingerbroek

“This time we live in will go down in history as the time in which Western nations no longer had to get invaded by hostile armies in order to be conquered, the invader was actively invited in by a corrupt elite.” Eva Vlaardingerbroek

“I just want to say that the multiculturalism – and especially the cultural relativism which is even worse than multiculturalism, the concept that all cultures are equal – is the worst recipe for any society.” Geert Wilders

“Europe’s greatest problem is cultural relativism. This has led to a situation where Europeans no longer know what they should be proud of and who they really are because a so-called liberal and leftist-imposed concept says that all cultures are the same.” Geert Wilders

“Cultural relativism dictates that all cultures are equally moral and valuable—though in practice, Western culture is often presented as inferior to all others, stained as it supposedly is by racism and imperialism.” Geert Wilders

“[Cultural relativism] licenses the envy of the untalented, giving rise to what has been called the revenge of failure: Those who cannot paint destroy the canons of painting; those who cannot write reject canonical literature.” George Will

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