Cultural Relativism (& Mental hygiene)

Excellent post on Cultural Relativism from the Daily Ablution (which now has a permanent link direct from our front page.)

Cultural Equivalence is Self-Hatred - Now We Must All Hate Ourselves

Several days ago, a (disapproving) commenter made a point that I've been mulling over ever since. I can't remember the exact wording, and I'm not going to take the trouble to scroll through all the comments to find it, but it was something to the effect that the bigotry that has in the past expressed itself as racism now takes the form of "culturism" - the evil, misguided view that some cultures are morally superior to others in an absolute sense - and that this new bigotry must be resisted, as racism was.

Of course, the leftist notion that "all cultures are equal" has been around for quite a while, but the commenter in question did provide a useful service in reminding us of the next step on the agenda of the arbiters of what's deemed proper thinking - having won the day with their altogether laudable stance against the social acceptability of racism (even the left is correct at times), they now seek to impose a stigma equivalent to that of "racist" upon those who argue that some cultures are inherently superior to others.

To my mind, the argument of cultural equivalence is rather easily rebutted, along the following lines:

• Every culture must surely consist of both good and bad characteristics; and,
• It is so unlikely as to be impossible that the proportion of good to bad in every culture on earth is precisely equal, given that they're so "diverse"; ergo, some cultures are superior to others.

Of course, this argument assumes a moral hierarchy, something that the relativists eschew. So the following approach might prove more productive:

• "Is your position really that the culture of present-day AmeriKKKa, based as it is on a noxious combination of rampant consumerism, environmental destruction and fascist cultural imperialism, comprises the moral equivalent of that of the blamelessly pure at-one-with-Gaia Native Americans? "

Any rebuttal along these lines is likely to bring to light the fact that the argument of cultural equivalence is actually acting as a sort of intellectual facade, as at this point its exponent is likely to change tack - and in so doing reveal their real stance; namely, that our (Western) culture is the evil one, to which almost (?) all others are superior.