Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was roundly condemned late last year when he stated in an interview:
“All cultures are not equal.”
Mr Abbott made his statement specifically in reference to Islam, and said that “a culture that believes in decency and tolerance is much to be preferred to one which thinks that you can kill in the name of God, and we’ve got to be prepared to say that.”
By this time, with cries of condemnation no doubt audible in inner Melbourne and Sydney, Mr Abbott continued his statement, declaring that one “thing that’s needed is a restoration of cultural self-confidence in those who are supporters of Western civilisation.”
Although Mr Abbott’s remarks were made last year, they have returned to the spotlight in the wake of the Brussels airport bombing, and the raft of Islamic attacks and which that have taken place around the world over the last couple of weeks.
Right now I don’t want to get into a debate about whether cultures are equal or not. You don’t need a degree in ‘culture studies’ to deduce that cultures are not all the same, let alone equal.
What I would like to respond to is the outcry which came from certain quarters of the community in response to Mr Abbott’s patently obvious observation. And secondly, the inherent fallacy and contradiction with lies in the statement that all cultures are equal.
One of the things we are interested in at the XYZ is exposing the way that certain types of speech and opinions are suppressed in public debate, and the way that language is being abused to almost Orwellian levels in order to engineer culture and manipulate public opinion.
Mr Abbott’s view that cultures are not equal is unacceptable as far as our cultural elites and opinion makers believe and seek to impose on society. As such his statement must be condemned and labeled as ‘hateful’, and his voice silenced.
Some of the recent examples of language abuse have been with the coining of the terms: ‘marriage equality’, ‘homophobia’ and the many other phobias which have nothing to do with a medical pathology but rather political smearing and silencing. In Australia we have a program called “Safe Schools” which uses this name as a smokescreen for its real purpose, and a shield from potential critical examination. As it turns out, the program isn’t really about safety at school, but is about forming children in queer and radical gender theory.
The term “all cultures are equal” is much like these others.
From the outset – the claim that all cultures are equal is an nonsensical statement and is self contradictory, much like other claims of cultural and moral relativism.
A great deal of the language and arguments used by those who seek to radically transform western culture is absurd and irrational, and would not pass muster in a first year university logic course.
If reason has been banished and becomes unthinkable, or is deemed as ‘hateful’, then it becomes very difficult, if not impossible to critique ideologies and social movements and theories.
It seems ludicrous that such irrational and logically bankrupt ideas could be compelling or convincing to anyone, and furthermore provide the basis for radical social change.
Yet in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, which I am fond of referring to, this is exactly what happens. Increasing irrationality, contradiction and lies are programmed into the populous, which having swallowed the pill, become easier to manipulate.
The problem with the statement that all cultures are equal is not so much that the statement is untrue, but that the statement can never be true, even on its own terms.
Photo by Speaker resources 