Western Liberalism

In response to my recent LRC blog, The Moral Imperative of American Jihad, a most thoughtful and reflective reader sent me the following observations:

Western liberalism (including libertarianism) certainty developed in an enlightenment / post enlightenment milieu. (See these two items — here and here — regarding the orthodox view of the Enlightenment). We tend to think that secularism is fundamental and nonnegotiable. To us it is part of the air but to people in earlier times the idea that people can coexist with different religions made as much sense as everyone choosing their own climate policy.

Secularism is itself a cultural artifact of western historical origin. Multiculturalists like to champion all sorts of advantages of immigration but assert that one secular legal infrastructure must rule all. Islamists naturally see this as arbitrary and ‘discriminatory’.

Isn’t law and political culture also a product of a people’s general culture and history?

Multiculturalism then runs aground on perceived hypocrisy. It claims all cultures are equal and welcome but cannot, among other cases, accept Muslim culture where secularism is essentially unknown.

Multiculturalists then turn themselves inside out in trying to square an ideological circle rather than admit that their utopian political ideology is in practical terms a bridge too far. Some as is common among all utopian dogmas run aground on practical realities just double down on the ideology and castigation of heretics.

It is just as utopian an idea to think government can create a universal brotherhood of man at home by immigration as to think it can do so abroad by diplomacy. Both dreams have the same utopian roots.

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9:14 pm on June 13, 2016