There exists a serious confusion confounding politics and
communities alike. What precisely is the link between a society and the
cultures as they exist in it?
First we need to clarify some background. We are discussing a
modern liberal, western democracy. We are not discussing a largely uniform or
at least significantly uniform society such as might exist in a Muslim state,
where everyone is expected to be Muslim and live their lives accordingly, nor a
religiously dogmatic Jewish or Quaker community where uniformity is not just
expected but enforced which under Islam law is by death for those who change
religious views.
No, we are discussing the West, with a tradition that has
emerged over millennia where people have fought and died for the right of all
to live as they choose.
I recall Centrepoint community some years ago, before the
community was rocked with pedophile scandals, the core social question before
legal issues was should such a community be allowed to exist.
There is no suggestion that sexual abuse of children is
acceptable, but in principle did society overall have the right to stop such a
community assuming all actions within it were legal? I decided no, society had
no right to restrict the community; that is yes the community had the right to
exist; not only that but the people within that community should be able to
depend on me to support their right to live as they do.
I am a libertarian, I believe in the primacy of the individual
to live as they choose within the law. That is the Western core view… and we in
New Zealand
are in fact a Western liberal democracy, and I am extremely proud of that fact.
We have a depth of innovative libertarian history; the pity is we have ceased
to lead the world in the political emergence of a libertarian society. But that
is another story.
My core view is that every spirit born into this world has an
unalienable right to seek its own fulfillment. The two restrictions are first
any search for fulfillment must be within the law, and second in pursuing our
own fulfillment we must not restrict or erode the effort of others in seeking their
fulfillment.
Millions in the West have died to secure these privileges we
enjoy today. I believe freedom is a flower that grows only in fields fertilized
with blood: Lest we forget their sacrifice.
So now we have the dilemma made clear. Multiple ways of life,
call them ‘cultures’ all living within the same space, and some of those ways
of life may be so morally abhorrent as to have one up in arms at every turn.
Does moral repugnance give me the right to stop or restrict
the efforts of others in seeking their fulfillment? Assume I believe fervently
that they can never find fulfillment in what they do. Their judgment may be
wrong, and I may be disgusted, but these reactions do not give me the right to
stop them, provided the group operates within the law and does not restrict
others, or impose on others.
The law in this view intervenes to provide rules of
interaction between groups with very different values and aspirations… and
provides rules to protect against general abuse, such as protect children from
abuse under any circumstances.
Society has the right by way of open and transparent political
process to define the laws to apply. Beyond that, no member of another group
may restrict legal actions of any other group. There is the issue of the right
to protest, but within a fair libertarian society we need be careful in
extending this to the passive or active restriction of any person going about
their legally sanctioned business. Like the erosion of New Zealand’s
social and political leadership, this is again another story.
Now, how can we think about this dilemma, define insightful
understanding of words such a ‘society’, ‘culture’, multicultural’, and
‘pluralism’. I offer the following.
Society embraces a core set of values, these I call the
‘social structure’. For a western liberal democracy these include separation of
powers, so economic activity, judiciaries, legislation, and police, are all separated.
Religion is a personal choice and not part of the state; and we have democracy,
significant political transparency, social education and health, freedom of
movement, right of speech, right to privacy, right to protest, and freedom of
association etc.
We need identify these core values and hold fast to them, it
is these values that go back thousands of years and for which millions have
died to enable us to live as we do today.
We need to be very clear that these values are beyond
‘culture’, they define the very essence of that which fully defines us. So what
then is culture?
Culture is a way of life chosen by some group within the
social structure. So Muslims may live as Muslims, Maori as Maori, Caucasians as
Caucasians, Polynesians as Polynesians, Asians as Asians, etc. None of these
have priority rights; none may insist their cultural values are codified. Culture
is how people live within the core social structure which does not define how
any must live, but does define rights of fundamental individual freedom which
applies to all people. This is who we are, free people within a liberal western
democracy and within which each has a place and is welcome provided they adhere
to the core right of others to be very different from them.
‘Multi-culturalism’ does not need defined in law, in fact we
need not define it at all, it is intrinsic to our core social structure
inherited from two and a half thousand years of Western European social
development. I am enormously proud of my cultural heritage and its enormous
contribution to human kind.
It is the social structure that binds us. And it is only the
social structure that binds us. Within the social structure our cultures will
be very, very different.
As a people we must commit to defend powerfully the right of
all other peoples, other cultures to live and be allowed to live as they choose
within the law and without restricting any other group. We must embrace the
absolute right of another person to live in a manner we abhor, and we must
celebrate such diversity least we indeed lose perspective on who we are, and
become a social backwater where once we lead the world.
