From here. He is commenting on an article I wrote nine years ago. At the end he talks about the ridiculousness of what could best be called the Regressive Left.
There’s some truth to what Lindsay says, buried under all the hyperbole and ranting. The foundations of modern liberalism – universality of humanity and rational individualism – were spawned by the Enlightenment in Europe. For all of its contradictions and inconsistencies, it was a big jump ahead of the hierarchical, ethnocentric, and tribal outlooks that dominated most of the world.
Without the liberal ideology born in Europe, racism would not even be recognized as a problem. African tribes had no problem regarding other tribes as completely outside their moral system, and it remains a problem for African nations to this day. The Indian caste system was a vicious system of racial disenfranchisement that reduced some people lower than cattle. It remains in Indian culture if not in institutions. East Asians have been incredibly racist. Gender equality as an ideal is definitely an Anglo-European thing, as is acceptance of homosexuality.
The USA was the first nation that defined its creed from the liberal idea, followed shortly by the French Republic. Karl Marx analyzed the contradictions of the liberal idea and founded an ideology that lent power to anti-colonial and egalitarian movements around the world. If you’re seeking dignity and freedom from oppression, you can thank the liberal and post-liberal ideologies originated by White Anglo-Europeans for making them issues in the world discourse.
I also agree with Lindsay that there’s a whopping contradiction in the position of the postmodernist, multiculturalist PC left. It’s a road to nowhere as long as it elevates backward, stifling, hierarchical, and violent cultures to the same level as the ones that embrace the dignity of the individual and their role in the community. There is plenty of room for criticism of cultural backwardness, although it is taboo among the PC Left. The nations that have thrived have done so by adopting aspects of the Anglo-European liberal idea, regardless of race.
