Thursday 27 June 2013

Inclusiveness (Relativism, Tolerance, Multiculturalism, Diversity) are reciprocal Nihilism

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I have been reading again the wonderfully deep and insightful book Nihilism- the root of the revolution of the modern age, by Eugene (later Fr Seraphim) Rose
From the introductory remarks it is clear that the distinctive modern Leftist and Politically Correct beliefs such as Relativism, Tolerance, Multiculturalism, Diversity and now Inclusivness are all reciprocal-derivations of Nihilism.
Relativism, Tolerance and Multiculturalism were types of passive Nihilism; while Diversity and most recently Inclusiveness are increasingly-extreme forms of active Nihilism.
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Nihilism has been defined, and quite succinctly, by the fount of philosophical Nihilism, Nietzsche:

"That there is no truth; that there is no absolute state of affairs-no 'thing-in-itself.' This alone is Nihilism, and of the most extreme kind." ...

By "truth" we mean, of course--as Nietzsche's denial of it makes explicit--absolute truth, which we have already defined as the dimension of the beginning and the end of things.

"Absolute truth": the phrase has, to a generation raised on skepticism and unaccustomed to serious thought, an antiquated ring. No one, surely--is the common idea--no one is naive enough to believe in "absolute truth" any more; all truth, to our enlightened age, is "relative."

The latter expression, let us note -"all truth is relative"- is the popular translation of Nietzsche's phrase, "there is no (absolute) truth"; the one doctrine is the foundation of the Nihilism alike of the masses and of the elite.

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So, New Leftism (Political Correctness) began with establishing that all truth is relative, then moved onto a doctrine of Tolerance (including Tolerance of sin, lies and deliberate uglification/ destruction of beauty)...
And as these were accepted. Leftism moved on to propaganda for Multiculturalism (the assertion that since all societies, hence all religions and no religion, were only arbitrarily different and could not be distinguished nor chosen-between on objective grounds, then we 'ought' to accept and celebrate whatever social differences might arise)...
And then on to the further deveopment of  Diversity which was the policy actively to create, to engineer, Multiculturalism - by adopting the assumption that Diversity was a virtue, indeed an imperative...
And then the ideal of Inclusiveness which is that Diversity becomes not just one Good among many, but the primary imperative of policy; such that previous primary Goods must necessarily be demoted.
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Inclusiveness means that Churches must place Diversity above Christianity (which must be shaped to fit the needs of Diversity); Universities and Schools must place Diversity as a higher goal than educational attainment; the Army, Navy and Airforce must be Inclusive before they are militarily effective; economic and political policy must ensure that the nation and its residential areas, workplaces and even social clubs must all conduct their activities within the primary framework of Inclusiveness.
And all of this is lyingly denied in its actuality and implications, since the fact that all truth is relative is something every modern adult drank in with their school milk.  
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As a specific example, an 'Inclusive' Church is one which aims to include everybody - not, please note, by Christian evangelism - by converting non-Christians to Christians and inducing them to aim-at living by the Laws of God and the Rules of the Church and then including them as members of The Church (regardless of their sex, race, ethnicity or colour); but absolutely the opposite to this: an 'Inclusive' Church is one that aims to rewrite the Laws of God and the Rules of the Church such that nobody will be excluded by them.
While traditional Christian Churches were truly inclusive, in the sense that they positively aimed at converting as many people as possible and thereby 'including' as many people as possible; on the other hand, the self-styled-Inclusive Christian Churches do the inverse of including; that is, instead of including Christians, they do-not-exclude non-Christians.
Indeed, the imperative not-excluding-non-Christians has become the dominant goal of Inclusive Churches - such that the traditional Laws of God and Rules of the Church are now seen as an impediment to the work of these churches.
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Inclusiveness is therefore an extremely advanced form of Nihilism; Inclusiveness rules all major social institutions; and Nihilism therefore rules modern society.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I found myself remembering Fr. Rose's work on nihilism as I was re-reading George Steiner's book Real Presences today. There is little in it about tolerance, but there is much about how the Logos haunts all language and artistic expression. Western man has been attempting to escape from God through ever more barren and clever expressions, such as, for example, Joyce's Ulysses or Beckett's plays.

Bruce Charlton said...

@G - Agreed. I spent, wasted, a fair bit of time seeking meaning (answers) in such works - which were actually engaged in the destruction of meaning and destruction even of the basis for evaluating meaning. Steiner, I feel, would sacrifice the world for profundity - he clings to the status of being an intellectual.