What's that Sucking Sound?

Maclean's Magazine is on trial this week before British Columbia's Human Rights Tribunal. Coverage of the proceedings can be found at Andrew Coyne's blog. The complaint centers around an issue of Maclean's that discussed the future of the West in relation to Islam and Muslims. At the heart of the complaint is the work of Mark Steyn, in particular his book, America Alone.

Opponents have declared that Steyn's book is "Islamophobic", an attack on Muslims, an attempt to portray all Muslims as terrorists. But the book is not firstly about Muslims or Islam. The key point of Steyn's thesis is that many Western nations have become cultural, moral, and demographic vacuums. European nations, as well as Canada, are unwilling to defend the fundamental values and freedoms in and for which they were constituted. They are committing societal suicide. Thus, America Alone is first an indictment of the West.

Steyn reasons this way: The West does not have a strong cultural will or demographic strength and longevity. This creates a vacuum. What fills the vacuum? The easy answer is radical Islam, which has both demographics and cultural will aplenty.

I agree with Steyn's assessment of the West's predicament. But the root of the problem is deeper, as Steyn hints with many references to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is a mindset that is part of a larger worldview - that of moral relativism. In this worldview, there are no absolutes; thus, no basic standards by which to judge anything; thus, no judgments. It is moral relativism that simultaneously causes the West's general reluctance to confront real enemies, and inability to defend its own freedoms and interests.

The issue of freedom of speech and the HRCs is far from unrelated. When there are no absolutes, what is your standard for testing people's thoughts, words, actions? In our times that standard has become feelings. If thoughts, words, or actions cause feelings to be hurt - or, in the case of Canadian Human Rights Acts, if they can potentially remotely possibly cause feelings to be hurt - then forget about truth, fair comment, and other inconveniences; these must be stopped.

The same vacuum that is giving the upper hand of the future to radical Islam is blinding many Canadians to the HRCs' egregious assault on real human rights that are based on timeless absolutes. That sucking sound? That's the vacuum created by a lack of absolutes.