Dangers of Relativism

Recently I was shocked by a reader's comment on the news on attempted killing of the Afghan schoolgirl by some Taliban elements: for the Islamic extremists there, it's a sin for the girls to go to school. The reader wrote something like that: yes, it was a terrible thing, but still the situation in women in the West is not good either. A quite typical example of where the feminist extremism can lead. Including the redefining of rape (e.g. the case of Julian Assange). I often feel that the post-Christian West has well preserved the protestant masochism, many people of leftist-liberal orientation feel they, and we all in the West, are terrible sinners, we must confess, we must repent, we must expiate. We Europeans, especially the European men are the foremost sinners of the world, our forefathers, the slave owners and slave traders were much much worse than the Muslim slave traders, our pirates were much worse that the North African ones, our expansionism was much worse than the Islamic expansionism, our punitive expeditions, our mass killings were much worse than those of emirs, sultans or kings in Black Africa, the situation of our women, our greatgrandmothers was much worse than that of Muslim women. We have even no right to condemn other people's or cultures' sins, it would spoil our expiation effort. And this expiation demands that we remake everything, revalue all our values, change all social roles, change our language... And we have no time nor interest to see whether people of other cultures or religions are ready for at least some repentance, at least for some recognition of their past crimes, of their piracy, of their genocides, their attitude to women and adherents of other religions. Sometimes I feel it is a relief to read e.g. books by Thilo Sarrazin or Niall Ferguson. Without agreeing with much they write but finally finding some readiness for the self-defence of our culture, of our values, of real human values against the rising tide of murderous fanaticism. That, here and now, is not Western.