Left wing values and cultural relativism

[Aurorus Ruber]

Historically the goals of the Left, including Marxists and anarchists, have included the liberation of women and LGBT people, freedom of speech and religion, opposition to monarchy and other feudal institutions, and so forth. For most people on the Left at least, these goals of liberating oppressed groups and overturning tradition seem to represent universal values. I have not often seen Marxists argue, for instance, for the liberation of LGBT people in Western countries while upholding traditional rules against homosexuality in say, Islamic countries.

Yet the Left has also traditionally advocated acceptance of other cultures and opposed attempts by one culture (particularly the West) to impose its values on others. Some thorny contradictions arise when you consider that cultural traditions throughout the world run counter to many goals of the Left, particularly on issues like women's rights and sexual orientation. How does the Left reconcile support for say, liberating LGBT people everywhere, with its opposition to trampling over other cultures?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yet the Left has also traditionally advocated acceptance of other cultures and opposed attempts by one culture (particularly the West) to impose its values on others.

This is obviously not the case. The Bolsheviks, for example, not only expected the "traditional" (I think the term "traditional" is problematic in itself) societies of Central Asia, with what Lenin called "patriarchal" (i.e. nomadic) economy, to change, but actively agitated for that change. The dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia did not wish to share space with the backward muzhik economy, let alone the even more backward social organisation in Turkestan etc.

At the same time, we do not advocate some sort of "Western culture". In fact dividing the world into monolithic cultures and then taking sides in an imagines war of one cultural blob against another cultural blob is only interesting to liberals, whether they're "for" "Western culture" or "against" it. We base ourselves, not on culture, but on the material interest of the workers and the oppressed. As such, we are against bourgeois society, whether "Western" or "non-Western".

[Red Star Rising]

Historically the goals of the Left, including Marxists and anarchists, have included the liberation of women and LGBT people, freedom of speech and religion, opposition to monarchy and other feudal institutions, and so forth. For most people on the Left at least, these goals of liberating oppressed groups and overturning tradition seem to represent universal values. I have not often seen Marxists argue, for instance, for the liberation of LGBT people in Western countries while upholding traditional rules against homosexuality in say, Islamic countries.

Yet the Left has also traditionally advocated acceptance of other cultures and opposed attempts by one culture (particularly the West) to impose its values on others. Some thorny contradictions arise when you consider that cultural traditions throughout the world run counter to many goals of the Left, particularly on issues like women's rights and sexual orientation. How does the Left reconcile support for say, liberating LGBT people everywhere, with its opposition to trampling over other cultures?

Accepting other people also extends to the people being accepted. If people want to think that homosexuality is wrong, go ahead. If they start preaching hate for LGBT groups however they are no longer upholding the value of tolerance. The left is generally in conflict with religion more than the right but we still accept religion up to the point that it begins to deny the rights of others.

Socialism means the removal from society all forms of oppression of any group of people. If you consider limiting what a minority group can do to actively restrict the freedoms and well-being of others to be trampling on other cultures then I guess there has to be some degree of trampling (the proletarian dictatorship cannot have special rules for some or it is creating social divisions within the revolution). Though I prefer to call it the de-fundamentalisation of backward religious societies via education in the interest of tolerance and equality.

[Sewer Socialist]

I think "cultural relativism" is more of a centrist/center-left wishy-washiness. We pretty much all support minority liberation. We don't, however, support using these things to back imperialism or colonialism. We support the liberation of Muslim women, but them, and not a façade by the imperialists to support Western war and domination.

[Aurorus Ruber]

This is obviously not the case. The Bolsheviks, for example, not only expected the "traditional" (I think the term "traditional" is problematic in itself) societies of Central Asia, with what Lenin called "patriarchal" (i.e. nomadic) economy, to change, but actively agitated for that change. The dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia did not wish to share space with the backward muzhik economy, let alone the even more backward social organisation in Turkestan etc.

True enough, and admittedly I phrased that point poorly. I was referring more to the general tendencies of the Left over the past few decades. Typically, it has been the Left that defends the legitimacy and value of other cultures and opposes their assimilation to Western values, saying that we shouldn't judge other cultures by our own standards and such. Whereas the Right has generally asserted the superiority of Western culture and argued that other cultures need to embrace its values. Consider the way the Right says that Islamic countries (and immigrants) are backwards and need to move away from their traditions while the Left defends Islamic culture and opposes pressure for immigrants to assimilate.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

True enough, and admittedly I phrased that point poorly. I was referring more to the general tendencies of the Left over the past few decades. Typically, it has been the Left that defends the legitimacy and value of other cultures and opposes their assimilation to Western values, saying that we shouldn't judge other cultures by our own standards and such. Whereas the Right has generally asserted the superiority of Western culture and argued that other cultures need to embrace its values. Consider the way the Right says that Islamic countries (and immigrants) are backwards and need to move away from their traditions while the Left defends Islamic culture and opposes pressure for immigrants to assimilate.

Again, I would say that is only true if by "the Left" you mean liberals, of the radical variety or otherwise. I mean, can you point to any socialist organisation that "defends Islamic culture", as opposed to defending Muslims in "the West" from the bourgeois state?

[Aurorus Ruber]

Again, I would say that is only true if by "the Left" you mean liberals, of the radical variety or otherwise. I mean, can you point to any socialist organisation that "defends Islamic culture", as opposed to defending Muslims in "the West" from the bourgeois state?

So you would say the people who talk about culture relativism and say we should not impose universal values or standards on all cultures are mainly liberals rather than revolutionary leftists? I have never seen Marxists defend traditional Islamic culture as such, but I have always seen notions of cultural relativism and such supported in left wing writing and assumed they were integral to left wing thought. Certainly I have not come across many left wingers of any stripe saying that non-Western cultures are flat-out wrong or that Western values are superior to Islamic ones, etc. Although I have often seen the Left criticized by the Right for advocating say, gay rights while simultaneously defending non-Western cultures that are intensely homophobic.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So you would say the people who talk about culture relativism and say we should not impose universal values or standards on all cultures are mainly liberals rather than revolutionary leftists? I have never seen Marxists defend traditional Islamic culture as such, but I have always seen notions of cultural relativism and such supported in left wing writing and assumed they were integral to left wing thought. Certainly I have not come across many left wingers of any stripe saying that non-Western cultures are flat-out wrong or that Western values are superior to Islamic ones, etc. Although I have often seen the Left criticized by the Right for advocating say, gay rights while simultaneously defending non-Western cultures that are intensely homophobic.

"The Right" in this case probably means American conservatives, who are not known for their close relation to reality. These are probably the same people who think Obama is a secret socialist, or that Sweden is socialist.

Cultural relativism is a methodological principle in anthropology; that individual actions are to be understood in their cultural context. It is not directly relevant to modern politics. And no, I don't think you will find socialists "saying that non-Western cultures are flat-out wrong or that Western values are superior to Islamic ones", or vice versa, except for the most egregious opportunists. Our line is - class against class, not culture against culture.

[The Intransigent Faction]

There's not necessarily a contradiction between supporting an end to cultural practices through which minorities are oppressed (whether due to race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) and opposing Western attempts to 'impose' an end to oppression (which itself sounds contradictory).

As much as we'd like to believe that removing religion is as easy (or at least as direct) as establishing a Militant Atheist League, it would be much more effective to begin with an understanding of the roots of oppressive cultural practices. This would even expose the hypocrisy of the West in its proclaimed attempts to impose certain values (homophobia in certain places [correct me if I'm wrong] didn't spring up out of nowhere or from an entirely internal source, but was just as much a legacy of colonial ideology as certain ethnic conflicts).

Concretely, this means opposing things like burqa bans or claims that wars in the middle east are righteously motivated in part by a desire to liberate women. We should stress our opposition to oppression of minorities. In more extreme cases, say of someone being stoned to death, that deserves condemnation with a caveat---playing 'world police' will not put an end to those atrocities any more than punishment solves any root causes of crime. That said, if it's clear that people are abandoning such traditions as they themselves come to see them as antiquated, that should be fully supported.

[Aurorus Ruber]

There's not necessarily a contradiction between supporting an end to cultural practices through which minorities are oppressed (whether due to race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) and opposing Western attempts to 'impose' an end to oppression (which itself sounds contradictory).

So people here would agree that practices like homophobia, honor killings, monarchy, etc prevalent in various non-Western societies are incompatible with the values of the Left and therefore something to oppose. But they would also consider it a terrible idea for Western countries to say, invade Nigeria and overthrow traditional monarchies there, or force villagers in Iraq to modernize their attitudes toward gender at gunpoint.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So people here would agree that practices like homophobia, honor killings, monarchy, etc prevalent in various non-Western societies are incompatible with the values of the Left and therefore something to oppose. But they would also consider it a terrible idea for Western countries to say, invade Nigeria and overthrow traditional monarchies there, or force villagers in Iraq to modernize their attitudes toward gender at gunpoint.

If we're talking about bourgeois states, it's just (just) that this would be a terrible idea, it would never happen. The bourgeoisie does not care about women, gay people, etc. in the periphery of the imperialist system. And when imperialist powers invade a country in order to extract some concessions or install a government more receptive to their demands, they must rely on the most reactionary strata of the population, the outright atavisms (such as large landowners depending on semi-free labour).

If we're talking about, I don't know, the German Republic of Labour bringing the revolution to Nigeria, that's another thing entirely.

[Tim Cornelis]

Actually, the Bolsheviks in 1922, during the thermidorian reaction as historian Brinton calls it, did accommodate the backward strata of society. The Bolshevik government banned homosexual relations in the more backward regions with religious conservatism, especially Islamic regions, such as the Caucasus, Azerbeijan, and Central Asia. They also removed the age-of-consent laws in favour of some ill-defined 'sexual maturity' which allowed older men to engage in sexual relations with their young brides.

"Another area of Bolshevik sex crime legislation that brought medicine into the courtroom involved what we would call the age of consent. To put it bluntly, the Bolshevik lawyers and police who wrote the first Soviet Russian criminal codes (of 1922 and 1926) abolished the age of consent. Instead, they introduced a medical concept to define the threshold of sexual autonomy: “sexual maturity.” ... Why did lawmakers choose this unusual mark of sexual autonomy? They left no paper trail to tell us - or directives to doctors at the time. At medico-legal conferences during the 1920s, high Justice Commissariat officials said that the concept was designed to take racial and social factors across the Soviet Union into account. Northern girls supposedly began menstruating later than girls in the warmer southern regions, and in the southern and eastern periphery so-called “primitive” societies (Islamic by and large) permitted shockingly early sexual access to young brides. There were also perceived disparities between Russians: “civilised” workers matured later, while “primitive” peasants adhered to traditions of early courtship and marriage." (Source: Bolshevik Medicine and Russia’s Sexual Revolution (preliminary draft), Dan Healey).

Of course, at this point the counter-revolution had become consolidated and such reactionary positions were to be expected. This is another topic but I think it's important to correct some historical inaccuracies.