Just tonight I watched the euro-election results with my friends from the tv. There was this one populist guy, who got an enormous amount of votes. One striking thing about his performance in tv (and everywhere else for that matter, for he is a good speaker), is that he is very confident and he dares to be right. (whether or not that really is the case in truth) Altough i would never vote for him, he has this one thing many of us have lost – he dares to be right.
Seems our society and our beliefs have stumbled on a relativistic wave and cannot get out. Even the church is right along there, churning out statements, which end up moving nobody. We hear these speeches about soft values and all those nice things, but its really too nice to have any effect. To get soft values into people you need to press hard to be right.
And this is all quite understandable, since we don’t live in a well integrated standard culture anymore. We need to understand other cultures and values aswell, and in doing so we tend to put all those different cultures in the same category and study them. It affects our belief-systems too, as we begin to compare our thoughts with the other competing thoughts and end up having some sort of a “live and let live” attitude on every religious thought. Which is all fine and all, but as the end result, we tend to lose our right to be right somewhere along the lines.
But whoever said, that every culture, value or religion should be valued the same?
Those would be the ones, that extend “the humanity” to every value they we people spawn. Now I am not advocating any hostility nor any sort bad-whatever to any culture or people. I am merely stating, that our philosophical and our religious thoughts themselves do not have the same existential value than we do as people. Naturally we need to have the freedom of thought and speech, but that is a different issue. We should not think, that just because some thought or habit IS, it should be valued the same that everything else in the same category. Not every thought is as smart as the other, nor is every habit. I do not think, that a culture for example, is an absolute value in itself. They come and go. They are important, but not something we should never let go. Besides, cultures change all the time, so it would be a null point to actually try to pinpoint the actual point in time which should be preserved. (The Amish have tried that)
Obviously just mocking everything else is bad aswell, we cannot afford to stick our head to the sand and pretend everybody else with different thoughts are idiots (the religious right in the states have tried that) or not sincere enough. We should always try to understand other cultures and religions as well as we can – and honestly. But we should never lose our right to be right in the process. Christianity for example is an exlusive religion that holds some deep thoughts about what is the truth and what is right. It closes out other thoughts and religions and says people that think otherwise are wrong. Those truths are not there to be “maybe but maybe”. They are what they are, because God said so. The day we lose that thought, we lose the core of our belief. To someone, who do not belief the christian way that may sound harsh and blatant. But all the better, get your own beliefs ready and lets discuss them in an open way!
So whatever you believe, debate on what is right and dare to stand behind your beliefs. Do it open mindedly, but firmly.
Dare to be right.