Fighting the cultural relativism that enables evil

Political correctness is crippling western societies, and it is leading to very real harms in the lives of innocent people.

This is evident in a recent report from Britain. Grooming gangs of sexual predators are targeting young girls, but they evade capture because people are reluctant to identify them by their race or ethnicity, fearing accusations of bigotry or racism.

U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman told BBC, “The perpetrators are groups of men, almost all British Pakistani, who hold cultural attitudes completely incompatible with British values.” Let’s be clear: Those would be British values against sexual predation.

While identifying the predators as “Pakistani” goes against cultural sensitivities advanced in liberal societies, Braverman wasn’t talking about a few random cases, but some of “the most notorious grooming gang cases.” She criticized a culture of silence that discourages citizens from identifying the Pakistani male gangs behind such crimes.

In support of Braverman’s statements, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that “Victims of grooming gangs have been ignored because of political correctness.” The official government report indicates that abusers evade justice due to cultural sensitivities, allowing these gangs to operate unrestricted and unchallenged, out of political correctness and out of a fear of being called racist. In his report, Sunak stated: “Political correctness must no longer prevent the police from using the ethnicity of suspects to identify grooming gangs.”

Braverman and Sunak are both British citizens of Asian descent, and they called out the reality of the gangs behind these crimes. Among some British citizens from a Pakistani—also Asian—origin, their remarks didn’t go well. The self-appointed guardians of cultural sensitivities and political correctness refused to allow such an identification. BBC reports that Braverman’s remarks were criticized as “racist rhetoric,” supposedly emboldening racists and putting British Asian families at risk. Braverman refused to yield, and her spokesperson said she would “not shy away from hard truths.”

This tragedy highlights the danger of political correctness in western societies.

The gang members know this specific weakness in British society. Most people in the United Kingdom are concerned about being identified as racists and bigots. Evil groomers use this fear to avoid being caught. Without identifying specific features about these organized gangs (which includes ethnic identity), it will be difficult for authorities to stop them.

Note carefully that while political correctness is often advocated as a way of advancing equality and respect for all people, it ends up enabling sexual abusers and predators, thus harming young girls and women.

Recall that Braverman added an important detail, as she explained that, in her views, the British Pakistani males who form these gangs, “hold cultural values totally at odds with British values.”

This remark goes against the politically correct fanciful notion that all cultures are inherently valuable and essentially good—a notion often known as “cultural relativism.” Advocates of such relativism often oppose any sincere discernment about a different culture. While one can certainly appreciate and commend valuable aspects in every culture, the insistence on cultural relativism cripples our societies when it destroys the moral consensus and boundaries on behavior that civilization requires.

And cultures aren’t all the same. For the sake of humanity and the protection of the innocents among us, we must know what is morally good and what is evil and act accordingly.

Think all cultures are the same? In the Yemini culture, child marriage is practiced and even allowed based on religious precedents. If societies follow “cultural relativism,” they cannot judge such evil as wrongdoing, let alone stop it.

Also, the honor killing of females is practiced in many Muslim countries. In a recent report, every year over 400 women are brutally killed in Iran by their male relatives to preserve the “honor” of the family. When people judge such an action as despicable and morally evil, they shouldn’t be labeled as racist against Iranians. The Economist recently reported: “Arab governments are doing too little to end honor killings.” This is not merely an issue of the past. If political correctness is discouraging sane people from judging such killings as immoral and thus evil, the practice will continue to flourish unchallenged.

The U.K. grooming gangs must be stopped. We should all hope for the success of the government’s efforts to identify the abusers and that British citizens aid their government in doing so. As for political correctness, let’s all work diligently to send it to oblivion.