Ian Buruma - Religion, Democracy and "Enlightenment Values"

[halneufmille]

Human rights are not a dogma, they are not blindly adhered to because of faith in a sacred text. They are cherished because they are the end product of our best effort to synthesize rules to safeguard human dignity. To claim that they are just an incarnation of western values is to reject the whole enterprise of moral philosophy.

[halneufmille]

"What you do in private, your own culture, your habits, your customs and so on are not really the business of the state. Nothing is imposed on people as long as they do abide by this political sense of citizenship."

Wrong. It leads to cultural relativism and tolerance of barbaric customs as 'cultural' practices when they would not be tolerated otherwise (e.g. circumcision, honor crimes, etc.). To excuse violence in the name of cultural relativism is racist.

[matman16]

More long-winded than I was expecting. This is somewhat different from TED, I'll have to get used to this channel.

[bluefootedpig]

@matman16 yeah, the animations are amazing, the rest are a bit different, less visual i think.