tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post8080574439617015286..comments2024-03-27T16:39:43.522+00:00Comments on Liberal England: The social liberalism and social democracy debateJonathan Calderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00730157683743989696noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6606798.post-22084094617443147112011-06-24T14:48:54.289+01:002011-06-24T14:48:54.289+01:00Salman Rushdie on BBC R4 Today, last Tuesday (June...Salman Rushdie on BBC R4 Today, last Tuesday (June 21st) (my transcript):<br /><br />The current unrest shows young people that there is another way.<br />It may well, in different parts of the Arab world, pan out in different ways. Young people want liberty and jobs. This is not ideologically driven, not theologically driven, not about religion, not about Marxism. Its about these universal values of liberty and a hope. They want the ability to shape their own lives, want to make their own decisions about the society, want to have the hope for the future for themselves.<br />That’s what’s driving it, and I think that it shows us something which I suspect we may have forgotten, which is that these are universal values.<br />The problem with cultural relativism as it has grown up in the West is that you are encouraged to think of people from, say, the Muslim part of the world as essentially different, responding to different motivations, whereas this [the ‘Arab Spring’] shows us that is not true, it shows us actually that everybody wants the same thing: a good life.<br />** end quote *<br /><br />The point seems to be that liberty, not specifically a democratic structure for the state, is the universal value. Is that where the Social Liberals are?dreamingspirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00324207120279777521noreply@blogger.com