Although they are probably not the best equipped intellectually to explore such issues, the televised skirmish between Ben Affleck and Bill Maher regarding Islam has at least highlighted some of the contradictions flowing from the liberal embrace of cultural relativism.
To dispense with the easy part first--of course we can criticize Islam. Because Islam, like all religions, is a belief system and all belief systems are appropriate targets for criticism. Were it otherwise, any noxious compendium of positions could wrap itself in clerical garb and thereby receive automatic immunity. As an old and venerated religion with an estimated 1.6 billion followers, one would think Islam, in particular, would be strong enough to withstand a little give and take in the idea marketplace.
We would never shrink from criticizing ideological belief systems like socialism or conservatism, so why should there be any special protection for religious belief systems like Islam (or Christianity or Hinduism)? Simply because a deity and a book of scripture might be involved doesn't mean that such things must always be handled with kid gloves.
After all, ideologies also often include their own versions of scripture, for example, the Communist Manifesto for communism or John Locke's Second Treatise on Government for classical liberalism. And they sometimes even lead to the deification of leaders in the form of "personality cults" (Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, et al.). During the Cold War, many persuasively argued that Marxism-Leninism constituted a "secular religion" in itself, equally as consuming as a form of identity and as faith-based as any religion, with its own icons, jargon, proselytizing clergy and vision of heaven (on earth rather than in the hereafter).
Still, the special touchiness that seems to accompany any discussion of Islam likely flows from several factors which have little to do with respect for religion more generally, or even with the nature of Islamic doctrine more specifically.
The first of these was vividly captured in Affleck's immediate flinging of the "racist" charge at Maher. That was revealing because it so effectively captures the leftist tendency to conflate criticism of Islam with bigotry against Muslims, as if there can be no distinction between how we view a religion and how we treat real live human beings who happen to subscribe to that religion. In the case of Islam, it isn't even the religion itself which is necessarily being subjected to close scrutiny (however legitimate that might be), but the warped version thereof that groups like Islamic State and al-Qaida have used to justify their barbarous practices.
Second is the difficulty that the left has in dealing with illiberal behavior found in non-Western cultures. While liberals obviously don't hesitate to accuse conservatives of waging war on women or being homophobic here at home, they shrink from even tentatively criticizing certain Muslim societies that treat women as chattel and make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. In the end, the liberal embrace of cultural relativism thus becomes a self-imposed obstacle preventing liberals from confronting the kinds of genuine evil that all civilized people should oppose.
If other cultures are to be granted automatic and unconditional respect under the doctrine of multiculturalism, then we are forced into the moral cul-de-sac of respecting all of the practices that flow from those cultures as well, however odious and immoral. When liberals become reluctant to admit that Western values like democracy, freedom and human rights have universal validity, they lose the capacity to distinguish right from wrong.
Third and finally, there is likely also at work here what Michael Gerson called "the soft bigotry of low expectations," defined as setting the bar too low when it comes to the behavior of other cultures and racial/ethnic groups.
With respect to Islam, the real bigotry is displayed not by conservatives critical of certain aspects of Islam but by liberals who lack confidence in the Muslim capacity to accept the kinds of criticism which other religious faiths routinely encounter. Whereas we assume that Christians can be counted on to merely shrug their shoulders and utter "whatever" at the submerging of crucifixes in urine as a form of art, all too many liberals fear that Muslims will riot, pillage, and murder at the slightest hint of anything that might remotely be construed as insensitive toward Islam. Islam is granted a special dispensation because liberals assume Muslims have a propensity toward irrationality that other religious groups don't share.
The broader point in all of this is that there should be no sacred cows because it is far better to give offense than to censor ourselves out of fear of offending.
Assertions that Islam is this or that (a "religion of peace," for instance) become less credible when we are told that no debate over Islam is permitted. And those who fling accusations of racism as a means to shut down debate only end up conveying weakness and lack of confidence in their own positions.
Put differently, there is nothing racist about noting that the Islamic world is (unfortunately) afflicted at present by violence and authoritarianism; rather, it is only to state an obvious truth.
No belief system should demand immunity from scrutiny. And no genuine liberal should ever be tempted to grant such a demand.
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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
Editorial on 10/20/2014