I love to say 'Oh!'.
To begin a sentence that way is wonderful.
Oh! The pain!
Oh! The love!
Oh! The hate!
Oh! The Oh!
It is rhetorically satisfying.
And tonight I would like to talk to you about: Oh! The intolerance!
Because deep in my heart I am very intolerant. I have firm convictions. I think certain things in very intense ways.
I am not a relativist. I will never say 'Oh who are you to judge such and such form of culture as worse or better than such and such a form of culture'.
I am telling you that we must decide whether one form of culture is better than another.
We must take a stand!
We must not give into relativism!
'All forms of life and culture are equally valid'.
Hogwash.
Reflect on that statement for a moment and you must know it cannot be true.
Some forms of existence are better than others.
Fact.
Undeniable.
I unequivocally reject relativism.
Yet I also unequivocally accept pluralism.
There are still many many forms of life that I find acceptable and positive.
But I refuse to collapse them into relativism.
I refuse to give up on judgement.
For the good life can only be based on judgement.
We must decide what is good and what is not.
We must assert that one thing is better than another thing.
We must learn to love, in Zizek's sense of the term.
Oh! The violence of love!
Oh! The evil of love!1!
Oh! The subversion of form!...!@
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