One of the central failures of modern Western governments is not a lack of power, resources, or legislation, but a refusal to make meaningful moral distinctions in their “post-Christian” delusion. This failure flows from a deep commitment to the incoherent ideology of moral relativism—the belief that all ideas, cultures, and belief systems are morally equivalent. In essence, moral relativism is the religion of the coward, incapable and unwilling to stand by his moral convictions. Everybody is right, nobody is wrong.
As Roger Scruton once observed, “In arguments about moral problems, relativism is the first refuge of the scoundrel.” It is, therefore, little wonder that this is where so many of our politicians now philosophically congregate. As such, governments have become not only incapable but increasingly unwilling to acknowledge the simple and self-evident truth that some ideas are bad, and bad ideas inevitably produce bad behaviour.
Consequently, this commitment to moral relativism places the nation in a dangerous position. A government that cannot identify the true source of a problem cannot meaningfully address it. When confronted with acts of religiously motivated violence or terror, the response is never to examine the beliefs and ideas that motivate such actions or the individuals who hold them. That is, not unless they embrace the one system the moral relativist is willing to judge with absolute certainty: the “Far Right,” which today, just seems indistinguishable from our great-grandparents’ Christian faith and their natural sense of patriotism.
Is that not what we are witnessing in Australia today? The Prime Minister has been mocked internationally for twice identifying the “Far Right” as a threat following the Bondi shooting, while the Premier of New South Wales is calling for yet more gun control measures. Neither appears willing to discuss what is so blatantly obvious to the rest of the world.
Instead of addressing the very real threat of Islamic extremism or mass immigration, our politicians shift the focus to the types of weapons that are used against the people. The problem is not the type of person, it is the machetes they wield. It is not the man who is chiefly responsible, but the firearm. Consequently, guns are banned. Machetes are banned. Knives are banned. Words are banned. And then they’re banned even harder. Each new restriction is presented as tough and decisive action, yet none of them addresses the underlying cause.
By fixating on weapons and words rather than the ideologies and people who wield them, our cowardly politicians avoid the uncomfortable and “heretical” task of pronouncing any meaningful moral judgment. It is far easier to regulate objects and speech than to confront the reality that certain belief systems produce predictable and destructive outcomes.
Moral relativism provides the politician a convenient shield, because if all ideas are equal, then none can be named as the problem. For them, any and every religious system has an equal potential for violent extremism. It’s why so many in the mainstream appear giddy with excitement whenever they think they can blame an atrocity on “right-wing terrorism” or “Christian extremism.” They believe it validates their faulty assumption that all ideologies and belief systems are equally benign until they’re “radicalised” from the outside.
However, the consequences of this approach are both predictable and socially corrosive. We do not get safer communities; we get broader, vaguer laws that ignore the real issues while punishing everyone equally, regardless of guilt. Laws that are expansive enough to appear tough, yet hollow enough to avoid addressing the real issue. In the process, the innocent are burdened, freedoms are curtailed, and speech is increasingly restricted—not because the truth is unclear, but because acknowledging it would require a moral clarity that the moral relativist is unwilling to acknowledge.
Until the government abandons its deluded commitment to moral relativism, meaningful change will remain impossible. A government that refuses to distinguish between good ideas and bad ones will always misdiagnose its problems and mistreat its citizens. The path forward does not lie in endlessly restricting objects, words, or freedoms, but in recovering the courage to say what should be obvious: not all ideas are equal, and a government that cannot recognise this will continue to fail those it claims to protect.
