a culture that wants to continue to repress homosexuality because it says so in a "sacred book" is authoritarian and immoral and solidarity should be had with those that want to overturn the order and introduce a democratic regime. existing on the left means standing in solidarity with those that are being repressed by authoritarian systems, not shrugging off the existence of those systems as "relativism" or "diversity in thought".

see, here's the thing: the viewpoints held by the hosts here are not historically without precedent. but, this is not "moral relativism". this is simply conservatism. you'll notice that both of the questioners retreated to their bottles of water, producing these "i'm offended" types of body language. and, this is the point that bothers me: they think they're some kind of liberals, and that they've discarded the oppression of enlightenment thought, or something. but, in the process, they've merely retreated to basic conservative value systems.

and, i'm not willing to split hairs over this.

if you're going to stand up for the value systems in a country like iran, i'm going to call you a right-wing extremist and treat you like a mortal enemy - because that's what you are. i'm not going to pretend it doesn't matter, because that is normalizing the value systems that the left needs to overturn to enforce itself.

the reality is that "post-modernism" and "moral relativism" are just synonymous with neo-conservatism: they are a sneaky way to trick leftists into standing up for the status quo.

chomsky is correct, here. there are objective standards of progress, and cultures that reject those objective standards need to be destroyed, by force if necessary. that is a revolutionary, leftist perspective; to suggest otherwise is reactionary and conservative.