Abstract

The most prominent feature of postmodern liberal relativism is its obsession with the Other, allegedly marginalized or repressed in the dominant Western culture. If all cultures are morally equal, then tolerance of, and openness to, the Other on the part of the enlightened postmoderns is the only non-repressive value. This view, dubbed "xenophilia," implies that hospitality to the most radically Other, ultimately to the enemy, is the highest virtue. There is a fatal complementarity between a culture defining itself as openness and any intolerant Other. The former can only succumb to, or be destroyed by, the latter