Uighur Genocide and Hollow Relativism of Woke Capitalism

Relativism is useless because it is selfish; powerless beyond self-interest to say anything true or actionable, it is an unlivable ethic. At this point, the self-evident finds illustration in recent comments made by Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist and part-owner of the NBA's Golden State Warriors. Setting off a firestorm of criticism on Twitter and across the internet was his confession thinly veiled as an assertion that "nobody cares about the Uighurs," referencing the ongoing genocide perpetrated by the Chinese Communist government upon a religious and ethnic minority group of its own citizens concentrated in the province of Xinjiang. Palihapitiya's "very hard, ugly truth" was shared on an episode of the All-In Podcast, which he hosts with three other capital investors. As Jim Geraghty points out, the comment is not redeemed by the broader context of the episode. Indeed, my purpose is not to engage Palihapitiya's comment on its shallow merits. Rather, here I take a broader view, engaging the unruled relativism that stands behind Palihapitiya's woke capitalism and is the reason he has nothing to say about China's atrocities in Xinjiang. Over and against this hollow ethic, the Uighurs demand action born of clear moral vision.