A commenter asks, "Could someone please explain how multi-[culturalism] is valuable in and of itself? I've never understood this argument, much as I've never understood why language death is such a bad thing. It seems to me that multi-[culturalism] should only be as valuable as what the component cultures bring to the table."
I certainly don't think that we should treat multiculturalism as an unalloyed good, but we should also realize that our nation was founded on multiculturalism, in two important ways. First, the premise of federalism is precisely that multiple states, which the Framers envisioned as often having substantial differences in culture, should be able to retain their cultures -- including, incidentally, the legal rules that flow from those cultures. (Within states, home rule by localities has had a similar, though lesser, mission.)
Second, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights contemplate a country with considerable range of religious views and even religious cultures. Many of the Founding-era American denominations were distinct cultural groups, such as Quakers, including groups that lived in relatively homogeneous enclaves.
These aren't just multiculturalist values. They are foundational American values. And throughout American history, they have been (or at least could be) seen as serving at least several different goals.
1. Multiculturalism as increasing minority members' happiness: Religious tolerance -- coupled with federalism and localism -- has often allowed people to live, be free, and pursue happiness in America without having to sacrifice or hide their belief systems.
2. Multiculturalism as an engine of the search for truth: Both federalism and religious diversity often produce a wide range of options -- ideological and governmental -- that then compete with each other. In federalism, this was known as the "states as laboratories of democracy" model. For religious and other ideologies, this best fits the metaphor of the "marketplace of ideas."
3. Multiculturalism as a source of valuable citizens: The tolerance for a wide range of religious belief systems has drawn more people to the nation, and has avoided their banishment. The development of the atomic bomb during World War II, which relied heavily on European (and often Jewish) scientists who fled Hitler, is one illustration of the value of ethnic and cultural tolerance; the benefits Americans have gotten from past generations of immigrants is another.
4. Multiculturalism as a source of knowledge for dealing with a multicultural world: The world is filled with lots of different cultures, whether we like it or not. Extra experience with different cultures within the U.S. helps us deal with other cultures outside the U.S. -- for instance, by giving us a pool of American citizens who actually know the foreign language or culture, or by making other citizens more familiar with dealing people of other cultures more generally.
Now it should be obvious that these are not unalloyed strengths. Multiculturalism can be a sort of domestic tension (consider the Civil War, which had cultural components, plus of course lots of other ethnically, culturally, and religiously based civil wars in other countries). Some of the cultures may teach their members to prey on outsiders (consider cultures which endorse slavery). Some of the cultures may teach their members to prey on insiders, so that tolerating the culture may give extra happiness to some members at the expense of other members. Some of the immigrants from other cultures may come to be dangers to the nation rather than assets. There are doubtless other possible problems as well.
And it should also be obvious that, because of this, we should properly calibrate our tolerance for multiculturalism with our insistence on also supporting a unified national culture. We shouldn't completely stifle all rival identities (such as Catholic, Jewish, Irish, Chinese, or whatever else), but neither should we neglect the building of an American identity. We should accommodate some religious or cultural objections to generally applicable laws, and of course we have done so for centuries in countless ways; but there are some that we shouldn't (and don't) accommodate, for instance when the objection would lead to substantial harms.
But it's also important to recognize that multiculturalism is not valueless, alien, or new. Even without reference to specific valuable aspects of specific cultures, it has some general value. It's a mistake, I think, to try to fight multiculturalism in general. Rather, we should defend those aspects of American multiculturalism that have served us well -- and are likely to continuing doing so -- and fight those aspects that are likely to be harmful.
The commentator may not view language death or culture loss as a bad thing in-and-of-itself; much as many people may not particularly feel bad about the loss of, say, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or other historical artifects. After all, those ancient monuments don't have a lot of value in and of themselves (nobody lives in them, for example), and their main value is just the ability to look at them and sit in awe, which is not very "useful" if we are being super-practical people.
The problem is, they weren't relativists, as many of today's multiculturalists are. They believed, consistent with what Freemasonry teaches, all good men of all religions could agree on certain principles of natural right -- ala natural law, natural rights, natural religion etc. This was an objective standard determinable from reason unaided by scripture. It was under these rubrics of "nature" and "reason" that a pluralistic society could find common ground. This was how they envisioned we'd get "one" out of "many."
Multiculturalism is older than one thinks.
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
My objection is to the belief I've seen expressed that multi-culturalism is its own reward. If the subset cultures don't bring anything of value, or even worse provide negative value then multi-culturalism doesn't seem to provide any value.
It's worth noting that the national culture is not fixed.
Most evangelicals and Roman Catholics, if they truly understood what Adams et al. meant when they called themselves "Christians," would reply, "whatever it calls itself," this is not Christianity. This theology in which America's key Founders believed was rey to establishing religious pluralism in America.
But that's not the multiculturalism that most people criticize. First of all, America has a rich history of having a singular American culture and many different religions, so clearly religious diversity isn't multiculturalism. But more importantly, proponents of multiculturalism often mean a sort of hard line multiculturalism. They identify mainstream American western culture (often identified as "white" culture) and they seek to enshrine parallel cultures within America. They decry any form of integration into a common American culture as "cultural genocide" or racist.
In fact, I remember teachers specifically telling me in high school and later that the entire idea of a "melting pot" culture is racist. I don't really think that jives with EV's defense of a multiculturalistic view that preserves a "unified national culture". They are mutually exclusive.
Multi-culturalism does not mean retaining differences in cultures, or religious tolerance.
Multi-culturalism is all about the denigration of Western Civilization, and in particular, those ideas and practices of dead, white men.
Who could ask why religious tolerance is good in of itself? No one would seriously ask that question. Your commenter is asking: "Why is the denigration of Western Civilization good in of itself?"
There's some interesting research on cultural evolution and how the exposure to additional cultural variants improves a nation's culture, as people pick and choose. It's certainly true when it comes to food.
Multicuturalism is about the preservation and promotion of multiple cultures in one space. This is not really an American value. Instead, America has prided itself at absorbing waves of immigrants with different cultures into our Anglo-Saxon culture.
(I use the term "Anglo Saxon" as a cultural rather than a ethnic descriptor the way historian Walter Russell Mead does in his excellent book "God and Gold," which seeks to explain the success of Britain and America over the past half millennium as a function of culture.)
America and Britain follow a "live and left live" liberal economic and political culture. Citizens can have their own personal beliefs so long as they do not impose them on others. Personal beliefs are not really separate cultures. If you live here, you follow the Anglo Saxon liberal culture.
Our Anglo Saxon culture generally has very little tolerance for illiberal cultures. For example, in contrast to Europe, America would hardly tolerate the imposition of Sharia law in cultural enclaves around the country. Our Islamic immigrants are socially and sometimes legally compelled to act like other Americans.
And I bet fish have trouble discovering that they are wet too.
If you take a look from the outside, it's usually a lot easier to see. Anyway, you are describing regional differences, which are true in any culture. Is it true that Italy has no singular culture? Most people would disagree, and yet Sicilians have a whole set of unique customs, cuisines, habits, and in some cases, language which are distinct from, say, Venice.
I used to say that there was no such thing as "American food" either. It wasn't until I learned a lot more about food that I realized that so many of the things that we here take as universal or even foreign in origin are distinctly American.
I have no doubt that if you took a poll of immigrants to America asking if they believed there exists a singular American culture, an overwhelming majority would say there is.
I would expect a culture with valuable features to persist or even grow OTOH I would expect a culture that is a threat to it's neighbors would diminish or die out.
In general I would expect a monoculture to be unstable and it would revert fairly rapidly to a multi-culture.
IMO, the intrinsic value of multiculturalism is that it remind me that other people, who are thinking human beings that are in almost all respects like me, can come to vastly different conclusions about almost anything. That step - that we should acknowledge that opinions that differ from ours are still sincerely held by people just like us - is critical.
At bottom, a multiculture rests on the premise that people hallow practices; but America rests on the premise that some practices are holy and some are unholy and there's quite a lot of undefined space in between. It happens that we're pretty relaxed about definitions but our flexible culture is, in the end, defined by the limits of the holy and the unholy. It is not infinitely flexible.
To put this in concrete terms, some years ago I was sitting in a bar (owned by a Lebanese) in northern Maine, drinking a German drink (beer), eating an Italian dish (pizza) served by a Native American barmaid and listening to C&W music (remotely Scots-Irish). But nothing in that picture expands to include the consumption of sewage.
When the Muslims had been in charge, they'd brought in advanced irrigation technology and hadn't taught Christians how to maintain it, even after Spain was reconquered by Christians. So, when the Muslim inhabitants were expelled, there was nobody left to maintain the technology, and the farmers lost the use of it.
To take FGM, for instance, I have no doubt that the old women that (usually) perform FGM sincerely believe that it is in the best interests of the victim and society as a whole. As such, while I will not hesitate to call the act of FGM evil, I have pause to consider whether these women are evil or merely misguided as to the nature of good.
It goes without saying that my values, and no one else's, are the ultimate determiners of my actions. In the case of FGM, I would not suffer to allow one to take place if I could stop it, even if that required violence on my part.
In other words, as I see it it's a refusal to accept as an article of faith that the ideas and practices of dead white men (or any other group) were tolerable, let alone ideal, and rather testing and demanding proof of that assertion. Which is something good, as I see it.
Sometimes people denigrate America and its culture because that denigration's justified.
California already exhibits aspects of political separatism, in which state and local politicians actively oppose any enforcement of Federal immigration laws (e.g. Mayor Newsom criticizing ICE for trying to deport felons and Mayor Villaraigosa celebrating half a million marchers in 2006.)
If too many people immigrate from a single outside culture is it really multiculturalism or wholesale replacement of an existing culture?
Multiculturalism means many cultures. No one culture can dominate in New York City becuase Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sekhs, Jains, Catholics, Protestents, and athiests are all minorities. Likewise Italians, Indians, Irish, Germans, etc. are minorities. As are bridge players, bowlers, and wine drinkers.
American is among the most free countries in the world in part becuase of our multicultural history. Conflict between two groups rarely boils over where there are many other groups around.
Do we need a unified national culture? What would this mean? Some of my friends were born in Egypt, Italy, Ecuador, India, and Germany. They are great Americans because they are well behaved and have embraced the American dream. Much of what makes them great Americans they learned before they came here.
They became citizens knowing little of our history. But they did not bring alien cultural ideas that threaten America. I don't worry about how they will vote, or raise their kids, or practice their religions.
And surely none of us worries about how they eat, dress, talk, sing, and dance. As to their sex lives, they compare favorably to the Tri-State Governors Club (TSGC). (I said they were well-behaved.)
On the other hand, such a multiethnic society only thrives in a society where fundamental Western Enlightenment values form the foundation of social organization, including a respect for individual rights (such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, etc.) and the various groups don't try to forcibly violate those very same individual rights by claiming that their cultural traditions should be allowed to trump everyone's rights.
A culture that holds that female genital mutilation is good should be judged as wrong compared to a culture that holds that all men and women should be equal before the law (and that women should have the same right to vote and own property as men). A culture that holds that gays should be stoned does not deserve the same moral respect as a culture that holds that what consenting adults do in their own bedrooms is no one else's legal business. A culture that says that one should kill a cartoonist who draws a picture of a specific man living over 1000 years ago should be appropriately condemned as backwards relative to a culture that says that peaceful speech dissenting against one's religious and political leaders should be protected as a fundamental right.
One should not retreat into any form of moral agnosticism that declares all such cultures to be equal. To do so would betray the very values that make life in a multi-ethnic society desirable or even possible.
The current ideology of "multiculturalism" is not based on a respect for individual rights -- instead, it is actually hostile to those Western ideals. Hence, I oppose "multiculturalism" as the antithesis of traditional American values even though I respect and appreciate multi-ethnicism.
First of all, Federalism doesn't even exist any more. It's been destroyed by this monstrous central government that dictates every aspect of everybody's life, no matter which part of the country you happen to live in -- even such trivial things as how many gallons of water you can use to flush a toilet, or the requirements to get a fishing license.
Secondly, the essence of Federalism was that if the people of, say, Maryland wanted to do things one way while the people of Utah wanted to do things some other way, both sides would mind their own business and politely agree to disagree. But the advocates of modern multiculturalism, on the other hand, want to take their one-size-fits-all ideology and use the power of Central Planning to force it down everybody's throats, uniformly.
I'm going to quibble with this just a slight bit. A culture that holds out FGM as a good thing should be judged wrong in that instance. All cultures have their good and bad attributes. But it takes a greater weighing (all the good vs. all the bad) to determine if an entire culture should be judged as wrong.
I should note that this is on the way to the views of some small religious traditions within what I describe as traditional American multiculturalism -- the Amish would probably be the best example. But it's probably something of an exaggeration even as to them. I don't know of any actual modern multiculturalist sources that express this view, though I'd always be happy to learn.
Does it really matter? As an example, the guy who works in the cube next to mine was bothered when a website, after he'd clicked on the American flag presumably for the English page, asked him if he wanted Spanish or English. What bothered him was the cultural aspect of it, a sort of "This is America, we speak English" attitude. I was sitting there and wondering: why's it matter what language we speak? Only reason I have to oppose Spanish totally supplanting English in the U.S. is personal convenience: I already speak English fluently, and I'd have to relearn fluent Spanish if it ousted English. Other than that, though, I don't care what the dominant language in the U.S. is, and I have trouble understanding why anyone does.
Anyway, Paul, I like your post, and I agree with it. And I'll quibble with you hattio1: I don't think it's that all cultures have their good attributes and their bad attributes. I think they all have irrelevant attributes and bad attributes, but not really ones that are a positive good. Forcibly stamp out the bad that harm people (i.e. child marriage, genital mutilation, burkhas, theocracy, creationism, traditional marriage) and let the irrelevant (i.e., language, cuisine, festive holidays) that have value only in the existence of the presence of a forest, not the kind of tree, fall where they may.
There is a bit more to the paradox of liberal toleration. The country needs certain lowest common denominators like a common currency to function properly. We don't need a common race; nor do we need a common religion. Those are properly within the realm of "pluralism." We do need a common embrace of the values of classical liberalism (i.e., the creed of America's Declaration and committment to the Constitution). I'd argue we do need a common language, because after all, the Declaration of Independence, Constitution. and Federalist Papers, though the Enlightenment values contained therein were meant to be universal, the words of which were still written in English.
In other words, instead of kids learning about other cultures, as well as their own, "what is wrong with American Culture" is highlighted, and students from an ethnic background are encouraged in separatism. When this is carried over into the real world of politics, courts, jobs and daily life, the country starts going to Hell in a handbasket
How about the inefficiencies that the transition period will cause (not every American will learn the new language at once)? Or how about the fact that adopting Spanish as our new language will cut us off from people around the world who speak English as their first (e.g., the UK, Ireland, Canada, NZ, Australia, South Africa, etc.) or second language (e.g., India and China)?
There are numerous reasons for the U.S. to stick with English other than convenience or jingoism.
Just not true. The original states, and the ones that subsequently joined the union, did not have substantial differences in culture. The Framers were, and regarded themselves, culturally as Englishmen even though they had broken their political allegiance to the British crown. The majority of the population had a strong ethnocultural identity (English-speaking WASPs) despite minor regional differences in accent and custom. The founding fathers may have believed in political federalism, but there is no evidence they believed the states had (or should have) large differences in ethnocultural identity. The Civil War does not demonstrate that the states had "different cultures" any more than the American Revolution demonstrated that the colonies had a different culture from metropolitan Britain. The issues at stake were political, not cultural.
The naturalization law of 1790, which said that only "free white people of good character" could become citizens, indicates that "multiculturalism" as understood today was hardly the basic premise on which the Republic was founded.
Multiculturalism as increasing minority members' happiness: Religious tolerance -- coupled with federalism and localism -- has often allowed people to live, be free, and pursue happiness in America without having to sacrifice or hide their belief systems.
"Throughout American history" since the founding, people certainly did not widely regard "religious tolerance" as a theoretical good. Nor has such tolerance been practiced in actual fact until recently.
There is also the question here of whether "religious diversity" necessarily equals "multiculturalism". Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans could be Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish, and still remain undeniably English, French, or German from a cultural standpoint. I am dubious that American willingness to tolerate different sects means that America has always practiced "multiculturalism" as we understand it today.
Multiculturalism as an engine of the search for truth: Both federalism and religious diversity often produce a wide range of options -- ideological and governmental -- that then compete with each other.
Again, federalism does not necessarily imply multiculturalism - a federal republic can (and the US does) have different states each with a population having essentially the same culture. Nor does religious diversity necessarily equate to multiculturalism, as I said above. Nor is multiculturalism actually necessary for the conduct of such a "search for truth". There are plenty of examples of monocultures that have produced a wide range of competing ideological / political options. A monocultural society can also look to other cultures for good ideas without becoming a multicultural society itself. Last but not least, "multiculturalism" in the sense that academia and the political grievance industry understands it is the very farthest thing from an engine for a search for truth imaginable. Indeed, it is an engine for the deliberate obfuscation of truth.
Multiculturalism as a source of valuable citizens:
It is not necessary to be a "multicultural society" in order to attract valuable refugees, and indeed America in the 1940s was not a multicultural society in any meaningful sense.
Multiculturalism as a source of knowledge for dealing with a multicultural world:
This is vastly overrated, and indeed it is basically insulting to say that Joe White American cannot possibly understand any foreign culture, no matter what training he or she receives. What are universities for, if they cannot provide the language and cultural skills necessary for dealing with other countries? For centuries, monocultural societies have successfully trained their people to deal with other countries and cultures. Are we so feeble now that we cannot do this any more, and we have to have a pool of Japanese-Americans to deal with Japan, Chinese-Americans to deal with China, etc. etc.?
A profoundly wrong-headed thesis derived from her own political preferences rather than objective examination of the evidence.
Freedom : Regulation
Multiculturism : Equality
If you look to dominant practice, there may be a kernel of truth in this sentiment. If you look to ideals, you are flat out wrong. America's key Founders -- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, etc. -- not only believed in religious tolerance for all, but that most or all religions, including non-Judeo-Christian ones, led to the same God. One reason why America, in time, became a haven for "Jews, Pagans, and Infidels," was precisely because of America's Founders very liberal for the time views on religion. Jefferson's Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom passed in 1786 covered "the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination."
When Jefferson stated "all men are created equal" and therefore entitled to equal rights under the law, he knew the logic of this statement meant all human beings regardless of race or ethnicity. That's why as a slaveholder, the issue was on his conscience. If only whites by nature possessed rights, slavery wouldn't be on their consciences as it was. Though they dealt in an "Englishmen" context, they declared independence according to the rights of man, not the rights of Englishmen. Ideas have consequences. And some degree of pluralism (though not 20th Century PC multiculturalism) inescapably resulted from their ideas of political liberty and "E-pluribus-unum."
Ethno? Perhaps not, but they certainly understood there were very wide differences in culture between MA and VA. The writings of that time are replete with derogatory references going both ways, and with deliberate actions by those interested in union to demonstrate their acceptance of differences. Thus, for example, in the First Continental Congress Samuel Adams made a very public statement when he agreed to hear a sermon by an Anglican priest, saying "he (Adams) was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from any gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at the same time a friend of his country." Adams knew full well that Congregationalists were viewed with considerable distrust by Anglicans and also knew he had to downplay the religious distinctions in order to accomplish his goals.
None of this contradicts my statement that there is no evidence that they believed the states had (or should have) large differences in ethnocultural identity. To say that all men, not just Englishmen, have equal rights under the law, is not to say that America was, or should be, culturally non-English.
Ideas have consequences. And some degree of pluralism (though not 20th Century PC multiculturalism) inescapably resulted from their ideas of political liberty and "E-pluribus-unum."
If anything, "E Pluribus Unum" is the antithesis of multiculturalism.
They didn't, and there weren't. Politics =/= culture. The differences were political, not cultural. Regional differences within a cultural bloc (such as these) are minor compared to the differences between distinct cultures.
I agree that "E Pluribus Unum" is not 20-21 Century PC multiculturalism. But it is equally not the Anglo-Christian parochial system for which you argue. It is a Western Enlightenment rationalistic political philosophy which appreciates pluralism (i.e., non-Christian, non-White) to the extent that such groups can subserviate themselves to such rationalistic ideals.
This is just a bizarre statement. Politics certainly is and always has been part of culture. Even today we hear conservatives complain about CA and MA as cultures, just as we hear liberals (supposedly) asking what's the matter with KS.
Besides, the example I gave involved religion, which most definitely IS a component of culture.
Your ipse dixit isn't very persuasive. The cultural distinctions which Americans made among themselves between East, South, and West were widespread and are well-known to all historians.
Multiculturalism today has two versions. The first is code for anti-Americanism. The second, presumably well intentioned, is an extension of political correctness: extreme relativism in the form of "all cultures are equal and must be celebrated."
This latter form can actually be quite pernicious. Living in anomic society is difficult. We see all sorts of evidence for this, such as high rates of depression and other mental illnesses that essentially didn't exist in traditional, non-anomic societies.
There seems to be a human need for an identity. The US has traditionally had a relatively strong identity and is good at assimilating people into it. Multiculturalism, however, encourages weak identities. Consider the common case in primary and secondary education these days, where rather than teaching a "civics" type curriculum that celebrates American nationalism, children these days are taught multiculturalism. That is to say that they're encouraged to NOT develop a strong American national identity, but rather a weak identity, relativistic identity, or are pushed away from an American identity.
Consider an example of a school project: "Describe the values of your people." (emphasis added) The teacher's expectation is that the students, especially those who are first or second generation, will talk about "their people" as in back in the "old country." The message embodied in this assignment is that it's not authentic to be an American if your parents or grandparents were born somewhere else, but instead you're actually part of some other nation. This can have quite a negative effect on the development of the child's identity: he belives himself to be American, but adults are telling him he's not. As a child his identity is weak and in the process of formulation, so multiculturalism can be especially pernicious. I could give some examples of individuals who came across (or should I say suffered) this as children - wanting to be part of the nation they were being raised in, but were pushed (by often well-intentioned folks) to adopt a "more authentic" identity tied to the nation their parents were from.
Indeed, we can see an example of how devastating multiculturalism can be in Britain. Britian clearly has a problem assimilating Pakistanis. The children of immigrants often find themselves inbetween cultures: they seek to be British, but societal forces (both discrimination and multiculturalism) hold them back. For some, this ends badly. Rejected from becoming British, they adopt an alternative identity that helps them rationalize their experience: an extremist identity that rejects the West and cloaks itself in the garb of Islam.
In American, we don't yet suffer from this "Islamic terrorism" (in quotation marks because it's a secular phenomenon) becuase we're much better at assimilating people into our national identity. Sadly, the joint forces of racism/xenophobia and multiculturalism seem intent on changing this.
It is more bizarre to argue that every political dispute between MA and VA reflected a "cultural difference". The fact of the matter is, peoples within the same culture can have profound differences of political opinion (even leading to civil war) but that does not make them different cultures.
Back then - and even today - states of the US did not differ from each other sufficiently to be described as "different cultures". Compare MA and VA to each other, and the cultural differences between the two are negligible compared to the differences between either of them and, say, Japan, China, France, or Russia.
Yes, politics is an aspect of culture, but in the 1790s - and today - US states have essentially the same political culture. Again, this does not mean they do not differ on various political issues, but the differences in political culture between any two US states are minor compared to the differences in political culture between any US state and any foreign country.
Besides, the example I gave involved religion, which most definitely IS a component of culture.
The religious culture of America in the late 1700s was uniform for all practical purposes. That different Protestant sects bickered with each other does not establish that there was some profound cultural difference between them.
The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.
I have talked to some religous lefties who really want a destroyed America and think balkinization is a tool. So they promote a strong form of multiculturalism. Now, the first step, multiculturalism, isn't obviously harmful. Second step, using the state to enforce the beginnings of balkinization is problematic, but is defended by accusations of racism and nativism and references to slavery.
The third step is obviously harmful but beyond retrieving.
But the result, according to them, is far from "harm".
None of them, however, have risen to my challenge that, if they're so multiculti, they should have their money in a Nigerian bank and jet off to Addis Abbaba for particularly involved surgeries.
**Looks around to see who made such an argument. Finds no one.**
I think I can safely say that pretty much every single historian would disagree with this. Read, for example, the first few chapters of Henry Adams' history of the Jefferson and Madison administrations. Google the term "honor culture" and read the discussions about the South. There are many books written which discuss the cultural distinctions.
Agreed. Sheep differ more from cattle than they do from each other. But they DO differ from each other.
Agreed, with the possible exception of Canada.
This is very wrong. The Congregationalist, village, small farm culture of New England differed greatly from the Anglican, plantation culture of the South. Both differed from the Quaker society of Pennsylvania. The Americans of the time knew this and commented on it frequently.
BD: America would hardly tolerate the imposition of Sharia law in cultural enclaves around the country
Ahem.
That link discusses alternative dispute resolution, not imposition of substantive Sharia law.
I'm not sure if Prof. Balkin would be flattered or offended.
They are our decision rules, and our rules for carrying out the interactions among people and groups. So we have free speech to promote the exchange of ideas, and we have ideas about individual liberty that help us determine that some ideas (slavery, forced marriage, and FGM as a start) are wrong. If we chuck out either one, we are in trouble. That would be carrying multiculturalism too far, and I think it would make it impossible to maintain a peaceful, pluralist society.
My primary beef with multiculturalism as it is usually presented is the one that MatthewM presents. It's not about individuals and the pursuit of personal happiness, but rather about the group keeping itself intact and unchanged. Now, some people really do like identifying with groups and with the past, but I don't really think that is the dominant American pattern. We're supposed to leave home, interact with the wider world, marry out, and generally keep cultural innovation going. That's at odds with keeping cultures preserved under glass, and the more inward-looking cultures (like the Amish) tend to remain small and marginalized in American society. We leave them alone, but they aren't part of most mainstream interactions.
In that sense, Americans like pluralism (a term I prefer to diversity, which has become politicized) more than we like the promotion of lots of distinctly separate cultures. The former has fuzzy edges and lets the individual choose any path from complete identification with the group to complete rejection. It even lets us pick whole new groups to identify with, as Obama seems to have done to a certain extent.
If you take the element of individualism out, though, you're left with an idea that seems distinctly un-American. I can't imagine mainstream Americans, of any heritage, ever getting as Balkanized as the actual Balkans, any more than I can see us developing marriage patterns based on clan alliances. Maybe nobody will be that way in 200 years, what with urbanization, air travel, the Internet, and so on. But the US chose the individualistic approach relatively early, and I would hate to see that change.
I agree, "the national culture is not fixed."
Actually, that's not true. In the late 19th century, there was a big fight in education. The older crowd wanted to continue to teach latin and greek, and teach Homer, Virgil and so on. The new ones wanted to teach Shakespeare, french, and spanish. They were accused of the exact same things that multi-culturalists are accused of today -- wanting to destroy the dominate culture, hating the ancients, and so on. As for teaching practical things, like science, well, that was just beyond the pale!
One needs only be reminded of Charles Eliot's reforms in the Harvard curriculum which at the time were considered quite controversial.
Wow.
They made you professor, did they? I'm not surprised.
Cognitive dissonance is still alive and well.
And I have talked to some religious rightwingers who really believe that the US is a cesspool of immorality and hope and pray that America will be destroyed by the second coming of Christ, and taht everyone that they dislike will be thrown into a pit of fire.
So does that mean that we should ban religion? No. It means that there are loonies on the left and the right and we shouldn't be too concerned about them, nor should we throw the baby out with the bath water.
Defensive as always, and deliberately misunderstanding the point.
The point is not that we should ban multiculti. I didn't say that.
The point is that multiculti looks like a useful tool for those who would destroy America. Are they incorrect? Is it possible they're on to something?
It doesn't matter that the religious lefties are not in a position to enforce it. I hope. It would matter if multiculti were, in fact, potentially destructive and some other power (the pc state) enforced it for some other reason or combination of reasons.
So the question is whether multicult could not, absolutely and nevermore, damage America, or if it could seriously damage America. It might be used deliberately, or happen as a combination of circumstances coming from different reasons.
Ghettoizing groups by resisting assimilation. Multilingual ed. Special accomodations reducing the pressure to assimilate and simultaneously annoying those at whose expense the accomodations are made.
Plenty of ways to break up the country and they can all be sold as multiculti.
It's more than possible that others besides religious lefties want to break up the country. I'm thinking of non-religious lefties, for Buthe only ones I've spoken to who have told me what they are the religious ones.
To repeat: Can multiculti be guaranteed to be harmless?
Societies which are not ethnically uniform either practice some form of multiculturalism, or else one group enjoys enforced supremacy over the others - or there is war.
The U.S. is not and never was ethnically uniform. Our diversity in religion, at the Founding, would have been resolved by bloody violence in the 1500s. The U.S. already included hundreds of thousands of non-whites (blacks and Indians). Over the next century the U.S. incorporated many additional ethnic strains: more Indians, Francophones in Louisiana, Hispanics in the southwest, and immigrants from Europe and Asia. This was accomplished peacefully (for the most part) because of the tacit agreement that cultural differences were trivial.
The benefits to America have been enormous. First, the comparative peace of our society. Second, we have absorbed into our general culture a great deal of the music and food of other cultures. Third, people from other cultures accepted into America have made great contributions to our science, literature, technology, high art, and commerce, that would have been impossible in a monoculture. I am thinking mainly of Jews: their ethnic culture isn't that valuable (who eats gefilte fish? who doesn't eat pizza?), but America has made more use of Jewish talent than any other nation, not excluding Israel.
The problem today is in the boundaries of what is trivial, and what is morally substantive. For many, multiculturalism has degenerated into moral relativism. Modern Western culture has the valuable property of self-criticism: but this now often degenerates into a sort of auto-immune syndrome, and forms a malignant synergy with multiculturalism, ending in the likes of Ward Churchill.
Far too many intellectuals have degenerated into the blame-the-whites reflex that paralyzes genuine moral concern.
Those of us who want to resist the crimes of militant Islam or suppress the abuses of "traditional" cultures must walk a careful line: denounce what is clearly wrong, and reject any "cultural" excuses, without lapsing into blanket denunciations of other cultures.
Your point is quite clear, which I already addressed. But your paranoia about the left is really getting tiresome.
"To repeat: Can multiculti be guaranteed to be harmless?" Perhaps not. But so far, you haven't shown any evidence of any harm.
But let's turn the tables: can refusing multiculti be guaranteed to be harmless? There is no doubt right wingers who would use traditional ed. to break up the country by preventing the various cultures any legitimacy.
Of course, I'm not as paranoid, so it doesn't it's a matter of concern to me.
Sorry, but I have to laugh. Learning a foreign language is a *harm*? Now *that's* bizarre!
Harm? I have a friend in the hotel business who says he thinks--he's sort of joking--that bilingual education is a scam dreamed up by the hotel industry to provide them with non-English speaking people illiterate in another language who can only work for s**t wages in hotels.
Yet, to try to discuss the "harm" caused by such nonsense brings cries of the usual sort, "racism", "nativism" and so forth.
I worked with exchange students for twenty years. I figure there was probably one who wasn't capable of getting by in high school within a month of arrival and most reported dreaming in English by spring.
Bilingual ed is a scam--I think CA teachers get $5000 extra for being bilingual--and the local system has a huge empire for five kids whose families don't speak English and a couple of hundred whose last names are Hispanic. One of my colleagues got her kid into that program so she could learn Spanish.
But it was sold as, among other things, multiculi.
This is forced ghettoization which, among other things, restricts assimilation, continues ethnic resentments, and damages education.
That's one example.
Just so you know examples are available.