The Trouble with Multiculturalism (Are all cultures really equal?)

National Review ^ | 06/21/2012 | Clifford May

[SeekAndFind]

Back in the day, when I was a newspaper columnist in Denver, representatives of the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League paid a visit. Over coffee, they told the opinion editor and me that they had a program, “A World of Difference,” that “celebrates America’s diversity.” They asked for our editorial support. The editor and I had the same reaction: Would it not be better to celebrate all the things we have in common, all the things that unite Americans of whatever ethnic or religious backgrounds? Our friends left the meeting mightily miffed.

At the time, I viewed such initiatives (the ADL was hardly alone) as well-intentioned if somewhat ham-handed efforts to combat prejudice. I later realized this was part of a larger campaign to promote multiculturalism, which seemed like a fairly harmless attempt to encourage appreciation of varying styles of art, dress, and cuisine by pretending that all have equal merit. (But is there anyone who seriously believes that German cuisine is on a par with Chinese, French, or Indian?) Only years later did I come to realize: Multiculturalism is an ideology with far-reaching — and damaging — consequences.

This was forcefully driven home to me by a book probably not featured at your local book store: Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism, by Salim Mansur, a professor of political science at the University of Ontario. Mansur recounts that back in the 1970s, Canada became the first Western nation to embrace multiculturalism on an official level, “sponsored by the state, supported by taxpayers, and monitored and enforced by thought-police (human rights commissions).” He makes a compelling case that adoption of this ideology has damaged Canada, and not only Canada: Multiculturalism, he writes, has been “destructive of the West’s liberal democratic heritage, tradition, and values based on individual rights and freedoms.”

Mansur observes that “freedom is the distinguishing feature of the West,” a core value that came under ferocious attack in the 20th century from fascism and Communism. In the current era, “the West is confronted with a new, or third, challenge of totalitarianism in the form of Islamism and its asymmetrical assault on liberal democracy, increasingly since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, against the United States.”

Multiculturalism insists that all cultures are equal and equally deserving of respect and celebration. It ignores the fact that freedom emerged and flowered in the West because of, Mansur writes, the “unique transmutation of Western culture and civilization brought about by the Enlightenment and the new scientific method pioneered by Galileo.” These influences “subjected religion to the scrutiny of reason.”

In the lands of Islam, it is generally the other way around: Reason is subject to the scrutiny of faith. Multiculturalism makes believe that the conflict between these two schools of thought is inconsequential. Worse, by emphasizing collective identities and group rights, and by pushing for equality of results rather than equality of opportunity, multiculturalism undermines individual freedom and devalues the Western cultures that have nurtured and defended it.

In Canada, the U.S., and other countries that accept a continuing stream of immigrants from non-Western societies, multiculturalism also inhibits the process of integration and assimilation. Instead, Mansur writes, it empowers new citizens “to demand that their host country adapt” to their cultural requirements while relieving them of any responsibility to weave themselves and their children into the cultural fabric of their adopted homeland. In this and other ways, multiculturalism is a “slippery slope” that “imperils” liberal democracies.

Mansur’s insights stem from experience as well as academic study. Born an Indian Muslim in Calcutta, he is Canadian by choice and conviction. His self-identification as a “dissident Muslim” undergirds his strong defense of Western values. “Faith does not take precedence over my duties . . . to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely,” he writes. You may not be surprised to learn that his statements have resulted in two fatwas calling for his execution.

Those whose religious and cultural beliefs lead them to the conclusion that Mansur deserves death also want to destroy Canada, America, Israel, and other “infidel” nations. That represents diversity — but should we really celebrate it?

Unable to answer that question, multiculturalists instead maintain the fiction that those who declare themselves enemies of the West are merely addressing “grievances” over such historical “crimes” as colonialism and imperialism, ignoring the fact that Islamists promote Islamic colonialism and seek to revive Islamic imperialism. Multiculturalists also decry the inequities of the global economic system, although their funds are derived from wealth created by Western agriculture and industry, and exchanged for Middle Eastern oil.

Mansur makes clear that Islamists are motivated by a fierce will to power and a deep antipathy for the West’s “civic culture, its freedom and democracy.” And Islamists, he adds, “find that multiculturalism increasingly in the post-9/11 world works in tandem with their interests to weaken the West politically and culturally from the inside.”

Most of those who advocate multiculturalism no doubt mean well. But their intellectual myopia is striking. The truth is, some cultures value freedom of religion; others see no virtue in granting free rein to what they regard as false religions. Some cultures prize free speech; others believe it is dangerous to permit open discourse and opt instead to censor many ideas. Some cultures believe that women and minorities should have the same rights as the majority; others consider that a blasphemous notion. Some cultures are willing to compromise to achieve peace; others are willing to fight and die for conquest and victory.

But the big trap of multiculturalism is simply this: If all cultures are equal, why defend your own? The culture that replaces it will be just as good, won’t it?

— Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and Islamism.

[nathanbedford]

Multiculturalism insists that all cultures are equal and equally deserving of respect and celebration. It ignores the fact that freedom emerged and flowered in the West because of, Mansur writes, the “unique transmutation of Western culture and civilization brought about by the Enlightenment and the new scientific method pioneered by Galileo.” These influences “subjected religion to the scrutiny of reason.”

The author might add that the Christian religion, especially the Protestant branch, was amenable to the "scrutiny of reason." The journey to that point was not without its setbacks and is by no means should be characterized as a straight line with each step one of unalloyed progress toward reason as defined by the Enlightenment. Modern Islam is simply not amenable to the same scrutiny.

Nevertheless, Christianity did ultimately arrive at a point at which it would tolerate the Enlightenment. The idea of individual salvation rather than group salvation no doubt accelerated the journey.

It is an absurdity to argue that Islam is anywhere near the state of toleration Christianity was at the time of the Scottish Enlightenment or the English Bill of Rights of 1688. Modern Islam, although a mixed bag in various parts of the earth, resembles more the Salem witch hunts or the zeal of the crusaders than it does the faith which led up to the ringing and sublime declarations contained in the announcement of American independence or in the faith which animated the Civil War after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Diversity is not our strength, but our Achilles' heel. Animosity to Christianity in the name of diversity is intolerance which smacks of a medieval tyranny over the mind in an attempt to save the soul.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Even reason can’t stand alone, any more than bookkeeping can. Both need a subject matter upon which to operate or are abstract, vain pursuits.

[muawiyah]

It's common among Moslems to reject retarded or brain injured children. This is a holdover from their older belief systems which almost all held that you get reincarnated, and while that's going on, you get punished for the sins of your previous lives (a concept best known from Hinduism but otherwise pretty common in the pre-modern world).

That's just one of the reasons Islam cannot be subjected to reason ~ they all believe all sorts of things that simply don't derive from Western religious traditions (Christianity, Judaism, Mithrism, Agnosticism, Polytheism) ~ their actual beliefs are more like disembodied animist spiritualism. Last thing any of these guys want to do is talk about sin and redemption ~

[The Duke]

I have described myself as a "culturist" for many years (one who is prejudiced based on culture). After all, what is a "culture" other than a collection of accepted behaviors, and it's impossible for one collection of behaviors not to be better or worse than another.

I don't even think my own culture is the best - just somewhere in the middle.

[MrB]

Ah, a fellow “culturist”.

I use this in response to any accusations of “racism”.
I maintain that skin melanin content does not affect the behaviors of the individual. Only their character and the culture that shaped that character do so.

Now, if anyone wants to argue that “all cultures are equal”, ie, that none should be criticized, especially “urban” cultures, I’ll have that argument any day.

Cultures of the past sacrificed their children in burning altars to statues and idols. Were those cultures equal to Western Civilization? Which would you rather live in and which would you consider a better culture in which to live?

If there is a scale of “good” and less “good” cultures, then Western Culture and all other cultures are on that comparative scale, so let’s discuss the fruits of those cultures to determine where they are...

at that point, it’s pretty obvious where the various worldviews and cultures fall relative to each other.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: I don’t even think my own culture is the best - just somewhere in the middle.

OK, since we’re into worse, better and best. By what criteria or standard do we judge which culture is “better” or “worse” than another?

And for that matter, how do we strive to be the “best”?

In a three point NBA shooting contest, BEST is hitting 25 out of 25 from different angles on the court. We HAVE a standard.

By what standard do we judge culture?

[MrB]

The first thing you have to get postmodernists and multiculturalists to acknowledge is that such an objective standard exists.

This is pretty easy to establish as there are some beliefs and behaviors that are inherently considered good or bad, and not all cultures exhibit even these.

Now, I’ve heard of conversations with postmodernists who were so vehement in maintaining their worldview that they, even against their own conscience, would refuse to condemn the policies of Hitler. But you won’t run into these very often, and even when you do...

2 Tim 3:9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

[vanilla swirl]

” That’s just one of the reasons Islam cannot be subjected to reason”

I have tried debating in a Facebook forum. They value rote memorization not critical/analytical thinking. They simply don’t think logically.

I got banned btw for analyzing the historicity of Mohammed.

[vanilla swirl]

” That’s just one of the reasons Islam cannot be subjected to reason”

I have tried debating in a Facebook forum. They value rote memorization not critical/analytical thinking. They simply don’t think logically.

I got banned btw for questioning the historicity of Mohammed.

[JimRed]

All cultures are equally capable of evil, but only a few seek it out.

[philled]

Best bumpersticker ever:
Cannibalism: Because All Cultures are Equal.

[Road Glide]

“The Trouble with Multiculturalism (Are all cultures really equal?)”

No, they are not.
They never were.
Of course not.

This is apparent to anyone who observes and is able to see reality.

How were we ever persuaded to believe otherwise?
(Hint: a guy named Gramsci...)

[Billthedrill]

Multiculturalism and Marxism are a marriage made in hell. by itself, the notion that all cultures are equal is simply silly, but valuable in its lesser version that all are worthy of respectful examination on a dispassionate basis. What has happened is that multiculturalism has adopted a Marxian model of one preeminent class unjustly maintaining its preeminence by virtue of oppression, translating class into culture in a bit of philosophical prestidigitation popularized by the Frankfurt school.

The upshot is the acting principle that the current preeminent (i.e. Western) culture is oppressive and to be resisted in the name of social justice; that true equality of cultures may only be attained when the present preeminent one is undermined and marginalized. And that is precisely what its actors in government are attempting to do.

The upshot of this program is that multiculturalists promise to do for culture what Marxists did for economics: destroy a working system in the hopes that something better will rise from the ashes. The destruction is the easy part.

[zeugma]

By what standard do we judge culture?

I would say the leading criteria would be the degree to which a culture maximizes individual freedom. Note,that this isn't a call to anarchy, because any intellegent person will realize that anarchy very quickly devolves to a 'lord of the flies' situation. We institute government to protect our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I think Thomas Jefferson pretty much nailed it.

[neverdem]

The author might add that the Christian religion, especially the Protestant branch, was amenable to the "scrutiny of reason."

Not the churches that believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. Evolution is off the table. Ditto other sciences that date anything older than about 6,000 years old and isotopic dating techniques.

[workerbee]

Canada became the first Western nation to embrace multiculturalism on an official level, “sponsored by the state, supported by taxpayers, and monitored and enforced by thought-police (human rights commissions).”

Which is why I wonder how this author is not yet in jail.

[Cronos]

Christian culture is the best, however TD is correct that we have fallen past this -- we have a Lady Gaga and no Mozart, we have no Rubens, we have no great novelists, only thrillers, we have no Orson Wells, we have rotten movies. Kids of today have never heard of Homer or Chaucer or Balzac. Their knowledge of history is non-existent. Even in maths and science kids are not taught as much as they were in yesteryears.

Our present-day culture is middling. If we return to pre-flower-power values, that would be better..