Multiculturalism and the Fall of Western Civilization

The Clash of Civilizations | 2002 | Samuel P. Huntington

[Noumenon]

Recently, Samuel Huntington, Victor Davis Hanson and a very, very few others have had the courage to point out one of the biggest of the elephant herd occupying the living room of the American mind; that is, that the West - our civilization - will not endure unless a significant number of us reaffirm our dedication to the American Creed. In a sense, a call for such a reaffirmation is essentially preaching to the choir and targets the wrong audience. Those of us who understand what's at stake hardly need a reminder, yet the message delivered by Huntington and Hanson is utterly compelling in its clarity and precision. These gentlemen pull no punches and do not indulge our wishful thinking with euphemisms. Remember Huntington's description of the American Creed? Liberty, democracy, individualism, equality before the law, constitutionalism, private property. Western civilization in a nutshell, a short list of ideals underwritten by the greatest minds this world has yet produced.

Regrettably, far too many of us are utterly and abysmally ignorant of those ideals and their philosophical underpinnings. If it were only a matter of mere indifference, then our prospects for a restoration of the Creed and its guiding principles and philosophical foundation would be far brighter.  Reason, logic, spirited debate and free discourse in open public forum can and should form the basis for that restoration. Coupled with an educated and participating populace, that's a prescription for the eternal vigilance required to sustain the Creed. And wasn't that the goal of what we call our public education system? That is, to produce minds capable and informed, and in control of their own destiny? What sort of minds are producing today?

hen your opponents lack the price of admission to civilized debate: a respect for reason, belief in objective truth, and a willingness to admit they're wrong when the facts prove it so; when your opponents' goals are to destroy the very foundation of your culture and your society - and to offer nothing in return but the howling nightmare of a society of cannibals and looters; when your opponents seize and indoctrinate your children's' minds in the politics of victimization and the nobility of human servitude and sacrifice - what then? When the institutions of higher learning are occupied by Marxist multiculturalists who despise the very philosophical foundation upon which the architecture of liberty and human dignity can be constructed - what then?  We know the answer - as Huntington said, "History shows that no country so constituted can long endure as a coherent society."

Who has the courage to look at the consequences of that impending dissolution?

[dennisw]

Big bumpski..... Many thanks for your comments too!

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[yendu bwam]

When thousands of teenage boys have been sexually molested by homosexual Catholic priests (supposedly living in the person of Jesus Christ) all over the nation, when half of all American kids live without a father present, when our public schools are outranked by Thailand's schools, when 10-15% of our public school kids use hard narcotics, when our (former) adulterer and lier-under-oath president receives oral sex from a young twenty-year old intern on the desk of the oval office, and when there are 1 1/2 million abortions (many in the third trimester) each year in America, you know that something has gone sadly and tragically amiss in our country. We have lost our Judeo-Christian moral bearing. Some think this is good - but that is a very tough case to make. I personally would rather plant my feet on the shore until the fetid moral tide that afflicts our country washes out to sea. Let us pray that the tide is drawn out rapidly, as Americans wake up to the precious heritage they are quickly losing.

[f.Christian]

Creation/God...Christianity---secular-govt.-humanism/SCIENCE---CIVILIZATION!

Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!

Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY...

Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 America---

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

Who has the courage to look at the consequences of that impending dissolution?

Few in government.

The only element missing from this piece is the anticipated cultural destruction of the U.S. will be accompanied by a massive amount of violence in the streets.

[Torie]

If one believed everything I read here about his issue, one would think American culture is as fragile as the thinest Venetian glass. It ain't; it is the most robust on this planet, and will continue to be for the forseeable future IMO.

[The Toad]

American culture is pretty tough as the other poster stated; however, that is no excuse for not making sure it remains tough.

[Noumenon]

Things look pretty good on the surface. The sun is shining, people go to malls and shop, it's up and at 'em to work five days a week, fun and games on the weekend. For most of us, trouble of major proportions is just a distant wisp of smoke on the horizon. Most of us don't pay it any mind. Shoot, if it doesn't impact the day-to-day, who cares?

Seen what's coming out public schools lately? We tend to forget that cultural trends take time to manifest themselves in real consequences. We've squandered our intellectual and spiritual capital with a stock market panic intensity since the 1960s. It's only just now that we're starting to realize that, as a nation, we're broke.

[Noumenon]

As history has shown, freedom is a rare and fragile thing. It takes serious and sustained effort to keep it. And that's not the kind of mind that our educational system is producing these days. Eternal vigilance and all that.

As I've said before - you can't keep what you don't understand, and you can't defend what you can't define. Most outcome-based education kids don't even know where they are, much less have a clue about what freedom is really all about.

[Torie]

There are not really any barbarians at the gate. But some have this odd need to go on a quest to find them. They must be out there somewhere. A successful quest would be to realize that where they are is in one's own pessimistic and dispirited mind.

[Tailgunner Joe]

bttt

[Noumenon]

"There are not really any barbarians at the gate."

Precisely my point - and Huntington's. The barbarians are already inside the gate. They're being churned out by the thousands, courtesy of our educational system.

Pessimism? Facing reality is hardly pessimistic. You might give it a try. As Rand has said, "We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality."

[Tokhtamish]

Noumenon, this is not 1977.

The Right won the culture wars. It is the Cultural Left that has been reduced to college towns, Greenwich Village, and the San Francisco Bay area.

[IsItTimeYet]

The Right won the culture wars

What? Please explain this assertion...or share whatever you're smoking...

[Right To Life]

The Right won the culture wars. It is the Cultural Left that has been reduced to college towns, Greenwich Village, and the San Francisco Bay area...

Gosh, you only forgot to add the entire public school system, the courts, and the United States Senate!

[Right To Life]

The Right won the culture wars. It is the Cultural Left that has been reduced to college towns, Greenwich Village, and the San Francisco Bay area...

Gosh, you only forgot to add the entire public school system, the courts, and the United States Senate!

[Noumenon]

Let's return to this quote from Huntington.

In the late 20th century, both components of American identity have come under concentrated and sustained onslaught from a small but influential number of intellectuals and publicists. In the name of multiculturalism, they have attacked the identification of he United States with Western civilization, denied the existence of a common American culture, and promoted racial, ethnic, and other subnational cultural identities and groupings. They have denounced, in the words of one of their reports, "systematic bias toward European culture and its derivatives," in education and "the dominance of the European-American monocultural perspective." The multiculturalists are, as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. has said, "very often ethnocentric separatists who see little in Western heritage other than Western crimes." Their "mood is one of divesting Americans of the sinful European inheritance and seeking redemptive infusions from non-Western cultures."

What is there about it that is not true? Have these intellectuals and publicists vanished overnight? As far as I know, they're still 'teaching' in the nations' educational system in overwhelming numbers. When I turn on my TV, there are still nothing but ratchet-jawed mental and moral midgets spewing and leering and sneering their contempt of folks just like you and me on every lamestream media channel.

[Lessismore]

It is also manifest, in lesser degree, among Hispanics in the United States, who area large minority. If assimilation fails in this case, the United States will become a cleft country with all the potential for strife and disunion that entails.

Why would Hispanics be considered a threat to "western civilization"? They are probably more religious than most US citizens, and they derive their culture primarily from Spain and Portugal. Argentina and Chile are particularly European.

[logan five]

absolutely...

there is no reason to shovel stones on a fellow's back, just because he is strong...

i submit that if a true strangerto these lands, a gardener perhaps, were to view the collective policies currently in place in this country, he would see that we are trying to grow weeds......