On Columbus Day, Celebrate Western Civilization, Not Multiculturalism

CNSNews.com ^ | October 14, 2002 | Michael S. Berliner

[Tailgunner Joe]

Columbus Day approaches and this year has a special meaning. Christopher Columbus is a carrier of Western Civilization and the very values attacked by terrorists on September 11. To the "politically correct," Columbus Day is an occasion to be mourned. They have mourned, they have attacked, and they have intimidated schools across the country into replacing Columbus Day celebrations with "ethnic diversity" days.

The politically correct view is that Columbus did not discover America, because people had lived here for thousands of years. Worse yet, it's claimed, the main legacy of Columbus is death and destruction.

Columbus is routinely vilified as a symbol of slavery and genocide, and the celebration of his arrival likened to a celebration of Hitler and the Holocaust. The attacks on Columbus are ominous, because the actual target is Western civilization.

Did Columbus "discover" America? Yes -- in every important respect. This does not mean that no human eye had been cast on America before Columbus arrived. It does mean that Columbus brought America to the attention of the civilized world, i.e., to the growing, scientific civilizations of Western Europe.

The result, ultimately, was the United States of America. It was Columbus' discovery for Western Europe that led to the influx of ideas and people on which this nation was founded -- and on which it still rests.

The opening of America brought the ideas and achievements of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and the thousands of thinkers, writers, and inventors who followed.

Prior to 1492, what is now the United States was sparsely inhabited, unused, and undeveloped. The inhabitants were primarily hunter-gatherers, wandering across the land, living from hand-to-mouth and from day-to-day. There was virtually no change, no growth for thousands of years. With rare exception, life was nasty, brutish, and short: there was no wheel, no written language, no division of labor, little agriculture and scant permanent settlement; but there were endless, bloody wars.

Whatever the problems it brought, the vilified Western culture also brought enormous, undreamed-of benefits, without which most of today's Indians would be infinitely poorer or not even alive.

Columbus should be honored, for in so doing, we honor Western civilization. But the critics do not want to bestow such honor, because their real goal is to denigrate the values of Western civilization and to glorify the primitivism, mysticism, and collectivism embodied in the tribal cultures of American Indians.

They decry the glorification of the West as "cultural imperialism" and "Eurocentrism." We should, they claim, replace our reverence for Western civilization with multi-culturalism, which regards all cultures (including vicious tyrannies) as morally equal. In fact, they aren't.

Some cultures are better than others: a free society is better than slavery; reason is better than brute force as a way to deal with other men; productivity is better than stagnation. In fact, Western civilization stands for man at his best. It stands for the values that make human life possible: reason, science, self-reliance, individualism, ambition, productive achievement.

The values of Western civilization are values for all men; they cut across gender, ethnicity, and geography. We should honor Western civilization not for the ethnocentric reason that some of us happen to have European ancestors but because it is the objectively superior culture.

Underlying the political collectivism of the anti-Columbus crowd is a racist view of human nature. They claim that one's identity is primarily ethnic: if one thinks his ancestors were good, he will supposedly feel good about himself; if he thinks his ancestors were bad, he will supposedly feel self-loathing.

But it doesn't work; the achievements or failures of one's ancestors are monumentally irrelevant to one's actual worth as a person. Only the lack of a sense of self leads one to look to others to provide what passes for a sense of identity. Neither the deeds nor misdeeds of others are his own; he can take neither credit nor blame for what someone else chose to do.

There are no racial achievements or racial failures, only individual achievements and individual failures. One cannot inherit moral worth or moral vice. "Self-esteem through others" is a self-contradiction.

Thus the sham of "preserving one's heritage" as a rational life goal. Thus the cruel hoax of "multicultural education" as an antidote to racism: it will continue to create more racism.

Individualism is the only alternative to the racism of political correctness. We must recognize that everyone is a sovereign entity, with the power of choice and independent judgment. That is the ultimate value of Western civilization, and it should be proudly proclaimed.

[Sam Cree]

This is a nice article, thanks for posting it.

Western Civilization is a great thing, as the article says. There is one main horror that it has created: socialism.

Funny, isn't it, how the folks who constantly run down Western culture and Western Civilization never seem to mention socialism when they list their complaints?

[Warren]

Oh, how un P.C.!

[Warren]

You can bet this info is NOT being taught in our schools.

[ppaul]

www.suntimes.com

Back to regular view
http://www.suntimes.com/output/letters/cst-edt-vox14a.html

Let's celebrate an American hero

October 14, 2002

The drums will roll, the bands will strut and politicians will court the rapidly eroding ''Italian vote.'' It is Columbus Day 2002!

Mayor Michael Bloomberg invited ''The Sopranos'' sellouts Dominic Chianese and Lorraine Bracco to the New York City Columbus Day Parade. Our own Mayor Daley would never consider inviting James Gandolfini or Edie Falco to our parade. They mock their heritage and defile the memory of their heroic Italian ancestors. Mayor Daley loves Columbus Day, and always salutes the accomplishments of the great ''admiral of the Ocean Sea.''

Christopher Columbus was adopted as an ethnic hero after waves of Italian immigrants brought their blood, sweat and tears to the teeming shores of this ''sweet land of liberty.''

They found other ethnic groups honoring St. Patrick, Casimir Pulaski and von Steuben, so they needed to join the parade. Columbus is not celebrated in Italy. Only a small plaque commemorates his birth in Genoa. He was discovered in America by a needy population of penniless and powerless immigrants searching for their place in the sun. Even our nation's capital bears his name. Cities and universities proudly proclaimed to be his adopted children.

Christoforo Colombo was an authentic American hero. Then the marauders came in the night and rained lies on our parade. Charlatan historians revised, distorted and finally destroyed the well-documented legacy of Columbus.

The Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans will salute ''America, To Thee I Sing'' today. Look at the list of war casualties from the Twin Towers. The melodious, beautiful names of Italian Americans are tragically prominent in the roll call of heroes: citizens, police, firemen--none of whom resemble any characters in ''The Sopranos.''

President Vito Cali and parade chairman Robert Cimo speak for the Italian-American community as they invite all Americans to celebrate and remember Columbus Day 2002. Let the healing begin.

Dominic Di Frisco, president emeritus,
Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans

[RJCogburn]

Individualism is the only alternative to the racism of political correctness. We must recognize that everyone is a sovereign entity, with the power of choice and independent judgment.

[secretagent]

After he failed to contact the emperor of China, the traders of India or the merchants of Japan, Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in the one important commodity he had found in ample supply - human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would fit and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets of Seville and sold as slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their parents, husbands from wives. On board Columbus' slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the Indian bodies into the Atlantic.

Because Columbus captured more Indian slaves than he could transport to Spain in his small ships, he put them to work in mines and plantations which he, his family and followers created throughout the Caribbean. His marauding band hunted Indians for sport and profit - beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies as food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of Columbus' arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one-third of the original Indian population of 300,000. Within another 50 years, the Taino people had been made extinct [editor's note: the old assumption that the Taino became extinct is now open to serious question] - the first casualties of the holocaust of American Indians. The plantation owners then turned to the American mainland and to Africa for new slaves to follow the tragic path of the Taino.

source

The author of your article doesn't address the above charges, a sample of the new look at Columbus. If you know of a rebuttal, I'd appreciate it.