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Barone on Multiculturalism

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Just read a great piece on multiculturalism by Michael Barone–one of my favorite columnists. He quoted Jean-François Revel, quite possibly the wisest living Frenchman: “A civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.” Barone adds: “Tolerating intolerance, goodhearted people are beginning to see, does not necessarily produce tolerance in turn.” Here he really gets at the heart of multiculturalism and its refusal to note the superiority of western democracies:

Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures all morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties, and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures but in certain specific times and places–mostly in Britain and America but also in other parts of Europe.

Emphasis added. Now that I’m whet your appetite, just read the whole thing!

Comments

  1. I’m all for respecting other cultures and remembering the cultures that we all came from. However, we should not be sacrificing who and what we are to make other cultures feel all warm and fuzzy.
    Being multi-lingual is great, but the main language in America is English. We should not punish those who speak another language, but at the same time, we should not fall over ourselves to cater to those who refuse to learn it. One of the most ridiculous things, IMHO, that I saw in some parts of Houston were street signs in multiple languages. Is that where the tax dollars should have gone? How much did that cost? Why do we have to have this?

  3. GPW, you seem a little too giddy about that post. Too often, those who attack multiculturalism with a blunt instrument do so because they feel somehow slighted because they live as an empowered, affluent majority.

    There are parts of multiculturalism-think that are just vapid rubbish. However, perhaps it would do you good to better understand how your neighbors fit into society. I’m Black. My ancestors didn’t ask to come here, but here we are. Our experience – and that of latter immigrants and latinos whose families lived in California and other states before they were part of the United States, should be treated equally.

    Multiculturalism should be embraced. Put the pc policies that often go along with it (those homophobic and anti-women policies of certain cultures) shouldn’t be treated equally.

  4. “Too often, those who attack multiculturalism with a blunt instrument do so because they feel somehow slighted…”

    Really? On what evidence?

    “Our experience…should be treated equally.”

    Sounds yummy…..but what does it really mean in practice? To use EMT’s example – does it mean Houston posting street signs in other languages? Or are you speaking of something else? (If so, what?)

    To use an example local to me – we print all voting signs and materials in 7 languages. I would have to consider that an example of “vapid rubbish”. I don’t feel slighted by it per se. It is simply a waste of money at best. At worst, it, combined with other similar measures, encourages some immigrant citizens not to become effective in what is, or ought to be, the society’s common speech.

    A society’s long-term survival requires, among other things, that it say to immigrants, “You are most welcome here….and ‘here’, certain things are a certain way; please adapt.” People can speak whatever language they want, but for “citizenship purposes” there should be one, or (if historical circumstances dictate) at most two common languages. They understand this in the European Union, where they deliberately *don’t* print things in seven languages – only two. (Country local language, and English which they selected to be the EU common language.)

  5. Now, in the above I went with extreme multi-lingualism as an example of “vapid rubbish”…..but of course, what the Barone article (and GPW) are really criticizing is what you might call “moral multiculturalism” – that is, extreme moral relativism. The kind of moral relativism that looks at murderous thugs and says “Well, it’s their culture.”

    For example, as the Europeans have done (to their shame) with the Islamists in their midst who engage in family “honor killings” of their supposedly wayward female members, with shocking frequency. Tolerating *that* is extreme multiculturalism.

    Certain things are just wrong, period, and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so. Enslaving other people is wrong, period. Murdering other people because we don’t like what they’ve done to our “honor” is wrong, period. Mass murder of civilians by so-called “suicide bombers” is wrong, period. Dictatorship is wrong, period. No discussion on these points.

    I mean, if someone disagrees, I’ll be happy to explain to them WHY those things are wrong. And that’s a form of discussion. But if, finally, they still can’t agree, then I have no sensible basis for future discussion with that person. Moreover, what that person believes is such a present danger to civil, democratic society (as we’ve discovered the last few years in London, Madrid, New York, Bali, etc.) that they should be deported, even if they haven’t done any terrorist attacks or honor killings (yet). If multiculturalism disagrees, then, at *THAT* point, multiculturalism be damned.

    A society that *doesn’t* allow or support dictatorship, “honor killings”, mass murder of civilians in terrorist attacks, and so forth, *is* morally superior and should not be afraid to defend itself. That’s the main point here. Not denigrating such legitimate multiculturalism as noting/honoring where different immigrants have come from and what their history is, but rather, acknowledging a moral society’s basic right to hold itself together, or to defend itself in a war against terrorists, for example.

  6. A third point – sorry, I can’t resist 🙂

    “My ancestors didn’t ask to come here, but here we are. Our experience – and that of latter immigrants and latinos whose families lived in California and other states before they were part of the United States, should be treated equally.”

    The statement is confusing on another level.

    You appear to be saying that, if a person’s ancestors “didn’t ask to come here”, then that person (today, the descendant – not on their ancestors anymore) is somehow a victim of the dominant or mainstream U.S. culture, a victim because that culture isn’t treating them or their history “equally”.

    I guess I have several questions. First, have I parsed your comment correctly? (Its vagueness makes it a bit tough.) Second, provided that I have,

    — In what specific ways are modern-day descendants of those who “didn’t ask to come here” not being treated equally?

    — I’m a European-American, and I can assure you, my ancestors “didn’t ask to come here”. So, I’m a victim too, right?

    — Probably 95% of Americans are descended from people who “didn’t ask to come here” (but were driven here by some truly cruel circumstance). So, on your analysis, we’re all victims – right?

    — If it’s important, in your view, that we honor “latinos whose families lived in California and other states before they were part of the United States”, how would we go about separating the 1-2% of Latino ancestry/heritage that that applies to, from the 98-99% of Latino ancestry/heritage where individuals immigrated here *after* the 1848 annexations and did ask to come here?

    I’ll stop. Sorry for having so many questions, but it’s genuinely interesting to me because, even though I didn’t ask to be born here and the majority of my ancestors “didn’t ask to come here”, I actually consider myself *lucky* to be here (as opposed to, say, Iran, China or Burkina Faso), not a victim. This victimology stuff is a different way of looking at it. Thanks for your patience!

  7. Meg, don’t accuse me of things I didn’t say.

    I actually embrace the basic premise of multiculturalism–that we should teach about other cultures, religions and ethnic groups. As we teach about the greatness of our nation, we need also remind students of its flaws. We should tell the sad story of slavery. And we should, for example require all high school students to study such great Americans as Harriet Tubman and to read Richard Wright’s Black Boy. But, at the same time, we shouldn’t neglect to teach those great American ideals that uused to be the center of our curriculum, about the struggle for independence and the ideas which defined it. With such a background, people better understand how Martin Luther King, Jr. fits into the American tradition. For that great man rearticulated the vision of our Founding Fathers and thus gave a profound meaning to the struggle for Civil Rights in the 1960s.

    I don’t mean to dismiss the notion that we shouldn’t study other cultures. Indeed, I believe very strongly that we should, but, alas, today multiculturalism has become a means to exalt other cultures while slighting our own.

  11. I have a question about “treating someone’s experiences equally? I think it means that those experiences need to be analysed in the same way as all other experiences, and given the same wight in the ananlysiis. If so I agree. These things get left out not because of some ethnic bias but because history developed as a form of entertainment, and then maybe education, so it concentrated on dramatic events rather than processes, which might be much more significant. Englsih history deals much more with kings and battels and much less with the process of the island switching from Welsh to English, and the transformation of Anglo-Saxon in to Midlle and then Modern English, because for most people historical linguistics is just deadly soporific. All the crucial developments in daily life – new crops, food preservation and weavcing, all that stuff, isn’t very entertaining.

    If the activities are what get recorded, in the US that is going to be Englsih and then maybe Scotch-Irish men. Too bad, because half a truth is a whole lie. if you pretend that American history begins in1492 or 1607, then you ignore all the movements and exterminations that happened before, and think that was something the evil Europeans thought up. That leads you to ignore exterminations native states carried out even after the whites were here to watch. Who teaches about the Huron Genocide? Who teaches about why the Lakhota went out onto the Plains? No interest, wrong perps.

    This really fatally skews the understanding of race in this country. Where does a kid go to learn how Europeanized American Africans are, and how Africanized American Europeans are?

  12. What the multi-culturalists seem to forget is that the reason the multiple enthnicities have blended so uniquely is that America has worked everyone towards a single culture. Dynamic, yet definitively American. This has allowed this nation to prosper.

    Everyone here has a unique ethnic background, either in source or when those ancestors arrived. This has lead to different contributions to our outlook. My Scottish ancestors who arrived in Maryland in 1672 (as indentured servants) have a different outlook than those who came from Scotland in the 20th century (who I seem to have nothing in common with). Likewise my Danish ancestors who arrive in the 1860’s and headed west made a contribution different than those who stayed east. (my other ancestories ommited for brevity)

    But they all became Americans, not staying ‘Scots’ or ‘Danes’. Instead they became ‘Marylanders’ and ‘Nebraskans’ (what I consider my background to be, not european, which would at best be my genetic make-up). The America of 1672 is different than the America of 1866 or even today. But being the sum of its people and there ethnicties, it is still American.

    Failing to study about the different ethnicities that make up America will cause someone to fail to grasp the richness or our heritage. Too many anti-multi-culturalists seem to not understand that … too bad for them.

    Just as bad (not better or worse) are those for fail to assimulate into the American culture, for they will never understand why they will never thrive here.

    Of course I could be wrong. Even though I have lived here all my life, I only took 10 weeks of anthropolgy at an engineering college (where I learned all the trouble in the world were because Reagan and Bush were not doing enough to stop poeple from buring the forests tree lemurs live in). But I think may rationale is rational 🙂

  14. Barone’s typically perspicuous comments attack the right problem. The issue is no longer one of tolerance for pluralism (differences of historical experiences), but the leveling of cultural differences (e.g., fascism is no different than democracy). Pluralism is, and remains, a desirable means to various ends; multiculturalism, which equates and then equivocates all social experiences as “equally valid,” is pernicious and refutable.

    Take for example the Christian emigree from Iraq I know. She’s thoroughly Armenian in pedigree, from Iraqi historically, and an American currently. Her experiences are wholly unlike mine, and, while both of us would cherish our different cultural experiences, we wouldn’t equate the two cultures.

    As James Q. Wilson observes: The Enlightenment, a wholly Western event, is unique and tremendously distinctive as well as distinguished. No one will ever persuade me that those of us who are living the Enlightenment are not preferable, and in many ways superior, to those who have not. Liberal democracy, equality of sexes and races, equality of opportunity, freedom of association, etc., the hallmarks of the Enlightenment, are clearly superior to those “other” experiences that lack them. To think that all “other” experiences are equal to the Enlightenment experience is to subvert the truth and exalt a falsehood.

  15. Wow, great comments everyone!

    I had forgotten the line, “A half truth is a whole lie” – will have to remember that one.

    Stephen, you’ve provided a useful (I think) distinction between pluralism and multiculturalism. It fits in with Barone’s definition: “Multiculturalism preaches that we should allow and encourage immigrants and their children to maintain and celebrate their own culture apart from the national culture.” Multi-culturalism *in that definition* actually goes against key traditions that make America work – namely, “melting pot” or the American “civic religion” where you are expected to put the Constitution ahead of your old national/ethnic loyalties and religious strife. But having said that, we should obviously want pluralism, honoring where we all came from, and a broad study of history and other cultures.