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In the USA, we never hear of violent confrontations between Catholics and Protestants, but we all know about Northern Ireland. Chile is a small country with large populations of Serbs and Croats and Germans and Jews and Arabs and Spanish and Basque who live peacefully side by side and even intermarry. In Sydney, Australia, Greeks and Turks and Cypriots live peacefully in the same multiethnic neighborhoods and patronize each other's shops and restaurants. We look at these and countless other examples and conclude that diversity is good. But we look at the many scenes of conflict and blame it on ignorance, or religion, or ethnicism, or racism, or nationalism, or tribalism, or bigotry, or lack of understanding, or "whatever" (shorthand for not knowing the answer). It would seem that the fact that two or more "groups" hate each other in one part of the world but live together harmoniously in another part has something other than geography going on. It is a grave mistake to look only at the superficial aspects of a conflict, such as race, ancestry, or religion, while ignoring the deeper underlying reasons which may be obscured. It's not that these underlying reasons are necessarily more complex, but they are apparently more subtle, and not intuitively obvious to the casual observer, especially our intellectual elites. The concepts, of course, are completely opposite. The colonists at the beginning of the American revolution were extremely diverse, not only geographically, but socially, politically, economically, and ethnically. They were Dutch, German, Irish, Welsh, English, Scottish, and French. They were merchants, farmers, fishermen, trappers, traders, and manufacturers. They were city-dwellers in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and rural dwellers elsewhere, including the forests and frontier. They were slaveholders, slaves, Indians, indentured servants, and freemen. They were Catholics, Protestants of several denominations (including Deists and Unitarians), Jews, and nonbelievers. The unifying force in this incredibly diverse population was a desire for independence. E Pluribus Unum was an apt slogan, because it worked, not only in its goal to achieve independence, but four score and seven years later, in finally abolishing slavery. So unification is the process of finding common ground, a common objective and mission, or something in common, period. This is elementary. So how is unification achieved by reversing the emphasis, by searching for that which divides? The search for uniformity has never been a strong American trait. We are a nation of individuals who have managed to stay united for over 220 years and survived a divisive civil war. Various attempts to achieve uniformity have failed, except in isolated and short-lived instances. (Commercial uniformity is a separate issue.) If you want to see extreme uniformity in a modern democracy, take a trip to Japan or Iceland, and see how these nations contrast with the USA. To understand multiculturalism, you can't rely upon its dictionary definition. Having graduated from educational theory to political ideology, its actual meaning is now quite different from the innocuous "interest in many cultures within a society rather than in only a mainstream culture." Now there is nothing wrong with assuming political status. Many worthwhile movements are also political ideologies. And as George Will observed, ideology is ideas taken seriously. But it means that multiculturalism has been run up the flagpole, and now that it is up there, it is exposed to serious debate. Its advocates should not feel sensitive when this debate reveals inconsistencies between the directions of its implied objectives and the actual direction of its progression. You are defended in your right to voice your views, but don't expect anyone to defend you when your views are critically examined. Your critics are simply exercising the same rights you did when you opened your mouth. My hypothesis is that the modern meaning of multiculturalism is NOT simply being educated in "non-mainstream" cultures. Being educated means being acquainted with the new culture. Americans who live in big cities are anything but unacquainted with other cultures. We interact with them on the job, at school, while shopping ... while conducting our everyday lives. Our opinions are formed from these experiences. We rarely form opinions that matter from non-experiences, and if we do, they are quickly modified by actual experiences. In short, prejudices are either modified or reinforced by experiences. This is neither a complex nor mysterious sociological concept. Not only does multiculturalism not mean what it says anymore, but neither does its sister, diversity. We all know what diversity means, but we sometimes don't recognize it where it exists, and demand it where it is either unneeded or irrelevant. First, the U.S. is the most diverse society that ever existed, by any definition. But for some reason we object when clumps form in some areas but aren't concerned when they form in others. For example, there aren't many white basketball players; or Hassidic cab drivers; or Scandinavian major league ballplayers, or black agronomy professors, or oriental coal miners, or . . .you get the idea. You don't have to stereotype people to recognize that certain cultures favor certain interests and occupations. But the significance ends there. Multiculturalism means separatism. As with most contemporary -isms, multiculturalism connotes a meaning different, if not opposite, from its dictionary definition. Just as bilingualism now means "no English," multiculturalism means ethnicism, which is separatism, and even racism (which does not have to be malicious to occur). Under multiculturalism, individuals are asking, sometimes demanding, to be treated in a manner which considers their cultural origins. This greatly complicates human transactions, especially in today's society. Multiculturalism weakens the individual. It asserts that groups have power, not people. Groups obtain power (political, economic, etc.) only at the expense of individuals. Although certain individuals may benefit by obtaining victim status, the real beneficiaries are the group leaders. The losers are everyone else. Nonachievers are encouraged to attribute their situation to cultural bias, while achievers are required to attribute their success to some perceived cultural characteristic of their group. Most damaging and denigrating is the assumption that individuals have little chance of success on their own. Multiculturalism promotes cultural stereotypes. Unlike personal classification systems, such as Myers-Briggs, multiculturalism attempts to identify cultural traits and then apply them to individuals, whether or not these individuals desire to be so "tagged." Italians talk with their hands. Japanese are shy. Scots are frugal. These tired old stereotypes are long overdue for retirement, and do not need to be added to. Multiculturalism prevents assimilation. America is a nation of immigrants.Even the native peoples are immigrants in the sense that their culture has been supplanted by conquering cultures. But conquering cultures always contain elements of the conquered culture, just as a child inherits genes from both parents. The success of an immigrating culture may be attributed to the degree that it has assimilated to the dominant culture. Immigrants come to these shores to pursue new opportunities in a new culture, and not with the intention of establishing a colony culturally indistinguishable from what they left behind. Even the Mennonites, who did establish colonies, exploited, practiced, and even strengthened American principles of religious tolerance, family and community, devotion, work ethic, and enterprise.Immigrants from cultures which practice polygamy, animal sacrifice, mutilation, theocracy, paganism, and other "alien" traditions should not be surprised to find little acceptance of such practices here. Multiculturalism opposes diversity. A popular misconception is that diversity is the opposite of assimilation, when in fact, assimilation is what makes diversity possible. Non-assimilation results in cultural enclaves whose members are classified by their membership rather than as individuals. Within these enclaves, true diversity is practically non-existent. This societal situation may be multicultural, but it is anything but diverse. Rather than promoting multiculturalism, we should be strengthening those traditional American values which make diversity possible and desirable: consensual government, individual freedom, secular rationalism, free markets, egalitarianism, and self-criticism. |