How Multiculturalism Took Over America

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | July 9, 2004 | Lawrence Auster

[JimSEA]

The first principle of multiculturalism is the equality of all cultures.

The problem with multiculturalism is in this assumption. Some cultures are just plain not compatable with American culture as it currently has evolved. Secondly, there are subsets of all cultures, some of which are not compatable with American culture.

In order for a culture to successfully blend with the American culture, it must allow for a secular government allowing freedom of (not from) religion. Islamic culture fails this test while Hispanic and most Asian cultures pass. The Marxist varient of Western culture failes and does the Maoist fusion of Asian and Western culture and the MECHA varient of Hispanic culture.

It is a complex and difficult subject and does not lend itself to simplification. The "Clash of Civilzations" overlooks both too many cultural similarities and divisions within cultures. For instance, although most forms of Islamic culture would not seem to be compatable with Western culture, there is always the "Turkish" experience which values and allows a secular and therefore tolerant government.

[Mr. Jeeves]

"...Arguments that champion the individual over the group ultimately privilege the 'individuals' belonging to the largest or dominant group."

There's a fundamentally evil viewpoint if I've ever seen one.

[junta]

Right now Multi-culturalism is greased by the notion that whites are allowed the role of Messiah or Jesus to the benighted and so conflict is avoided between the majority and the minority. If all goes well for the Left then numbers will preclude CWII and we will end up like South Africa whereas the once dominant group is now little but tax slaves for the new class of ruling parasites. Speaking the platitudes of "Diversity" must be a raptorous experience for people like Bush so never underestimate the willingness of people being sold out by their "leaders." DeClerk became a demigod with a Nobel Prize for his foolish handover of the productive to the Communists of the ANC.

[KC_for_Freedom]

My question (and I really don't know) is this a trend outside of the border region?

The Mexican American Legal Defense Fund has advised mexicans, particular illegal ones, to move inland, and uncork the pressure cooker that often exists in the border region. I have lived in TX and CA. And in largely hispanic regions.

The key to the issue is that the yonger generation wants to succeed and learn, but cultural mores in the mexican community resist this with a high drop-out rate to work in the family business. If this is what they want out of life, its ok with me, but too often all that is sought is day labor jobs.

Where multiculturalism lets us down is when the minority groups demand social help, afirmative action jobs, and equal support in their language. South TX is bilingual from San Antonio south, you may as well not apply for a job if you cannot handle both languages. There is no need for english, and I don't know if headway is being made. I suspect the same for southern CA as well.

[Tangaray]

If you're trying to impress us with a smattering of your German, you should know that "Rindvieh" is not of the feminine gender. You're showing your ignorance.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Therefore, to claim that the influence that immigrants have on American society is a negative one, is a load of crap that just allows lefties to label conservatives as racists.

Of course the article does not claim this at all and only refers to unnassimilated immigrants.

The problem with Multiculturalism is that it encourages immigrants not to assimilate. It promotes and champions the values of every culture alien to the U.S. but denigrates and denies the very existence of the American culture.

Multiculturalism is nothing but moral relativism. It is an oxymoron. Liberals teach the rest of the world that America is a racist evil empire. Immigrants who hear this message are not grateful for an opportunity to succeed in America, because they have been taught that the racist American empire stole everything we have in the first place. Foreign nations are not grateful for the billions of dollars of foreign aid we send them, because the liberals have convinced them that we owe them reparations, and that we should share our wealth with them to avoid having them hate us.

Multiculturalism is cultural leftism. It is all about dismissing American exceptionalism.

We conservatives have no desire to champion the barbaric cultures of bloodthirsty jihadists, animist tribesmen, and socialist vermin. We champion our own culture.

[CGVet58]

It's a long but worthy article to read, quite thought-provoking (and already saved to my hard drive).

Just a short comment addressing a variety of points presented here by several posters. What no one has explicitly mentioned in this thread is the time-factor and the resulting perspective this gives us.

For example, a poster made mention of the ethnic enclaves that came to life, and that represent the vibrant immigrant communities which are a part of Americana; Little Italy, Chinatown, Spanish Harlem, etc...

What wasn't mentioned is that these communities represented the first wave of immigrants arriving to our shores and whose occupants worked hard and long while establishing roots in their new home, literally becoming Americans. They kept their native languages and customs alive while learning new ones. It was their children who became more Americanized because of attending our schools where they were more deeply immersed in the fabric of America (and learned side-by-side with kids from other cultures more or less in the same boat). These kids, the 1st generation as it were, completed the assimilation process begun by their parents... but the assimilation process would have been stillborn if their parents hadn't come here to become Americans in the first place. That is what is happening today, and that is why multiculturalism is such an insidious and weakening factor.

I mentioned time factor and perspective before. The above took place over 2 generations, and those kids were also taught American History as we know it (I dare say I was probably among the last generation of children taught about America, and I'm 45) and not this claptrap that passes for history today. What happens now that we've an entire generation who've fallen sway and prey to Dewey's socialist (consequently anti-American, anti-Western Civ, anti-individual, anti-merit based and pro-group...) imprint upon our education? We have to steel ourselves to a long fight if we want to return to the excellence inherent in the American way of life. And we must recognize this, there is no other way around it. We can't blithely assume that just because we know something is true, or better, that our knowing it will magically wipe away the ingrained brainwashing of 30 years worth of junk in our kids (now adults, and voting ones at that...) brains. There is no way around this, brothers... it will not happen just because we want it to... we must fight and stand strong and determined, and like prayer, do it on a daily basis.

We must also resolve to identify and know the tenets of collective logic and PC thought that form the opposition worldview, and which are daily spoken and affirmed in lukewarm and sweet tones that first lull us for their cozy ease in acceptance whilst simultaneously defining any contrary opinion as being "the other" and condemning it for being so "out of the mainstream". We must know these things, know that everytime we choose not to confront this worldview (instead retreating in exasperation...) we allow the proponent of the multicultural worldview to smugly and confidently look back to the listening audience (...for that is where the battleground for ideas is fought, not between we who believe in America, individualism and merit against those who hold contrary beliefs; we two opposing forces are already convinced of our way... the battle is being decided in the minds of the great many who have not given this issue any thought and are indeed listening and learning from our every words and actions) with another victorious bout against "us right-wing radicals".

For all posters here - indeed, for anyone who believes that America cannot withstand this sugared balkanization of our values AND that wants to do something about it - I STRONGLY, STRONGLY, EMPHATICALLY INSIST (!!!!) that we arm ourselves with knowledge necessary to fight this fight. One tremendously valuable treasure that I recommend is Thomas Sowell's "VISION OF THE ANOINTED"; Mr. Sowell is, in my not-so-humble opinion, one of America's Treasures. Very few modern day Americans can more clearly and eloquently express these issues than he. There are others; Victor Davis Hanson, the columns of Charles Krauthammer to mention a couple, but Sowell is a great place to start. Read him, and you will not be sandbagged by the utopian veneer that the leftist clothes his platitudes in when you encounter it. And be prepared to be ostracized for your position - read "BACK TO BASICS FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY" by Michael Zak. Mr. Zak reminded me of what the modern day standards of American History tried to get me to forget; that the Republican Party - the conservative American - has a history of fighting against injustice and for equal rights for all men to be proud of.

It is a long fight brothers; bluntly stated, the problems that have been brewing for over 2 generations will not be defeated with our commisserating amongst each other in common outrage here on the Freep. We'll need to live this fight for freedom every day for the rest of our lives, and we will know victory is ours (as I pray we will be) when we see our children and grandchildren take up the banner from our hands. It can be no other way.

CGVet58

[Regulator]

is now little but tax slaves for the new class of ruling parasites

"California"

"Now"

[junta]

Yes, but Goobenor Arnold can play the Kurtz (Heart of Darkness) character in a real life drama. He like other "conservatives" will sell everything of value down the river for that one moment that the Left will allow where he is the savior of the benighted. After that he goes back to being just another white racist in their opinion.

[rmlew]

Multiculturalists argue that minority and non-Western cultures have been unjustly excluded in the past from full participation in our culture The final word should actually be society not culture. There is no single American culture and there never was. And it totally ignored the course of events in American history.
Between a common language, shared history, common basic mores, a common political heritage, and national institutions like TV and cinema, America most certainly does have a common culture. It is complex one, formed over time, with regional variations. Nevertheless, our culture is unique and easily identifiable to outsiders. You are missing the forest for the trees.

I think very few would disagree that America was founded on the principle of equality.
Political equality for citizens within our polity was a founding principle along with tradition. Read the entire Declaration of Independence.
Our tradition is that of LIBERTY,not equality. We are not the French who have neither.
However, we certainly did not treat outsiders as equals as evidenced by our Manifest Destiny to conquer from sea to sea and dominate North America.
At first that equlity only meant white, landed males, but as our "culture" changed the definition changed with it.
Sufferage and equality are not the same thing. Children are equal to other citizens under the law, yet they lack the privelege of voting. Sufferage is not an inherent right, as it can be lost.

This is the nature of "cutlure". It is not stagnant, but fluid.
That cultures adapt does not negate the existance of a single culture.
The only "culture" that does not constantly change and adapt are those that are dead like Greek, Roman or French.
The Greek and French are quite alive.

When settlers in America were primarily British, the influx of Europeans with different cultures invariably altered theirs. acutally the history of people constantly pushing east to west even in Europe altered cultures there too). There is a reason we call Brits Anglo-Saxons and not Celts.
1. You confuse invasions with invited immigrants. Immigrants to America were invited for the most part. It is our historical pattern to alternate between generations of high and low immigration.
2. Not all migrations have been east to west in Europe. Look up the historical conquests and migrations of the Slavs, Ostragoths, Varangians/Rus, and the Russians. 3.The British are not Anglo-Saxon, only the English are. The Scots, Irish, and Welsh are Celtic. Moreover, even among the English much Celtic traces remain. The first major national myth of the English is Celtic, that of King Arthur.
4. Conquest through migration is not inevitable.

Therefore, to claim that the influence that immigrants have on American society is a negative one, is a load of crap that just allows lefties to label conservatives as racists.
Are you denying the existance of an American society in denying a common culture? Otherwise, your argument is leftist tripe lacking support.
Where the heck do you live to believe that immigration cannot damage a culture? (You brought up the Angl-Saxon-Jute immivasion, claiming that it DESTROYED Celtic culture in Britain. Thus you admitt in your previous arguement that migration can damage a host culture. You are left screaming that the left will call us racist. Get a clue. The left will use any and all tools to tar those in their way. Surrending our common culture only means that they will call other things racist or reactionary.
Heck,read the freaking article. Mr. Auster made this clear.You disgree with the article, while exhibiting the behaviour of the "moderate" multiculturalist to a "t".

Lastly, on the issue of language, we are also talking about a fluid and ever changing medium. The only languages that don't change are dead languages (again, ancient Greek, Latin, French). Listen to how other languages are spoken by educated persons and you will here a suprising amount of English. This is what Latin did to native languages 2000 years ago.
Latin is not dead, although it is limited. French is spoken by over 100 million people. (Si la lange francaise est most, toutes les langue que la Russienne, la Japonaise, l'Anglaise, et la Chinoise sont morte. Tonne position n'a pas une semblance de verite. Je suis desole, mais il y a quatorze ans que j'etudias la lange Latin, et j'obliais presque tout.)
Of course languages develop. However, words have meaning. To lose English is to lose the ability to properly understand our political heritage. Go read 1984. What also seems to be forgotten here is that a multilingual soceity tends to create individuals who can speak both languages not one or the other. This has been proven time and again in Europe and elsewhere.
Highly educated people can read mutliple languages. However most show prefference to either their mother tongue or their national language. Moreover, these elites in Europe, who so readily change languages are presently erasing borders and their nation-states without the approval of their citizenship. You may approve of a treasonous governing class, but I do not.

Otherwise you are falling into a logic trap that allows you to condone the type of attitudes that the left succesfully pins on the right to win elections (with only minor amounts of voting fraud.)
What is it to win an eletion if the long term cost is ones nation. I for one will not sell my progeny's birthright for temporary gain.

[rmlew]

Ben Johnson ofFPM changed the title.
This was not to be a history of the multi-culturalist attack but adescription of the philosophical weapons of this attack and the failure of the right to oppose it.
This essay answered the "why", not the "how" of multi-culturalisms ascendency.

[rmlew]

As far as I know, there is no single history of the lefts attack on America's culture.
In effect, following the lead of Gramsci and later of the Frankfurt school, the left sought to destroy Americas cutlure. According to the radical left, Whites/Europeans are the new Bourgeous and Western Civilization is the new opiate. We can either slowly dissolve ourselves in a democratic manner (racial Democratic Socialism) or we will be liquidated as class/race enemies by the revolutionary vanguard. This is the logical conclusion for followers of the New Left. If the "Wretched of the Earth" are the proletariate, then the true goal is not decolonization, but conquest and re-education of the west.
Read Gramsci, Marcuse, Fanon, and Foucault.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

You have too much time and no sense of humour, based on your need to comment that the French culture is still alive. Are you John Kerry?

[rmlew]

But if all cultures are equal, why just have labels in Spanish and English? Why not French, German, Russian, Hindi, etc.?
1. It begins with Spanish, but laterother languages are included.
2. The size of theSpanish-speaking population makes it the most effective club to destroy Anglo-America.

Anyway lots of Spanish speakers in this country are not really of Spanish European origin but from Central or South American Indian stock. In many cases the native languages of their ancestors were forced into extinction by Spanish imperialism.
This only makes them all themosre non-Western, which makes them more useful in the attack on the cultureal bourgousie, the West.
Living in NYC, I am well aware of the number of immigrants who speak spanish as a secondary langague. (On the L-train, listening to a few from the Mexican hinterland today, I was quite pleased that they are nominally Catholic and did not have obsidian blades or stepped pyramids.)

Of course the Spanish isn't even the native language of the European population of Spain. During the time of the Roman Empire, Spain was home to germanic tribes like the Goths and Vandals who spoke germanic lanquages. It was the Romans who conquered Spain who introduced Latin there. Over the centuries the Spanish language evolved from Latin. Of course even before the germanic tribes moved into Spain there were pre-existing populations of unknown origins who spoke languages that are not of Indo-European origin. Among these are the Basques.
The Vandals invaded Hispania in the 4th century. When the Romans conquered Spain from the Carthaginians (Phoenecio-Canaanite language), Greek colonists, Celts, and Andorrans and Basques.

So anyway, if all cultures are of equal value, why just have a few Indo-European imperialist languages on the labels?
Parodying the left is pointless. Wait a generation and they will make this arguement, once they win the current cultural battle.

[rmlew]

The immigrants from the great wave of 1880-1920 have becoime Americanized by accepting American culture and speaking english. The few remaining unassimilate or partially assimilated groups are tolerated because they are small.
However, the immigrants didcreate social and cultural dislocation that existed until the 1970's. In fact, as socialism and communism were largely imported ideologies dependent on immigrant voters, the damage still exists and worstens thanks to new immigrants.

[rmlew]

The French are snivlingcowards who are surrendering their nation and culture. However, I do not find this amusing.
I am not a Tranzi like John Forbes Kerry. Still, I studied French and their culture.

[rmlew]

Kevin MacDonald is an open anti-Semite, who sees a giantJewish conspiracy by Jews, former Jews, atheists of Jewish de4scent, communists of Jewish descent, and Jews who would on thesurface seem tobe anti-Jewish.
In any other context, he would be called a paranoid anti-Semite. However, by speaking of genes, MacDonald thinks hegets around this. The propblem is that the European Jews withwhom MacDonald is so fixated are declining in population due to liberalism, the same liberalism that MacDonald claims to be a survival technique. Moreover, this liberalism has becomelargely anti-Jewish, defining itself at odds with a tradition, built partly by Judaism.
Finally, MacDonald is utterly ignorant of the true diversity within the Jewish community.