Posted on 12/31/2001 7:00:48 AM PST by ouroboros
Year Ahead: The future of multiculturalism By Steve Sailer LOS ANGELES, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Multiculturalism is a word of great flexibility. In social life it often means no more than a benignly favorable attitude to the ethnic and cultural heritage of other Americans -- even to such developments as "fusion" cuisines that blend Asian and European recipes. In law and policy, however, it is a catchall term describing both attempts to ensure more equal economic outcomes between different ethnic groups, such as affirmative action preferences, and programs to preserve the cultural identity of such groups such as official bilingualism. Paradoxically, the future of such programs is threatened by their expansion. Multiculturalism began, in effect, as "biracialism." For generations, government had treated whites far better than blacks. From roughly 1948 to 1977, a reversal took place. Government policy paused briefly at equal treatment, or "color-blind" policies. By the early seventies, however, it was mandating an array of compensatory preferences for blacks in the name of "affirmative action." But legislators, bureaucrats, the courts, and activists for other groups -- such as women, the disabled, other ethnic minorities and certain immigrant groups -- soon expanded the programs to cover these other presumed victims of discrimination who became known as "protected classes." Thus, compensatory preferences for the descendents of slaves quickly mutated into a generalized system of ethnic preferences, taking from some groups and giving to others. But is multiculturalism (aka "diversity") a stable system? Two main factors determine popular support for it. First, programs that on average simply redistribute resources within families (such as quotas for women and the disabled) tend to generate less resentment than those that take from one set of families (such as white families) and give to another (such as Hispanic families). In the first case, we feel we are giving to ourselves; in the second to other people -- especially when government policy is emphasizing not the common nationhood of all Americans but their cultural and ethnic separateness. For example, wheelchair ramps are highly popular, in part because they are an insurance system that may someday benefit somebody in one's own household. Similarly, job quotas for women take from men and give to their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. So although there is some resentment among the white males thus disadvantaged, the net effect on families as a whole is not all that great. Second, and more important, the ratio of those who receive to those who must pay under affirmative action is critical. Blacks were a sizable minority when affirmative action preferences begin in 1969. On the other hand, with whites outnumbering blacks almost six to one, the cost to the typical white family was not large enough to persuade whites to oppose the programs strongly. For the same reason, very few people objected (or even noticed) in the early 1970s when preferences were quietly extended to new immigrant groups such as Hispanics -- and even to illegal aliens. The price paid then by the average non-Hispanic white family still looked to be trivial because there had been so little immigration since the cutoff in 1924. The political elite did not understand that the 1965 Immigration Act was about to radically change the ethnic balance of America. Today Hispanics outnumber African-Americans, and, owing to both immigration and relatively high birth rates, they are expected to continue growing rapidly in numbers. President Clinton publicly looked forward to whites becoming a minority by mid-century. And this rising number of non-black minority voters encourages politicians to grant them more special preferences, such as President Bush's proposed amnesty for Mexican "undocumented workers." At the same time, as the number of members of "protected classes" -- including legally favored immigrant groups -- increases, the cost to those not enjoying preferential status, mainly white males, rises proportionately. And this is likely to stimulate opposition to such preferences. Mass immigration is thus making the future of multiculturalism radically unstable. This long-term process has ominous implications for national unity and ethnic harmony. Whether the upsurge of national unity provoked by Sept. 11 will change matters is an open question. It has certainly altered the psychological balance between the common national identity of all Americans and their separate ethnic or sexual identities --emphasizing the former and downplaying the latter. Some feminists, for instance, have publicly worried that almost all the heroes at the World Trade Center were male and that the media failed to seek out some female role models. It might be possible in these circumstances to gain general public support for re-ordering official policies to compensate people along lines of actual individual need rather than presumed group discrimination. It would certainly be prudent in the light of immigration and America's changing demographics. But the ethnic pressure groups and government agencies that favor the current system of preferences have not disbanded -- and they see multiculturalism not as an antidote to patriotism but as the patriotism of an America that is just around the corner. -0- (Steve Sailer is UPI's National Correspondent, based in Los Angeles.) Copyright © 2001 United Press International
UPI National Correspondent
Published 12/30/2001 3:12 PM
Let's start and end here:
Similarly, job quotas for women take from men and give to their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. So although there is some resentment among the white males thus disadvantaged, the net effect on families as a whole is not all that great.
The author acts as if a white male is denied a job in favor of a female, the rest of his family, especially the wife and female kids are okay with that, because, after all, someday THEY may benefit by beating another male out of a job they are otherwise not entitled to. WHAT A CROCK.
Why do you think liberals give a damn about Lexington, Gettysburg, or the founding fathers?
Where such presumptions fail the resulting policies fail. And we know from experience that class distinctions are a rather rickety ladder on which to build this set of political conclusions - there are many other factors involved in unequal distribution of wealth that interclass politics do not touch (a higher number of females preferring part-time work due to child-rearing duties, for one example, different birthrates between ethnic groups due to cultural practices, for another). In short, both Marxist sociological theory and its resultant political policies see only a small part of the picture and tend to twist discordant fact to fit theory or simply discard it.
This is not the basis of a successful social policy, and it's beginning to show. Its continuation will create a truly oppressed class in the classical Marxist sense, we already see signs of the "alienation" phase, which is its first step. And this particular oppressed class is armed, wealthy, and increasingly resentful. The principal intermediate aim of this particular "multicultural" approach will be to disarm and fragment that class in the interest of further transfer of wealth. And when that class runs dry (assuming that it doesn't continue down the Marxist theory path to solidarity and revolution) there'll need to be another. The basis of this sort of social policy, as all Marxist economic theory, is theft.
Guys, "Multiculturalism" is just another form of separating the people into social classes in order for socialism to work. If people are treated equally under the law, a social hierarchy cannot develop. Peace and love, George.
LONG LIVE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONSTITUTION
WITH ITS ATTENDANT AMENDMENTS
=======================================
=======================================
HAPPY
NEW
YEAR
Patriotism is not an illness that needs an antidote. Muliticulturalism is the disease which needs to be cured.
Let's hope there isn't one.
Happy New Year and thanks for all the articles in '01.
Edd
Or its little stupid brother aculturism, anyway. You are right. Happy New Year.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.