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Both Multiculturalism and Marxism have a nearly contagious appeal for several reasons - they pretend to be an overarching metanarrative that explains the totality of human existence and proposes a changed, better world under a new set of rules. Both are zero-sum games; that is, inequities in the possession of material wealth or political power are explained by an uncritical accusation of theft by another party.

Greed and envy and lust for power, in short, punctuated by a certain sadism that is an unfortunate characteristic of the human condition. The thugs and the secret police are always convinced of their own rectitide.

Multiculturalism is partly an outgrowth of sociology and cultural anthropology, academic disciplines whose proper pursuit requires a sort of detachment, an attempt to step outside one's native culture in the hopes of providing a perspective on the subject. This has the unfortunate effect of persuading less knowledgable enthusiasts that they have risen above their native culture and are the initiates into a transcendental worldview. Similarities between this and a religious cult are not accidental.

And here we have a clue as to the reason for the seductive nature of both of these metanarratives - both of them provide absolution for actions that are otherwise forbidden by the native culture, especially violent ones. Burn down a building for oneself and one is an arsonist, burn it down in the name of The People and one is a hero. Shoot a fellow for his wallet and one is a robber and murderer; shoot a thousand of them in the name of the class warfare and one is a revolutionary. Moral absolution can be a heady brew.

Also common to these doctrines is the ability to ignore aspects of one's native culture that are deemed unduly restrictive. The appeal of sundry "liberation" movements was precisely this - all the sex and theft one wants is there for the taking if only the Oppressor weren't Keeping You Down. Have a problem with that? Invoke another culture that allows a certain license in those directions and claim grandly that it is equally valid to one's own and hence the prohibition has no validity. If it is a new People's Culture, then so much the better.

The veneer of moral righteousness plastered over this profoundly cynical approach to life is attractive but very thin. Beautiful words, intricate logic, distilled emotion are employed to justify the most sordid actions by attacking the very basis for declaring them sordid. In some cases those actions are declared right for some and wrong for others; in others there turns out to be no basis for moral judgment whatsoever beyond self-interest and the power to enforce it. The ultimate political expression of this is anarchism, the ultimate moral expression nihilism.

And neither of the latter, however theoretically appealing, has ever resulted or can ever result in the practical construction of a better world. And we all have to live in the one that they do create.