Multiculturalism: A Failed Concept (Walter Williams)

Creators Syndicate ^ | June 29, 2016 | Walter E. Williams

[jazusamo]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism has "utterly failed," adding that it was an illusion to think Germans and foreign workers could "live happily side by side." The failure of multiculturalism is also seen in Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and other European countries. Immigrants coming from Africa and the Middle East refuse to assimilate and instead seek to import the failed cultures they fled.

Leftist diversity advocates and multiculturalists are right to argue that people of all races, religions and cultures should be equal in the eyes of the law. But their argument borders on idiocy when they argue that one set of cultural values cannot be judged superior to another and that to do so is Eurocentrism.

That's unbridled nonsense. Ask a diversity/multiculturalism advocate: Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? Slavery is practiced in northern Sudan. In most of the Middle East, there are numerous limits placed on women, such as prohibitions on driving, employment and education. Under Islamic law, in some countries, female adulterers face death by stoning, and thieves are punished by having their hand severed. In some African and Middle Eastern countries, homosexuality is a crime, in some cases punishable by death. Are all these cultural values morally equivalent to those of the West?

[cymbeline]

“Multiculturalism is an attempt by the elites to destroy the unity and cohesiveness of advanced white western societies so that they could better reduce them to serfdom and irrelevance while at the same time convincing the people in those societies to continue to work hard and turn over their money to them.”

If you’re going to say “advanced white western cultures” then you also should say “white elites”.

[Sergio]

Multiculturalism is just another form of diversity, which to liberals is like the canned veggies aisle in the supermarket. All shapes and sizes, with different color wrappers, all bright and cheerful, a bewildering array of diversity.

Until you open the cans up and see what is inside and realize that every single one of those seemingly different cans all contain peas.

You see, to liberals, the external appearance of diversity is important, but not nearly as important as the uniformity of though that must reside on the inside.

[BeauBo]

“Mutliculturalism is an attempt by the elites to destroy the unity and cohesiveness of advanced white western societies so that they could better reduce them to serfdom”

Antonio Gramsci, a famous communist strategist (an Italian rep to the Communist International) recommended a long struggle to degrade the culture, to invite chaos - “until the people cry out for a strongman to protect them”.

What we might call the culture war, he discussed as “cultural hegemony”. He proposed that the communist revolutionary ‘war of attack’ could only succeed with a prior ‘war of position’ in the form of struggle over ideas and beliefs, to create a new hegemony. This idea of a ‘counter-hegemonic’ struggle is a program advancing alternatives to dominant ideas of what is normal and legitimate.

He proposed that it would take a “decades-long march through the institutions” to gain control of the popular culture, and change people’s thinking on basic values, or what is accepted common sense.

When leftists get their college educations, they are trained in this kind of cynical subversion to this day.

The objective of the whole program is simply to take power for its own sake - it is not based in any fixed morality. Any “narrative” that is effective in advancing their power is acceptable - just means to their end.

[T-Bone Texan]

Thanks for the Gramsci post.

All FReepers should know his name. To understand his proposition then is to understand our enemy today.

[T-Bone Texan]

It is not merely “white elites” who are proponents of multiculturalism in the attempt to destroy western societies, though. It is all of them, because they all benefit from it.

[DungeonMaster]

The word culture has been redefined as humanistic sinlessness. If it is cultural then it must be good.

I live next to an elementary school with a "diverse" group of kids. I'm noticing that on the playground really foul language is ignored. Said foul language has a very noticeable racial component to it therefore the school either cannot or voluntarily will not discipline it because that would be critical of a culture. A non-white culture!

[Zeneta]

Gramsci bump.

My Daughter took a graduate class last semester at American University. A required class that attempted to deal with “Western” concepts of morality and the “Cultures” of the rest of the world.

Pure insanity.

Her Professor and classmates were horrified when she brought up forced abortions in China, never mind the Arab world’s abuses. Her classmates rejected her assertions regarding basic human rights in favor of the “rights” of the culture.

In the end, the entire exercise was to condition the students to reject moral absolutism.

[uncitizen]

If Walter Williams were to turn out to be Establishment it would crush me. It would be 100x worse than discovering Mark Levin was Establishment, and that was bad enough.

[1Old Pro]

Immigrants coming from Africa and the Middle East refuse to assimilate and instead seek to import the failed cultures they fled.

Kinda like Dems moving from the bankrupt crime ridden cities governed by liberals to the Republican led successful peaceful suburbs and then wanting to implement all the failed city policies.

[rdb3]

You see, to liberals, the external appearance of diversity is important, but not nearly as important as the uniformity of though that must reside on the inside.

That's the entire gist of the left's charade.

Jesus Christ: You can't impeach Him and He ain't gonna resign.

[Billthedrill]

At the core of multiculturalism is the tenet that "you have no right to judge", which is fine for academic considerations of cultural anthropology because it confers to the speaker an illusion of objectivity that very quickly becomes an illusion of intellectual superiority. But you can't really get away from it. One repeatedly encounters ideologists who criticize Western cultures on the basis of internalized Western cultural values, all the while insisting that they have transcended them. It is an amazing example of lack of introspection.

In the real world one is not only justified in making such judgments, it's mandatory, and unavoidable. Because it turns out that there is no majestic God's eye view of culture (apart from God Himself). And people who think that in criticizing their own culture, they're becoming superior to it, are only fooling themselves. Because messy as it is, the West is onto something.

There's an indisputable positive relationship between liberty and standards of living. There is also indisputable evidence that we in the West are unwilling to defend ourselves from barbarians.

True enough, but there is also indisputable evidence that when we're pushed far enough, that changes. The art of revolution is to see that the limit is never reached until it's too late. We're watching despots test and expand that limit - that is, after all, what 0bama and Hillary are about - every day. And the problem with that is that they tend to think their new, stretched boundaries are forever. That is very dangerous thought.

[Mr Rogers]

Mutliculturalism is another name for anti-Christian thought. It preaches tolerance for everyone except God and America.

[jazusamo]

but there is also indisputable evidence that when we're pushed far enough, that changes.

You're absolutely right and right about 0bama and Hillary.

0bama has pushed far beyond any president in my lifetime and he's pushed further as his terms have progressed. G-d forbid should Hillary be elected I've little doubt she'll continue where The Won left off, we may well reach that point of change.

[BeauBo]

“In the end, the entire exercise was to condition the students to reject moral absolutism.”

Mark Levin has discussed the whole modern Left originating as a reaction against the Enlightenment - the scientific method, objective logical analysis, freedom of conscience, open debate, and rule of law.

The Left instead championed Romantic concepts, like the intuitive wisdom of Rousseau’s Noble Savage, and promoted the emotionally inflamed subjective mob rule of the French Revolution - the first of the “Red Terrors”. Rhetoric, rather than logic.

[Zeneta]

Mark Levin has discussed the whole modern Left originating as a reaction against the Enlightenment - the scientific method, objective logical analysis, freedom of conscience, open debate, and rule of law.

The Left instead championed Romantic concepts, like the intuitive wisdom of Rousseau’s Noble Savage, and promoted the emotionally inflamed subjective mob rule of the French Revolution - the first of the “Red Terrors”. Rhetoric, rather than logic.

---

This is the “Real War” that most don’t know we are fighting.

I have always been a very optimistic person but the more I “Pay attention” the more pessimistic I become.

It’s hard enough to have an in depth exchange on FR about these concepts never mind having a discussion with your neighbors or co-workers.

” the whole modern Left originating as a reaction against the Enlightenment - the scientific method, objective logical analysis, freedom of conscience, open debate, and rule of law.”

All true.

Good luck trying to get someone else to even thoughtfully consider the position. Much less engage you in discussion.