Multi-culturalism: what is it good for?

Michael Barone discusses the British responses to the 2005 summer bombings in London. He argues that in the UK, multiculturalism is under attack, which is making a lot of left-wingers (for whom multiculturalism is a central issue of their ideology) uneasy. The usual idea behind multiculturalism is, as Barone writes, "that we should allow and encourage immigrants and their children to maintain and celebrate their own culture apart from the national culture." However, this idea has recently come under attack, as Britons (and the Dutch, and many others) realize that this isn't working for many Islamic immigrants, for whom maintaining and celebrating their own culture includes attacking the culture that allowed them in, gave them housing and refuge (and often an income).
In the United States, we have a bit more room (and a much less socialistic government,) so this problem doesn't seem to be seething on the surface. This direct attack on American culture while on American soil is here (as shown in various articles I have read), but seems to be harder to find. But we still, in many parts of US society, seem to value multiculturalism (abbreviated here as MC). In nearly every college job requirement list that I have seen, applicants are required to explain how they support the "doctrine" of MC, and what they do/have done to apply it in the classroom. And at the same time, it is also apparent that much of the members of the academy in the USA turn right around and declare that the culture of the USA is the cause of so many problems, and terrorism, and so on. Often this seems to be an attempt to excuse the brashness, the difference of American culture that is not part of the other. This excuse seems to be an attempt to say, "We know we are bad, but we hope that by admitting it, you will see that we are trying to change it to become more acceptable to you, and so you will be more tolerant of us and not quite so angry at us." This is exactly what Barone points out here:

The Age 's Tony Parkinson quoted the French writer Jean Francois Revel's Cold War comment: "A civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself." Tolerating intolerance, goodhearted people are beginning to see, does not necessarily produce tolerance in turn.

Barone then points out the relativistic underpinnings of moral relativism. This has even crept into many Christians' ideas about culture (they sing out "Don't judge--Jesus said not to!") But as Barone points out,

Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures all morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties, and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures but in certain specific times and places--mostly in Britain and America but also in other parts of Europe.

In the American academy, MC is seen as an important aspect of education--much is made of trying to be MC, and teach MC, and to not call anything bad, as if by studying things hard enough, we can see all the good (or conversely, we can see that even we are more evil than we think we are.) This leads, as Barone points out, to fragmentation of information that privileges only that which supports a certain ideology rather than a broad picture:

In America, as in Britain, multiculturalism has become the fashion in large swaths of our society. So the Founding Fathers are presented only as slaveholders, World War II is limited to the internment of Japanese-Americans and the bombing of Hiroshima. Slavery is identified with America though it has existed in many societies, and the antislavery movement arose first among English-speaking evangelical Christians.

Amazing...but very much true. We can penny-wise, and know the minutiae about one aspect of things like slavery, but then completely ignore the rest, and the complete context, and become pound-foolish. The academy, however, seems to spend more time worrying about pennies than pounds (or dollars.) Barone points this out:

But most Americans know there is something special about our cultural heritage. While Harvard and Brown are replacing scholars of the founding period with those studying other things, book buyers are snapping up first-rate histories of the founders by David McCullough, Joseph Ellis, and Ron Chernow. Multiculturalist intellectuals do not think our kind of society is worth defending. But millions here and increasing numbers in Britain and other countries know better.

Therein lies the rub--the definition of just what our society is. Are we citizens of the world? Are citizens of Jesus-land, led by ignorant faux-patriots and neocons? Is American really special, or are we too clever to believe the lie, and we live to be the nail that sticks out, the gadfly of society, the one that is smarter than the rest of the sheep? Is American society worth defending as a whole, or in parts? Which parts do we get to emphasize, and which do we deemphasize? Which are the ones that matter?

Read the full editorial here.