[Cynus]

In a previous post (http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic28228.html ) I criticized multiculturalism by pointing out contradictions that arose when one considered what actually multiculturalism was proposing. The argument began by pointing out that the multiple cultures that multiculturalism purports to celebrate are not themselves multicultural. Thus, if multiculturalism advocates that we adopt its multicultural stance, it ends up destroying the cultures it purports to respect. That is, if everyone acts multicultural and abandons their cultural heritage, all the non-multicultural cultures—by far the vast majority of cultures on the planet—perish. Multiculturalism, thus requires that everyone else remain monocultural while we good multiculturalists float above all cultures, enjoying all the various cultural production of the Earth. And so multiculturalism requires a two-tiered system: a foundation of monocultures, and an upper-crust of those multiculturalists who do the celebrating of diversity, who consume the cultural products—music, food, art, celebrations, fashion, etc—but produce none themselves. These cultural parasites, mostly upper class, white, urban, liberals, while themselves identifying with no culture, have no problem consuming the fruits of the world’s cultures. Therefore, despite multiculturalism’s egalitarian rhetoric, it is in fact an elitist ideology, requiring two separate systems in order to exist.
However, it is possible to allow for cultural diversity without requring a two-tiered elitist system. We can now see that it is possible to eliminate the two-tiered system for what we might call multicultural atomism. In it, the elitist parasitic class, instead of feeding off others cultures, would themselves rediscover their cultural identity. However, the motto of multicultural atomism would not be “celebrate diversity,” it would be “allow diversity, celebrate your heritage.”

[Offshore]

Multiculturalist is a Bolshevik code word for Nazi apologist.

[oswald622]

i enjoyed reading this; it accords with me. i was just reading 'the closing of the american mind' by allan bloom, and he makes a pretty similar argument.

[Cynus]

I’ve pointed out before that the one thing that multiculturalists do not love is cultural diversity. They certainly are appalled by female circumcision practiced in some cultures, the treatment of women in by far the majority of countries, the status of gays in just about every culture, and the cultural practices of just about every historical culture. Within America, those lovers of diversity never cease to rail against the rural redneck hicks or homogenized suburbs. In short, multiculturalists love diversity as long as everyone acts like white, urban, western, liberals. Since, contrary to appearances, it is not cultural diversity that multiculturalists love, what then do they actually love? After removing all these horrible cultural practices that multiculturalists find so offensive, what is left to "celebrate"? All we are left with are a remnant of cultural features that are acceptable to multiculturalists: food, music, and dancing are acceptable as far as cultural diversity goes. In short, multiculturalists love to be fed and entertained, to have their beloved monocultures feed and entertain them—multiculturalism is cultural parasitism par excellance.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ferrelgiraffe', 'O')ld ugly white fat guys run the world.
Everyone else get back to work.

[PolestaR]

What you say is true Cynus. However why should anyone really embrace "culture" as such, I don't really give a fuck what people in my lineage did 10,20,50,100,500,etc years ago. Culture means a lot of things to many different people... how about we just stick to using our "intelligence" in the future.

It's why I don't care if "blacks are dumber than whites" in general or "asians are smarter than whites but weaker" in general (not that it's true/false, it's just the common line from racists). Which is what racists seem to care about, stereotypes and averages. When most humans can barely critically think the smallest of things who gives a fuck what race they are? Get rid of all of them. Racists/white nationalists/etc don't go far enough to be honest, probably because most of them are stupid and can't see the bigger picture (the same problem with most humans).

[Cynus]

Polestar, you ask an excellent question. Here's why I think you should care what your ancestors did 10,20,50,100,500,etc years ago:
One of the enduring philosophical questions is the question of what makes an individual the individual they are. What makes me the same person I was yesterday, or last year? What differentiates me from all the other people? If my memories could be transplanted into another person, would I be that person or the previous? The dominant theory of personal identity over the last several centuries was that of Descartes. For Descartes, one is individuated by being a separate spiritual substance. This substance acquires individual beliefs and desires through experience, and these can differ from individual to individual, and within the same individual over time, but the underlying substance remains constant and this is what constitutes the identity over time. Descartes’ views have largely been discarded as they give rise to all sorts of philosophical difficulties—primarily due to the mysterious nature of this spiritual substance and our vastly increased understanding of the workings of the brain. Others have taught that it is ones memories that constitute ones identity, but this likewise gives rise to all sorts of insoluble riddles over memory transplants, lost memories, changed memories, etc.
The truth is that what separates one from all other individuals, what “individuates” is ones history: the one thing that you can share with no other being is your history, no two beings have the same history. Even identical twins have different histories, even from the moment their cells separated. And even if ones memories were implanted into another person, your histories would therefore differ.
The main import of this discussion is that, as a result, to understand oneself, what makes you who you are and makes you different and unique from all other beings, is to understand your history. For example, if you want to know why you have the political beliefs you do, say why you believe in democracy, you need to know American history, why America is a democracy, what ideas lead to the political system we have today. But in order to understand this you need to understand the political disputes of the Enlightenment. An in order to understand this you need to know the political theories of the pre-enlightenment that the Enlightenment was reacting to, etc. In order to understand why one has the religious beliefs you do one would clearly need to know ones personal history, how you were raised and any influences in your life that lead to your current beliefs. But to understand where these ideas came from would require one to know the various religious traditions, their history, the disputes that were involved in their creation, why they ended up the in form they have, and the history of how you ended up with these beliefs. To understand why you are where you are, you need to understand your personal history, why you moved from place to place through your life. But to understand this fully you need to know the history of your ancestors as they emigrated across the earth even as far back as the original emigration out of Africa. Actually, you would need to know the history going even further back as to why the first humanids were in Africa in the first place, and the whole evolutionary history of life on earth. The same could be said of any taste, desire, preference, aspiration, or conviction one has; to understand why you are the way you are you need to understand your history. Even to understand why one likes something as inconsequential as the taste of strawberry ice cream would require an understanding of history, in part your personal history and your various reasons for liking it, but also in part evolutionary history and why we developed the preference for sweets that we have, as well as the biological processes in play in the perception of sweetness.
In summary, you are the way you are, and different from every other being (although sharing much with them) because your history is different from every other being.
Even your beliefs on race and culture are the result of the current state of intellectual history and are contingent on these developments: 200 years ago nobody held such views.

[Zardoz]

What a remarkable thread...

[PolestaR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cynus', 'P')olestar, you ask an excellent question. Here's why I think you should care what your ancestors did 10,20,50,100,500,etc years ago:
One of the enduring philosophical questions is the question of what makes an individual the individual they are. ...snip

[Tyler_JC]

Can we vote Cynus president of the Open Discussion forum or something to that effect?

Great thread!

[Ludi]

This thread makes me reponder a connundrum:


How does a tolerant society tolerate intolerant societies?


How does an open society "allow" other societies whose goal is to make everyone just like themselves?

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')his thread makes me reponder a connundrum:

How does a tolerant society tolerate intolerant societies?

How does an open society "allow" other societies whose goal is to make everyone just like themselves?

[Cynus]

Just for the record, lest I be misunderstood, I absolutely love cultural diversity and think that one of the most atrocious things in the world is the destruction of indigenous cultures, languages, and peoples by globalization and cultural imperialism. Whewn I see footage from Africa or southeast Asia, heirs to ancient and unique cultures and civilizations, and everyone looks like they just walked out of the Gap, I find it nauseating. The idea of everyone on Earth dressing the same, listening to the same music, watching the same movies, and having the same ideas once globalization has conquered all is a nightmare. But I love cultural diversity the way I admire my child's classmates: I might admire them, applaud their abilities and talents, and my child might not be the nicest, or smartest, or most talented, and I certainly don't want the other kids to immitate mine, but I still love my child the most.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')Americans drive big fast cars because we discovered oil, had a lot, and now have the biggest oil-stealing army of vehicles in the world.

[Cynus]

I agree with what pstarr says except for 2 things:
1. I do care about what the Pope says and does since it affects billions fo people.
2. I would add that when pstarr says "A culture is the result of a people's relationship to it's environment, history, and its understanding of the world," that both a people's relationship with its environment and its understanding of the world are a subset of their history.

[Cynus]

Ones identity is constituted by ones history, that all of the values, beliefs, abilities, propensities, and desires are the result of ones individual and group history. To understand anything about oneself is to understand your history. However, there is a distinct subset of people who, although their identity is their history as well, they don’t identify with their own or any other history. I have called this group the "multicultural parasites," but I think that calling them the “Personas” would be better. Personas have embraced a new identity that is primarily constituted by their profession, but also by their “lifestyle.” It is only certain professions that either attract or produce Personas, primarily arts, academia, athletics, big business, and other advocates of meritocracy. For most people, on the other hand, their profession is only tangentially related to their identity, because most fields are not part of the meritocracy: a fork-lift driver is not going to think that that is who they are; it is their family, their faith, their historical heritage that forms their conception of who they are. Personas are generally what the right-wing used to call the “cultural elite.” It is no coincidence that Personas are what I have termed “multicultural parasites,” their identity not constituted by their heritage, they feel no allegiance to any particular cultural tradition and are thus free to consume the cultural production of others.
In his recent controversial work, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam showed that as diversity increases, so does social alienation and withdrawal. The exception, he found, was the creative fields, the realm of the Personas. We can now see why diversity works in such fields and not elsewhere: because the Personas who dominate these fields perceive their profession as their identity (and look down on those in non-creative fields). There is a respect they feel for others who, like themselves, have succeeded in the competitive creative meritocracy. But Putnam’s belief that the success of cultural diversity in these fields gives hope to reversing the alienation that accompanies diversity is a fool’s hope. The vast majority of people are not Personas, their sense of self is constituted by their conception of their identity, i.e., their history, and those with another heritage and another historico-cultural identity will never feel the same way about another’s heritage as they do their own. They can respect others’ heritage, admire, and understand it, but you can never feel the way about another’s heritage the way you do about your own just like you can respect and admire another’s child, but never feel about them the way you do about your own.
I think that this is why integration has been such a failure all over the world wherever it has been tried. People will always feel an attachment to their own history and heritage and an alienation where they are pressured to integrate into a tradition that is obviously not their own.