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[ 19-01-2017 ]
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[ International Relations ]
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[ U.S ]
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[http://www.nationalreview.com/article/343011/
The Dogma of Multiculturalism
By Thomas Sowell Saturday, March 16, 2013 06:31 PM EDT
Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic groups that have polarized societies over the centuries and around the world few have been more irrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas of multiculturalism.
Intellectuals imagine that they are helping racial or ethnic groups that lag behind by redefining the nature of their 'cultural disadvantages' with multicultural rhetoric that's leading such social groups down a blind alley.
For such groups, Multiculturalism is a tempting quick fix which simply pronounces their cultures are 'equal or "equally" valid' in some vague and lofty sense. Cultural features are just different - not better or worse - according to this dogma.
In the borrowing of particular features from other cultures (such as the adoptation of Arabic numerals which replaced Roman numerals) implies that some features are not simply different but better. Yet, some of the most advanced cultures in history have borrowed from other cultures. Why? Perhaps it's because no given collection of human beings has created the best answers to all life's questions.
Consequently, since multiculturalists see all cultures as 'equal or equally valid' they then offer up justifications for schools that insist that, for example, black children shouldn't learn Standard English. Instead, they encourage each 'visible minority cultural group to cling to its own culture. This way they can take pride in their own past glories (real or imagined).
That is, members of minority cultural groups that lag educationally, economically or otherwise are encouraged to continue to behave in the future as they have in the past - even if they are not achieving the same outcomes as the more dominant groups. As such, their failures are society’s fault.
That is the bottom line message of multiculturalism.
George Orwell once stated that some ideas are so foolish that only an intellectual could believe them. Multiculturalism is one of those ideas.
The intelligentsia prattle on about the indignity or outrage at “gaps” or “disparities” in educational, economic or other outcomes. They denounce and dismiss any cultural explanation of the possible cultural reasons why their are group differences. They claim that this amounts to 'blaming the victims'.
There is no question that some races or whole nations have been victimized by others. One might think that intellectuals could make that distinction. Many do not and see themselves as friends, allies and defenders of racial minorities - even as they paint them into a corner of cultural stagnation.
The intelligentsia then flatter and delude themselves into believing that they are on the side of the angels against the forces of evil that are conspiring to keep minorities down. Think of Affirmative Action. It is in itself discriminatory.
Multiculturalism, like the caste system, paints people into the corner where they happened to have been born. But at least the caste system does not claim to benefit those at the bottom.
Multiculturalism not only serves the ego interests of intellectuals, it serves the political interests of elected officials who have every incentive to promote a sense of victimhood and paranoia among groups whose votes they want.
The multicultural vision of the world also serves the interests of those in the media, who thrive on moral melodramas. So do whole departments of ethnic “studies” in academia and a whole industry of “diversity” consultants, community organizers and miscellaneous other race hustlers.
The biggest losers in all this are those members of racial minorities who allow themselves to be led into the blind alley of resentment and rage, even when there are broad avenues of opportunity available. And we all lose when society is polarized.
- Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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