Multiculturalism: The Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost

With the rise of multiculturalism a few decades ago, our elites decided not to be judgmental about other cultures. This was a strange stance to take, given that just a few years earlier they had condemned the racist culture in our South. But leave that stunning confusion on their part aside. My interest right now is in the effect it had on the Middle East. Instead of promoting enlightened values, as they had been doing up until then, suddenly our elites took a hands-off approach to the cultures in those areas. They came down hard on external oppression, in the case of Israel, but internal oppression was mostly ignored, unless of course it could be turned into a way to slam U.S. foreign policy. But any sort of outrage was tolerated “because it’s their culture.” Pointing out that since they criticize our culture we should be allowed to criticize theirs usually fell on deaf ears, “because we’ve been imperialists.” And pointing out that some of them were imperialists, too, also fell on deaf ears because, either they deny the imperialism or say that it wasn’t as bad as ours or they give some other excuse.

But what has been the result? The result is that when the Arab Spring materialized, it was hard to know whom one should root for. The current regimes were thuggish, but their likely replacements were just as thuggish. See here for an article in today’s Guardian about the abuse of pro-Gadhafi supporters in Libya. (And see here for the latest outrage in Tunisia.)

It all could have been different. If those left-of-center hadn’t gotten it into their heads to be nonjudgmental about other cultures, there would have been down through the years steady pressure on these cultures to adopt enlightened values. Those in such cultures who were already liberal would have found their ranks swelled by many others encouraged by the hope for a better life. There would have been strong and viable liberal parties in, for example, Egypt that would have overwhelmed the Islamists.

I know that leftist critics will bristle at all this, insisting that they have little leverage over these cultures. But they do. In fact, this is another part of the left’s message of guilt to us Westerners, that we are cultural imperialists. Of course, what they are thinking of when they say this is that we swamp them with McDonald’s and bad television shows, but they also get the views of our leftist elites. In addition, those elites can determine, to some extent, who gets aid, who gets support in our media, and so on. People like me who want those societies to become more enlightened can’t make our views known in that part of the world, but our leftist elites can.

The problem for the left is that they are so used to criticizing the West that they have lost all perspective on things. To invert Matthew 7:3, they can see the speck in the West’s eye, but not the log in the Muslim world’s eye.

It’s time for a change.

Comments

[Kevin Stroup]

But the left will not change, because then it would no longer be the left. The left has defined itself as ANYTHING detrimental to Western Civilization. How else can you explain atheist, Marxist, MC, leftist siding with religious, tribalist, mysogynistic Islamist? Leftist are the perpetual adolescent who absolutely refuses to grow up and face harsh realities. Instead they offer reactionary (oh the irony) responses to whatever "the man" wants to do. Whatever "the man" wants to do, do the exact opposite. This is how immature children think. Anything that is Western Civilization is evil and must be opposed. Period. No debate necessary. As Dick Cheney pointed out, many of the problems government tackles have no solutions, you can only manage them. Poverty is an example. War is another. Try explaining that to a leftist. The left will not change. It is what it is.

[John Pepple]

I would disagree on how the left defines itself. It starts from an egalitarian stance and goes from there. Since society is not very egalitarian, leftists became critical of society, and eventually went overboard on the idea.

My intention is to promote self-critical leftism, in which criticism of one's own society is done in a more measured and responsible way.

Whether I've made any converts among leftists, I couldn't say, but if I have, I suspect they are younger. Older leftists are unlikely to change.