Although this is a fairly new phenomena and doen’t really have anything to do with traditional American culture of any stripe. Simply put, the only way to get a job anymore seems to be to move far away. I hate it, and I foresee a rebellion against it in the long run as more and more people network their jobs instead of moving away.
A culture that practices and supports “honor killing” is inferior to one that does not.
Although this is a fairly new phenomena and doen’t really have anything to do with traditional American culture of any stripe. Simply put, the only way to get a job anymore seems to be to move far away. I hate it, and I foresee a rebellion against it in the long run as more and more people network their jobs instead of moving away.
Likewise, a culture that supports foot-binding or genital mutilation of young women is inferior to one that doesn’t. A culture that treats women as chattel, in which religious leaders advise men to beat their wives if they are not obedient, is inferior to one that doesn’t. A culture that has a crime called ‘apostasy’ is inferior to one that doesn’t.
That doesn’t mean we should go around the world changing other people’s cultures, but certainly if someone wants to move to Canada or the U.S. we should have the right to say, "Fine, but understand - your women will have equal rights. If you beat them, you’ll go to jail. If you mutilate your children, you will go to jail. If another citizen tells you that Allah is a big weenie, you are not allowed to beat him or kill him. This country practices equal rights, separation of church and state, and we have child protection laws.
Oh, and English and French are our official languages. You are expected to learn one of them, and all communications with the government will be in one of these languages. If you have children of school age, they will have to learn English and/or French. We will not accomodate you with schools in Farsi, Swahili, Chinese, or any other language. We expect all Canadians to be able to communicate with each other in one of our official languages.
If you think this is wrong, don’t move to our country."
Again, you just have to look at what has happened in the Netherlands to see the consequences of an open-door, tolerate-all immigration policy. There are huge communities of people from places like Morocco that are totally unassimilated. They don’t speak the local language or follow local customs or rules. And now they are asserting their culture on others through violence and intimidation, and causing a real problem in that country. The same thing is happening in France.
I don’t know if you intended this as rhetorical. But I’ll answer: maybe, yeah.
Immigration can cause disruption. It’s not unreasonable to assume that the least disruption will be caused by that immigration which introduces the least culturally-disparate elements or “culture.” N.B. that this is a value neutral rule (though I do think that some cultures have more to offer than others, on balance). It could equally well be applied by Iran, in deciding (let us say) to admit only Sharia observers, and by Canada or the U.S., in deciding that Sharia observers caused, on average, more cultural dislocation than non-observers.
Another question that doesn’t get asked when someone enters the immigration queue with a story of “You’ve got to let me in, you can’t BELIEVE how f’d up my home country is,” would be: “And who f’d it up?” Because it’s not necessarily the most prepossessing qualification to tout – “My folk have proven historically unable not to f’ up their own lives, can I come into your country and hope that we’ll behave differently here?” Example: Haiti has been independent almost as long as the U.S. Haiti has not done much that is good or admirable, in the final analysis, with that independence. Yes, yes, “colonialism” and “racism” and any other litany of “isms” can be invoked to explain why in 200 years the Haitian people have not gotten their act together, and why the Haitian “culture” still seems to place a significantly higher value on politics-by-machete, say, than on unrigged elections. It is of course possible that someone steeped in this “culture” would be fleeing Haiti because he wanted to repudiate and leave all that behind and embrace the (objectively better, at least in the no-Tonton-Macoutes sense) culture of America. It is also, though, quite possible that he wants to practice his exact same “culture,” warts and all, but just in a place with better economic opportunities. In determining whether to let in this hypothetical Haitian (or Russian, or Romanian) I don’t see any reason why a nation (who doesn’t have to permit immigration at all) cannot condition or weight the immigration policy in favor of preferring the guy’s identical cousin from, say, Bermuda, or Poland, or other less-dysfunctional (by our standards) peer country cultures.
In Don’t Make No Waves, Don’t Back No Losers: An Insider’s Analysis of the Daily Machine (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0253117259/qid=1126205132/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-8498312-9522351?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), Milton Rakove tells the story of a Chinese laundryman who spent years living and working in a Chicago neighborhood, gradually picking up the language. When he went to apply for citizenship, he was astonished to learn he spoke not a word of English, but was quite fluent in Polish.
Lawrence Welk talked like some kinda furriner, but in fact he was born and raised in a German-speaking immigrant community in rural North Dakota. He did not learn English until his teens.
Sometimes assimilation takes longer than you might think – but that’s not always a bad thing. We’ve never had much trouble or friction with our Polish-American or (except for the WWI period) German-American communities, have we?
I believe you are confusing culture with lifestyle. We all have our own lifestyles. But culture concerns things of value and interest to society as a whole. For instance, one aspect of American culture is that freedom of speech is considered a natural right. This is expressed in various laws that everyone must obey - if it were left to personal choice, it would be meaningless. There are other cultures that do not consider freedom of speech a natural right. Immigrants to America from these cultures must accept free speech as a natural right. There can be no compromise - it’s a settled issue. For example, an immigrant who comes to America expecting the government to prevent people from criticizing a certain religion, or religion in general, should not be welcome here. The only thing America should provide to such a person is a one-way ticket back home.
Hard to say- you have to disentangle the ethnic situation from the poverty situation and try to figure out whether one caused another or not. But Lord knows that such isolated communities were loathed at the time (late 19th and early 20th centuries) and considered hotbeds of radical (i.e., socialist, communist, and anarchist) thought, as well as breeding grounds for career criminals. Czolgosz, Sacco, Vanzetti, etc.
I’d like to note that discussions of sharia law do not mean that they want Canada to start chopping the hands off of theives. They are usually looking to allow matters of family law- divorce, inheretence, etc. to be initially moderated by Muslim authorities when that is agreeable- much like many states still only allow memebers of the clergy or city government to officiate marriages. The clerics would be in a situation much like judge Judy. It is a system that is in place in many countries- such as India- and can be workable in a country where there is plenty of healthy debate.
I would like to point out that none of these people were career criminals and that, while Czolgosz freely admitted to assassinating McKinley, the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti in the murder of a paymaster and guard is controversial to this day.
Sorry guys, but this thread has proved to be just sickeningly xenophobic. I can’t believe the number of posts with, “MY culture is better than YOUR culture.” Are we really that naive? It shows an ignorance of BOTH cultures.
You mentioned “honour killings,” so what about capital punishment? Do we need to make a list of the ways American “culture” is f*cked up? Honour killings versus executing children and the mentally disabled. Should Canada allow Americans in? Consider the increase in gun violence we might witness. Imagine a county that would deny basic human rights to someone based on their sexual orientation.
[mostly joking]I can just picture it now, a Canada after we let a bunch of them Yanks into our cities. They’d all want to own guns, and conceal them. We’d have to start wars and run up a quadrillion dollar deficit. We’d go back to capital punishment, unless you kill an abortion doctor. And imagine our politics, can any Canadian honestly say they’d want an American style democracy? Would you want Jeb Bush as your next PM? Do we really want the religious right taking over our schools, making them teach that gravity is just a theory, and that Intelligent Falling deserves equal time? [/mostly joking]
Should Americans allow Canadians in? Imagine a county that would allow two people of the same sex to marry! Or someone under the age of 21 to purchase and consume alcohol, on a Sunday! This is a culture that routinely circumcises infants!
It hasn’t been that long since we’ve allowed women and people of colour to be equal. And many women and people of colour might say we haven’t yet.
What’s more, should the rest of Canada allow people of Quebequoi culture to move in? Imagine a culture that forbids people from putting anything other than French on a sign! Imagine a government that would shut down a local business because the immigrant owner couldn’t speak French perfectly when approached by the authorities.
Are you really that secure about your culture? Do you even know what YOUR culture is? And are you sure that its the same as Canadian/American/Western culture?
My apologies- I never meant to intimate that Sacco and Vanzetti were the bombers, just that attitudes at the time assumed they were. That they were anarchist/socialists, however, is without question.
As for career criminals, I was talking more about Capone, Lansky, Siegel, etc.
and I really want to understand this thread and contribute something of worth to it.
there is a lot on this thread that seems to me to confuse multiculturalism with some sort of resistant ethnic nationalism. and it seems to frighten people. at least me!!
I am a foreigner now in an asian country and I love my adopted home of philippines. I know that it has its own levels of corruption, (as does my home country UK) its own standards of decency, attitudes and platitudes. but everyone one has seen those posts where some one replies if you dont like our america/england/any country you care to name then leave. Well you know what? I am one of those people who despised blairs britain so much and had the good fortune to be able to afford to leave, so I did. I am out of there!!!
While I was in england I was an activist of sorts and tried to change things in the small manner for the communities that I could. I always loved the multicultural aspect of england, I was maybe more fervent than most little englanders that I really wanted the EU to develop into a federal state of european countries. The EU gave us a bill of human rights that my country (england) decided to opt out of various clauses. The EU as a whole had a bigger picture and bigger responsibility than Blair and his cronies. After leaving the UK I lived in Istanbul for some years (never never ever argue with turkish policeman) and then settled in new zealand for a while. New Zealand is truly the best country in the world… and you know what? it is so good because it is multicultural. but its because its an its an integrated society to the fullest extant. its such a small population that no market could develop without the immigrants to buy the products. and these immigrants bring there own styles customs and produce. integrated immigrant communities not sublimed or “converted” ethnic minoritiesl give us such a varied and rewarding community. The only qualification to be a fuly accepted new zealander is actually to be there in country! Long live multiculturalism!
So now I am in phils. we have here, chinese, malay, singaporeans, indians, amd also various euros and americans ( north and south) I am grateful to my hosts, and as with all my friends hope we contribute something to the truly resilent people that the philippinos are. Am also learning things from them. hope I can give something back
emacknight There are many things about American culture that are disturbing and wrong. We can be crass and violent, which we somehow accompany with a nauseating sentimentality that at its worst turns into a pharisical religiosity. In no way are we perfect.
But we are better than a culture which practises FGM, honor killings, and calls for the death of non-believers.
I am in favor of same sex marriage. I am aware that our country is not the best place in the world in which to be gay. But it is a utopia for homosexuals compared to, say, Pakistan.
I am against the death penalty. But to compare the American death penalty to stoning a woman to death for the crime of adultery is just the sort of willfull blindness that makes people roll their eyes when they hear the word “multicultural.” (And we’ve stopped executing juveniles, thank og.)
Nobody ever said American culture was perfect, only that it’s better than cultures that condone honor killing.
One problem with the melting pot theory is that it doesn’t work as well with groups that are recognizably different. It’s pretty easy for a guy from Europe to come to the US, shed his old world customs, and fit right in. But what about someone from China? His grandchildren, born in this country and largely unfamiliar with Chinese culture, will often be seen as Chinese first and Americans second.
Not that multiculturalism doesn’t have its problems either, as has already been pointed out. We need to strive for something inbetween that gives us a good balance. Respect other cultures, but don’t be afriad to crticize them when appropriate. Keep as much of your “home” culture as you feel necessary, but don’t expect the natives to understand it. Above all, learn the language.
You’re forgetting intermarriage. Is Tiger Woods seen as Thai first and American second? (My father probably had a grandfather born in China who migrated to Australia, but he never thought of himself as Chinese in any way, partly because he only worked it out later in life after researching family history).
I agree. It’s really bad when someone kills a bunch of people to avenge his father.
If I can vote for a “best” culture, I’d chose Japan. Good food, family oriented, low crime, anime, well built cars. Shame about Pearl Harbor, but nobody’s perfect.
Nice attempt at misdirection. Larry and I have already admitted that America isn’t perfect, but you and emacknight seem to be trying your best to avoid condemning the killers of rape victims. I’m sure they appreciate your politeness and sensitivity.