But, as has been pointed out numerous times in this thread, they do have a culture. There exists an actual, bona fide American culture. Maybe it’s not as exciting to them as cultures they didn’t grow up in, but that’s really their problem, not the fault of the media or schools or liberals or immigrants or whoever’s supposed to be to blame for their particular insecurities (I’m not really sure who’s getting the finger pointed at them here, but I’m willing to bet it’s one of the aforementioned groups).
I know that for a long time the French government was heavily pushing the Gaulish identity of the French as part of its official national history – the title of this article refers to the fact that French children were taught about their “ancestors” the Gauls in history class – but I’m not sure how much of an actual impact it had on the French people. As far as I can tell, this interest for Celtic culture is mostly an anglophone white North American preoccupation. Our French dopers (clairobscur, Kobal2, Themenin, etc.) could probably tell us more, but I guess the difference is that Celtic identity in Canada and the US is mostly a personal affectation, while in France it was part of the government’s official policy, so people there might have cared less about it.
On the other hand, this interest for the Gauls did have a lasting cultural effect in the form of the Asterix comics by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. Goscinny and Uderzo are both Frenchmen of immigrant ancestry (Goscinny is Polish Jewish while Uderzo is Italian), so my guess is they felt somewhat alienated by the focus on the Frenchmen’s (and not their) ancestors the Gauls, so they set to create a book series pointing the defaults of the French by presenting them as an indisciplined, brawling, but big-hearted Gaulish tribe. Asterix did affect generations of francophones around the world and fixed in our minds an image of Celtic peoples and of the Roman antique period. I can’t think of Julius Caesar without thinking of his portrayal as the main antagonist in Asterix, for example, and I’d wager a large number of francophones my age and my parents’ age are the same.
But this said, the word “celtique” in French is always pronounced with a soft ‘c’. I don’t know how it came to be pronounced with a hard ‘k’ sound in English, and who started it. Yes, I’m sure it’s more classically accurate, but it still sounds very odd to me.
Several people have indignantly gotten their (very stupid) high horse and angrily demanded whether or not I know the origin of “X.” Yes, yes I know it, probably better than you yourself, and it isn’t important. Not do I think the phenomenon here is a good thing. I say ti exists, tnot that it is right. And I will not respond to any more readin-comprehension-challenged posts.
This is a total sidetrack, but I will answer.
A genuine interest in other peoples, as peoples, and not as sterile cultures ripped from their moorings for the amusement of some rich western liberal (not liberal as in Left, liberal in classic sense) elite, is a fine and wonderful thing. This has been going on for a very long time. This is not multiculturalism, or MTC, today.
MTC today is a very strange idea, wich seems to have vague roots and similarities with cultural relativism, although it usually rejects any serious thought. Rather, it tends to drift into knee-jerk assumptions that any established culture (anywhere, ironically) is bad, and something is wrong if people who don’t share that culture are not cosseted, isolated, and “respected” within an inch of their lives. Indeed, MTC today has polluted a good idea with strange idiocies, so that asking anyone to share in the culture they themselves are supposedly joining is sometimes seen as bad. People who visit a country ought to make some adjustments - within moral reason. They must try to get along with the locals and accept enough of their ways to live responsibly. And some things are wrong no matter where in the world you are or how you were raised.
This may mean learning english. This may mean condemning practices which are morally wrong. This may involve saying that some groups have immigrated to certain places and are not respecting their neighbors, and either they must learn responsibility or leave. This is not cultural cheauvanism; it is flat-out honest human respect.
Uh huh. And again, you’re making all kinds of claims without backing them up. I have no doubt you believe what you’re saying, but I still haven’t seen any concrete examples.
I don’t know what you mean when you say immigrants who “are not respecting their neighbors, and either they must learn responsibility or leave” - your whole rant is unnecessarily vague - but surely if they’re breaking any laws, there exists recourse for the neighbors to rectify the situation through the legal system, right? If that’s the case, I don’t understand what you mean when you say such people must leave (the country, I assume). If they’re causing problems, they’ll be gone soon enough. In my personal experience, the hassles I’ve had from people have been overwhelmingly from native citizens anyway. It appears to me as if you’re overstating the negative aspects of immigrant cultures.
I’m not blaming anyone here, and yes I agree that they do have a culture. But it seems to me that, for example, a good number of anglophone Canadians – probably in large part those who don’t have an “interesting” ancestry to identify with; the “unhyphenated” ones as I’ve said – think that what defines them and differentiates them from generic Americans is their society’s multiculturalism and support for “ethnic” cultures. This prevents them from working together to determine what really defines them culturally. And since I’ve also said that multiculturalism can be said to focus on “token” elements of ethnic cultures, I don’t think it’s fair to anyone.
smiling bandit, were he Canadian, would probably mention the recent attempts to allow Shariah-based civil arbitration in some Canadian provinces as an example of multiculturalism recognizing all cultural beliefs and practices as morally equal. I’m not sure if I’d blame this on multiculturalism in itself, but I take his point.
Around here there has been much discussion about to which level we must accommodate people’s minority cultural (often religious) practices when they interfere with the law of the land. This is again an example of what smiling bandit is talking about, but I believe that it can be done without rejecting multiculturalism in its entirety.
Didn’t mean to imply I thought you were blaming anyone; I was talking more about the OP’s apparent (though veiled) position. I think you and I are in agreement for the most part, though I don’t so much see multiculturalism focusing on token elements in my area (which, I should point out, is probably the most left-leaning in America).
Well, in a democracy, it’s your right to try to change laws you find unjust - I vehemently disagree with pro-lifers, but I’d never think to try to deny them a voice in what’s supposed to be a representative government. And there are plenty of other non-immigrant examples I could use as well, which is one of my points (that smiling bandit is grossly overstating the problem posed by a minority of our society). But even disregarding all that, does anybody believe there’s a chance in hell Canada’s going to allow Shariah-based civil arbitration? It’s best not to get worked up over fringe groups, IMO.
It would not have been compulsory, but it was proposed. I’ve looked a bit around and found this primer on Shariah law in Canada from the CBC. Apparently the province of Ontario had had a law allowing voluntary faith-based arbitration in the field of family law since 1991. In 2004 a Muslim group proposed setting up arbitration panels based on Islamic law, causing an uproar among the population (including other Muslim groups) because of the (real or perceived) sexual inequality inherent in Islamic law.
Now, of course, as I’ve said, this arbitration process has always been voluntary and this wouldn’t have changed. But there were concerns that people might have been coerced into taking part in the process, even if it was against their best interests, either because of ignorance of the law or because of particularities of their culture.
In my opinion, while the whole idea of faith-based arbitration seems tempting in a multicultural society, I feel it goes against the principle that every citizen shall be subject to the same laws, so I don’t believe it is ultimately a very good idea.