This sounds like my definition of ideal multiculturalism, actually.
I don’t want my countrymen to define their cultural identity against being American. I want “American” itself to be the sum of all the cultures and cross-cultural interstices in America–which then becomes an additional and larger identity that all of us can wear in addition to our specific culture’s.
Black America is a perfect example of the relationship between a fully-incorporated* culture within a national one. We can’t properly conceive of America without black people in it; black culture is an essential, absolutely inseparable part of the American identity. And therefore black American culture is mine, too, as an American (though I’m not black) in a way that it can’t belong to a European. The corollary is that we can’t properly conceive of this particular black culture without the America in it. Some black Americans may fancy themselves Africans, but it doesn’t take much discussion on the subject with actual Africans to break that notion down.
Don’t mistake this for meaning “integrated” in the traditional sense.
What? Do you really think that the era of forcing Jews to live in ghettos and prohibiting them in numerous ways from interacting with Christian society was because of the inherent acceptance of multiple cultures as envisioned by multiculturalism? You honestly think that the European ghettos started because the Jews just kinda decided that they wanted nothing to do with other people out of some sort of clannishness? The actual fact is that the gentile populace hated and despised the Jews and, in country after country, forced them to live in ghettos and often prohibited Jews, with the force of law, from living outside of them. And yet you think it was the Jews’ choice out of some desire to live apart because they “wanted nothing to do with anybody else”, and that shows the inherent flaws in multiculturalism?
I’m Australian, but my father’s family were Russian immigrants. I’m certainly not anti-immigration, and I’m proud of my cultural heritage.
However, I find the “melting pot” metaphor (i.e. integration) more conducive to a coherent society than the “patchwork” metaphor (i.e. multiculturalism).
I’m finding that the community is becoming more and more divided; we had the Cronulla riots between white (bogans) and the Lebanese a few years ago and only last week about a hundred Pacific Islanders had some kind of gang war in a suburban shopping centre not far from where I grew up.
These events stir greater feelings of resentment towards non-Anglo Australians from the whites, which in turn further divides the community. Being partly the product of post-WWII immigration, I feel genuinely Australian but also quite apart from the general white population. It’s like you’re pressured to identify with a group because society is so fragmented. It’s no fun at all.
Go read God, Jews and History. The origin is the “deed of separation” where they were dealing with trying to shove themselves into a different culture and remain culturally separate and pure.
I have. Why don’t you cite and quote the relevant portion?
Because a “get”, the root for “ghetto” and the term that actually means “deed of separation” is the profits from a divorce, not what you seem to be describing it as. In point of fact, ghettos were not created by Jews who just wanted to live on their own.
And to provide a cite: Gods, Jews and History has the word “deed” twice, neither time referring to the “deed of separation”, and the word “separation” occurs four times, each time referring to the separation of church and state.
But page ix does make it very clear that on the issue of ghettos that Jews were subject to “banishment in the ghetto”. Not voluntary, let alone elitist and clannish.
From page 122:
Neither “a small community that wanted nothing to do with anybody else” nor a group “trying to shove themselves into a different culture and remain culturally separate and pure.” From page 255:
A quote and citation for your claim would be very good.
I don’t think that assimilation/melting pot is the norm at all-look at the great cities of the Ottoman Empire-you had greeks, jews, armenians, etc., all in their own separate communities, who never assimilated into turkish society.
In fact, the nature of the Ottoman Empire was that assimilation was frowned upon-not in the least because in a moslem country,the government is the religion, and vice versa.
I think that Western Europe is having problems with minorities now, because the economies have stopped growing (the post WWII boom is ling over) and governments are insolvent. Plus, as more and more manufacturing moves to China and India, there is little market for unskilled labor. So you have large populations of unemployed/underemployed people, with no connection (culturally or religiosly) with the larger society.
A big and growing problem.
I know Finn and Malthus have already handled this, but the ignorance of this statement needs emphasis.
Ghettos did not start as Jews clustered in small communities that want nothing to do with anyone else, and the origin of the word is likely not from “get”, a deed of separation, but from the walled off location that Jews were commanded to live within inside Venice, a old cannon foundry, getto being the word for that. The concept of having a place that Jews were commanded to live within, often walled off and with gates locked to keep them in from sunset to sundown then became the norm across Europe.
You can read about the origin both of ghettos and the word here and here.
As for the multiculturalism debate: I think the EU version is very different than the American one and that these conversations therefore tend to go across each other.
The American version is the very nature of the country, our essential mythology. Sometimes referred to as a melting pot but much more so a hodgepodge stew in which each ingredient keeps some degree of its original form and flavor but nevertheless contributes something of its essence to the broth and takes up various bits that change it from both that broth and the ingredients that it bumps into. More ingredients keep getting dumped in and the the stew is everchanging even as many ingredients have not changed all that much. That is our basic story, out of many one, a nation of immigrants. We began as a hodgepodge and every new ingredient has only deepened the complexities of the broth and allowed for more interesting combinations to occur.
The EU version begins with a sense of a predominant extant host culture which is trying to tolerate minorities and does not know how to deal with the differences. Allow for many cultures or force them to behave like the extant majority? That view of a French or English culture with its mythic history as single peoples, is the storyline that European multiculturalism runs into: a chicken consomme trying to accept a chunk of spicy sausage.
Multiculturalism runs counter to human nature. We’re hardwired for provincialism, ethnocentrism, confirmation bias, selection bias, and tribalism. That’s not to say these traits ought to be encouraged, but it does make the idea that entirely different cultures can meld together in one great big homogenous melting pot a rather ludicrous one.
We’re wired for those things, absolutely. We’re also wired to cooperate in large groups in order to accomplish amazing things, and without that hardwiring for cooperation, we’d just be the world’s weakest monkeys. Indeed, as we’ve been able to expand our concept of “our tribe” further, we’ve accomplished ever greater goals as a species.
Successful international corporations don’t require all their executives to speak the same language, practice the same religion, wear the same clothes, eat the same foods. They cooperate despite cultural differences–and by doing so, they outcompete their more provincial rivals. It’s sound strategy to expand your circle of cooperation past perceived cultural barriers.
Do I have a right to protect my culture? Bollocks. Thugs in Saudi Arabia think they do, and they beat up teenagers they see exchanging roses on the oh-so-Western Valentine’s Day. That’s nonsense. Those thugs have every right not to practice Valentine’s Day themselves, but they have no right whatsoever to keep someone else from practicing it. Culture is, at root, what people do, and if protecting your culture means keeping people from doing what they want to do, then too bad.
Do I have a right to object to certain aspects of someone else’s culture? Again, it’s a trivial yes. If your culture involves imposing your will on someone else–even someone nominally a member of your culture–I can object, whether your cultural practice involves smart-bombing a wedding or involves stoning a rape victim or involves preventing people from wearing headscarves or involves keeping minorities off of your lunch counter. What I object to in these cases is your violence or oppression of other people: the fact that you call such violence or oppression your “culture” is immaterial. Culture is just what folks do; there’s nothing sacred about it.
Aren’t those corporations just replacing one tribal membership for another?
That said, I think you are backing into a bit of the essence of the discussion - the key is to have a set of basic assumptions that all the member tribes can agree to, including a set of basic human rights not based on any individual tribe’s religious beliefs but that just are, and which include the rights of others to behave differently, so long as those across tribes agreed to basic human rights are not violated in the process. If your tribe does not agree to those basic inter-tribe rules then your tribe cannot be part of the tribe of tribes.
But of course that is my very American mindset speaking …
Yeah, this is an excellent point, that there is a meta-culture that I’m describing, a meta-culture founded on a respect for individual human rights. Yeah, that’s definitely a product of Western history, although it doesn’t represent all of Western history (or current Western thought). And yeah, I’m a product of that meta-culture. But it’s the one I’ll stand by nonetheless. I don’t really care what someone does, as long as they’re not hurting other people, and if they are hurting other people, I don’t care if said harm is a key part of their culture.
In other words, when we’re trying to figure out how to structure society and what behaviors to encourage or discourage, we shouldn’t consider culture at all; we should just consider what’s gonna hurt people vs. what’s gonna help them.
WHOA, BOY. Nonsense, indeed. You do realize that you’ve excluded the biggest middle in the history of the universe, right? I don’t think anyone is advocating declassifying crimes in the spirit of protecting one’s culture. No, no one is advocating that.
Yet even what we consider hurts vs. helps is a product of culture. The Inquisitors really believed they were helping people by saving their souls from eternal damnation and that a little torture in the here and now was nothing compared to the good done. And to raise one that has a long history of threads here, those who would make circumcision illegal believe that they are protecting children from something that hurts. And pertinent to France’s version of secularism and multiculturalism, are women being hurt by being allowed to wear Islamic coverings in public? I would posit that we need to consider culture strongly. How wide of a berth to give it is the tricky part.
The U.S. is much more melting-pot-like than Canada (and I say that having lived in both.) But I think it’s a decent point — the relevant question is not whether people keep their former cultures, but whether they also take up new identities. It’s really hard to take up the identity of people who don’t want you.
It always makes me laugh when Europeans cite themselves as evidence that Muslims will never integrate (and I agree that is what we are talking about.) This is the same place where people try to ban headscarves, minarets, etc. Are they really that surprised that their Muslim populations don’t see “European culture” as a great thing for them?
When you segregate and insult people, they get distant and unfriendly. Not a huge surprise. The harder you tell someone “Your identity is bad” the more they are going to feel that identity is important for them to defend.
Meanwhile, I lived in areas of the US where we don’t blink an eye when we see a woman in hijab. Surprisingly, Muslims here tend to live pretty normal lives and are definitely a part of, rather than separate from, American society.
It’s also a place where 40% of young British Muslims want Sharia law implemented in the UK (and, yes, I know, I know, the fundamentalist spokesmen who campaign for this shit say don’t say they want Sharia to replace the British system, and they allegedly are only interested in its application to Muslims. Save your keystrokes. It’s still a frightening sign of cultural separatism that 40% of British born young Muslims place their religious identity above their national identity and don’t trust the British courts). It’s also a place where 20% of those same young British Muslims say they “sympathise” with the evil July 7th bombers (may they rot in Hell forever). Indeed, we have homegrown terrorists. How the fuck did that happen?
All this before there was any talk of banning headscarves or anything else. And, purely on a personal note, I hope we do ban the fucking things. The sooner they go the way of chastity belts the better.
We have no idea what that poll meant by “sharia law.” Most “sharia” law is pretty mundane contract and family law. Frankly, if you want to agree to decide inheritances or develop business contacts according to whatever, I absolutely agree that you have that right.
Can we also ban nylon stockings (what the hell, to look “professional” I’m supposed to put a thin film of fake legs over my real legs…to what end?) and allow women to go topless in nice weather?
Anyway, do what you like in your own country. But I think you’ll find a nice correlation between “How big of an ass you are to your Muslim populations” and “How big of an ass your Muslim populations are to you.”
