Multiculturalism in the United States
By Robert Harrington
May, 1997
Multiculturalism: The Antithesis of Assimilation
The Case for Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism versus Reality
History as a Political Weapon
It is a Moral Issue
Does Western Culture Deserve to be Dominant?
Where Multiculturalism Leads
Works Cited
Multiculturalism: The Antithesis of Assimilation
Speaking of postmodernism, Walter Truett Anderson wrote that you can "look at the postmodern world as a kind of jailbreak from the Grand Hotel, with people charging in all directions while anxious conservatives try to round them up and get them back inside" (16). So it is with multiculturalism, where the "Grand Hotel" is the common culture. Multiculturalism denies the efficacy of the common culture, being the belief that the United States is, or should be, composed of numerous disparate cultural groups of equal merit deserving of equal treatment; in short, a denial of e pluribus unum.
Multiculturalism is the antithesis of the idea of assimilation, the melting pot, which was a guiding principle in the United States for over 150 years. Multiculturalism argues in effect that immigrants, indeed all people of other than European descent, should decline the "brutal bargain," in Norman Podhertz phrase (Bernstein 176), by which they compromise some of their native customs in exchange for the benefits of life in America.
To be sure, multiculturalism is also defined in milder form. To some, it is merely the study of other cultures; defined that way, virtually no one disagrees. For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on the definition in the first paragraph above, which some call militant multiculturalism. While many if not most people might define it in milder form, the militant form is dominant in education and, to a large extent, in government policy in the United States today.
The prescriptions of multiculturalism have been widely implemented and have deeply affected many aspects of American life, especially in education and race relations. As a creed of the left, it is generally applauded and promoted by modern-day liberals and opposed by conservatives. It is closely associated with the issues of race, because race is thought to dictate one's ethnicity, and of feminism, because male dominance is seen as a product of Eurocentrism. Multiculturalism can be considered the animating ideology for other popular movements of the left, including diversity, political correctness (speech codes), ethnic and black studies, affirmative action, and bilingual education. It is in these areas where multiculturalism has had its greatest impact in education and government policy.
The basic tenet of multiculturalism is belief in group rights. This belief is taken as axiomatic, and, although multiculturalists deny it, their belief in group rights is fully as much an article of faith as the beliefs of traditional religions, what Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., called a "cult of ethnicity" and "the new gospel" (16). Because of their denial, or failure to recognize that their beliefs are based on faith, multiculturalists often display prejudice and intolerance against those who disagree with them to an extent equal to that of the most ardent religionists, who at least acknowledge that their ideas are based on faith.
The dominance of European culture - what multiculturalists call Eurocentrism - conflicts with the basic tenet of multiculturalism. This conflict is the cause of the resentment, indeed hatred, of Western thought and culture which is widespread among the believers in multiculturalism in the academy and elsewhere. The more extreme rhetoric of multiculturalists classifies everyone of European descent automatically as "oppressors" and rejects all outward manifestations of Western culture, at least in form (Schlesinger 67-68).
Considering the degree to which multiculturalism is the established orthodoxy in government and education, and its quasi-religious nature, multiculturalism is tantamount to a state religion.
Multiculturalism should be opposed because -
Multiculturalism operates within the political system of the United States and depends on the freedoms it provides. Indeed, it is inconceivable that multiculturalism could gain currency in any society other than a Western democracy, which is the unique product of the European tradition which multiculturalists scorn. Multiculturalism depends for its very existence, therefore, on the system it seeks to destroy.
Multiculturalism is generally defended by redefining it as merely the study of other cultures. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in an article entitled "The Debate Has Been Miscast from the Start," argues for education that "comprehends the diversity of human culture" (479, emphasis added), a far cry from the tendency of multiculturalists to elevate diversity to an end in itself. In the same article, he asks of conservatives, "Where's the beef?" (478) but seems to answer for them in the last paragraph: "Today, the mindless celebration of difference has proven as untenable as that bygone model of monochrome homogeneity" (481). Mindless indeed.
Perhaps the most significant defense of multiculturalism comes from Nathan Glazer, Harvard professor and a leading social scientist in America, in his new book, We Are All Multiculturalists Now. In a review of that book, John Fonte says that "Glazer declares that 'the basic demand of the multiculturalists is for inclusion, not separation, and inclusion under the same rules - stretching back to the Constitution - that have permitted the steady broadening of what we understand as equality'" (51). This point is highly arguable: one has only to look at the rampant separatism on university campuses to understand that. Glazer seems to be defending multiculturalism less on its merits than simply that it is inevitable. According to Fonte, Glazer "implies that he would not object to teaching elementary-school children that the Iroquois influenced the formation of the U.S. Constitution, although there is no evidence for this bogus claim" (52). Elsewhere, Glazer said: "sharper critics of the report [on the social studies syllabi of New York state's elementary and high schools]...have failed to recognize that demographic and political pressures change the history that is to be taught" ("In Defense of Multiculturalism" 498).
Multiculturalism versus Reality
It is a truism to say that we are a multiracial and multicultural society. As Diane Ravitch put it, our common culture is "an amalgam of the contributions of all the different groups that have joined American Society and enriched our shared culture" (9).
The issue is whether we should celebrate the ideals we hold in common or focus on our differences as multiculturalists insist. The fact is that multiculturalism is a mainly movement of ideologues, and assimilation is still the rule despite strenuous efforts to deny it.
In The Disuniting of America, Schlesinger points out that according to a Rand Corporation report, over half of second-generation Hispanics give up Spanish altogether. He also mentions a Vista poll which revealed that the three historical figures admired most by Hispanics were Washington, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, followed by Benito Juárez as fourth (133).
It is everywhere evident that ethnic peoples in the United States, wherever they can, have two cars and move to the suburbs where they are accepted with scarcely a ripple.
It is a fact that the role of minorities, and especially blacks, has been slighted as American history was written until comparatively recently. An effort to correct this has been under way for a number of years and probably has a ways to go. However, it has been carried to extremes in many instances for political purposes and to enhance the self esteem of minorities. This process is described in some detail by Arthur Schlesinger in The Disuniting of America (45-72).
As well described by Page Smith, "objectivity" in the writing of history is a vain goal, and one that has been the source of much conflict and grief (265-271). Writing history is an unending process because history is necessarily viewed from the perspective of the day. When history is enlisted for political purposes, however, its central function - to serve as the collective memory of society - is destroyed. Unfortunately, much of what passes for scholarship in black, Hispanic, and feminist studies is frankly political in purpose, and the result has been creation of many so-called historical "facts" from whole cloth.
This is true of much of "black history," a large part of which has been constructed on very thin evidence or none at all. The purpose of the constructed history is to identify a cultural heritage from Africa where in fact none exists. The connection between most blacks in the United States today and their ancestors captured and shipped as slaves to the New World is extremely remote. The culture the slaves brought with them was primitive and meager to begin with, and what little they had was mostly destroyed by the inhuman treatment they received as slaves. As Arthur Schlesinger put it, "Self-Africanization after 300 years in America is playacting" (103).
Keith Richburg, a black correspondent for the Washington Post, recently spent three years on assignment in Africa and wrote a book on his experiences. He was horrified at the atrocities and (as quoted by Thomas Sowell) said, "Thank God my ancestor got out, because, now, I am not one of them" (74).
Schlesinger also describes the myth concerning the influence of Iroquois Indians on the U.S. Constitution as taught to high school students in New York State. The Constitution is said to have been influenced by the "Haudenosaunee political system," a characterization of a confederation of Iroquois Indians. Their influence on the framers, according to Schlesinger, was "marginal to the point of invisibility." The present-day influence of the Iroquois lobby, however, is indisputable (97).
Political debates are ultimately rooted in morality, and arguments which fail to recognize this tend to go nowhere. Recognizing the conflict in the moral bases usually doesn't resolve a conflict either but at least serves to put the debate on the grounds where basic differences exist.
This situation is achieved more easily in some subjects than others. In the debate over abortion, most people understand it as a moral issue and argue it on that basis. In the debate over multiculturalism, proponents tend to treat the matter as self-evident and deny that morality is relevant. This is usually attributable to multiculturalists' belief in moral relativism, the idea that no moral system deserves more credence than any other.
Moral relativism has been the dominant philosophy among intellectuals for over a century. It is the reason we speak of "values" instead of moral principles. To speak of moral beliefs is considered passé, even rude. Despite this, those who profess moral relativism are often the most aggressive in promoting a morality of their own, usually without realizing it.
This contradiction is well illustrated by James Q. Wilson in his book, The Moral Sense. Wilson, a professor at UCLA, asked his students to pass judgment on a distant people. They recoiled at the thought, saying it is not right to "be judgmental," or to "impose your values on other people." As Wilson points out, these sentiments are themselves moral dispositions. In other words, the responses were based on an unconscious morality of the students (7).
Such is the case with multiculturalism. It is a creed based on the axiom of group rights, a moral premise not derivable from more basic principles. In fact, the rights defined in the Constitution are specifically identified as individual rights. The Supreme Court has somehow found a way to endorse group rights in the form of affirmative action, but has lately rethought that and, as George Will put it, "is backing out of the swamp."
Does Western Culture Deserve to be Dominant?
Extreme multiculturalists resent the dominance of European culture in the United States. It is claimed that it is necessary to teach minorities about their separate cultures to avoid damaging their self-esteem. Eurocentrism "is held to be the cause of poor academic performance" among minority children (Schlesinger 105). Furthermore, it is claimed that the ethnicity and gender of instructors must match that of the students: "'True diversity,' according to the faculty's Budget Committee at the University of California at Berkeley, requires that courses match the ethnic and gender identities of the professors" (Schlesinger 105).
Does Eurocentrism deserve its central position? Schlesinger answers emphatically in the affirmative:
Whatever the particular crimes of Europe, that continent is also the source - the unique source - of those liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and cultural freedom that constitute our most precious legacy and to which most of the world today aspires. These are European ideas, not Asian, nor African, nor Middle Eastern ideas, except by adoption. (Emphasis in original.) (127)
Multiculturalists seem blithely unaware of the simple fact that the ideals which form the basis of their own politics are Western ideals. These were, for the vast majority, learned in schools, schools which inculcated in them the ideals of Western civilization, schools which they now say must abandon the focus on Western civilization. They are sawing off the limb on which they sit.
Because of the opposition of multiculturalism to the idea of a common culture, the cultural mechanisms - conventions, customs, religions, manners - which hold people together come under stress. Conflict resolution comes increasingly under the formal mechanisms of politics and law, which are subject to increasing strain. Carried to the extreme, the mechanisms of politics and law are stressed to the breaking point, leading to ethnic strife, anarchy, genocide, and war. This condition is not unusual or rare; examples in history abound. In fact, it is the rule, and peace is the exception. Ethnic strife of varying degrees of virulence is occurring in numerous places in the world today. Schlesinger lists the following (written in 1992): Soviet Union, India, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Ireland, Belgium, Canada, Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Spain, Nigeria, Kenya, Angola, Trinidad, Guyana (130). To which, at this writing, can be added Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire.
Historian Page Smith put it this way: "The sociologist Louis Wirth makes the same point: 'A society is possible in the last analysis because the individuals in it carry around in their heads some sort of picture of that society.' Without such a picture, society begins to unravel."
On this matter Robert Bork in Slouching Towards Gomorrah said: "The United States now faces the question of how far a culture can stretch to accommodate more and more ethnic groups and religions and still remain recognizable as a culture rather than an agglomeration of cultures." (298). And: "So far as I know, no multiethnic society has ever been peaceful except when constrained by external force" (298).
In The Content of Our Character, Shelby Steele, black scholar at the Hoover Institution, addressed the problems of race in America in more direct terms and in greater depth, in the opinion of many, than any other writer. In this book, he argues that a focus on commonality is necessary: "Difference that does not rest on a clearly delineated foundation of commonality is not only inaccessible to those who are not part of the ethnic or racial group, but also antagonistic to them. Difference can enrich only the common ground" (148).
Richard Bernstein, a reporter for the New York Times, spent a year in the early 1990's investigating multiculturalism in schools, visiting many, mostly colleges and universities. The product of his effort, Dictatorship of Virtue published in 1994, is a devastating criticism of multiculturalism. No conservative, Bernstein nonetheless concluded that multiculturalism was extremely damaging to the nation and pulled no punches in saying so. An example of his sentiment can be seen in the following: "The misty-eyed belief that all cultures are equal in all things is just nonsense, an encouragement of cultures of failure, an abdication of the responsibility to think clearly about what immigrant and nonwhite children need to know in order to succeed" (172).
Conservatives contend that the ultimate conclusion of the extreme form of multiculturalism would be to transform the country into a collection of enclaves of different cultures who simply share the land. In other words, the United States would cease to exist.
Anderson, Walter Truett. The Truth About the Truth. New York: Putnam, 1995.
Bernstein, Richard. Dictatorship of Virtue. New York: Knopf, 1994.
Bork, Robert. Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Modern Liberalism and American Decline. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Fonte, John. "E Pluribus Plures." National Review, 5 May 1997: 51-52.
Glazer, Nathan. "In Defense of Multiculturalism." The New Republic. 2 September 1991. Rpt. in Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Boston: Bedford Books, 1996.
Glazer, Nathan. We Are All Multiculturalists Now. Cambridge: Harvard, 1997.
Ravitch, Diane. "A Culture in Common." Educational Leadership. December 1991/January 1992: 8-11.
Richburg, Keith. A Black Man Confronts Africa. New Republic/Basic, 1997.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Disuniting of America. New York: Norton, 1992.
Smith, Page. Killing the Spirit: Higher Education in America. New York: Viking, 1990.
Sowell, Thomas. "Return of the Native."Rev. of Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa by Keith Richburg. National Review. April 21, 1997: 74-75.
Steele, Shelby. The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
Will, George. The Leveling Wind. New York: Viking, 1994.
Wilson, James Q. The Moral Sense. New York: The Free Press, 1993.