Merkel and Wilders: fighting the good fight against multiculturalism
Angela Merkel isn’t perfect. What politician is? But she seems a bit more forthright than most heads of state these days. Not long ago, the German chancellor was taking Obama to task for his spend-happy approach to economics. Now she is being brutally honest about “multiculturalism,” saying that mangy euphemism had “failed utterly.”
No kidding.
I’d go Merkel one better and call multiculturalism “inherently reactionary.” But more of that in a moment.
Meanwhile, the times are indeed a-changing in Old Europe, where the populace appears to be awakening to the results of decades of unrestrained immigration from cultures with little or no intention of assimilating into their own. The French have banned the burqa, but nowhere is this new resistance so evident than the Netherlands, where the trial of their MP Geert Wilders is currently underway. In a surprising turn of events the prosecution in the trial called for Wilders to be acquitted of all charges against him, most of which stem from his outspoken opposition to radical Islam, indeed to the ideology of Islam itself.
Wilders’ partial victory — the trial isn’t over until the judges rule in early November — could so far be construed as a victory of free speech over multiculturalism. (As Bruce Bawer reminds us on this website, the European democracies have no First Amendment.) MC has always been a masquerade or polite social term for “cultural relativism,” the doctrine that asserts all cultures and ideologies are equal. Everything is relative.
I wouldn’t celebrate just yet. Merkel was right up there at the front of the mob that hounded Thilo Sarrazin from office at the Bundesbank for suggesting that Germany was destroying itself with immigration. She doesn’t get to be numbered among the angels for one anomalous speech.
More likely, she has seen that Sarrazin’s views are popular in Germany, and is trying to co-opt them for her own political advantage. The proof of the pudding, they say, is in the eating. Let’s wait and see.
that’s right, she is a political opportunist
Approval rates for Sarrazin’s assumptions were around 70%, she just had to jump on that train to sharpen her conservative cutting edge. Same goes for various other right wingers, Nazis included of course, who tend to use a more indiscriminate language, far from Sarrazin’s dry words. Let’s wait and see.
Don’t mention merkel and wilders in the same sentence. Wilders is an idealist who has to be guarded 24/7 and change his hotel daily because of islamic death threats. Merkel is an opportunist who just now fears that a real conservative party might arise and thus tacks to the left. She is the exact equivalent of what republicans call a “Republican in name only”. Basically they think that conservatives will vote for the “conservative” party CDU anyway, so they can move to the left to get more votes. Merkel is less conservative than the last chancellor schröder. He was part of the socialist party, but he made some significant changes to entitlements.
Just a month ago, merkel made sure that Thilo Sarrazin, a real critic of islamization of europe, gets fired from his job at the german fed just for speaking his mind.
I meant to write “tacks to the right”. By the way, merkel was a secretary for agitation and propaganda in the FDJ, the youth organization of the east german socialist party. She was very well connected during her time in the DDR, which might explain her socialist tendencies and shameless opportunism.
AnalogMan,
Merkel is trying to weave a path through a potential minefield. There are some real AttaTurk Turks in Germany who educate their daughters and appreciate the secular Germany. I think Merkel wants to help these people to become voices for integration within the Turkish community so she didn’t want the Sarrazin issue to get out of hand. Believe me, the Greens and leftists would have played the issue for all they could. They know just how to play the German guilt game. Merkel did get Turkey’s President Gul to appeal to German Turks to educate themselves. There is apparently a lot going on behind the scenes
Merkel’s CDU is not polling well these days; the Bavarian sister party CDU is not a reliable partner; and the other member of the coalition, Westerwelle’s FDP, is tanking. In addition the Greens are still scaring people with anti-nuclear energy protests and the current opposition to transforming the Stuttgart train station from a terminal to a through type. While it is true that there are financial issues with the latter project, the largest group of protesters seem to be worrying about cutting down trees. If you don’t like what Germany is doing now, consider the alternative. It isn’t pretty.
OMT, regarding Merkel’s response to Obamanomics, economists are predicting 3.5% growth this year and unemployment numbers are the lowest in 17 years (though I’m not sure how much underemployment plays a role here. Still, it is better to have part-time workers with hope than unemployment recipients with little hope.) Industry is searching for skilled labor, and the gov’t is trying to come up with a way to encourage immigration for qualified people while discouraging those who won’t integrate. I’m still waiting for a NYT frontpage headline saying Merkel was right and Obama was wrong.
What’s the problem? Just move the ‘Turkish community’ back to Turkey and everything’s okay.
Call me when they support Israel at the UN (including it’s mere legitimacy as a state) and defend their own Jewish citizenry.
As I understand it, Germany and Israel have long had good and warm relations. Although the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis undoubtedly killed millions of Jews (and non-Jews), it also led indirectly to the founding of the modern nation of Israel as Holocaust survivors tried to build a safe haven for themselves in their ancestral homeland. Germany began making large compensation payments to Israel even in the years immediately following World War II when parts of Germany were nothing but rubble and the money was desperately needed in Germany. This led to warm relations between the two countries. I expect that this will come as a surprise to people; it certainly did to me. Germany’s culpability in the Holocaust no doubt led to the low profile nature of the relationship.
I’m not familiar with Germany’s level of support for Israel at the UN. Germany may have succumbed to peer pressure from its EU neighbours and “gone with the flow” in condemning Israel for Zionism, just like the vast majority of the world’s countries. Or not.
As for defending their Jewish citizenry, they obviously didn’t do that during Hitler’s regime. But there remains a Jewish community in Germany to this day, including a particularly vibrant one in Berlin. I saw a feature on this just the other day. Hitler and his regime have been gone since 1945, 65 years ago, and a lot has changed in Germany in the intervening years.
Color me cynical I suppose. You are right about German Jews today and Berlin in particular. Then again, there’s Sweden and the continued ugliness in Malmo and of course England.
Oh well, I still salute Wilders and Merkel.
Sweden was never punished for its pro-Nazi “neutrality” during the war (over 22,000 Swedish volunteers served in the Waffen-SS); accordingly, antisemitism is open and accepted, nor is there any pushback against anti-Jewish violence by the Nazis’ allies and heirs, the Muslims.
I hate these politically correct morons who are trying to force us to live in a multicultural world where every religion and every custom and every lifestyle should be treated the same. No one culture is better than the other.
To people who believe that, I say YOU ARE A BUNCH OF DANGEROUS IDIOTS!!! Take a good, hard, look at pictures of a women being stoned to death in places like Iran or Afghanistan. Not all cultures ARE the same. Some are worse than others and some are simply reprehensible. There are head hunters still living in the jungles of New Guinea. Guess what? They are WRONG and their culture is NOT as good as ours. Sorry, but facts are facts. Sharia Law and the hideous, superstitious, homophobic, misogynistic morons who believe in that junk are NOT the same as us, they ARE worse than us, and a more civilized world should shun these people. Are we perfect? Certainly not. But we don’t stone women for adultery or hang gays (as they do in Iran). If you tried half the things you’re allowed to do under Sharia Law in the United States, you’d probably be arrested for assault or murder. Nope, we ARE better than they are and we should start saying it. We are the last best hope for humanity and our president should promote that, rather than constantly apologizing for it.
You got that right!
The most vocal supporters of this MC/CR “myth” (ie: gays, intellectuals, liberal Jews, media, criminals, urban elite, etc) will be the first to HANG under Sharia law.
…and you all know it’s true.
Libertyship’s candor is refreshing, no word mincing there.
After Shari’a comes to lower Manhattan, those wunnerful all-inclusive multiculturalists (Joy Behar comes to mind
) will protest to the guy holding the knife at their throat…
“Hey, wot’s going on ? I’m one of the GOOD infidels!”
The only good infidel is a dead infidel.
-M. Atta
As an American from a “multicultural” background, I would say you are dean-on…The pillar of Western civilization as we know it today, is indeed the culmination of human evolution in communal living. The value and rigths of a human has never been this elevated throughout the history of man kind..by no means it is perfect, far from it, but is further along the right path than any other attempts..I would actually dare to say the Biblical and Toratic roots of these societes have born the fruits that we enjoy today as manifested in ornaments like the US Constinution, the Universal Declaration fo Human Rights..what’s puzzling is all this self loathing by Western Leftist and programmed preference to anything ethnic, even if it is as draconian as Islamism and Sharia..this one sure beats me
Let us hope this is an indication the tide is about to change. This would be the ‘change I hope’ for
“I believe in nothing and therefore am tolerant of everything”
Would like to share my favorite essay on the subject of Cultural Marxism
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/02/cultural_marxism.html
Boy, does this stuff sound familiar.
The end product was Cultural Marxism, now known in the West as multiculturalism…augmented Cultural Marxism with Theodor Adorno’s idea of the ‘authoritarian personality.’ This concept is premised on the notion that Christianity, capitalism, and the traditional family create a character prone to racism and fascism. Thus, anyone who upholds America’s traditional moral values and institutions is both racist and fascist. By extension, if fascism and racism are endemic to America’s traditional culture, then everyone raised in the traditions of God, family, patriotism, gun ownership, or free markets is in need of psychological help.
A corresponding and diabolically crafted idea is political correctness. The strong suggestion here is that in order for one not to be thought of as racist or fascist, then one must not only be nonjudgmental but must also embrace the ‘new’ moral absolutes: diversity, choice, sensitivity, sexual orientation, and tolerance. Political correctness is a Machiavellian psychological ‘command and control’ device. Its purpose is the imposition of uniformity in thought, speech, and behavior.
At the merest hint of displeasure from the obedience-trainers, up goes the yellow flag of surrender upon which it is boldly written:
“I believe in nothing and am tolerant of everything!”
Multiculturalism has nothing to do with the Left. It originated in eighteenth century Germany, and its author was the theologian J. G. von Herder, a friend of Goethe’s. While Goethe is generally considered a great humanist (partly correct), Herder was reacting against the French philosophes of his time. I wrote about the promotion of multiculturalism in the U.S. (1916 and after) here: http://clarespark.com/2010/07/20/german-romantic-predecessors-to-multiculturalism/. You can also read my article about the politics of multiculturalism on History News Network, http://hnn.us/articles/4533.html.
MC was again promoted by social democratic elites in response to 1960s urban riots. The Left hates it, as the emphasis on “race” blots out “class consciousness.” I have made famous academics hysterical when I point this out.
I posted a new blog on multiculturalism today that takes on the false notion that MC assumes that all cultures are equal. See http://clarespark.com/2010/10/18/the-dialectic-of-multiculturalism-helvetius-herder-fichte/. These are source materials that Pajamas readers are not likely to find on their own.
So the country where the Islamization of Europe began is awakening to the unappeasable anti-Western freedom hating savages within its gates.
Click my name and read my latest piece “Is Pam Geller the New Meir Kahane” on my number one blog at townhall.com
it was only a matter of time, Europeans have a strong legacy of purging their undesirables
Wow. Good job. There is rationality out there somewhere.
The people who have lived on a daily basis with the wild protests in the streets, the rapes, the attacks on people, the burning of property and cars, the high criminial rates have for quite some time been on to the realities of Islam.
What they are now becoming awake to, is the poor quality of politicians they have elected. And the politicians have smelled this awakeing. So it is now, that some are trying to get an early start on ‘appearing’ to be on top of things; a kind of hummm…leading the way? However, the people know from much experience that they are not qualified to lead.
When one sees the street congested with muslims blocking all traffic, it is not so much a muslim problem, as it is a political problem. It is self evident that leadship is lacking.
The fact that the politicians are finally openly moaning about the mess they caused, does not mean they have developed leadership skills. They are still useless to the people as they are mere hand-wringers, more worried about perks and personal status than effectiveness.
The people need to find the Effective Ones in their ranks and put them into power. We already know what the present ones limitations are.
WATERWILLOWS,in two short paragraphs you have defined the problem,and then the solution,better than anyone who writes here on this issue.Thankyou,T.
Mark Steyn has called multiculturalism societal Stockholm Syndrome, and as usual, he is as correct as his phrasing is pungent.
A nation unwilling to recognize and defend its own culture will be swarmed under by those with greater cultural confidence and stronger cultural allegiance. It’s happening in Europe, with Muslim immigration. It’s happening here, with illegal aliens from Mexico and Latin America. It won’t stop of its own weight; we must stop it by force.
We have the force. Do we have the will to use it?
It will not be long before the Obama and his democrat regime starts arresting Americans and putting them on trial for Islamaphobia, a neo logism created by the American democrat Left. Americans are already seeing the effects of this policy. In Seattle Washington a Liberal cartonist for the newspaper has had to go into hiding because she dared to criticize the prophet and the American government is doing nothing aboutit; oh it did help her go underground into a witness protection program financed by herself.
Arresting Americans? Not likely. Islamophobia has obviously been designed as a mental disorder, so the sufferers will go to the lunatic asylum. There is a good Soviet precedent for doing it that way. Medication will be courtesy of ObamaCare.
Mr. Simon,
Your definition of multiculturalism is incomplete. it should read:
multiculturalism: “the doctrine that asserts all cultures and ideologies are equal” except the West which is always evil and always unequal to all others.
[...] Perhaps the most famous adherent of this view was the French philosopher Michel Foucault, who brought cultural relativism to a new level: [...]
I use Roger’s phrase as a referrence point only – the following is only a very general sketch of a far more complex and in flux process -
So, Europe, due to its intricate demography was always, avant-la- lettre, multicultural, with large, nationality-transcending polities containing the talents of their “diverse” subjects -
However, after the post-enlightenment and romanticism, we see there the apparition of philosophica trends favoring the cultural manifestations of smaller ethnic groups, i.e. the various small nations previously contained in the larger polities – it’s the post-Bonaparte age, and we see here Herder, Grimm-s, Humboldt, Michelet, etc, who saw the smaller nations as fit for, and being owed a place at the post-Vienna congress table – wasn’t that about the time when Zionism also matured?
From that point on, the apparition of all those nation states on the continent sort of responded to various populations’ yearning for self-determination, the Versailles treaty to the partition of Yugoslavia, growning or cheering, acknowledging the inevitability and legitimacy of this development –
Yet while the partition of Yugoslavia was rightly considered Europe’s last fragmentation episode, the multiculturalist ideology in Europe, despite its now destructive qualities, kept ticking around, promoted by useful idiots and by political interests, institutionalizing absurd cultural privileges for not that legitimate groups in the name of “diversity”, “multiculturalism” etc. –
As far as the “multiculturalism” term, it is Julia Kristeva who apparently is the official author of it, in some 1990-s philosophy paper published in France -
However, some years ago, I found in NYT a long piece by Kristeva about “multiculturalism”, piece in which she ACTUALLY was deploring the absurd and destructive manner the notion of “multiculturalism” had began to be politically used/ applied in politics in France and elsewhere -
Whether it was Julia Kristeva who coined the “multicultural” term under which so many political objectives are inflicted upon paralyzed nations, I don’t know – yet she deserves the credit for having the courage, years ago, to criticize this, apparently noble, yet destructively used concept -
PS: a fleeting thought: in Arizona, when the legislature passed the 1070, it also passed another bill aiming to correct the outlandish dimenssions the multicultural education had taken in the local schools –
Si, se puede -
Be aware that the prosecutors didn’t want to bring this case in the first place. The judges are infected with multiculti and they insisted on bringing the charges against Wilders. He is not out of the woods. The judges in the Dutch system, as in French and Spanish systems, are really prosecutors.
That is indeed true, Mike K. I will be interviewing Dutch novelist and filmmaker Leon De Winter on this subject later today for PJTV. Leon is friends with Wilders and his attorney and should have an interesting update. STay tuned.
It’s the Mullahs stupid. Make the Saudis take back their Wahabi Mullahs and tax the hell out of their Mosques which are fronts for hegemonic conquests rather than just places of worship. The Saudis conned the Bushes and they are conning the multicultural left. The Saudis need US backing to protect them from other Islamic nations. Pull the plug.
But MC and CR had much more in mind. They fused with the world of identity politics in a cocktail that is reactionary while pretending to be “progressive.”… MC became a kind of false religion in modern society that has been impermeable to criticism — hiding behind accusations of racism and the like, when, if anything, multiculturalism is itself racist in the sense that it seeks to divide us.
A central device of false religions is to purport to speak for the “oppressed”.
Multiculturalism, anthropogenic global warming, any buzz phrase with “justice” in the title (head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, has been touring around the US of late, babbling about “environmental justice”)…they’re all false flags, steppingstones for an agenda of resurrecting totalitarianism/utopianism.
Foucault was cheerleader for Ayatollah Khomeini and Walter Duranty failed to tell America the truth about Stalin. These men, looked upon by some as intellectual giants, might more accurately be characterized as self-serving poseurs, or, even, brain dead ideologues.
Anyway, utopianism is the end, lying is the means…
As Jean-François Revel sets forth in Last Exit to Utopia: The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era…
“How did the Leftist legions regroup after history delivered its fatal blow to the Soviet system? Simple…the Left retreated to the impregnable fortress of the Utopian ideal. After all, socialism incarnate was always vulnerable to criticism. Utopia, on the other hand, lies by definition beyond reproach. With the demise of the Soviet system, there is no longer a vast and flailing embodiment of their vision, and Utopia’s haughty champions can again rage boundlessly.”
The word “utopia” in Greek means “no where”. Just thought people may be interested to know that the real meaning of “utopia” is that there is no such thing as an “ideal society”.
Remember that great School House Rock video, the Great American Melting Pot?
http://www.bluecollarphilosophy.com/2010/10/merkel-multiculturalism-and-melting-pot.html
The fundamental problem with multiculturalism is that it is advancing a moral and cultural relativism in the West. If no culture’s truth claims are objective and debatable, then the values that are inherent in that culture because of this or that truth claim cannot be said to be right or wrong. This is why the Liberal appeasement of Sharia Law in the West is so dangerous, since all moral claims are equally valid there is no way to say the Islamic practice of honor killing is wrong. If it is right within that culture it is right even if members of that culture live in the West having their own subculture.
Liberalism through multiculturalism has destroyed the idea that Western cultures can be melting pots. No longer do immigrants come to America and seek to become American, but they seek to “X-American”. They identify with the beliefs and values of their culture and often times rejecting the values of the society in which they live, even if that means rejecting Democratic ideas of government.
When you have competing values that are deemed relative to one’s culture, the only way to ensure those values are seen as true is to enforce them on the rest of the population. Power becomes a means to an end and the Democrat Party has mastered the ability to promise various groups. with mutually exclusive interests, that the by supporting Democrats their “truth” will be realized. Their loyalties are with their culture and the Democrats, not America and the freedoms we have.
Dear Roger,
Love your view on things. But sometimes assumptions are made about Europe that are not totally true. One of those is that in Europe there is no First Amendment. Does this mean that there is no Freedom of Expression? Article 5 of the German Constitution establishes the right to free expression in owrd, letter or image, respecting the limits of the law, protection of youth and protection of honor. Article 20 of the Spanish Constitution also states that everybody has a right to express himself freely.
So what is meant with Europe has no First Amendment?
“(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed.
There shall be no censorship.”
But the large print giveth, and the fine print taketh away:
“(2) These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws”
In other words, you are free to express any non-prohibited opinion (which of course excludes anything the State declares to be “hate speech”). Sort of like “freedom of religion” in Saudi Arabia.
Dear Behemond,
do you really believe that there is no fine print everywhere concerning freedom of speech?
Politically correct speech was invented in US campus. Didn’t one of the US Supremes recently say that you have to consider the effect your speech has on the recipient, thereby denying the whole concept of free speech. Did not a School Comission recently forbid the wearing of an American Flag by a student in order not to disturb mexican students.
The problem is not the general principles of the law which are quite similar all over the Western world, but that the State, in all its forms, is trying to limit all these rights also all over the Western world.
Constitutions are fine, but Power has the same instincts everywhere. Maybe the American Society is stronger (still) to resist it, but the tendencies are also there to see
Sorry, I meant of course Bohemond
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/publicationdisplay.aspx?id=11762&terms=multiculturalism
Quote from report of the Fraser Institute (Canadian thinktank)):
Most Canadians find little difficulty in supporting the principle that people of different religious, ethnic, and racial backgrounds should be treated as equal and valued members of our society. Official multiculturalism policy has, however, gone well beyond this, and has in many respects actively encouraged newcomers to preserve the national identities they possessed before coming to Canada and to regard themselves first and foremost as members of their distinct ethnic communities.
As a result, newcomers often hang on to old loyalties and hostilities brought with them from their former homelands. Such policies have been fostered in an atmosphere in which ethnic identity is often treated as virtually sacrosanct. Canadian authorities have been reluctant to look too closely into whether activities are taking place within ethnic communities that are in conflict with Canadian interests and values.
Multiculturalism is the hammer wielded by the left to break the fabric of our American culture.
Divide and conquer – where have I heard that line before?
Add to that the other hammers they use to help break the fabric we’ve taken 200+ years to weave – welfare that fractures the family – environmental ‘issues’ (AGW etc) real or imagined that send American jobs overseas – aided and abetted by so-called ‘free trade’ agreements that are a sham and a disgrace that allows our trading partners to dump whatever they wish on us tariff free. The same goods we make and sell to them are very often taxed heavily.
Our culture – our way of life and standard of living – the envy of the world – are under attack. Aided and abetted by the left – cultures like islam – and America haters like George Soros (and his moron plant in the White House) are pulling out all the stops to turn this country into a ‘benign’ and apologetic multicultural paradise. Their goals are in sight if only we Americans will cooperate. That can only happen if we allow Obama and his cohorts to remain in office. Voting democrats and rinos out of office in Nov 2nd will be the start – not the end of this war. We need to hound these idiots until the last vestiges of multiculturalism is wiped out.
Lets get rid of political correctness while we’re at it.
Regarding Multiculturalism, the same negatives apply to the “Diversity” celebration in the U.S. What a joke.
Lets not forget Sarkozy who, in typical French fashion, facing the massive influx of Jihadis , flexed his muscles and threw out the Gypsies.
The Slow Death of Multiculturalism
It’s rare, very rare, for a world leader to intentionally expose himself or herself to the slings and arrows of ingrained thought and denounce a feature of that thought as something that has “utterly failed.” It’s the antithesis of political correctness yet German Chancellor Angela Merkel has chosen that rocky and treacherous path in her admission that the international social experiment known as multiculturalism is a total failure.
Multiculturalism was a grand social experiment doomed to failure by a naïveté or by a conscious awareness that it wouldn’t work because it couldn’t work.
The social fad of multiculturalism is defined by the Columbia Encyclopedia as “cultural pluralism, a term describing the coexistence of many cultures in a locality, without any one culture dominating the region. By making the broadest range of human differences acceptable to the largest number of people, multiculturalism seeks to overcome racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination.”
Wikipedia tweaks that definition by adding, “Multiculturalism is the acceptance or promotion of multiple ethnic cultures, . . . multiculturalists advocate extending equitable status to distinct ethnic and religious groups without promoting any specific ethnic, religious, and/or cultural community values as central. The policy of multiculturalism is often contrasted with the concepts assimilationism and social integration. Multiculturalism is seen by its supporters as a fairer system that allows people to truly express who they are within.”
Isn’t multiculturalism really a variation on the Biblical tale of the Tower of Babel? And won’t it inevitably lead to a similar fate?
Both definitions may instill warm, fuzzy feelings but both omit essential factors, notably nationalism, patriotism and realism.
Fully cognizant of those factors but committed to imposing multiculturalism on the hoi polloi anyway,. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2249)
“In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. …We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
Merkel and other european leaders are finally becoming concerned because they percieve that their Muslim population is increasing to the point where it may gain the balance of power, and that it is completely intractable and resistant to assimilation and increasingly assertive.
The problem that multi-culturists ignore is: how can you achieve an open culture when one major group adheres to doctrinaire intolerance? The “moderate” intolerant will always grovel to the obsessively agggressive element in their faith, out of fear of its terroristist practices.
Your second paragraph says it all. I wrote a 700 page disserattion on the topic and in pithy fashion, you have summed it up just as well.
MC has always been a masquerade or polite social term for “cultural relativism,” the doctrine that asserts all cultures and ideologies are equal. Everything is relative.
Nonsense. Cultural relativism doesn’t exist and never did other than in the minds of the ignorant. The entire concept is merely the idea that cultures other than your own have their own POV for their own reasons. Sometimes the “other” has a POV that is more accurate than what you were taught, e.g. AmerIndian recollections of battles etc where the glorious US Cavalry was targeting women and children. That doesn’t excuse AmerIndian atrocities, nor does it hold that the US Cavalry is inherently evil. Rather, it’s the mechanism by which we can clearly see two sides to a story.
A thought experiment for “cultural relativism” is as follows: imagine the AmerIndians had the technology and the white settlers were neolithic level nomads from across the sea. Being white or having a middle eastern religion doesn’t make the whites either right or better. Not having a middle eastern religion or being non-white doesn’t make the AmerIndians lesser.
“Cultural Relativists” would claim that the whites won the AmerInd conflict due to technology, not inherent cultural superiority based on religion or belief. They would be correct.
It’s clear to everyone that not all cultures are equal. The whites in the AmerInd conflict had technology due to a science tradition (Greeks in particular.) The problem we have discussing this is that there are so many idiotic claims that the technology is/was a result of christian belief. As always the elephant in the room causing *all* of the problems re defining things is christianity’s intertwining with pre-existing western tradition and getting it disentangled.
Nothing is quite as instructive as ignorance in action. Thank you for providing us a fine example, G.L.
Violent conflicts are always expressions of multiple factors, but the resolution of a violent conflict almost always goes to the side with the more advanced, more developed economy. In this connection, cultural factors are frequently decisive.
The critical difference culturally between the European settlers and the Amerinds – I despise the term “native American” and anyone who uses it – was that the Europeans believed in private property in land. With only one exception, Amerinds of the colonial period did not. But without private property in land, one cannot develop an industrial economy – and it’s an industrial economy that gave the colonists their superiority in firearms.
To see the conflict between the colonists and the Amerinds strictly in technological terms is to confuse cause and effect, and thus to miss that critical distinction. Ironically, the European belief in private real property was what triggered the bulk of the earliest conflicts: the Amerinds saw no reason not to trespass, not to pursue and take game they found on settled, cultivated land, and so forth. Given the more aggressive, more violent tenor of the Amerind cultures of that era, had the colonists practiced “cultural relativism” toward the Amerinds, passively permitting their many trespasses and infringements on settled land, we’d probably be ruled by the Cherokees today.
The critical difference culturally between the European settlers and the Amerinds – I despise the term “native American” and anyone who uses it – was that the Europeans believed in private property in land.
Oh, really. (And *I’m* the ignorant one?)
The first European explorers would travel the coasts at night looking at the campfires looking for suitable landing points and the natives would just as often run them off as welcome them (depending on curiosity or advanced warnings.)
The entire kerfluffle with Jamestown and Powhatan( sp?) was over the natives reckoning that the Euro settlers having no right to THEIR LAND.
And so on (rinse, lather, repeat.)
Try a different cultural excuse. There is none. The idea that the european settlers were “better” or “more culturally suited” due to how they viewed land ownership is simple bullpuckey. They had better technology. End of story.
I’ve stopped referring to people like Foucault as “postmodernists” and have started to call them “pre-Islamists.” It seems more accurate because what is the actual effect of what they have done and are still doing? It is to make the West ripe for an Islamic takeover.
Also, what’s pathetic about the multiculturalists, at least in this country, is that they aren’t as multicultural as they think they are. As I pointed out in my book “Soccer, the Left, and the Farce of Multiculturalism” — available at Amazon.com — progressives in this country have seldom paid much attention to foreign sports. It has actually been people in the middle and on the right who have promoted soccer.
And it’s not as though Latino music is real big with them, either, or else I’d be hearing it on regular radio stations and not just the Spanish-language ones.
Modern “multi-culturalism” is a further improvement on segregation and “separate but equal” with a bit more emphasis on the “equal” part and a different take on “separate”. Ultimately it’s still an immature take on diversity and integration and it results in a whole mess of problems (fewer than outright segregation to be sure, but more than even brain-dead assimilation).
If you follow German politics at all, you know Merkel is mostly just someone who tries to please everyone because she has only one priority, staying in power. In the same speech she confirmed that “Islam belongs to Germany” and that Germany will require more immigration. In other words, she speaks out of both sides of her mouth.
The CDU (Merkel’s party) answer to the problems of immigration and Islam is to “integrate” Islam into the German system (rather than integrating muslims by getting them to forget as much of that religion as possible), a position based on the same set of naive views of Islamic society and culture that led the Bush administration to embrace groups like CAIR after 9/11.
It’s an insult to Wilders to mention Merkel along with him. A member of Berlin’s legislative assembly was expelled from the CDU caucus in that body simply because he invited Wilders to speak at an event. A CDU mayor of a Western German town declared Wilders unwelcome in her community. If Merkel and others in her party now seem to pay lip service to some of the views held by Wilders and Sarrazin (without acknowledging them at all as being legitimate voices by the way) then it’s because this whole debate, coupled with a strong general anti-government sentiment, for the first time has created a genuine threat of an upstart right-wing party.
Mr. Simon, it’s quite clever of you to mention the gag reflex triggered by the word “crusade” in the last sentence of your essay. But, since frank talk is the central topic, let’s remember, of all the crusades, what triggered the first one: It was the massacre of thousands of Christians pilgrims in Jerusalem in the early 11th century, a striking example of what jihad can do when inadequately opposed. It is easy for today’s fast talkers to characterize the crusades as “an overreaction”, which is a heck of a way to avoid talking about the “action” in the first place, which was none other than good old jihad, still as virulent today as it was some 10 centuries ago!
In this light, the courageaous testimonies of Wilders and Merkel stand as distant echoes of the spirit that motivated the crusades. Hopefully, the process in our times will be less graphic (whoops, I almost forgot that the famous cartoons were “graphics”) and less kinetic. The first victory will be the eradication of the shameful designer euphemisms, such as “multiculturalism”, crafted to hide the cowardice of the present state western popular culture. We are still stupidly babbling (whoops, don’t you dare thinking about Babylon!) about immigration whereas the real matter of concern is assimilation. We will be unable to ask the Muslim immigrants among us to respect our values until we restore our own self-respect for the great accomplishments of the West in the first place.
Hopefully, Folks like Wafa Sultan, Mark Steyn, Daniel Pipes, Geert Wilders, Andrea Merkel and many others of lesser profile are leading the way (whoops, I almost typed the word “crusade” myself…), and we will proceed to properly affirm our well deserved cultural pride, so the Muslims will in turn have to get on with the huge task of domesticating their own demons, if the accomplishments of the enlightenment are to survive. To muster the energy to proceed, we just need to contemplate the alternative, which is simply a return to the dark ages, which our returning combatants can also educate us about. Who are we, to be afraid of words!
A word about Relativism.
Thought the cultural and moral sense of the idea might be older, it no doubt gained strength after the Theory of Relativity of A. Einstein.
Interestingly, the point that Einstein wanted to make in his theory was not that things are different or alike depending on where you were standing to observe them; his point was that the laws of nature, as well as the speed of light, were always and absolutely the same, no matter where you were standing to observe them.
If we wanted to apply the essential idea of the Theory of Relativity to culture or morals we would have to say that there are cultural and moral principles or values that are the same no matter in which culture you stand to observe them.
My wife once taught at a small business college where the majority of students stated that all cultures were “equal and good”. My wife then asked them if they considered the former southern plantation culture “good”. Much sputtering ensued.
Merkel just slandered Wilders last week.
Most on this thread werent fooled, though.
It is good that mainstream party leaders are miming some of the ideas, even if they are disingenuous. Movement in the right direction, making this discussion part of the mainstream, making it acceptable to speak freely on these issues, hopefully ending persecution and prosecution of those who speak their minds about these pressing issues. Wilders and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff are before Star Chambers prosecuting Thougth Crimes (Hate Speech Laws) currently, there are others as well.
Too late EUROFOOLS! By the time Europe finally takes effective steps to control,reduce,or stop its Islamization, the Iranians will force them to continue their suicide-by-multiculturalism by threatening to unleash their nukes on the continent.An appeasing disarmed Europe , will then cringe and surrender.To hell with them!