Friday, March 29, AD 2024 2:40am

Multiculturalism Explained

You are on target Klavan on the Culture!  Knowledge of other cultures and their history is a great thing.  Multiculturalism, however, has become merely a mantra for those who wish to excuse bad behavior, here and abroad, if the malefactors can claim favored victim status bestowed by the forces of the Left.  Curiously, or pehaps not so curiously, it is usually embraced by political liberals, who are often notoriously intolerant towards domestic political opponents who have ideas that differ one iota from their own.

Respect for other cultures is not a license for moral indifference in the face of manifest evil.  The British, to their everlasting credit, banned the barbaric custom of Sati (Suttee), the burning of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, in India.  Charles Napier, the brother of William Napier whose History of the Peninsula War I am currently reading, when he was Governor-General of  Bombay, was approached by a delegation of men who protested the banning of Sati, saying that for them it was a cherished religious custom.  Napier said that he could understand that they had their customs and were fond of them.  He then went on:

 “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”

0 0 votes
Article Rating
5 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2011 8:51am

The British also wiped out the infamous Thug cult of heriditary murderers too. William Sleeman’s Thug or A Million Murders has the chilling and fascinating story of how one man with iron determination wiped out a intergenerational gang of cold blooded killers.

RR
RR
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2011 9:02am

The video got one thing right about multiculturalism. “No one’s really crazy enough to believe it.” And nobody does. Multiculturalism as presented in the video is a caricature. No defender of multiculturalism, would defend female circumcision. In fact, they are usually less tolerant of non-conforming morals (as opposed to the amoral aspects of cultures). They don’t tolerate rural gun cultures, traditional gender roles, or discrimination against homosexuals.

When critics talk about multiculturalism, they mean two things: Islam and ethnic diversity. Chinese immigrants don’t do suicide bombings. The threat of Islam as an invading culture is overblown to say the least. Their numbers in the West are just too miniscule and most of them are Westernized. The only way to reduce their influence any further would be to ban the religion. The rest of the criticism against multiculturalism isn’t about morals. It’s directed at Catholics and Eastern Orthodox of Mexican and Eastern European descent. Those who share the same morals. People don’t like foreigners taking jobs, buying out businesses, and talking in an incomprehensible language. It’s properly called xenophobia.

I don’t know why we should look to Europe for guidance on how to order society. Europe is naturally more xenophobic since they were once comprised of homogeneous nations. They’re experiencing what the US went through a century ago. Back then, the KKK was a bulwark against multiculturalism. Around 1920 was America’s “multiculturalism has failed” moment. We eventually got over it. Europe should learn from the US.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2011 11:34am

Now I get it.

Mr. Dalton, I’ve seen on-line defenses of thugee. They were “practicing their religion serving Ma Cali.” And, English rule was far worse.

The Raj also ended “suttee” the so-called religious custom where a dead man’s widow was emolated on the man’s funeral pyre. The Brit General, Napier, I think, was told that was the custom. His rejoinder, the Brits also have a custome. They hang men that burn to death women.

And, the Conquistadores, the most vilest white men since Creation, ended human sacrifice and brought Christ to the Americas.

I abruptly stopped making donations to a certain missionary order when its magazine editors apologized to native Americans for converting their ancestors from pagainism.

I know. I’m a bad person . . .

American Knight
American Knight
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2011 5:50pm

The problem with multiculuralism is the multi part. it isn’t true. ‘Multiculturalism’ is properly understood as materialism/socialism. It is better defined by what it isn’t, rather than what it is. It is not Christian. Anything else goes. Too simplistic? Ask yourself what is ‘tolerated’ and what is not tolerated. Homosexualism, abortion, paganism, atheism, plural marriage, perverse sex, drugs, jihadism, etc. all tolerated. Traditional family, Christianity (especially that orthodox Catholic stuff), European culture (from before the Enlightenment) and all its offshoots – not tolerated.

It seems pretty simple. Good things are bad and evil things are good. Never mind the objective definitions, I decide – it is the dictatorship of me, which becomes a Hobbesian war of all against all. Perhaps when he wrote that, he was not referring to the pre-historic natural state, but to the one we are building, or is that merely what’s left after we are done destroying? Hmm . . .

What is real multiculuralism? The Catholic Church. Have you seen how many Rites there are? How many different people are in the One Body? Even women and foreigners, not to mention those in other dimensions like Saints and perhaps other species, angels. The Church is trans-dimensional multiculturalism – it trumps plain old one dimensional materialist multiculturalism.

Discover more from The American Catholic

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Scroll to Top