Given the ridiculous rantings of some about how bad multiculturalism is, I was wondering what most of you think. Should cultures seek uniformity rather than diversity, and should the ‘salad bowl’ of cultures like the US be replaced with Wonder Bread? :homer:
Multiculturalism is not about uniformity (monoculturalism), but about understanding the workings of other cultures. Multiculturalism as a study is really about trying to understand what defines different cultures, not about getting them to adapt to any prescribed 'solution."
As part of graduate studies in psychology (or any clinical programme working with people in a client/clinician setting) multicultural studies are required. Because everyone has his/her own cultural and individual biases, it is necessary for one to be able to recognise his/her own limitations and to work toward an open approach that allows for acceptance and understanding of others’ differences.
Answer this:
How many non-Westerners can you add to a Western society before it ceases to be a Western Society? How many people who don’t understand the notions of rule of law and consent of the governed can you mix into a Western Society before it collapses?
As cultures change over time, it is guaranteed to happen that Western society will much different from what we know today to be Western society. Much like Western society was 100 years ago, it is not the same culture that exists now.
The East is adopting many of the values and traditions of Western society as the West is adopting those of the East. Things change, cultures will change.
It’s possible that the theory of all the world’s cultures melding into one big melting pot with minor geographically-defined differences, yet ultimately uniform, is possible. That doesn’t, however, reduce the value of attempting to come to an understanding of the differences and similarities that span the current world cultures.
in Germany we have many discussion about this. I have noticed night-long battles around the “muticultural society”, but nobody has ever given me a definition. So what does it mean?
I can think of two things:
a) A is living in country Farawaymania. If Farawaymania, being multicultural, is respecting him to be different and is not disturbing him in having his privacy and he can meet others of his kind to exercise his culture - but only within the laws Farawaymania -, then this is something good.
b) A is living in Farawaymania, but whenever A’s believes conflict with Farawaymania’s laws, the Farawaymanians will respect that and let him do, because they are multicultural. Moreover, they will start to change laws for A, so he feels more confortable.
a) I like, (b) is bullshit.
Example: radical muslim in Germany, locking up his daughters, does not let them go to some school lessons because they are supposed to be “unislamic”. Kidnapping his daugther (let’s say over 18) to back home against her will, when she is behaving too much like the Germans.
So far we had been accepting such things in Germany, now there is a discussion to go back to (a).
USA is a fascinating example of (a). Foreigners can exercise their own culture … within the confines of the law. At least that is my impression as a non-american.
Great post, Noodleman.
[quote=“bob_honest”]
USA is a fascinating example of (a). Foreigners can exercise their own culture … within the confines of the law. At least that is my impression as a non-American.[/quote]
The United States is comprised of many cultures, however the dominant culture is, like you say, not at all accepting of others. It’s run by extremist religious fanatics who refuse to accept change or anything that differs from their close-minded views and opinions.
Even within my culture, as one of the dominant class (middle class, Caucasian), my personal beliefs are not recognised by the ruling class. Being Buddhist, agnostic, accepting of bi- and homo-sexual lifestyles, vegetarian, and one who votes for neither of the two (supposedly two, at least) political parties, I don’t fit into mainstream society here.
When I refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in high school because I don’t believe in God, I was told that I could sit in the hall. When refusing to serve jury duty because I don’t agree with the judicial system (especially capitol punishment) I nearly faced going to jail. Being non-Christian, not observing Christmas and other Christian holdidays, I’m often given shit for. Speaking out against Thanksgiving because it is hidden that the very people who made this holiday slaughtered the entire tribe of natives just days afterward, I’m moreso labelled. Being arrested for peaceful protesting, having my civil rights violated, exercising my rights guaranteed by this country, I was flushed through the system and marked as unpatriotic, a criminal, for standing up for what I believe to be fair and just.
Honestly, there is no acceptance of anything that deviates from what the Man decides is right, for people born on this soil and not.
Actually, I agree that your comments were a bit immature.
The US constitution does protect your rights. (Maybe not perfectly, but better than most other countries.) Nevertheless, in return it does require some duties and obligations from its citizens, too. Jury duty is one of those obligations.
The US does allow people a lot of freedom to choose their own way of life. Some may criticise you, but that is not the fault of the system. And you don’t get to completely pick and choose what you are willing to do.
Being judged by a jury of your peers is not a convenience for you as a jury member. In fact, it is an inconvenience for you. It is a convenience for the defendant - it is his right. And by refusing to serve, you are not standing up for your own rights as much as you are standing AGAINST others’ rights and for your own convenience.
I agree with what you have said, and have no problems with this process. My problem lies with the fact that I am expected to uphold values that go against my own morals, possibly leading to murdering a fellow human being. I agree that being judged by one’s peers as done in the U.S. judicial system is a good system, however I cannot do something asked of me that could lead to something I stand against morally against (the death penalty, for example).
I agree that by living within a country you must adhere to its laws. If you want to change the system, you must do so through political channels or, if a government no longer represents the majority and has become oppressive, by (yikes) revolution. Stating the Pledge of Allegiance is not required but jury duty is. Although civil disobedience as stated by Thoreaux is understandable in some cases, those unwilling to compromise really should find a country better suited to their expectations.
Being a multicultural society, the US has had its ups and downs accepting and integrating other cultures, and it is precisely our ability to accept and redefine what American culture is that makes it so dynamic. There are many things, however, that make me and others American (i.e. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Thanksgiving, tolerance of other religions and beliefs, etc.) that still hold sway. I know many Muslim Americans who are far more democratically-minded than many Democrats and Republicans. Being against multiculturalism seems to imply that American culture is monolithic and excluding of new cultural influences. Any culture that walls itself off (a la post-Tang China) is unable to evolve and thus stagnant. The idiots who rant about how ‘them damn Latinos’ and others who contribute to and help redefine the US are thus against US’ interests as a culture and, in many senses, anti-American.
I agree, and do my best to abide by the law, including observing posted speed limits (when I do drive anymore, that is). And I acknowledge the difference between refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and refusing to do jury duty. However, I feel my religious and moral beliefs and values stand as valid as my duty to serve my country when called upon.
During this particular instance, I spoke with someone at the court office and stated my hesitation, based solely on my religious beliefs and adherence to those values. Had they told me that I would not be asked to see a case involving any of these things I’ve outlined, I would served my time without hesitation. But because they were unwilling to give me any information, and therefore refusing to accept my request for absence, I had to do what I felt was best for upholding my own beliefs. If asked to try a case for something in which the penalty did not offend my beliefs, I would have had no reason to ask to be excused.
This has to be one of the most fucking stupid statements I have EVER seen anyone make.
How could YOUR serving on a jury lead to the death penalty, if you oppose the death penalty? Verdicts of death have to be unanimous in every state that I am aware of, and are separate from the guilt-vs-innocence verdict (penalty phase of the trial). Moreover, the Supreme Court’s decision a year or two ago forces all death-penalty verdicts to be in the hands of the jury.
The result is that the only possibility of your serving on a jury would be to prevent someone from being sentenced to death.
However, odds are you would be removed from the jury pool of any death-penalty case because you would certainly be asked during selection whether you could return such a verdict. By simply stating “no”, you would be excluded and sent to sit on a jury about a traffic accident or home burglary.
Finally, there is the simple concept of Jury Nullification, which is your legal right (despite judges’ instructions to the contrary) and which has saved several people from unfair verdicts (as well as saving some truly hideously guilty people from what should have been appropriate punishment).
What it all boils down to is, calling you a weasel is an insult to weasels everywhere.
Mapo, I am not up on all the specifics pertaining to jury duty and the selection process, so forgive my ignorance. I’m also not certain about there needing to be a unanimous decision before one is given the death penalty, but it seems you know far more about the process than I.
Seeing as this was the only time I was called to duty, and despite my lack of knowledge into these specifics, I was eventually granted dismissal. However, I’ll be certain to properly educate myself on these topics before making such a decision again.
Perhaps there is something in the water there that has turned everyone into badgers (and I take no offense to your comments), because I’ve thought that you were much nicer in the past and don’t understand your lashing out at me for something I’m obviously not educated in. Being ignorant in a subject is something we’re all guilty of, but it’s not reason for being insulted. Thanks for setting things straight. I’ll have to read up some on it before I’m summoned again.
It is your responsibilty as a citizen to educate yourself to the rights that you have as well as your obligations. How about reading up on that today?
Now, back to multi culti. Yes, it is fine and good to understand other cultures but is it more important to teach more about those cultures than we do about classical western thinkers that have resulted in our own democratic institutions and laws today? Is it more important to understand African bark masks and Arab tiles than Plato, Aristotle or Cicero? Just curious. And how many people even read the Federalist Papers anymore? Why not?
So it is not a question of understanding and learning to appreciate other cultures. It is a problem of having to choose between mutually incompatible values. Shall we allow female genital mutilation in the US? Should we allow women to be stoned according to Islamic Law? Should we disenfranchise women of the right to vote? Shall we kill homosexuals? Shall we enslave certain Black groups or allow Blacks from the Sudan of Arab descent to own Blacks from the southern Part of Sudan?
That is more the issue. We can all love and admire other cultures and certain aspects of them have enriched America to a huge extent but what about the underlying laws, values, principles, and do we teach the next generation to appreciate those values that we believe have made our nation great or do we teach Nigerian village customs and Bolivian peasant cultural traditions first?
I do think that this is an important question.
The amount of diversity is a constant; only the type can be manipulated. If the U.S. got rid of all non-whites and non-Christians, the white Christian population would have more opportunity to celebrate its own internal diversity.On the other hand, if we add a hundred more races or religions or whatever, they would coalesce into more or less the same sort of cluster that we have now, except for differences arising from their different innate capabilities (such as IQ).
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Yes, it is my responsibility, and I’ve acknowledged that and plan to educate myself on these things. Despite my ignorance in such matters, it is not intentional to be so and I plan to expand upon my limited knowledge of these issues.
[quote=“fred smith”]Yes, it is fine and good to understand other cultures but is it more important to teach more about those cultures than we do about classical western thinkers that have resulted in our own democratic institutions and laws today? Is it more important to understand African bark masks and Arab tiles than Plato, Aristotle or Cicero? Just curious. And how many people even read the Federalist Papers anymore? Why not?
So it is not a question of understanding and learning to appreciate other cultures. It is a problem of having to choose between mutually incompatible values. Shall we allow female genital mutilation in the US? Should we allow women to be stoned according to Islamic Law? Should we disenfranchise women of the right to vote? Shall we kill homosexuals? Shall we enslave certain Black groups or allow Blacks from the Sudan of Arab descent to own Blacks from the southern Part of Sudan?
That is more the issue. We can all love and admire other cultures and certain aspects of them have enriched America to a huge extent but what about the underlying laws, values, principles, and do we teach the next generation to appreciate those values that we believe have made our nation great or do we teach Nigerian village customs and Bolivian peasant cultural traditions first?[/quote]
Wow, Fred, you raise some very good questions. My knowledge on multiculturalism is limited to its use within the field of clinical settings such as counselling, so I don’t have readily available answers to your questions. At the moment I think it would be good for us to do our best to educate on as much as possible, giving equal share to our own as well as other cultures, but I know it wouldn’t be possible to fit them all into the framework of our current education system. I’ll have to spend some time thinking about your questions as they’re great. Thanks for sharing. 
I don’t think I’ve ever seen multiculturalism as meaning immigrants would be allowed to run their enclaves according to their own laws, thereby challenging the authority of the government. That’s why there is something called citizenship. Your criticism of multiculturalism seems rooted in contempt for other cultures (studying ‘African bark masks’, etc.) and celebrating an ethnocentric ‘us-vs.-them’ view of the world. I think in general the humanities need to be better emphasized in school, including world cultures (in my school we only had to study 1 year of world history). When students aren’t exposed to the wide panorama of world history and other perspectives, they are prone to become Republicans. 
The kids already have to read all the important documents that are the basis of our country, and it’s important to know our roots. Our culture, however, is an amalgamation of cultural practices united by those beliefs, and by understanding the world we become more tolerant, more understanding, and what I would call better Americans.
Promoting a so-called strictly pro-Western belief system as the best and only way of understanding and dealing with the world is ridiculous. At no time in history were any Western cultures shut off from international influences. Our US Constitution itself was very likely influenced by the Iroquois’ Leagues principles of governance, an idea I expect Fred and others to wholeheartedly reject because this would imply that everything great is not rooted in Western traditions.
This discussion just keeps getting better. Thanks, sbmoor. :bravo:
Interesting sbmoor but far off the mark as usual. The fact is that within the educational institutions and powers that be in America, the trend is toward emphasizing an interest in other cultures which are celebrated for their qualities while White Western society is severely criticized for every manner of infractions such as slavery. Yup. It existed in the West but we were the only ones to actually end it and outlaw it. So tell me how emphasizing those cultures is actually going to make our society stronger when the very benefits that we enjoy as American citizens came not from a variety of cultures but specifically from JudaeoChristian traditions? Otherwise, where are these other democracies? Where is this respect for and enfranchisement of women? Where are the gay rights? Where is the universal education? Where is the rule of law society? Where is the democracy? Where is the enshrining of constitutional guarantees and bills of human rights except for in the West and in societies that have moved to embrace these ideals. Hell, don’t even call them Western, but do stick with the constitutional rule of law etc etc. and I will have no problem with that. Does this mean we have learned nothing and can learn nothing from other cultures? Most emphatically not but we should remember that studying African bark masks may deliver less tangible benefits to our society than understanding that inability to uphold rule of law in African nations and lack of individual rights has resulted in societies that are unable to deliver the same quality of life and standard of living that ours is.
Ironically, my appreciation and espousement of Western (so named here) values increased proportionally with my time OUT of the States and given my increased exposure to other countries and cultures. Now, just how would you explain that?