Multiculturalism

"So let's be clear from the outset: culture and race have nothing to do with each other. There is no contradiction in the idea that Felix Mendelssohn was Jewish by race and German by culture -- or indeed that he was the most public-spirited representative of German culture in his day. Nor is there any contradiction in saying that a single person belongs to two cultures."

"And Wagner's repugnant essay on Judaism in music is one of the first instances of the lie that we have had to live through -- the lie that sees race and culture as the same idea, and which tells us that in demanding a measure of cultural uniformity, we are also affirming the dominance of a single race. Once we distinguish race and culture, the way is open to acknowledge that not all cultures are equally admirable, and that not all cultures can exist comfortably side-by-side. To deny this is to forgo the very possibility of moral judgment, and therefore to deny the fundamental experience of community. It is precisely this that has caused the multiculturalists to hesitate." 

"Over time immigrants can come to share these things with us: the experience of America bears ample witness to this. And they the more easily do so when they recognize that, in any meaningful sense of the word, our culture is also a multiculture, incorporating elements absorbed in ancient times from all around the Mediterranean basin and in modern times from the adventures of European traders and explorers across the world. But this kaleidoscopic culture is still one thing, with a set of inviolable principles at its core; and it is the source of social cohesion across Europe and America. Our culture allows for a great range of ways of life; it enables people to privatize their religion and their family customs, while still belonging to the public realm of open dealings and shared allegiance. For it defines that public realm in legal and territorial terms, and not in terms of creed or kinship."

So the question becomes, "what is culture really?" We see Scruton resisting multicultural decentering, but to what extent ought uni-culturalism be re-centered? Obviously there is something to be said for distinguishing between immoral and moral culture (toward keeping mine moral and keeping what is immoral of yours from poisioning mine), but in regards to the political movement to relax Western borders (which this article is directed at), what amount, or better yet which parts, of a person's culture do we label as bad and to be left at home? To be more specific, what does this say for the American immigration question? What parts of the culture to the south (holidays, language, chaeuvenism (?)) do we call unfit to be brought to America? Should the state resist inconvenient culture, costly culture, violent culture, mystical culture--what culture? In other words, when is the state responsible for accommodating and when is it jusitifed in allowing immigrants to fend entirely for themselves, or barring them from crossing in the first place? Is this an argument, ulitmately, for closing borders to all instances of cultural difference? Scruton has well undermined the multicultural fallacy, but seems to have offered little in the realm of policy.

The Triumph of the Humanities

Fish on the humanities exporting theory to the social and physical sciences:

"What this all suggests is that while we have been anguishing over the fate of the humanities, the humanities have been busily moving into, and even colonizing, the fields that were supposedly displacing them. In the ‘70s and the ‘80s the humanities exported theory to the social sciences and (with less influence) to the sciences; many disciplines saw a pitched battle between the new watchwords — perspective, contingency, dispersion, multi-vocality, intertextuality — and the traditional techniques of dispassionate observation, the collection of evidence, the drawing of warranted conclusions and the establishing of solid fact. Now the dust has settled and the invaded disciplines have incorporated much of what they resisted. Propositions that once seemed outlandish — all knowledge is mediated, even our certainties are socially constructed — are now routinely asserted in precincts where they were once feared as the harbingers of chaos and corrosive relativism.

One could say then that the humanities are the victors in the theory wars; nearly everyone now dances to their tune. But this conceptual triumph has not brought with it a proportionate share of resources or institutional support. Perhaps administrators still think of the humanities as the province of precious insights that offer little to those who are charged with the task of making sense of the world. Volumes like “GeoHumanities” tell a different story, and it is one that cannot be rehearsed too often."

Though academia/economies at large have adopted its tools and ideas, contemporary theory still has a reputation for having little to say about how the world works. you see it in the job market for humanities majors when they graduate. In school they are taught to be interdisciplinary, to think above and beyond constructions and recognize them for what they are, to think as profoundly as the world knows how, yet the economies they have to find jobs in demand narrow skills and learned functionalities. There is a disconnect between what a person knows and what a person can contribute.

The Future of Power by Joseph Nye Jr

On trends in modern international relations:

"In the 21st century, a smart foreign policy will combine the hard power of coercion and payment with the soft power of attraction and persuasion. It's no longer adequate to define a "great power" as a country able to prevail in war (in the words of the historian A.J.P. Taylor). Success depends not only on whose army wins but also on whose story wins. American political leaders and many scholars have not yet adjusted to this new reality. It is time that they do"

Parents keep child's gender secret - Parentcentral.ca

Is gender really constructed? Or this is a case of contemporary thought being stretched to its extreme?

“When the baby comes out, even the people who love you the most and know you so intimately, the first question they ask is, ‘Is it a girl or a boy?’” says Witterick, bouncing Storm, dressed in a red-fleece jumper, on her lap at the kitchen table. 

“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker. 

When Storm was born, the couple sent an email to friends and family: “We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...).”

That said, what can we expect of the postmodern parent? Very little, considering the nature of the parent/child relationship, which would seem very imposing and imperialist in the context of postmodern thought. At this point, when we're dealing with biology and child development and the purpose of family, I think universalist thinking breaks down. Hurts not helps.

The mother's response:

'Genderless' baby's mother responds to media frenzy - Parentcentral.ca

Are there natural human rights?--NYT Opinionator

I think the title here is misleading. The author is asking whether these rights exist politically, under the assumption that they most definitely exist a-politically. He's essentially trying to figure out what we do with people/nations who don't have the same vision of human rights we do.

"Revolutions are based upon complaints.  These complaints can arise from practical concerns, like having food at an affordable price, or from more theoretical or social concerns, such as being able to publicly speak one’s mind.  Both are grounded in an understanding of what people ought to be able to enjoy as citizens of a country.  This expectation of fundamental entitlements is what we talk about when we talk about human rights.  But whether or not every person on earth has certain rights just by virtue of being a person alive on the planet — a concept I will refer to here as natural human rights — is a question of some controversy.  In these times, when new questions of rights, complaints and subsequent conflicts seem to arise anew each week, it’s worth knowing where we stand on the matter."

A response I posted elsewhere:


According to this article, this question comes down to what we consider the best determinant of morality--the good of the group or the dictates of some higher, other-worldly set of principles. That said, doesn't the question "Are there natural human rights?" really seem just another way of asking if it's possible to get Muslims and Communists (and whatever other group-focused societies there are) to change their worldview to favor the set of inherent human rights we--the rest of the world-- are supposedly keen to? And if this has "political ramifications," aren't we assuming that if natural human rights actually do exist, it is within the capacity of a government (representing its citizens) to accurately define them? Wouldn't that be quite an assumption to make? Just look at the healthcare debacle in the US: if the entire country is divided over healthcare legislation purportedly written to preserve natural human rights of health and well-being, how could we hope to export any cohesive sense of "natural rights" east-ward? Any attempt would ultimately represent a very narrow, probably partisan perspective, which would then fail in its stated attempts at universality. In reality, governments are in the business of populations, statistics and widely regulating human behavior for the good of the group. Sounds like precisely the wrong sort of institution to be determining what individuals need and deserve. So I say, of course, natural human rights exist. Of course of course of course. Should a government, or anyone for that matter, be responsible for defining what they are for anyone but themselves? I say no. It's very presumptuous, and very American, to assume we know what people need better than they do.


For someone with certain convictions about human rights, a government or group of professors or anyone who wants to define what those rights are in a way that's meant to characterize the needs and desires of mankind is the last thing they'd want. What happens when rights-based morality is the minority and the concept of human rights is pushed to the legislative margin? I'd say leave government out of this.