By Thomas Sowell
Friday, March 15, 2013
Among the many irrational ideas about racial and ethnic
groups that have polarized societies over the centuries and around the world,
few have been more irrational and counterproductive than the current dogmas of
multiculturalism.
Intellectuals who imagine that they are helping racial or
ethnic groups that lag behind by redefining their lags out of existence with
multicultural rhetoric are in fact leading them into a blind alley.
Multiculturalism is a tempting quick fix for groups that
lag by simply pronouncing their cultures to be equal, or "equally
valid," in some vague and lofty sense. Cultural features are just
different, not better or worse, according to this dogma.
Yet the borrowing of particular features from other
cultures -- such as Arabic numerals that replaced Roman numerals, even in
Western cultures that derived from Rome -- implies that some features are not
simply different but better, including numbers. Some of the most advanced
cultures in history have borrowed from other cultures, because no given
collection of human beings has created the best answers to all the questions of
life.
Nevertheless, since multiculturalists see all cultures as
equal or "equally valid," they see no justification for schools to
insist that black children learn standard English, for example. Instead, each
group is encouraged to cling to its own culture and to take pride in its own
past glories, real or imaginary.
In other words, members of minority groups that lag
educationally, economically or otherwise are to continue to behave in the
future as they have in the past -- and, if they do not get the same outcomes as
others, it is society's fault. That is the bottom line message of
multiculturalism.
George Orwell once said that some ideas are so foolish
that only an intellectual could believe them. Multiculturalism is one of those
ideas. The intelligentsia burst into indignation or outrage at "gaps"
or "disparities" in educational, economic or other outcomes -- and
denounce any cultural explanation of these group differences as "blaming
the victim."
There is no question that some races or whole nations
have been victimized by others, any more than there is any question that
cancers can cause death. But that is very different from saying that deaths can
automatically be blamed on cancer. You might think that intellectuals could
make that distinction. But many do not.
Yet intellectuals see themselves as friends, allies and
defenders of racial minorities, even as they paint them into a corner of
cultural stagnation. This allows the intelligentsia to flatter themselves that
they are on the side of the angels against the forces of evil that are
conspiring to keep minorities down.
When they cannot come up with hard evidence in any
particular case to support this theory today, that just proves to the
intelligentsia how fiendishly clever and covert these pervasive efforts to hold
down minorities are.
Why people with high levels of mental skills and
rhetorical talents would tie themselves into knots with such reasoning is a
mystery. Perhaps it is just that they cannot give up a social vision that is so
flattering to themselves, despite how detrimental it may be to the people they
claim to be helping.
Multiculturalism, like the caste system, paints people
into the corner where they happened to have been born. But at least the caste
system does not claim to benefit those at the bottom.
Multiculturalism not only serves the ego interests of
intellectuals, it serves the political interests of elected officials, who have
every incentive to promote a sense of victimhood, and even paranoia, among
groups whose votes they want, in exchange for both material and psychic
support.
The multicultural vision of the world also serves the
interests of those in the media, who thrive on moral melodramas. So do whole
departments of ethnic "studies" in academia and a whole industry of
"diversity" consultants, community organizers and miscellaneous other
race hustlers.
The biggest losers in all this are those members of
racial minorities who allow themselves to be led into the blind alley of
resentment and rage, even when there are broad avenues of opportunity
available. And we all lose when society is polarized.
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