“Multiculturalism was conceived by Western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own: it is, thus, the real suicide bomb.” - Mark Steyn, America Alone
Civilization requires that the traditions, values, beliefs and the accumulated knowledge of preceding generations are passed on to the next. Without the benefit of this heritage, a people have no identity, they are adrift. Even worse, they lose sight of why it is that they even exist. Why work or fight for something that means nothing to you? Good education is essential to passing civilization on from one generation to the next, and, conversely, bad or pernicious education is responsible for the destruction of culture and society. Unfortunately, education in America has been invaded by ideologues and subversives, who use various tools designed to inculcate their students’ intellects’ with the certain knowledge that America and Western Civilization is not their sacred heritage, but rather a shameful crutch which must be overcome. In so doing, these teachers are eroding the values and strength at the roots of society, and, consequently, are setting themselves up for a tragic collapse. The civil heresy called “Multiculturalism”, and its prominence in the classroom, is a major factor in the corruption of Western Civilization and its citizens.
What is Multiculturalism?
The American Heritage dictionary defines multiculturalism as “a social or educational theory that encourages interest in many cultures within a society rather than in only a mainstream culture.”[1] To a reasonable person, such interest in other cultures seems both health and just. America is a nation in a world full of nations, so it important to understand our neighbors.
However, the pleasant tenor of this definition fails to convey the reality of multiculturalism, its proponents, and its effects. At its heart, it is a theory which is deeply hostile to Western Civilization and America in particular. For instance, proponents of multiculturalism Martin, Lucek, and Fuentes write: “The characteristics of white supremacy, individualism, competitiveness, authoritarianism, sexism, and materialism characterize the traditional Western models...”[2] In a single statement, they have managed to accuse Western civilization of being inherently racist and tyrannical, oppressive and greedy. This sort of statement and, it is far from isolated, does not simply encourage study of sub-cultures, but actively despises and works against the “mainstream” culture.
Multiculturalism values each culture and subculture in the world as all being equal in worth and significance, without regard for that cultures accomplishments or a judgment as to whether or not it is a good culture. “At the heart of multiculturalism is a lie: that all cultures are equally valid.”[3]
In fact, if one attempts to make a decision on the value of another culture, you are labeled as “Eurocentric”. “Euro- centrism [sic] refers to a discursive tendency to interpret the histories and cultures of non-European societies from a European (or Western) perspective… [Leading] toward ignoring, undervaluing, or condemning non-European societies.”[4] Therefore, if an American has been well brought up and has been taught the social mores and beliefs of his civilization, it is a handicap that must be overcome in order to reach the truth.
While proponents of multiculturalism contend they are color-blind, and only concerned with making everyone equal, they are in fact racist. They despise anything to do with what they call European Americans (Caucasians), and constantly criticize his history, culture and beliefs. However, when it comes to “people of color”, the National Education Society goes so far as to urge teachers to buy books from authors because they are colored! “Purchase books for children that are written by and about people of color.”[5] The purpose of multiculturalism is to undermine and slowly disintegrate Western Civilization and it accomplishes this by indoctrinating children in school.
Multiculturalism in School
Children are taught multiculturalism at a young age, and its tenants are relentlessly pressed on them from childhood to young adulthood. It is not in a specific class, or teacher, it permeates everything in a schools curriculum. So when these children enter into the world, they will have never heard a real dissenting opinion, just the drone of an ideology repeated a hundred different ways, by a hundred different teachers.
In elementary school, children are instructed in multiculturalism by the most simple of instruments- books. They are read stories of other cultures’ fairy tales and mythology, while their own goes unexamined and unexplored. As it says on the NEA’s website:
Many of us are familiar with the stories of Anasi the beloved trickster spider from West Africa, and Russia’s Baba Yaga with her traveling house on chicken’s legs, Ishbushka… we might even know Tato Duende, the magical, secretive dwarf who dwells deep within South America’s rainforests. Multiculturalism, though, is so much more.[6]
There is no reference to Western, or, more specifically, American stories and characters. Why should there be when there is nothing of interest or value in Western Civilization?
Children are assigned value not because of their efforts, or the quality of their schoolwork, but due to an accident of nature which has become politically significant. The National Education Association exhorts teachers to spend special effort in nurturing the abilities of minority children. “Encourage children and young people of color to write. With guidance and training they are tomorrow’s authors. Help them dream and write their future into being.”[7]
As children get older, they are made to participate in a variety of events and activities. There is National Multicultural Diversity Day, which was founded to “increase awareness of the tremendous need to celebrate our diversity collectively”[8], or “introduce students to multicultural issues by inviting a local expert to talk about diversity.”[9] They even have songs that celebrate multiculturalism: “You can also sing songs that celebrate diversity.”[10] Students are forced to participate and become immersed, the lessons become holy writ.
In the university, multiculturalism is pervasive. All of the traditional subjects, except for mathematics and science, have been re-imagined and reorganized so as to reflect the new value system, and whole new subjects have been created:
The decades of the 1980s and the 1990s have generally been associated with the ascendancy of multicultural education in American universities… new disciplinary formations emerged in the form of programs and later departments in field such as women’s studies, African-American studies, Latino studies, or simply “ethnic studies,”… Equally influential were new theoretical discourses that mapped the contours of… areas as diverse as continental philosophy, post colonialism, race theory, feminism, revisionist historiography, queer theory, and media studies, to name a few. Their impact on traditional courses of study such as English, history, and philosophy proved decisive…[11]
Every class that a university student takes had been imbued with multiculturalism, and its attendant progressive philosophies and theories, such as post colonialism and race theory.
Unfortunately, the university is no longer the forum for debate and dialogue that it once was. The academy has replaced the marketplace of ideas with an intellectual bread line. Opposing viewpoints and dissent are not tolerated, as nothing can endanger the promulgation of progressive, multicultural doctrine. Conservative teachers are not hired, and so conservative students are adrift in a sea of progressivism:
Yet while the lack of conservative minds on college campuses is increasingly indisputable, the question remains: Why?The obvious answer, at least in the humanities and social sciences, is that academics shun conservative values and traditions, so their curricula and hiring practices discourage non-leftists from pursuing academic careers. What allows them to do that, while at the same time they deny it, is that the bias takes a subtle form.[12]
The stranglehold of multiculturalism in particular and progressive ideology in general in all levels of education is beyond question. In other words, “we have an academy… committed to multiculturalism.”[13]
The Relationship between Multiculturalism and Communist Subversive Doctrine
The creep of progressive, multicultural thought into the modern academy, and its subsequent stranglehold, may seem benign and spontaneous. However, it is a systematic, albeit decentralized, effort to change the education patterns of the next generation in order to change the future of America, and Western Civilization. The Social Revolution of the sixties may have fizzled, but its children remain alive and well in our universities, seeking to finish the task they started by a more insidious and gradual process. In fact, the purpose and methods of the current crisis in education bears marked similarity to the plans for subversion of the West by the radical leftist and communist Antonio Gramsci.
Modern American schools concentrate less on actual scholarship and more on political correctness under the guise of multiculturalism. As previously stated, essential and traditional subjects like English and History have been changed to fit around progressive ideology. Gramsci writings on education provide the reason why:
Gramsci’s concept of education is, however, only secondarily concerned with schooling. The main goal is the formation of an “intellectual moral bloc” capable of contesting the prevailing common sense and providing in its stead, more or less systematically, a “scientific” understanding of the social world and of politics that can be widely disseminated in the institutions and other spaces of civil society.[14]
In a broad stroke, the essential lesson of Gramsci is to imbue students with a single (progressive) view of the world, which will then be carried to policy making and implementing bodies throughout the country by formally ignorant but ideologically sound individuals. Once in place these clones will slowly but surely move the country towards their political reality.
According to Gramsci, capitalist societies, even dictatorships, are ruled by popular consent, rather than force. Therefore, the best way to subvert, overthrow, and take over these societies is to hijack the terms of debate, or as he puts it, “common sense”.
Gramsci insisted that, since all capitalist societies, even fascist dictatorships, tend to rule primarily by consent rather than force, the key to the rule of capital was its ability to achieve hegemony over “civil society”… It was precisely the to which classes in modern society established their power over “common sense” and, thus, appeared independent from the coercion of economic and State relations that their rule was made possible.[15]
If the key to control of the State is civil society, then the key to civil society is education. If a faction has a monopoly over the educational system of a society, then it has control over that society.
The reason that Gramsci gives for the necessity of taking over the schools is clear- it makes theory true. Or, at least, it makes theory, of which the teacher is certain, common knowledge and steadfast belief in the students. Once the doctrine is taught to the children, they carry it with them into adulthood, and it transforms from merely a personal belief into a collective one. Collective beliefs have a way of becoming political reality. As Gramsci puts it:
The certain becomes true in the child’s consciousness. But the child’s consciousness is not something individual (still less individuated), it reflects the sector of the civil society in which the child participates, and the social relations which are formed within his family, his neighborhood, his village, etc…[16]
Education is the way to seamlessly change the path of a society without most people noticing, because the radical ideas are carried on the backs of the beloved children. In the end, it is the “academies and universities [that are the] organizations of culture and means for its diffusion.”[17]
The Effects of Multicultural Education
Multiculturalism exists in education, and its presence indicates a potential to cause revolutionary change in American society. However, how does multiculturalism affect the character of the next generation, and for what purpose?
Multiculturalism and its adherents castigate students and peers for daring to critique or question another culture. They accuse them of being “Eurocentric”, and narrow-minded. However, there is more than just narrow-mindedness implied in this statement, there is the assertion that you cannot think correctly if you are westernized; that your culture itself is an impediment to knowing the truth. In other words, the greatest of Western Civilization is reduced to the crazed beliefs of a dogmatic faction:
“The literature on educating for diversity often refers to the need to understand one’s own cultural self before it is possible to recognize and understand the culture of others. For white[18], female preservice teachers this often involves first acknowledging that they have “culture”[19]. White students often see “others” as having culture, while they themselves do not.”[20]
Western culture is not civilization- it is a stilted view of reality which must be overcome in order to become a well educated and truly civil person.
Once it is established that Western civilization is really just faction, multiculturalists then label it an evil faction. All products that proceeded from Western civilization can be good as they are tainted by the inherent corruption and injustice that is Western civilization’s core. In regards to Western tradition, and such great works as the Iliad, the Bible, and the works of Plato, Professor Susan Giroux of McMaster University writes:
“…the fruits of Western Civilization 1) appear to require capital growth and investment 2) serve the interests of wealth and whiteness… 3) [are] on the other side of America’s great racial divide.[21]
Multiculturalists criticize and demonize the great works of Western civilization, using progressive rhetoric to liken them more to propaganda then the basis for a great civilization.
Those things which the Multiculturalists are not willing to accuse outright of being evil in Western Civilization, are instead attributed to other cultures. In addition to depriving Western Civilization of some of its greatest achievements, these claims have the added benefit of making Westerners look like thieves and frauds:
Likewise, we’re asked to accept that the United States Constitution was modeled on the principles of the Iroquois Confederation- if a generation of “multiculti” theorists, the ethnic grievance lobby, and even a ludicrous resolution of the United States Congress wills it so.[22]
The purpose of this constant subverting of Western Civilization is clear: Progressives and Multiculturalists want to collapse society and replace it with their utopian dream. By constantly pounding the message that there is nothing of value in Western Civilization and America, they are convincing people that it would be better they, as a culture, as a society, as a civilization, had never existed:
For a country to survive, its citizens must believe that the country deserves to survive, that it is, overall, a decent country whose existence benefits even those who live outside its borders. This conviction is at risk on our campuses, where self-declared “subversive” professors and increasingly their students not only deplore the very existence of their country but also applaud the evils that befall it. [emphasis added][23]
A people who believe that their very identity is inherently wrong are a demoralized people, unwilling to fight for their way of life, or even their very existence. In other words, the type of people who will not object as their civilization is hijacked.
What the multiculturalist may not realize is that, while they weaken their society so their ideas can exert more control over it, they are also making it more vulnerable to takeover by less self-flagellating civilizations- such as Islamic Civilization. When you replace the love and belief a society has for its civilization and replace it with shame and a desire to “make-up” for the “sins” of your society in the past, you get civilization that would rather give up their lives than be politically incorrect in fighting for them. “[The]… governing principle of multicultural society [is] that Western man demonstrates his cultural sensitivity by preemptively surrendering…”[24]
What hope would a multicultural man have against an enemy that actually believes in their cultural identity? What will he say or do against an enemy which calmly and clearly states, “If I go to the jungle, I’m not going to live like the animals, I’m going to propagate a superior way of life. Islam is a superior way of life.”[25]And which belief system will get more followers? “If you’re a teenager… you’ve got a choice between two competing identities- a robust confident Islamic identity or a tentative post-nationalist cringingly apologetic… identity. It would be a mistake to assume the former is only attractive to Arabs and North Africans.”[26]
Conclusions
Look at what the West has given the world, all the great things Western man has accomplished. Great books, great music, great philosophy, but most importantly, despite all of the suffering our conflicts have caused, the West leaves places better than they found them. Most importantly, the West has managed to create a civilization where life is not always struggle, where man is free and comfortable. Western civilization has made, in essence, life good.
“We are the final inheritors of Western tradition. Education founded upon the Iliad, the Bible, Plato and Shakespeare remains, in some strained form, our ideal,…Those who resent all canons suffer from an elitist guilt…”[27] This way of life, our civilization, our culture, and our society, everything we hold dear and believe in, is under attack from both the outside and the inside, from fundamentalist Islam and Progressive Multiculturalism. What the next generation must do is to unashamedly proud of their heritage, and stand up for their civilizations. The next generation of culture warriors must not forget that if they fail, then so does Western Civilization.
Multiculturalism is a culturally bankrupt ideology, which is rotting out Western Civilization from the inside. It proponents use the same methods that the communist subversive Gramsci suggests for taking over a society. It is being taught in schools from youngest age to the most advanced levels of scholarship. It makes a society weak and ashamed of itself, and vulnerable to stronger, less doubting civilizations, and to domestic subversives. Multiculturalism is one of the most significant factors in the corruption of Western Civilization, and should be expunged from the academy.
[1] The Free Dictionary, “Definition of the ‘multiculturalism’,” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/multiculturalism (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[2] Donna J. Martin, Linda E. Lucek, and Sylvia Fuentes, “Issues of Feminism and Multicultural Education for Educational Technology” (Northern Illinois University), http://itech1.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper38/paper38.html (Accessed April 24th, 2008)
[3] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 203
[4] Science Encyclopedia, “The History of Ideas, Vol. 2,” Scientific Encyclopedia, http://science.jrank.org/pages/7680/Eurocentrism.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[5] National Education Association, “Multiculturalism and children’s literature” http://www.nea.org/readacross/multi.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[6] National Education Association, “Multiculturalism and children’s literature” http://www.nea.org/readacross/multi.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[7] National Education Association, “Multiculturalism and children’s literature” http://www.nea.org/readacross/multi.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[8] National Education Association, “Get Ready for National Multicultural Diversity Day” http://www.nea.org/takenote/nmdd.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid
[11] Susan Searls Giroux, “Playing in the Dark: Racial Repression and the New Campus Crusade for Diversity,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 94-95
[12] Mark Bauerline, “Liberal Groupthink is Anti-Intellectual,” Chronicle of Higher Education (November 12, 2004) http://www.duke.edu/~munger/bc.htm (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[13] Susan Searls Giroux, “Playing in the Dark: Racial Repression and the New Campus Crusade for Diversity,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 101
[14] Stanley Aronowitz, “Gramsci’s Theory of Education: Schooling and Beyond” in Gramsci and Education, ed. Carmel Borg, Joseph Buttigieg and Peter Mayo 115 (Lanham, M.D.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 115
[15] Stanley Aronowitz, “Gramsci’s Theory of Education: Schooling and Beyond” in Gramsci and Education, ed. Carmel Borg, Joseph Buttigieg and Peter Mayo 115 (Lanham, M.D.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 110
[16] Antonio Gramsci, “Observations on the School: In Search of the Educational Principle” in The Gramsci Reader, ed. David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 312-313
[17] Antonio Gramsci, “Observations on the School: In Search of the Educational Principle” in The Gramsci Reader, ed. David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 376
[18] It is clear that when the authors here use the word “culture”, they do not mean “The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought” (American Heritage Dictionary), but rather a stilted and biased view particular to a certain group, ethnic or otherwise. If this were not so, there would be no need to mention race, or use quotations around the word “culture”, as this indicates a different meaning than the generally accepted one.
[19] Ibid
[20] Eva Zygmunt-Fillwalk and Patricia Clark, “Becoming Multicultural: Raising Awareness and Supporting Change in Teacher Education,” Childhood Education (2007): 289
[21] Susan Searls Giroux, “Playing in the Dark: Racial Repression and the New Campus Crusade for Diversity,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 97
[22] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 203
[23] Paul Trout, “Demonizing the United State,” Forum on Education and Academics, vol. 82 no. 2 (2002): 3
[24] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 204
[25] (Attributed to British Muslim Leader Anjem Choudary) Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 90 Attributed to British Muslim Leader Anjem Choudary
[26] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 90
[27] Harold Bloom, The Western Canon (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), pg. 31
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