The West's self-destructive morality

 

Philosopher Stephen Hicks nails it here.

Douglas Murray reckons that "the absurdity of the West" is that:

We want everybody to have religious freedom, except ourselves.

We want to praise every tradition, apart from our own.

And we want to promote every belief system apart from the one that got us here.

This is madness."

Except he doesn't fully explain the madness. He doesn't point to its cause. Hicks does. Hicks points out that the reason we got here — to the point that Murray can bewail the madness — is the self-destructive morality that remains at the heart of western culture.

Truly, it is absurd.
Yet ... reflect upon that moral tradition within the West that has urged us to SACRIFICE SELFLESSLY FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS, ESPECIALLY WEAKER OTHERS.
Take those words seriously and you get part of the causal explanation for the absurdity.
It is a moral battle, and much of the West has internalised a self-destructive morality. [Emphasis in the original.]

He's right, you know. 

It's the ethic of self-sacrifice that underpins the phoney idea that all cultures are equal, except this one.

It's that ethic of altruism that needs to be abandoned.

"The majority of British Muslims are neither downtrodden victims nor Britain-hating extremists."

"Debates about British Muslims tend to be based on crude caricatures. Identitarians on the left see Muslims as a victimised and disaffected bloc, marginalised by a supposedly bigoted society. Meanwhile, identitarians on the right tend to see them as disloyal and anti-British – a potential enemy within. My latest report, co-authored by Dr Jake Scott and published last week by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life, shatters these myths and misconceptions about British Muslims.
    "Our polling shows that the overwhelming majority of British Muslims feel positively towards Britain. We found that 86 per cent believe Britain is a good place to live and that there are opportunities here for people to make progress and excel in life. This is actually higher than the general population, where the proportion drops to 70 per cent.
    "This optimism towards Britain stands in stark contrast to the left’s view of Muslims as a helpless and downtrodden minority. It also debunks the myth among the right that Muslims are poorly integrated and uniquely hostile to the UK. But this finding shouldn’t actually be a surprise. Not least as many British Muslims are born outside the UK. Generally, they tend to come from underdeveloped countries with relatively high levels of social unrest, political instability and institutional corruption. This is why, for many Muslim migrants, Britain represents opportunity, not oppression. ...
    "[A]ll too often, ordinary Muslims are ignored, while the state panders to vocal, assertive and self-selected ‘community representatives’, who tend to prioritise tribal interests over the wider common good. This mode of multicultural policymaking is not welcomed by most fair and civic-minded Muslims.
    "When we let British Muslims speak for themselves, it turns out they actually have lots of positive things to say about life in the UK. We must not allow radical activists on the fringes to shape the national conversation on British Muslims and their place in society. It’s high time we left the caricatures behind."

~ Rakib Ehsan, from his post 'What the left and the right get wrong about Muslims'

IDENTITY POLITICS: PART 1 - By your ‘azza’ group shall ye be known.

Good to see one of the Blue Team explicitly pushing back against identity politics. A rare thing, but necessary -- and especially good, because he clearly states the cure: individualism.

What is identity politics [writes National's Simon O'Connor], and why does it matter to you?
Well, the first thing to understand about identity politics is that you don’t matter. All that matters is what group, or tribe, are you are part of:
Are you black or white, Māori or Pākehā; are you gay or straight, young or old – in the fact, there are so many various and possible group identities are almost endless.
What isn’t included is you – your life, your experiences, your thoughts, desires, or ambitions.
To embrace identity politics is to say that the group is always more important than the individual. And so, all that matters is that you fit into some sort of group, usually based on your race, or gender, or ethnicity....
At the heart of identity politics is the rejection of you as an individual. You are no more than the groups you are assigned to. And once in these groups, there is no hope, there is no redemption. Just perpetual victimhood and oppression.
We should reject identity politics and intersectionality and instead celebrate everyone for who they are in their own right. Martin Luther King’s words are truer than ever – let us judge people by the content of their character, not the colour of their skin. 

Right on!

So, since Labour-Lite are finally realising they're little more than just Labour-Without-the-Identity Politics -- and pushing back on it -- and we're entering an election year in which identity politics is already front and centre -- as many "adult human females" and "middle-class cis white boomer males" might already appreciate -- it seems like a good time to repost (in several parts) an excerpt from one of my chapters in the 2019 book Free Speech Under Attack.

Today: What is Identity Politics?

“Cultural relativism began as an intellectual critique of Western thought but has now 

become an influential justification for one of the contemporary era’s most potent 

political forces. This is the revival of tribalism in thinking and politics.” 

~ Keith Windschuttle 

"If the west resorts to tribalism to defend civilisation, then 

civilisation is already irredeemably lost." 

~ Yaron Brook

[...]
This particular brand of nonsense comes under the bigger heading of “identity politics,” but it could just as easily, and more simply, be identified as the modern-day tribalism that it represents. It is a politics that identifies people by their group identity in order to effectively silence them – the Christchurch killings being a particularly gruesomely extreme example of what that can mean. Yet it's dangerous whichever side of the alleged political spectrum from which it emerges.

I’m going to start by talking about what this thing called identity politics is, where it came from, how it has morphed since – how identity politics has been used to shut down speech -- and what you can do to counter it.

PART 1: What is Identity Politics?

“We hear, since emancipation, much said by our modern coloured leaders 

in commendation of race pride, race love, race effort, race superiority, 

race men, and the like. One man is praised for being a race man and 

another is condemned for not being a race man. In all this talk of race, 

the motive may be good, but the method is bad. 

It is an effort to cast out Satan by Beelzebub.”

~ Frederick Douglass

I write this here today as a cisgendered, heterosexual white male[1]. So as everybody imbued with this notion would “know,” what I say here should only be taken seriously by other folk who share that identity. Because as “everybody knows,” your identity – your gender, your sexuality, your race, your class – these are the things that truly define you.

You speak “as a woman of colour.”

You speak “as a disabled lesbian.”

I speak, Galt forbid, “as a white man.”

In more-and-more meetings and debates in recent years, these words “as a/azza” have become not just the accepted way to begin speaking – like a reflexive cough at the start of every speech -- like some natty politically-correct version of reciting your whakapapa – but an implicit admission that one’s views will be irretrievably coloured (ahem), either positively or negatively, by the group of which one is an unchosen member.

American politician Ayanna Presley put it bluntly at progressive activists’ 2019 Netroots Convention, warning folk that only those raising the right voices, coming to the table “as a something,” were welcome there:

If you’re not prepared to come to that table and represent that voice, don’t come, because we don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice. We don’t need Muslims that don’t want to be a Muslim voice. We don’t need queers that don’t want to be a queer voice. If you’re worried about being marginalised and stereotyped, please don’t even show up because we need you to represent that voice!

Ayanna Presley is black. Her call – “brown face, brown voice; black face, black voice” – is “the very essence of identity politics.” Yet only five decades before, in the vanguard of change (or so he hoped) Martin Luther King declared on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

"One day"? King’s day has still not come. Judged by contemporary cultural affairs, that blessed day may have to wait a few more decades yet.

The morality of identity politics can seem benign, when for instance the new Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle guest-edits Vogue [as she did back in 2019], choosing for its famous cover not the usual stylishly sleek model but instead a rainbow coalition of appropriately figured stars (Fig. 2).

The message behind her choice of cover stars was clear enough [argues the Spectator's Joanna Rossiter]: you are moral not because of what you do but because of who you are – be it female, transgender, black or freckled.

Yet that, right there, is the identitarian message: “you are moral not because of what you do but because of who you are.” Because of the group into which you fell accidentally at birth.

The group into which one falls may be defined by race. Or it may be by class, by ethnicity, by disability – by freckles – by hair colour (if you’re a ginger[2]) -- or by geographical area. The important thing here however is that while you may choose your ideas and your values, you did not choose your group.

(And everyone is treated in this ‘lowest-common-denominator’ way; as if this is all about you that really matters.)

And also, as you will no doubt have noticed by now, while all groups are allegedly equal, there will be implied a clear sense of victimhood making some groups more equal than others.

There are some groups, we see, whose speech should not be set free. ["Cis white males" and "adult human females" increasingly prominent among them.]

We’ll discuss this galloping inequality shortly. But the fact your defining group (or groups) is unchosen is important here. It’s important because it ignores, and makes un-important, every human being’s defining attribute: which is their reasoning power. This modern tribalism serves to remove reason from modern debate, and to elevate instead the trivial, the accidental, the irrational.

Philosopher Tara Smith insists that “it's not irrational by mistake …. It's brazenly irrational. It's irrational on principle. It is anti rational.”

Its view is: we don't need reason. I don’t respect it. I don't go by reason. I go by race, ethnicity, geography, et cetera. Solidarity with my group is more important than evidence or logic. Tribe over truth.
    It erases the individual. You personally do not matter. [What’s important is] you “as a woman.” Now, you’ve always got to be on the lookout for the “azzas” – “as a woman,” “as a gay woman,” “as a white male” … “Azza.” But notice that you, the individual, Thomas, Maria, … You're a token. You're one of them – of your “azza” group.

By your ‘azza’ group shall ye be known.

This in a nutshell is “identity politics.” It’s as if they think your gender, your sexuality, your race, your class are what determines your thought. And in fact, yes, this is precisely what “they” do think. Determinism is not dead, it has just shrivelled up and morphed its way into what’s now called “identity politics.”

CONTINUED IN PART 2: 'Determinism is not dead, it just smells that way'

[1] For those unaware of this nomenclature, “cisgendered” means “denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex.”
[2] Tim Minchin, “Only a ginger can call a ginger ‘ginger’” – excerpt from ‘Prejudice’ (2009)

"In a free, or even semi-free country, no one is forbidden to speak any language he chooses with those who wish to speak it. But he cannot force it on others."

"The tribalists clamour that their language, preserves their 'ethnic identity.' But there is no such thing. Conformity to a racist tradition does not constitute a human identity. Just as racism provides a pseudo-self-esteem for men who have not earned an authentic one, so their hysterical loyalty to their own dialect serves a similar function: it provides a pretence at"collective self-esteem, "an illusion of safety for the confused, frightened, precarious state of a tribalist's stagnant consciousness.
    "The proclaimed desire to preserve one's language and/or its literary works, if any, is a cover-up. In a free, or even semi-free country, no one is forbidden to speak any language he chooses with those who wish to speak it. But he cannot force it on others. A country has to have only one official language, if men are to understand one another -- and it makes no difference which language it is, since men live by the meaning, not the sound, of words. It is eminently fair that a country's official language should be the language of the majority. As to literary works, their survival does not depend on political enforcement.
    "But to the tribalists, language is not a tool of thought and communication. Language,t o them, is a symbol of tribal status and power -- the power to force their dialect on all outsiders. This appeals, not even to the tribal leaders, but to the sick, touchy vanity of the tribal rank and file.
    "In this connection, I want to mention a hypothesis of mine, which is only a hypothesis, because I have given no special study to the subject of bilingual countries, i.e., countries that have two official languages: But I have observed the fact that bilingual countries tend to be culturally impoverished, by comparison to. the major countries whose language they share in part. Bilingual countries do not produce many great, first-rate achievements in any intellectual line of endeavor, whether in science, philosophy, literature or art. Consider the record of Belgium (which is French-speaking in part) as against the record of France -- or the record of Switzerland (a trilingual country) as against the record of France, of Germany, of Italy -- or the record of Canada as against the record of the United States.
    "The cause of the poor records may lie in the comparative territorial smallness of those countries-but this does not apply to Canada versus the United States...
    "My hypothesis is as follows: the policy of bilingual rule (which spares some citizens the necessity to learn another language) is a concession to, and a perpetuation of, a strong ethnic-tribalist element within a country. It is an element of anti-intellectuality, conformity and stagnation. The best minds would run from such countries: they would sense, if not know it consciously, that tribalism leaves them no chance."

          ~ Ayn Rand, from her essay 'Global Balkanisation'

On language, and tribalism ...

“Language is a conceptual tool—a code of visual-auditory symbols that denote concepts. To a person who understands the function of language, it makes no difference what sounds are chosen to name things, provided these sounds refer to clearly defined aspects of reality. But to a tribalist, language is a mystic heritage, a string of sounds handed down from his ancestors and memorised, not understood. To him, the importance lies in the perceptual concrete, the sound of a word, not its meaning…”

          ~ Ayn Rand, from her essay 'Global Balkanisation, in The Voice of Reason

[Hat tip Ayn Rand Centre UK]

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Quotes of the Day: "If Marxists and Nazis were fighting over any principle at all, it was only about which particular noose to throw around humanity's neck. Where the Marxists collectivised on the basis of class, the Nazis collectivised on the basis of race."

"They were not so very different at all: If they [Marxists and Nazis] were fighting over any principle at all, it was only about which particular noose to throw around humanity's neck. Where the Marxists collectivised on the basis of class, the Nazis collectivised on the basis of race. That was perhaps their unique contribution -- and so very much simpler for the masses to understand and embrace... "
~ Unknown

"The failure of Marxism to develop according to the logic of its traditional theory was reaching a crisis [in the 1950s]... The symptoms were many. One was manifest in the splintering of the monolithic Marxist movement into many sub-movements emphasising the socialism of sex, race, and ethnic identity. Such movements abandoned the universalistic conceptions of human interests ...     "The international proletariat is a highly abstract concept. The universality of all human interests is a very sweeping generalisation... It is hard enough for a trained intellectual to conceive, as classical Marxism requires, of all of humankind as ultimately members of a universal class sharing the same universal interests. But—the more epistemologically-modest theorists of the 1950s begin to ask—can we really expect the masses to abstract to the view that we are all brothers and sisters under the skin? Can the masses conceive of themselves as a harmonious international class? The intellectual capacity of the masses is much more limited, so appealing to and mobilising the masses requires speaking to them about what matters to them and on a level that they can grasp. What the masses can understand and what they do get fired up about are their sexual, racial, ethnic, and religious identities. Both epistemological modesty and effective communication strategy, then, dictated a move from universalism to multiculturalism. In effect, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, significant portions of the Left came to agree with the collectivist Right on yet another issue: Forget internationalism, universalism, and cosmopolitanism; focus on smaller groups formed on the basis of ethnic, racial, or other identities."
~ Stephen Hicks, from his book Explaining Postmodernism

"There is no surer way to infect mankind with hatred—brute, blind, virulent hatred—than by splitting it into ethnic groups or tribes. If a man believes that his own character is determined at birth in some unknown, ineffable way, and that the characters of all strangers are determined in the same way—then no communication, no understanding, no persuasion is possible among them, only mutual fear, suspicion, and hatred. Tribal or ethnic rule has existed, at some time, in every part of the world, and, in some country, in every period of mankind’s history. The record of hatred is always the same. The worst kinds of atrocities were perpetrated during ethnic (including religious) wars. A recent grand-scale example of it was Nazi Germany..."
~ Ayn Rand, from her 1977 talk on “Global Balkanisation”


“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavouring to convert an atheist by scripture.”
~ Thomas Paine, on "The American Crisis"
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Two trolls in mud time

The two Canadian  ethno-nationalists arrived last night to continue trolling everybody in the country -- as they've been doing so well for the last month -- and if I had been give their hundred-dollar ticket price* every time I've been asked if I'm going tonight to their hoe-down, I'd have been able to pay for my own lawyers, with enough left over to hire a hall to put on an alternative show.

The radio this morning reported they are here to argue against multiculturalism. That's not quite correct. They're here simply to attract attention to themselves, in which end their opponents here have been enormously helpful, not just in the endless free publicity given them (these are people who are building a career on the Streisand Effect) but in generating the mistaken notion these people have something important to say (there's nothing that screams "important" like being able to say "these are the ideas they're trying to ban!"). Yet all they really are is simply a caricature of everything every "right-thinking" person says you can't be. ("We say the things 'they' don't want you to say!") And because every right-on thinker says multiculturalism is the duck's nuts, then it's their job be anti-multi-culti.

Shame they misunderstand it.

Because multiculturalism is not simply a celebration of a multitude of cultures -- which is how many folk take it. Which is fine. More exactly, however, it is the idea that all cultures are equal, no matter how barbaric, or how benevolent: it is all simply a matter of subjective choice. In practice, what this means is the specific injunction that all cultures have value -- except, of course, western culture, which is the only culture open to criticism. (Which means the true multiculturalist must blind themselves both to western cultural achievements and to non-western cultural barbarities; one reason an deserving blind eye is turned to turned to cultural practices that should have disappeared with the Dark Ages.)

The correct way to critique the doctrine is not simply to beat your chest on behalf of your tribe, but to recognise, as Thomas Sowell has argued, that all cultures are not equal, that every culture is not life-supporting or life-enhancing; that cultures are not simply museum pieces among whom we can pick and choose, but that culture is "the working machinery of everyday life," and we should therefore judge a culture by how well it supports (or doesn't) the lives of those within the machinery. Because it's those individuals within the machinery who matter.

Cultural judgement, therefore, is an objective process, not simply a subjective whim. And western culture, by this standard, should be seen as objectively superior -- not least because at least it still values the twin virtues of self-criticism and self-improvement.

Note however that, in opposition to the Canadian visitors, that culture says nothing at all about race. As Sowell is always at pains to point out, race and culture are distinct. One is chosen, and important; the other is neither. Indeed, one of the measures by which we can estimate western culture's value is that (as I outlined yesterday) western culture is open to anyone, of any race. Indeed, among the highest of its virtues is the universalisability of the culture -- a culture that is blind to race or origin, and open instead to achievement. As George Reisman explains:

The truth is that just as one does not have to be from France to like French- fried potatoes or from New York to like a New York steak, one does not have to have been born in Western Europe or be of West European descent to admire Western civilisation, or, indeed, even to help build it. Western civilisation is not a product of geography. It is a body of knowledge and values. Any individual, any society, is potentially capable of adopting it and thereby becoming "Westernised."

This is not however however how these two trolls oppose the doctrine. For them, culture is dictated by race. And since their tribe is white and western culture is white (they say, blinding themselves both to history and geography) then it's their job to defend their white tribe against the others' brown invasion; their job to say the white tribe is supreme and to come join them (with pots of your money) on their barricades.

And saying that these days ("when 'they' won't let you say it") guarantees them bums on seats and a guaranteed Patreon income.

But it doesn't make it right.

But since it's just the more offensive flip-side of the left's same tribalism, the protestors aiming to picket tonight's whing-ding have got nothing exceptional to say about it. So all they're left with is force -- blackshirts outside; white sheets inside.

The beginning of a correct response to them is outlined by Robert Tracinski, saying:

If you think people are fundamentally defined by the colour of their skin and by their ethnic and genetic background, then you are a racist, because that’s what 'racism' means. If you think that your most important cultural and political priority is to defend the supposed interests of white people in opposition to the interests of other racial groups, then you are a white supremacist, because that’s what 'supremacy' means. Dress it up however you like, but that’s what you stand for...

Dress it up however you like, but white sheets are not a defence of western civilisation; they represent everything to which civilisation is and should be opposed:

The central theme of the Western intellectual tradition is about rising above tribalism to arrive at universal values... Tribalism, by contrast, is the default state of every culture and can be found among every people in every corner of the world. There is nothing distinctively Western about it, and it runs against the whole grain of the Western intellectual tradition.
    Dressing up economic protectionism, white supremacism, and tribalism isn't a defence of western civilisation.

Of course, these are not easy questions to ask or answer. They do not lend themselves easily either to bumper-sticker slogans or to noisy chants.

Arguing for the value of western civilisation and its freedom and tolerance however is not simply take the opposite side to the argument of those who seem opposed.

You don't do it by confusing culture for race.

________________________________________________________________________

* To anyone still tempted to waste money on a ticket, may I suggest instead simply digesting this post  to give you some background; this post to see what one troll represents; and this twitter thread to see what they both said at their rallies in Australia (the judicious reader can easily remove the opinion from the reportage and, just as easily, see in what way it will undoubtedly be altered for a NZ audience).

Read those three and you've saved yourself a hundred dollars and several hours of your time. And you won't have to disinfect yourself afterwards, either.

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"Western civilisation is not a product of geography. It is a body of knowledge and values. Any individual, any society, is potentially capable of adopting it and thereby becoming 'Westernised'."

This seems to me important: in the week that so-called defenders of western civilisation arrive here instead to impugn it, to take advantage of one of its highest values, it seems to me to be important to remind ourselves (or to learn, if we never have) what the nature of western civilisation really is. Would-be upholders of western values must not only understand their source and nature, they must know enough to defend them from both their obvious antagonists, and from those who (falsely) claim to defend them.

So what is the nature of western civilisation? To my mind, the clearest description is George Reisman's* :

The Nature of Western Civilisation
In order to understand the implications, it is first necessary to remind oneself what Western civilisation is. From a historical perspective, Western civilisation embraces two main periods: the era of Greco-Roman civilisation and the era of modern Western civilisation, which latter encompasses the rediscovery of Greco-Roman civilisation in the late Middle Ages, and the periods of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. 

Modern Western civilisation continues down to the present moment, of course, as the dominant force in the culture of the countries of Western Europe and the United States and the other countries settled by the descendants of West Europeans. It is an increasingly powerful force in the rapidly progressing countries of the Far East, such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, whose economies rest on "Western" foundations in every essential respect. 

From the perspective of intellectual and cultural content, Western civilisation represents an understanding and acceptance of the following: the laws of logic; the concept of causality and, consequently, of a universe ruled by natural laws intelligible to man; on these foundations, the whole known corpus of the laws of mathematics and science; the individual's self-responsibility based on his free will to choose between good and evil; the value of man above all other species on the basis of his unique possession of the power of reason; the value and competence of the individual human being and his corollary possession of individual rights, among them the right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness; the need for limited government and for the individual's freedom from the state; on this entire preceding foundation, the validity of capitalism, with its unprecedented and continuing economic development in terms of division of labor, technological progress, capital accumulation, and rising living standards; in addition, the importance of visual arts and literature depicting man as capable of facing the world with confidence in his power to succeed, and music featuring harmony and melody.

So much, so straightforward -- and so important too to realise that the defining characteristic of western civilisation is not one that is defined by race; that it is not defined by being (for example) "Anglo-Saxon." This is not just nonsense, it’s nasty – and in today’s interconnected and easily-led world, it’s dangerous nonsense.

The truth, as George Reisman so patiently goes on to explain, is that Western civilisation is neither Anglo-Saxon nor Semitic: it is in fact and in achievement the property of no particular race or of any particular ethnic group. This is of course one of its many great virtues -- that (while not yet being universal) western civilisation is fully universalisable; that is, it is open to everyone. In this sense, western culture is like an invitation to the dance, a welcome in.

I remember once trying to explain this to Tariana Turia, just before I headed off to see the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra under at Peruvian conductor perform a Russian concerto with a Chinese soloist and players from almost every other part of the world. "That," I said to her by way of exemplar, "is western civilisation in action." And so it was: it is the universalisability of the culture -- a culture that is blind to race or origin, and open instead to achievement.

She sniffed; you shouldn't, because it’s a crucial concept for would-be defenders of western civilisation to grasp. (And, sadly, one that to few of its alleged advocates do …).

The Universalisability of Western Civilisation
Once one recalls what Western civilisation is, the most important thing to realise about it is that it is open to everyone. Indeed, important elements of "Western" civilisation did not even originate in the West. The civilisation of the Greeks and Romans incorporated significant aspects of science that were handed down from Egypt and Babylon. Modern "Western" civilisation includes contributions from people living in the Middle East and in China during the Dark Ages, when Western Europe had reverted to virtual barbarism. Indeed, during the Dark Ages, "Western" civilisation resided much more in the Middle East than in Western Europe. (It is conceivable that if present trends continue, in another century it might reside more in the Far East than in the West.) 

The truth is that just as one does not have to be from France to like French- fried potatoes or from New York to like a New York steak, one does not have to have been born in Western Europe or be of West European descent to admire Western civilisation, or, indeed, even to help build it. Western civilisation is not a product of geography. It is a body of knowledge and values. Any individual, any society, is potentially capable of adopting it and thereby becoming "Westernised." The rapidly progressing economies of the Far East are all "Western" insofar as they rest on a foundation of logic, mathematics, science, technology, and capitalism--exactly the same logic, mathematics, science, technology, and capitalism that are essential features of "Western" civilisation. 

For the case of a Westernised individual, I must think of myself. I am not of West European descent. All four of my grandparents came to the United States from Russia, about a century ago. Modern Western civilisation did not originate in Russia and hardly touched it. The only connection my more remote ancestors had with the civilisation of Greece and Rome was probably to help in looting and plundering it. Nevertheless, I am thoroughly a Westerner. I am a Westerner because of the ideas and values I hold. I have thoroughly internalised all of the leading features of Western civilisation. They are now my ideas and my values. Holding these ideas and values as I do, I would be a Westerner wherever I lived and whenever I was born. I identify with Greece and Rome, and not with my ancestors of that time, because I share the ideas and values of Greece and Rome, not those of my ancestors. To put it bluntly, my ancestors were savages--certainly up to about a thousand years ago, and, for all practical purposes, probably as recently as four or five generations ago. 

I know nothing for certain about my great grandparents, but if they lived in rural Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century, they were almost certainly totally illiterate, highly superstitious, and primitive in every way. On winter nights, they probably slept with farm animals in their hut to keep warm, as was once a common practice in Northern Europe, and were personally filthy and lice infested. I see absolutely nothing of value in their "way of life," if it can be called a way of life, and I am immeasurably grateful that my grandparents had the good sense to abandon it and come to America, so that I could have the opportunity of becoming a "Westerner" and, better still, an American "Westerner," because, in most respects, since colonial times, the United States has always been, intellectually and culturally, the most Western of the Western countries. 

Thus, I am a descendant of savages who dwelt in Eastern Europe--and before that probably the steppes of Asia--who has been Westernised and now sees the world entirely through a Western "lens," to use the term of the critics of "Eurocentrism." Of course, it is not really a lens through which I see the world. It is much more fundamental than that. I have developed a Western mind, a mind enlightened and thoroughly transformed by the enormous body of knowledge that represents the substance of Western civilisation, and I now see the world entirely on the basis of that knowledge. For example, I see the world on the foundation of the laws of logic, mathematics, and science that I have learned. And whenever something new or unexpected happens, which I do not understand, I know that it must nevertheless have a cause which I am capable of discovering. In these respects, I differ profoundly from my savage ancestors, who lacked the knowledge to see the world from a scientific perspective and who probably felt helpless and terrified in the face of anything new or unknown because, lacking the principle of causality and knowledge of the laws of logic, they simply had no basis for expecting to be able to come to an understanding of it.
[…]
There is no need for me to dwell any further on my own savage ancestors. The plain truth is that everyone's ancestors were savages--indeed, at least 99.5 percent of everyone's ancestors were savages, even in the case of descendants of the founders of the world's oldest civilisations. For mankind has existed on earth for a million years, yet the very oldest of civilisations--as judged by the criterion of having possessed a written language--did not appear until less than 5,000 years ago. The ancestors of those who today live in Britain or France or most of Spain were savages as recently as the time of Julius Caesar, slightly more than 2,000 years ago. Thus, on the scale of mankind's total presence on earth, today's Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Spaniards earn an ancestral savagery rating of 99.8 percent. The ancestors of today's Germans and Scandinavians [and Scots!] were savages even more recently and thus today's Germans and Scandinavians probably deserve an ancestral savagery rating of at least 99.9 percent. 

It is important to stress these facts to be aware how little significance is to be attached to the members of any race or linguistic group achieving civilisation sooner rather than later. Between the descendants of the world's oldest civilisations and those who might first aspire to civilisation at the present moment, there is a difference of at most one-half of one percent on the time scale of man's existence on earth. 

These observations should confirm the fact that there is no reason for believing that civilisation is in any way a property of any particular race or ethnic group. It is strictly an intellectual matter--ultimately, a matter of the presence or absence of certain fundamental ideas underlying the acquisition of further knowledge.

* These passages are excerpted from George Reisman’s pamphlet ‘Education & the Racist Road to Barbarism,’ which thoroughly explains and pretty much explodes the process and the arguments (or lack thereof) behind so-called multiculturalism (i.e., the notion that all cultures are equal). Spending an evening reading that would be far more valuable to you than throwing your money away being trolled by barbarians.
.

The evolution of socialist strategies to rescue socialism from failure

Back in 2004, philosopher Stephen Hicks wrote his great book Explaining Postmodernism (since updated and expanded), its thesis being that the failure of philosophers to properly explain 'how we know' made the garbled nonsense of postmodernism possible; and it was the continued failure of socialism that made postmodernism necessary.

Any student who's spent any time in a humanities department will have encountered (and been taught) the garbled nonsense derived from postmodernism -- hence my continuing recommendation that every student needs this book in their backpack. ("This book should be in every student's backpack. In the post-modern intellectual battleground in which each student find himself submerged - and sometimes drowning - this book offers essential intellectual self-defence for every student who still cares to think. "

And anybody just living their daily life will have encountered (and been tripped up by) postmodernism's politically-correct nonsense that so often confounds common sense -- and that so frequently is found to be compulsory.

Not to mention the world's sundry and still-breathing socialist movements and (despite socialism's ongoing failure whenever it has been attempted), and despite this the ongoing sympathy for socialist politicians (Corbyn, Sanders, Ardern ... ).

So check out this flow chart adapted from Hicks's book, that explains the evolution of socialist strategies to rescue socialism from failure -- and by that is not means, the attempts to make socialism work (since nothing could make its dual perversion of economics and morality ever do that) but to philosophically explain away its failure:

QotD: "Your group identity is not your cardinal feature..."

"Your group identity is not your cardinal feature. That’s the great discovery of the west. That’s why the west is right. And I mean that unconditionally. The west is the only place in the world that has ever figured out that the individual is sovereign... And it’s the key to everything that we’ve ever done right.”
~ Jordan Peterson, quoted in The Guardian

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Quote of the Day: On the new postmodern colonialism

"The new colonialism: Third World Quarterly’s retraction shows academics have been colonised — by dead French and German intellectuals.”~ philosopher Stephen Hicks, on the Quarterly's very public retraction after publishing controversial article ‘The Case for Colonialism'

.

Q: What are the three most harmful modern myths?

[Hat tip Vinay Kolhatkar]

Quote of the Day: On multiculturalism

“The reason multiculturalism exists is to pretend that inferior cultures aren’t inferior and that superior cultures aren’t superior. It’s a way to tell nice lies about rotten cultures and rotten lies about great cultures.”

~ Bosch Fawstin

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Quote of the Day: On preserving a dying language

 

Today’s quote comes from Ayn Rand’s talk/article ‘Global Balkanisation,’ in which she talks about the rise of the concrete-bound tribal mentality, and how it becomes fixated not on ideas but on preserving (and demanding taxpayer’s dollars to protect) concretes like “folk songs, folk dances. special ways of cooking food, traditional costumes and folk festivals,” and of course  the tribe’s language…

A symptom of the tribal mentality’s self-arrested, perceptual level of development may be observed in the tribalists’ position on language….
    To a person who understands the function of language, it makes no difference what sounds are chosen to name things, provided these sounds refer to clearly defined aspects of reality. But to a tribalist, language is a mystic heritage, a string of sounds handed down from his ancestors and memorized, not understood…
    But, of course, it is not for their language that the tribalists are fighting: they are fighting to protect their level of awareness, their mental passivity, their obedience to the tribe, and their desire to ignore the existence of outsiders….
    The tribalists clamour that their language preserves their ‘ethnic identity.’ But there is no such thing. Conformity to a racist tradition does not constitute a human identity. Just as racism provides a pseudo-self-esteem for men who have not earned an authentic one, so their hysterical loyalty to their own dialect serves a similar function: it provides a pretense at “collective self-esteem,” an illusion of safety for the confused, frightened, precarious state of a tribalist’s stagnant consciousness.

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Immigration v multiculturalism & “identity politics”

 

A Twitter exchange recently threw out some good ideas and great reading recommendations. Here’s my quick summary.

Janet Wilberg suggested that “assimilation to Western civilisation's civic values is more complicated than just immigration itself…” Which is true. Very true. She argues that Multi-culturalism, i.e., the idea that all cultures however barbaric are equal, is “balkanising” America and causing serious assimilation problems simply because Multi-culturalism offers immigrants no reason at all to assimilate, and every reason not to.

Especially so when modern “identity politics” stresses so-called “group identity” over the individualism on which Western culture is actually based – the pressure-group warfare encouraged by the mixed economy being turbocharged into virtual tribal pressure-group warfare by the stale stew of collectivist “identity politics” – the biggest loser from this being the culture of individualism itself which so many immigrants have actively come to enjoy, and in which the had hoped to flourish!

Equally, it’s easy to see which cultures gain the most when all cultures are held to be equal to each other, no matter how barbaric they are or were  – “no coincidence then that multi-culti/PC universities put Islam on pedestal,” and Muslim clitorectomy clinicians and Maori baby batterers are given a virtual free pass.

It is in this sense then that she sees less of a threat, if any, from immigration, but a serious long-term threat from Multi-culturalism/Political Correctness & the political special interest groups it encourages.

She observes in this respect a difference between patriotism as seen in America (which at its best is subscribing to a set of values) with nationalism as experience in the likes of Europe. The latter is simpe tribalism,

As she says, “I'm not so concerned about Mexicans and a wall. We need to restore our ideological/civic ‘walls’.” In a similar sense and for similar reasons as it’s better to build a wall around welfare instead of around a country.

Where she caught my eye too was by her recommending the very best reading/listening on this topic, with which I strongly concur – both by Ayn Rand, both unique in their viewpoint, and both well ahead of their time. I suggest you take time out this weekend to settle back, and listen and digest (while savouring Rand’s rich Russian accent!):

• ‘Global Balkanisation’

The lecture lasts 54 minutes, followed by a 35-minute Q&A.
A version of the talk appears as an essay in the book The Voice of Reason.

• ‘A Nation’s Unity’

 

The lecture is 58 minutes long.
An edited version is available in The Ayn Rand Letter, a
biweekly newsletter published by Rand between 1971 and 1976.

.

“White Sheets and Red Golf Caps”–updated

 

“… dressing up economic protectionism, white supremacism,
and tribalism isn't a defense of western civilisation.”

Robert Tracinski ably explains the fetid sewer of support flushed out by Donald Trump – people who understand Western civilisation not as a set of ideas, but as some kind of symbol of their racial identity. They’re calling themselves alt-right; he’s identified them simply as The Other Left. Or even more simply: Yes, The Alt-Right Are Just a Bunch of Racists:

I’m talking about the so-called “alt-right,” which stands for “alternative right,” though I can’t find anything particularly “right-wing” about them—not in the American sense, which has traditionally meant advocacy of free markets, individual rights, and the ideals of our Founding Fathers.
    Frankly, it’s a little embarrassing that we even have to debate this, but by launching his campaign on a “Mexican immigrants are rapists” platform, Donald Trump brought the alt-right out of the woodwork.

And they’re now out.

One astute observation among many: these are people who allow their opponents to define their politics:

The alt-right originated by looking at the left’s caricature of the right as racists and pro-white tribalists and saying, in effect: sure, we’ll be that. …
   The alt-right is enabling this fraud. They accept the left’s intellectual framework and eagerly take on the role of the villain that the left assigned to us. Then they have the effrontery to present themselves as big rebels against the left. What a joke.
    You could argue that the alt-right is a consequence of the left’s abuse of the stigma against racism. By reflexively denouncing as a racist everyone who disagrees with them about economics, and by making every detail of ordinary life into a minefield of hidden racial transgressions, they have burned up their own credibility. In the process, they have weakened the culture’s immune system against racism and made it possible for a young cohort of racists to repackage their odious creed as resistance to political correctness. …
    The alt-right isn’t part of the intellectual traditions of the American right, nor is it an alternative to anything. It’s just the same old white-sheet set, repackaged with red “Make America Great Again” golf caps. They’re serving as ignorant tools of the left, and they should be exposed as such.

If you maybe think he’s exaggerating…

The most important point he makes: “They want to destroy Western Civilisation in order to save it”:

The big fig leaf of the alt-right is that they want to protect Western Civilisation—by throwing out its distinctive ideas and achievements.
    The central theme of the Western intellectual tradition is about rising above tribalism to arrive at universal values. That’s a common theme that connects both secular and Christian traditions in the West. It was the whole distinctive idea behind the Ancient Greek revolution in thought…. Philosophers like Socrates launched the Western tradition by asking probing questions that were meant to sort out which ideas and practices are based merely on historical accident and social convention, versus those that are based on universal laws of human nature.
     Tribalism, by contrast, is the default state of every culture and can be found among every people in every corner of the world. There is nothing distinctively Western about it, and it runs against the whole grain of the Western intellectual tradition.
    So by reverting to tribalism, the alt-right is saying that they had to destroy Western Civilization in order to save it.

Yeah right.

To paraphrase his comment above: “This vile movement isn’t part of the intellectual traditions of Western civilisation, nor is it an alternative to it.”

RELATED POSTS:

• “…there is no reason for believing that civilisation is in any way a property of any particular race or ethnic group. It is strictly an intellectual matter--ultimately, a matter of the presence or absence of certain fundamental ideas underlying the acquisition of further knowledge.”
  “The Universalisability of Western Civilisation” – George Reisman, NOT PC
• “If ‘multiculturalism’ is taken to mean preserving the demographic makeup of distinct ethnic groups or clusters within a larger population, it actually fosters racism rather than diminishing it… ‘Multiculturalism’ of that kind is actually modern tribalism, and the label ‘multiculturalism’ is a vague diversion to hide the tribal nature of it.”
  What is the difference between multiculturalism and genuine racial tolerance? – OBJECTIVIST ANSWERS
• [UPDATE: “Most on the Alt-Right do not only reject the ‘conservative Establishment’ or some other contemporary bogeyman; they also reject the ideals of classical liberalism as such. That rejection grounds the thinking of Jared Taylor, and Richard Spencer, for instance — representative “intellectuals” of the Alt-Right, according to Bokhari and Yiannopoulos. These men — the founders of the publications American Renaissance and Radix Journal, respectively — have not simply been ‘accused of racism.’ They are racist, by definition. Taylor’s ‘race realism,’ for example, co-opts evolutionary biology in the hopes of demonstrating that the races have become sufficiently differentiated over the millennia to the point that the races are fundamentally — that is, biologically — different. Spencer, who promotes ‘White identity’ and ‘White racial consciousness,’ is beholden to similar ‘scientific’ findings.”
  The Racist Moral Rot at the Heart of the Alt-Right – Ian Tuttle, N.R.O.]

[Pic by Shutterstock.]

.11

“The Universalisability of Western Civilisation”

 

If we are to defend western civilisation, we must at least understand it. I’ve heard it argued, for example, that the defining characteristic of western civilisation is that it is Ango-Saxon. This is not just nonsene; it’s nasty – and in today’s interconnected world, it’s dangerous nonsense.

The truth, as George Reisman so patiently explains below, is that Western civilisation is neither Anglo-Saxon nor  Semitic: it is the property of no particular race or of any particular ethnic group.  This is of course one of its many great virtues. It’s a very important concept for would-be defenders of Western civilisation to grasp. (And you would have thought some of its so-called advocates would already understand it…).

“The Universalisability of Western Civilisation”

Once one recalls what Western civilisation is, the most important thing to realize about it is that it is open to everyone. Indeed, important elements of "Western" civilisation did not even originate in the West. The civilisation of the Greeks and Romans incorporated significant aspects of science that were handed down from Egypt and Babylon. Modern "Western" civilisation includes contributions from people living in the Middle East and in China during the Dark Ages, when Western Europe had reverted to virtual barbarism. Indeed, during the Dark Ages, "Western" civilisation resided much more in the Middle East than in Western Europe. (It is conceivable that if present trends continue, in another century it might reside more in the Far East than in the West.)

The truth is that just as one does not have to be from France to like French- fried potatoes or from New York to like a New York steak, one does not have to have been born in Western Europe or be of West European descent to admire Western civilization, or, indeed, even to help build it. Western civilisation is not a product of geography. It is a body of knowledge and values. Any individual, any society, is potentially capable of adopting it and thereby becoming "Westernised." The rapidly progressing economies of the Far East are all "Western" insofar as they rest on a foundation of logic, mathematics, science, technology, and capitalism--exactly the same logic, mathematics, science, technology, and capitalism that are essential features of "Western" civilisation.

For the case of a Westernised individual, I must think of myself. I am not of West European descent. All four of my grandparents came to the United States from Russia, about a century ago. Modern Western civilisation did not originate in Russia and hardly touched it. The only connection my more remote ancestors had with the civilisation of Greece and Rome was probably to help in looting and plundering it. Nevertheless, I am thoroughly a Westerner. I am a Westerner because of the ideas and values I hold. I have thoroughly internalised all of the leading features of Western civilisation. They are now my ideas and my values. Holding these ideas and values as I do, I would be a Westerner wherever I lived and whenever I was born. I identify with Greece and Rome, and not with my ancestors of that time, because I share the ideas and values of Greece and Rome, not those of my ancestors. To put it bluntly, my ancestors were savages--certainly up to about a thousand years ago, and, for all practical purposes, probably as recently as four or five generations ago.

I know nothing for certain about my great grandparents, but if they lived in rural Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century, they were almost certainly totally illiterate, highly superstitious, and primitive in every way. On winter nights, they probably slept with farm animals in their hut to keep warm, as was once a common practice in Northern Europe, and were personally filthy and lice infested. I see absolutely nothing of value in their "way of life," if it can be called a way of life, and I am immeasurably grateful that my grandparents had the good sense to abandon it and come to America, so that I could have the opportunity of becoming a "Westerner" and, better still, an American "Westerner," because, in most respects, since colonial times, the United States has always been, intellectually and culturally, the most Western of the Western countries.

Thus, I am a descendant of savages who dwelt in Eastern Europe--and before that probably the steppes of Asia--who has been Westernised and now sees the world entirely through a Western "lens," to use the term of the critics of "Eurocentrism." Of course, it is not really a lens through which I see the world. It is much more fundamental than that. I have developed a Western mind, a mind enlightened and thoroughly transformed by the enormous body of knowledge that represents the substance of Western civilization, and I now see the world entirely on the basis of that knowledge. For example, I see the world on the foundation of the laws of logic, mathematics, and science that I have learned. And whenever something new or unexpected happens, which I do not understand, I know that it must nevertheless have a cause which I am capable of discovering. In these respects, I differ profoundly from my savage ancestors, who lacked the knowledge to see the world from a scientific perspective and who probably felt helpless and terrified in the face of anything new or unknown because, lacking the principle of causality and knowledge of the laws of logic, they simply had no basis for expecting to be able to come to an understanding of it.

[…]

There is no need for me to dwell any further on my own savage ancestors. The plain truth is that everyone's ancestors were savages--indeed, at least 99.5 percent of everyone's ancestors were savages, even in the case of descendants of the founders of the world's oldest civilisations. For mankind has existed on earth for a million years, yet the very oldest of civilisations--as judged by the criterion of having possessed a written language--did not appear until less than 5,000 years ago. The ancestors of those who today live in Britain or France or most of Spain were savages as recently as the time of Julius Caesar, slightly more than 2,000 years ago. Thus, on the scale of mankind's total presence on earth, today's Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Spaniards earn an ancestral savagery rating of 99.8 percent. The ancestors of today's Germans and Scandinavians were savages even more recently and thus today's Germans and Scandinavians probably deserve an ancestral savagery rating of at least 99.9 percent.

It is important to stress these facts to be aware how little significance is to be attached to the members of any race or linguistic group achieving civilisation sooner rather than later. Between the descendants of the world's oldest civilisations and those who might first aspire to civilisation at the present moment, there is a difference of at most one-half of one percent on the time scale of man's existence on earth.

These observations should confirm the fact that there is no reason for believing that civilisation is in any way a property of any particular race or ethnic group. It is strictly an intellectual matter--ultimately, a matter of the presence or absence of certain fundamental ideas underlying the acquisition of further knowledge.

[Excerpted from George Reisman’s pamphlet ‘Education & the Racist Road to Barbarism,’ which thoroughly explains and pretty much explodes the process and the arguments behind multiculturalism]

Quote of the Day: The real reason for multiculturalism

“The reason why multiculturalism exists is to pretend that inferior cultures aren’t
inferior and that superior cultures aren’t superior. It’s a way to tell nice lies about
rotten cultures and rotten lies about great cultures. And from this, we’ve set
ourselves up not only to believe the enemy propaganda that "Islam means peace",
but to propagate it ourselves, all while blaming ourselves for the enemy's war on us.”
~ Bosch Fawstin 

Susan Devoy fails to fight for chance to teach new immigrants

I know it’s hard to pick a winner, but do you think Susan Devoy might have been the least prepared and least competent Racist Relations Commissar since the ridiculous role was invented? On any issue on which she chooses to make a stand, she invariably takes the wrong one.

See, this is what we’ve been talking about: one of the biggest failures in recent decades has been the failure to fully welcome new people to new western countries into the values that made western cultures great.

Yet, in a bizarre parallel with the “safe spaces” on American campuses that students demand to avoid having to challenge their stunted young minds, Susan Devoy backs the Auckland Regional Migrant Services who intend to ensure that new people to our western country should not have to encounter Christmas, lest it offend many of the reasons they probably departed their last country of habitation.

A leading Auckland migrant settlement agency is avoiding the word Christmas and will instead be talking about ‘happy holidays’ and ‘season's greetings.’
    The Auckland Regional Migrant Services (ARMS) says it has taken the move so non-Christians and those who do not celebrate Christmas do not feel excluded [and] to be multiculturally sensitive …
    As an inclusive organisation that respects and welcomes people from all backgrounds and faiths, we use terms such as 'festive', 'happy holidays' and 'seasons greetings'," said [a representative from the Auckland Regional Migrant Services].
    "This is not new. We have been doing so for years. This year, for example, we have organised a festive multi-ethnic pot-luck lunch for all migrants and ethnic communities." …
Devoy, who is also the agency's patron, said references to Christmas were not banned at the agency but the terminology it used aimed at being inclusive.
    "The lunch you refer to has always been called a festive lunch.
    "The Auckland Regional Migrant Services works hard to include peoples from all faiths to work together in peace and diversity," Devoy said.
    "Migrant Services uses language that will encompass and include everyone; it is not designed to exclude anyone."

Well, yes it does. It excludes those who value western culture, and might like to enjoy a Merry Christmas.

Think about it.

Why should westerners always be so backward about supporting the elements of western culture—one of the most important parts of which is that, unlike the primitive places so many have escaped, it is so inclusive, that it does invite everyone in? Yet if we westerners ourselves are busy bowing and scraping and apologising for all those things that are so importantly western–-and Christmas is one of things, for many more reasons than today’s religious mythology—then why on earth should anyone seeing the craven cowardice think there’s anything to really respect?

As Leighton Smith just argued (and on this we do agree), if there’s any group that really should be out there promoting the superiority of western culture, then it’s the very service that meets new immigrants to this western culture and helps them settle here.

This story tells you how poorly that point is understood and promoted, most lamentably by those most needing to understand it.

For them, [explains Walter Williams of a similar crowd] all cultures are morally equivalent and to deem otherwise is Eurocentrism. That’s unbridled nonsense. Ask your multiculturalist: Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan Africa and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? Slavery is practiced in Sudan and Niger; is that a cultural equivalent? In most of the Middle East, there are numerous limits on women — such as prohibitions on driving, employment, voting and education. Under Islamic law, in some countries, female adulterers face death by stoning, and thieves face the punishment of having their hand severed. Are these cultural values morally equivalent, superior or inferior to those of the West?
    Western values are superior to all others. Why? The greatest achievement of the West was the concept of individual rights. The Western transition from barbarism to civility didn’t happen overnight. It emerged feebly — mainly in England, starting with the Magna Carta of 1215 — and took centuries to get where it is today.
    One need not be a Westerner to hold Western values. A person can be Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, African or Arab and hold Western values. It’s no accident that Western values of reason and individual rights have produced unprecedented health, life expectancy, wealth and comfort for the ordinary person.

This last point is so crucial I’ll say it again: One need not be a Westerner to hold Western values. Western values are able to be embraced by anyone. They are inclusive, not exclusive. They are held by choice, not by race.

Memo to Dame Devoy: It’s not about being white and racist—because (as George Reisman also thoroughly points out*), Western civilisation is not a product of race:

Once one recalls what Western civilisation is, the most important thing to realize about it is that it is open to everyone... The truth is that just as one does not have to be from France to like French-fried potatoes or from New York to like a New York steak, one does not have to have been born in Western Europe or be of West European descent to admire Western civilisation, or, indeed, even to help build it. Western civilisation is not a product of geography. Indeed, important elements of ‘Western’ civilisation did not even originate in the West. ‘'Western civilisation is not a product of geography. It is a body of knowledge and values. Any individual, any society, is potentially capable of adopting it and thereby becoming Westernised."

I once gave Tariana Turia the example of how western values are open to everyone: After talking with her I was off to a concert in which a piece of music written by a Russian was about to be played by a Chinese soloist, under a Peruvian conductor, in front of an orchestra containing Jews, Asians, Africans, Arabs and who knows what. Their race was irrelevant; their musicality wasn’t. That’s an example of western values in practice: they are open to anyone who wants to embrace them.

This is the real antidote to the ghettoisation of new immigrants, and the danger of that incubation turning into some of the disasters people see overseas. Overseas, they wonder why second- and third-generation immigrants especially sometimes see nothing to respect in the place of their birth and become ripe for plucking by bastards wholly unapologetic about their barbarity. But is that any wonder when so much of what they see around them is people apologising for everything about their place?

Memo to all of us: We should never be afraid to promote the superiority of western culture, and never feel we need to wring our hands for saying that. If we ever fear it, we might remind ourselves of Thomas Sowell’s important observation that

 Cultures are not museum-pieces. They are the working machinery of everyday life. Unlike objects of aesthetic contemplation, working machinery is judged by how well it works, compared to the alternatives. The judgment that matters it not the judgement of observers and theorists, but the judgement implicit in millions of individual decisions to retain or abandon particular cultural practices, decisions made by those who personally benefit or who personally pay the price of inefficiency and obsolescence. That price is not always paid in money but may range from inconveniences to death.

So, memo to the Auckland Regional Migrant Services: Merry Christmas.

May I recommend you pass that on to those the government has charged you to help.

---

* I thoroughly recommend a good reading of Reisman’s essay in which he makes the argument most thoroughly: “ Education & the Racist Road to Barbarism.”

RELATED POSTS:

• Multiculturalism's Treachery – Olivia Pierson, NOT PC
• And, into that vacuum stepped Islam … – NOT PC
• After Paris: That’s enough cultural appeasement; let’s fight for the Enlightenment. – Brendan O’Neill, SPIKED
• Western leader says to defeat Jihadists the West must reject Islamist values – NOT PC
• Unity through Diversity Equals Cultural Death – Olivia Pierson, NOT PC
• Home-grown horror – NOT PC

Multiculturalism's Treachery

Guest post by Olivia Pierson

What do North Korea, Russia, Iran, Syria – and the Zealots of Multiculturalism all have in common?

Communism? No.

Religion? No.

Totalitarianism? Close.

Answer: It is hatred of the West.

Since 1776 America has stood as the great symbol of Western ideals; Reason, Freedom & Democracy. More specifically, these ideals have evolved into becoming the hallmarks of all modern democracies in the Anglosphere and Europe; separation of religion from state (religious tolerance), the emancipation of women and children, a commitment to scientific discovery, freedom of speech and of the press, and the right to self-determination.

I challenge anyone in the world to point to a group of human beings anywhere who stand for anything nobler than the above political and cultural achievements. If Socrates’ words “know thyself” mean anything to us, then we in the West must be clear about what defines our civilisation’s daily character, for its creation is exceptional in the affairs of humankind.

Multiculturalism’s overarching dogma is that all cultures are equal regardless of the diverse practices of those cultures. Yet it is only in the West, and cultures heavily influenced by western values, where diverse cultures actually have the freedom to do their own thing unmolested.

Try living as an openly gay man in Russia and see how that works out for you. Try practising Christianity in North Korea, or wearing a mini-skirt in Iran -- or divorcing a violent husband in Syria. While you’re at it, try telling a multiculturalist that Islam is a backward and primitive anti-ideology that no civilised mind should have any truck with if we are serious about human development.

North Korea, Iran, Russia, Syria – and of course ISIS, are brutally working against western influence in the world, and they will smite it if they get their way. But they would not stand even the slightest chance of making a dent if it were not for the militant multiculturalists systematically undermining western exceptionalism from within.

All cultures are not equal.

---

 

Olivia Pierson is an Auckland writer. 
Follow her commentary at her blog: OliviaPierson.Org