Our history is replete with misguided, goodwill, attempts to appease the ire of an aggressor. Britain’s once much revered Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, made a complete ass of himself in his negotiations with Adolph Hitler. His final ignominy occurred on the steps at #10 Downing Street with his much celebrated declaration that he had returned from his September, 1938 meeting with Herr Hitler in Munich secure in the knowledge that he had achieved “a peace for our times.” Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia less than six months later.Hitler's gone, but fascism still threatens America, albeit in a new form. As Stephen Bainbridge notes, the problem isn't immigration:
our grandparents grew up in cities that, like our own, were violent and unruly. A tide of legal and illegal immigration was bringing to our shores a horde that did not speak our language, did not share our customs, and felt little loyalty to our country. This resulted in an urban proletariat that was not only of unprecedented size, but also poor, violent, and apparently immune to assimilation. The very definition of what it means to be an American was being called into question by a multicultural tidal wave.Rather, the threat's is the abrogation of consensus, and it's replacement by multicultural "whatever-ism":
Fortunately, the Progressives of that era were able to institute a set of reforms that in fact assimilated virtually all of the new cultures into a single American culture. This American culture was enriched by the new immigrants, but not fundamentally changed. It was possible only because reformers knew what it meant to be an American. They knew America was more than just an idea. They knew that America had a common culture and a common heritage. Assimilating new arrivals to that culture could be painful, but it had to be done and it was done. A nation that was stronger and richer in both a material and a spiritual sense emerged.
For better or worse, the Protestant Consensus was a key building block of the uniquely American culture our parents and grandparents passed down to us.
The compact under multiculturalism is that each community within a society must have the freedom to sustain its own identity, traditions and culture. But there is a quid pro quo and that involves universal acceptance of a broad system of shared values.As I've argued before, tolerance -- a laudable value for individuals -- can't be elevated into a societal norm without inverting civilization:
Hence, multiculturalism, in this country and elsewhere, is at a moment of truth. The drift from melting-pot altruism into salad-bowl separatism has morphed into something more sinister: the existence within Western cultures of a hostile religious sect that renounces absolutely the principles on which our societies are structured.
(source: Reuters via LGF) Chamberlain's efforts failed because his objective was appeasement, not negotiation from strength. Today, the Protestant consensus has all but vanished, seen as an embarrassment at best, or religious tyranny at worst. And that's the core issue. A shared appreciation for the values of the Reformation isn't the establishment of religion. Nor is it old-fashioned or bigoted. But elimination of the superiority of individual freedom, as opposed to compulsion, from the list of essential Western values enervates any negotiation from the start, as Maven notes:
The fault in this strategy lies in the absurd assumption that through understanding or generosity there is something you can give the terrorist that will in someway abate his hatred and cause him to rationally reexamine his actions and cease his hostility. People, there is no rationality in hatred. It is an emotion and is not subject to appeals of logic or reason. The lust for power, the desire for conquest is by definition an irrational concept. This Islamo-Terrorist hatred of the west will only be appeased by the complete conquest of our societies by their particular perverted brand of Islam. No other result will satisfy them. It is their stated goal. They believe and state that this “jihad” will only end with the total destruction of the west, or its conversion to Islam.Civilization need not, and can not, "tolerate" the uncivilized, as the late Michael Kelly understood:
At some point it becomes a seriously immoral act to refuse to acknowledge the truth. At some point, you have to ask whether it is morally acceptable to regard those who yet refuse to come to terms with communism other than as people who have chosen to adhere to known evil. And that point has been long passed.The 20th Century wasn't kind to absolutes. As a result, today's left mocks the existence of evil and derides anyone -- especially President Bush -- who disagrees. So, decades after embracing Communism, "tolerance" opened the door to Radical Islam.
Compulsion is the door not taken. But the threat of compulsion will persist, until the left resumes distinguishing 1) right from 2) wrong and acknowledges that representative democracy is what's behind door number one.
3 comments:
Very, very thought provoking.
I would disagree with the idea that the Protestant consensus "has all but vanished", only that it is imprisoned behind the insistance that it remain un-named.
In the discussion of assimilation: My grandfather wa a Hungarian Reformed pastor and as such took on the responsibility of enabling the immigrants that came in two major waves, under his care, to mainstream into America. I came across a paper of his which I think was a speech he gave, that made the case for Americanization. There was a decided effort to help immigrants exchange their identity with the "Old Country" for that of their new one. There were all sorts of helps within the church to do this, and my grandfather himself was a mediator in helping place immigrants in jobs, etc.
I think this goal of educating immigrants as to what being an American means in identity is what is missing. You can't defend what you do not know and understand. It is a missing key.
I think I take a darker view of the general situation as you have stated it, although, truthfully Carl, my sincere hope is that you are the more prescient and correct. I like your view better.
ilona:
My Father and maternal grandparents -- having no money and perhaps a dozen English words or phrases on arrival in America and Canada -- worked domestic jobs and lived in 4-to-a-room-slum houses. They put themselves through college and grad school. Within 15 years (at the latest), they were Americans; first generation, mind you, but Americans. But they had powerful incentives, and no place to return, and so might have had motivations stronger than most current arrivals.
Incentives: I've got no answers here, but surely the expanded social safety net -- including for illegals -- reduces motivations.
The lure of America: We once had a great global brand. The best and the brightest were eager for assimilation--because the lack of rigid class boundaries and expanding frontier opened new work and larger and (sometimes unclaimed) living space. But the consensus either died or moved behind the curtain; it draws few today.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and multiculti poured in. It may have begun as a desire to understand, but soon became hostility to coercion and a preference for tolerance or inclusiveness:
o The decline of the Church in Europe and America, eliminated the notion of a (or a few) superior religions.
o the rise of the Boaz anthropological schools and the rejection of "evolutionary" (and racial) ranking of cultures, races or tribes. (This speeded by globalization's increased worldwide intercourse.)
o the swift rejection (and moral condemnation) of European and Japanese colonization (which rarely applies to non-rich nations or people).
o the increase in state-sponsored teaching (and relative decline in parent-children interaction), forcing Lessons (ideas, books and assignments) into bland "lowest common denominator," which is then graded all-praise-all-the-time education.
o The state-sponsored teacher represents only a tiny "fraction of views."
The result is no absolutes, without any measure of relative merit or trust in one's own judgment. Were the modern fad successful, "whateverism" could turn-out under-produce "whatever" educators, businessmen, and bureaucrats.
If I'm more optimistic, it's only by a bit. I fear a global clash. So, stalling for delay, I'll take fences, slow progress, and behind closed doors pressure.
Plainly, there are steps we can take before the next attack, such as increasing the difficulty of the citizenship test. But we need to start soon and younger -- a la France -- which from the beginning -- says "you're all French now, and you'll be taught in that way.“ That old country is rien. And that might be more palatable than "whatever, Bevis.“
That lure isn't gone; it's just that many without the lure come without a job. If they immigrate intending on family and settlement, that's mostly good; mostly assimilated in 3rd or 2nd generation. If they come to send money back to the mother country, that's often immigration hit-and-run; rarely assimilated.
Our system's got some advantages, but we must outlaw young bilingual/English second and teach English first. Make a substantial part of a teacher's salary a bonus. But, unlike France, Freedom of Speech and Religion in America probably prohibits some sorts of interventions removing minor children, despite parent disapproval, where the child is being inculcated in noxious or terroristic teaching in child development.
I would never advocate removing a child from their home. We had something like that with the Native American population- I think that was tragic in all its consequences.
I do believe in stripping the PC crap from our schools and teaching solid citizenship, including English language first.
I think that, very unfortunately, the freedom of speech has been abused by those who have undercut the understanding of what is good about America.
Immigrants prove over and over again that American is the land of opportunity, those are the stories tht should be told, loud and clear.
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