People talk a lot about “multiculturalism,” whether to praise it or condemn it. But standing alone, the concept is too vague to be supported or opposed. In this respect, it’s much like certain other concepts, such as “equality.” Do you support equality or oppose it? Well, it depends on what exactly is meant by “equality,” doesn’t it?
“Multiculturalism” is similar. Some things that are reasonably labeled “multiculturalism” are mostly bad, and others are mostly good. We can all imagine bad versions of multiculturalism — ones that dramatically undermine the social cohesion necessary to maintain order or defend the nation in war; ones in which many people in a modern economy speak mutually unintelligible languages; ones in which members of some subcultures feel comfortable violently attacking people, whether of their own culture or of others; and so on. But America is also founded on its own sort of multiculturalism, which has usually (though not always) stood us in good stead. Here are four constitutional manifestations of this multiculturalism.
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1. Federalism: The premise of federalism is precisely that multiple states, which the Framers envisioned as often having substantial differences in culture, should be able to retain their cultures, including the legal rules that flow from those cultures. (Within states, home rule by localities has had a similar, though lesser, mission.)
Of course, the Civil War shows the potential cost of this multiculturalism, though I suspect that the Constitution’s toleration of slavery in some states but not others was inevitable given the situation at the time of the Founding. And the post–Civil War amendments were aimed at homogenizing the nation to some extent, with regard to slavery, voting rights, and other individual rights.
But despite this, even after the Civil War the nation remained committed to a good deal of federalism, aimed at letting the people of each state maintain their own legal and social cultures, which might differ from those in other states. And pro-federalism advocates today, including those who often deride multiculturalism in general terms, are committed to maintaining the rights of states to maintain their own legal regimes, which reflect differing cultural values.
2. Religious freedom: The Constitution and the Bill of Rights — especially the Free Exercise Clause — contemplate a country with a considerable range of religious views and even religious cultures. Many of the Founding-era American denominations were distinct cultural groups, such as the Quakers, and some of them lived in relatively homogeneous enclaves.
American religious freedom has always included religious tolerance — the willingness to let religious groups live free of deliberate persecution. But it has also always included some degree of religious accommodation, which is to say exemption of religious observers from certain kinds of generally applicable laws. The Constitution itself embodies one such accommodation, in the provisions stating that a person taking the oath of office may affirm instead of swearing; that was intended to allow Quakers and other groups to participate in civic life without giving up their religion. Other early accommodations included exemptions from the military draft, exemptions of the clergy from the duty to testify, exemptions of Jews in Rhode Island from laws banning uncle-niece marriages, and more.
3. Free speech and economic liberty: The Free Speech Clause, coupled with protection for private property and — more broadly — freedom of movement and action, likewise facilitates multiculturalism and especially the preservation of immigrant cultures. When people come to America, they can live near others from the old country, speak their language with one another, celebrate their old festivals, and start up businesses that cater to their fellow immigrants.
They can also organize political movements together with their fellow immigrants, lobbying for exemptions from laws that they see as burdensome, or aiming to change American foreign policy with regard to the old country (or its enemies). Like it or not, this is a necessary consequence of our constitutional structure.
A legal system that was more dictatorial, more majoritarian, and less free-market could more effectively suppress such immigrant cultures. But our system can’t do so without undermining everyone’s free-speech rights, political-participation rights, and economic rights.
4. Parental rights: Parental rights, which have been expressly recognized by the Supreme Court since the 1920s, further promote multiculturalism, by giving parents broad power to convey their culture to their children. Indeed, the Court’s first parental-rights cases struck down restrictions on child rearing that were aimed at suppressing what some saw as excessive multiculturalism. Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) struck down a law that banned private schools from teaching children a foreign language — a law largely prompted by a sense that such teaching would undermine the common American culture. Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) struck down a ban on all private schooling, a ban largely motivated by its backers’ view that Catholicism is incompatible with majority American culture. Parental rights are not absolute, but they remain powerful protectors for dissenting cultures, whether they are immigrant cultures, religious-separatist cultures (such as the Amish), or religious-conservative cultures that reject the secularism of the public schools.
This article overgeneralizes multiculturalism into some amorphous catch-all concept that, in the final analysis, covers everything and means nothing. I am unfamiliar with Volokh and his principles, but suffice it to say that it is absolutely typical of progressives, who have used this tactic successfully for decades to plead one thing while foisting off something entirely different ('he who controls the language controls the debate').
Today multiculturalism means precisely one thing, and that is cultural Marxism, as originally conceived by the Frankfurt School and Hebert Marcuse. Its roots have nothing to do with the list presented; instead, it is a hostile alien ideology that, coupled with its offshoot political correctness, has implemented a tyranny never before experienced by Americans in their own country. It amounts to a war against traditionalist Western culture. If we continue to act like acquiescent zombies or fearful lemmings as it gains increasing control over our lives and liberty, this society will be forever distorted into something totally unrecognizable.
Today "multiculturalism" means the pushing of Spanish language everywhere and the non-enforcement of immigration laws when applied to Laintos. It is also about the pushing of Islam/Sharia Law into acceptance.
I reject both.
I prefer uniculturalism. If there are those who don't like, I say then, please don't immigrate to the USA.
Because I did my MA in anthropology, the thing that has always irritated
me about "multiculturalists" is their abyssmal ignorance of culture.
The basic tenets of so-called multiculturalism reduce to 1) despising their own culture, 2) excusing any kind of barbarism as long as it's practiced by another culture, and 3) worship of an incoherent mish-mash of traditions and customs chosen cafeteria-style without any appreciation of their cultural context.
And most importantly, an utter failure to realize, as Mr. Volokh points out, that America IS the premier example of a successful multicultural society.
Good job sir. Among other things you've shown yet again that the best social science is often done by amateurs - to the despair of professionals.
Yes, I think there is some confusion of terms here. "Multiculturalism" is generally understood as the idea that no culture is worse than any other (lefty exception: The United States). As noted by investorcs it has its roots on the left in cultural anthropology, postmodernism and has strong ties to Marxism.
I think what the author was trying to praise was *pluralism*. Which webster defines as:
a state of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, or social groups maintain an autonomous participation in and development of their traditional culture or special interest within the confines of a common civilization.
Multiculturalism is a contradictory belief in the superiority of a view that denigrates any view claiming itself superior. This is true of all strains of postmodernism.
This has *not* generally been the American view, at least not until recently--and that only by a lefty minority.
Pluralism is the acceptance of multiple views/cultures *within* the framework of a larger common culture. This is what America is about, not multiculturalism.
Volokh is right in the premise of his article. The question is not "Multiculturalism Yay or Nay" but the degree of separatism and tribalism not only tolerated but encouraged and mandated.
I am a product of a multicultural family. My parents and immediate aunts and uncles represented at least 5 different European cultures, replete with attendance at various hyphen-American fairs, different cuisine cooked and served at home, extended family members all speaking different language.
The difference is that I was raised in the "Melting Pot" as were there generation before me and it was into the melting pot, their parents were welcome.
We knew and celebrated all the unique and wonderful differences in our various heritages but we were all Americans first and we embraced America and all she means. The "old country" was just that, "old" and left behind.
Today, Investorcs is right when he points out that the term "Multiculturalism" is a byword for cultural Marxism. It's implementation, by stealth, is mean to divide us making us weaker and less able to come together to achieve and maintain greatness.
The beauty of the melting pot is that as we merged as a people, we became stronger and richer. Cultural differences were spices that flavoured our stew. You could not pick apart the individual ingredients. Alone, they were good, but combined with all the rest, it was unparalleled and could not be touched.
We need to bring back the Melting Pot.
We need to reject anything that incentivises division and we need to promote unity, collaboration, and integration.
If American society has become multicultural, it is only on the surface. Underneath it all, every American, regardless of his color, cultural background, ethnic origin, race, or religion, is designed to conform to America's value system through the U.S. Constitution.
"Can American Society regulate morality?" is my latest blog post that answered the same question from both Conservatives and Liberals. It is available at External Link.
If American society has become multicultural, it is only on the surface. Underneath it all, every American, regardless of his or her color, cultural or ethnic background, race or religion, is expected to conform to American value system through the U.S. Constitution. And, that value system is morality out of Christianity.
If you want to delve into this subject further, please visit the post entitled, "Can American Society Regulate Morality?" at External Link.
Wow, first investorcs reduces „multiculturalism“ to the caricature some US conservatives have made out of it, and then he slams Eugene Volokh who restores the original connotation of the term for “overgeneraliz[ing] multiculturalism into some amorphous catch-all concept that, in the final analysis, covers everything and means nothing!”
In between investorcs paints Professor Volokh into a “progressive”(OMG!), overgeneralizing himself the term “progressive" “into some amorphous catch-all concept that, in the final analysis, covers everything and means nothing.” Such line of argument ends up proving Attila the Hun a Marxist.
I guess the Professor has committed the crime of nuancing a political discussion. The multiculturalist “sin” of the Frankfurt School probably was to integrate thoughts by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Weber and others. True, they didn’t think that US society and its capitalist economy were the wonders that most US citizens would have it, and their core concept was that of “individual emancipation” which they felt threatened by a rather conformist modern society, the conformism of which a necessary condition for the smooth functioning of capitalist production (their thought, not mine). And, diverging fundamentally from orthodox Marxism, they thought that cultural change could lay ground for a more “emancipation”-friendly society.
In that – without necessarily building on his thoughts – their ideas in some ways resemble those of communist Italian leader Antonio Gramsci who held that the somewhat mechanistic orthodoxy of economic determinism and philosophical materialism were to be complemented by more cultural factors. Hence his conclusion that it was not sufficient to overthrow the economic base, you’d have to also combat the cultural hegemony of the “bourgeoisie”, and it’s not always clear what takes precedence.
SOME muticulturalists have borrowed SOME ideas from Herbert Marcuse and his colleagues. From whence conservatives have deduced that any thought about emancipation and – despite of SOME overlap with SOME aspects of libertarian thought – the ideas of the other German emigrants Adorno and Horkheimer, and their disciples subvert US society. In order to combat elitist “nuance”, some throw in the rather home-grown pragmatism of the James and Dewey type, and, pronto, there you have “a tyranny never before experienced by Americans in their own country.” But not only that: “It amounts to a war against traditionalist Western culture,” - based on Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, and Weber?
I hate to disappoint investorcs but multiculturalism is NOT the Critical Theory of Adorno and Horkheimer NOR the Gramscian concept of Marxism.
I only know a little about Professor Volokh from his blog but I seriously doubt that you could possibly accuse him of the “sins” of the Frankfurt School other than the shared common tradition of, yes, Western culture. I am not even sure whether he wouldn't consider the ideas from the Institute for Social Research as possibly hurtful.
Actually, people from all over the world may be happy upon arriving at this country. However, as they begin to confirm to our system and learn the contradiction between our economic and political principles, people become unhappy.
Look at the classic American literature. There is lots of unhappiness. My biggest shock as an immigrant was Long Day Journey into the Night by Tenessee Williams. How could any culture think this kind of content as timeless? Only after about 3 decades, I realized the play was indeed classic.
The implied part of the multiculturalism included in the constitution is the ability to maintain our culture with out being forced to include other cultures. And it does not guarentee freedom from procecution just that the FEDERAL government will not fund, support, or facilitate it.
So in forcing us to tolarate vile protest speech at funerals, and even the forced integration of schools, the Federal government has been overstepping its constitutional rights.
If multiculturalism simply meant learning to get along with people who have different beliefs and backgrounds, then who would argue with it?
But that's not what Multiculturalism is about. In practice, it means two related things:
(1) Enforced relativism - we must not only get along with everyone, we must affirm and approve of what they believe and do. "It may not be true for me that women need to wear a burka, but it may be true for you, and who am I to say that I'm right?"
(2) Hostility to the American, Western and Christian traditions in our culture, political discourse, and the teaching of history.
This is what makes Multiculturalism an unalloyed evil. It's not about treating others with respect. It's about treating our own heritage with disrespect and shame. It is a lie, and a tool of social control.
Volokh here proves that multiculturalism even of the "good" kind is the beginning of the end of any nation. Everyone is obliged to defend their country, if needed. Everyone. To excuse some is not religious accomodation or tolerance. It's inequitable treatment under the law.
As for excusing religious groups from the ban against uncle/niece marriages? That ban is based in science and observation, not to mention its negative cultural ramifications.
The primary distinction between good multiculturalism and bad multiculturalism is that the "bad" kind tells the general citizenry that they are obligated to treat a group differently (better), to aid in their efforts at group self-esteem building, and to help them maintain themselves as a separate and distinct people - "Hispanic Heritage Month," laws mandating bilinugual education and translation services, and so on.
If a group wants to maintain a separate language or identity that is - well, not fine, but their own business. But it is not the oligation of the state or federal government to help them do so.
Once the government gets nose deep in mandating to businesses and other private groups who they are obliged to hire or fire, or who they are obliged to be neighbors with, then multiculturalism becomes a net disadvantage to society.
We often take for granted the assumption that America is better than other countries simply because we have a larger economy, are militarily the most powerful, etc.
But there is no reason to think that it is anything other than population size that makes it so. There are plenty of countries far less diverse where crime is less common, where the economy is on a sounder footing, where the people are generally happier, that are as culturally dynamic, etc.
I'm thinking of countries like Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Norway, Israel, Finland, etc. None are particularly diverse, especially by American standards. All are economically more sound. These countries are more likely to come through the 21st century intact than the US is.
There is ample evidence that the best kind of diversity may be the subtle kind. America learned tolerance not through major differences but via little ones - Norwegians vs. Finns in the Midwest, Catholics vs. Protestants in the Northeast, etc. That form of diversity gives people with different outlooks a chance to find their place without defining themselves against the majority.
But when minority groups become large enough to compete with the majority, rather than choose to get along, and when differences are stark, conflict seems to be the inevitable result.
Crafting a successfully diverse society is both art and science. We seem to have gotten lucky in the past, though its hard to know that we wouldn't be better off if things had gone differently.
But diversity as practiced today, especially as revealed in our immigration policy, is like the person who goes into the kitchen and throws every random ingredient into the mixing bowl without regard to proportion and assumes something wonderful will result. In the kitchen the consequences are seldom more than wasted time and wasted ingredients. When eperimenting with a country, however, the results can be far more severe, and irreversible.
Multiculturalism, as practiced by today's political leaders and enforced by the judiciary acknowledges a heretofore nonexistent "responsibility" of government to preserve the culture of the individual. It's at this point that our society has taken its left turn; preservation of cultural practices was once the exclusive responsibility of the people who valued those practices. What we have now is a form of forced integration that has done so very much to denigrate the values once held as precious to Americans who were not hyphenated when it came to their country or their dreams for a better life for their children.
I think the confusions comes down to the difference between multiethnic and multiculturalism. Say you have immigrants from the Mediterranean region who retain pride in being Italians, Greeks, etc but on a fundamental cultural level they adopted the Anglo-Saxon model. Just look at the great difference between the Italians who immigrated to Argentina vs. Italians who immigrated to the US. In Argentina, they found a very fertile field for their corporatist views they brought across the Atlantic, for example falling for the likes of the Persons, while in the US they were forced to drop the cultural attributes that made where they came from such infertile ground.
Ditto what investorcs and others here have said. Volokh is engaged in a foolish, pointless endeavor that plays into the hands of the Left. One might just as well say that we shouldn't unequivocally condemn "progressivism" since we all want progress, some people who have been called progressives at some times in history have favored some good things, etc., or that we shouldn't condemn "liberals" because classical liberalism is a noble tradition, "liberalism" connotes freedom, yada, yada, yada. "Social justice" is another example.
Whatever "multiculturalism", or "progressivism", or "liberalism", or "social justice" might have meant at one time, or might mean in an alternative history, or might mean in some obscure context no one knows about, they have all come to mean, or to be code words for, very bad things. When we delegitimize those words, we delegitimize those things, which is a necessary part of the fight against them. And, as others have pointed out, there are other words we can use to denote any benign meanings those words might have once conveyed.
Unlike any other nation on earth, being American is NOT defined by being a member of ethnic entity or group. Instead, it is the embracing of the unique ideals of the Founders that makes one American - and that is what also binds us together.
Multiculturalism does not demand it of immigrants. But without it, there can be no America.
"Whatever 'multiculturalism', or 'progressivism', or 'liberalism', or 'social justice' might have meant at one time, or might mean in an alternative history, or might mean in some obscure context no one knows about, they have all come to mean, or to be code words for, very bad things."
Likewise, "federalism" no longer means what it meant in 1810, as the United States is far more like a unitary state than like the thirteen separate, sovereign states prodded into an alliance. "Federalism," more often than not these days, is code for "I want to avoid the consequences of majority rule" as opposed to "my state is really different from your state so the rules in my state need to be really different from the rules in your state."
Few people think about being transferred from Dubuque to Plano, Texas the same way they think about being transferred from Dubuque to Amsterdam -- or even Vancouver.
