Culture and Multiculturalism - Essay Example

Introduction The story is told about 4 blind men walking together down a jungle path. The four found that traveling together served each of them morethan traveling alone. As only a blind man can tell, there are many problems and obstacles to the blind. Even a slight bump in the road or unexpected turn can catch the blind off guard, and present a significant obstacle or create injury. So the 4 were glad to have each other's company, and enjoyed the afternoon in ways that they would have missed if traveling alone. As the path emptied out into a larger field, the men heard elephants trumpeting in the clearing. Having never seen or experiences an elephant before, the four spread out a bit, and quieted themselves in order to approach the elephant without spooking the beast. As the first man found his way to the trunk, he stroked the beast, calming and reassuring it that they meant no harm. The others eventually found the animal, and they spent most of the afternoon stroking and feeling the pachyderm in order to determine just what an elephant is, and to build a clear image in their own minds. As the sun began to set, the animal meandered off, leaving the men to discuss their experience. The four were each excited, and burst into chatter as they found their way back to the path which led to their village. "What a majestic beast the elephant is," said the first. "An elephant is like a large tree, strong and unbending; only with skin hard and strong rather than rough bark." This man had been holding the elephant's leg, and could only visualize the creature in terms he could compare to a familiar object. "A tree, did you get lost in the forest again" asked the second. "An elephant isn't like a tree. It is long, and winding. An elephant has many rumples up and down its back, and when it breaths, the moist air is like a windstorm." This man had been grasping the elephant's trunk, and he was sure that his encounter with the beast was the correct one. The other two added to the argument. The third has felt the animal's side, and was sure the animal was as large as the side of a house, and he couldn't fathom how the other two could be so wrong. The last argued that the elephant was just another snake in the jungle. He has been holding the animal's tail, and he wasn't impressed at all. The fourth had encountered snakes before, and this elephant was no more impressive than these. The four men became so heated in their debate, defending their own positions rather than listening to the others that their conversation ended in stony silence. Eventually, as they came across different paths in the jungle the men separated. Each decided that he could better experience the jungle by themselves than to continue company with a group of blind and ignorant men. Sadly to say, none of the men made it out of the jungle alive. Blind and alone, they made easy prey to the land's natural predators. This fable is an accurate illustration of the current multicultural debate. The parties debate who social order should be arrayed as a result of a multicultural mindset. The factions fight over verbiage, stereotypes, and even the purpose of educational, political and social order in order to defend their own perspective. While each faction has its own piece of accurate truth, the idea of creating a culture together is quickly becoming lost in the disagreement. As a result, our culture is more at risk of loosing the strength and protective power it once had when all our citizens were working for a common good, for a common goal, for a strong and prosperous economic and social structure which provided opportunity for all its citizens. Defining the elephant Harrison gives this rather vague definition. "Multiculturalism...is a theory (albeit vague) about the foundations of a culture rather than a practice which subsumes cultural ideas." (Harrison, 1984) His input is about as helpful as asking directions from one of the proverbial blind men. But the idea is that a multicultural mindset is one which recognizes, and even promotes the idea and experience that any social order is made up of many cultural subsets. The larger order is not thought of as a homogeneous controlling system. Rather the larger identity is thought of as a group of subsets, or cultural sub-currents which each exist with their own sub-cultural identify within the larger group. The term 'multicultural' comes from the study of anthropology which devotes itself to identifying cultural trends within undefined people groups across the globe. For example, in the jungles of South America, or in the islands which make up the New Guinea region, hundreds of individual tribes exist. These tribes have little to no contact with each other, unless it is at the end of a spear. The tribes have developed different dialects so that communication between them can be very difficult. Although these people groups live within a distance from one another that is no larger than a western metropolitan city, the differences between them make each unique. Each tribe is an entity to itself, and therefore talking about these peoples in terms of a collective society, or larger homogeneous culture is a useless use of vocabulary. The groups are distinct. They have little contact with each other, and therefore remain identifiably different. This is the term as it is defined but the Columbia University Electronic Encyclopedia. "Multiculturalism or cultural pluralism is a term describing the coexistence of many cultures in a locality, without any one culture dominating the region. By making the broadest range of human differences acceptable to the largest number of people, multiculturalism seeks to overcome racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination." (2003) In this definition, one can see the anthropological roots of the term and idea of multiculturalism. In the study of third world, aboriginal and tribal peoples, many individual groups can exist within a specific locality which are so unique that attempts to categorize them in a single group would be woefully inaccurate. However, at this point, the applicability and usefulness of multiculturalism begins to break down when applied to organized western society. Western civilizations and the peoples of Europe, Great Britain and across the pond in America are people groups that have not built their social structure in isolation from one another. Even the Atlantic Ocean has not kept the western societies from interacting. As a result, while each country has individual customs, traditions and histories, the peoples have surprisingly similar values, and a shared cultural identity regarding their struggle for freedom and desire for independence which has forged similar cultures in each locality. It seems that in applying the anthropological definition of multiculturalism to organized social orders, the focus has been on making the size 6 shoe fit on a size 8 foot. Rather than building social strength on the commonalities we share, the multicultural trendsetters attempt to dissect peoples and build walls. This trend has not been helpful to the strength or integrity of the western nations during a time of increasing globalization of our economies, and increasing competition across formerly impenetrable geographic boundaries. In order to apply the multicultural mindset to organized western culture, the focus has become spending energies on identifying and amplifying the "broadest range of human differences" rather than working on building cohesive, strong interactions that help us work together, and experience life together. The result, unfortunately, is strikingly similar to that of the blind men in the opening proverb. We are weaker and more vulnerable as individuals who refuse to cooperate. We are less able to overcome environmental, social, economic obstacles while we insist on our own identities than we would be if we identified ourselves as a common people, working together for common goals, for the improvement, and to provide increased opportunity for all. For example, what if one family decided that part of its cultural identity was to eliminate the letter 't' from the alphabet. As the family grew, and became children and grandchildren, this group would fit the definition of a 'tribe' in the multiculturalist's mindset. For this group, elimina_ing _he le__er 't' would make i_ increasingly difficul_ for _hem _o communica_e wi_h _heir neighbors. When _hese children became of age, and sough_ jobs in _he marke_place, _hey would have _rouble being unders_ood by _hier piers, coworkers, bosses and cus_omers. Af_er a period of _ime, _his _ribe's economic power, and _heir abili_y to compe_e would also fail. The result would be a weaker family, an outcast group. At some point, one must ask if the desire for personal identity gained by of eliminating the letter 't' from their vocabulary was worth the social, economic and personal ostricization which would occur. In the jungles and third world peoples, these differences exist as a function of their tribal lifestyle. Within the setting of an organized, communicative and highly ordered social structure, one must ask if we are helping or hindering societal progress by focusing of the differences. Continuing down the path to Multicultural Armageddon. For those who have made the multicultural message the hill that they are willing to die on, the stakes have evolved far beyond the idea of valuing and respecting our differences in order to further societal advance. According to the Ayn Rand institute, those advancing the multicultural mindset seek to create "a growing force in America's universities and public life. Multiculturalism is the view that all cultures, from that of a spirits-worshiping tribe to that of an advanced industrial civilization, are equal in value. . . . Multiculturalism seeks to obliterate the value of a free, industrialized civilization (which today exists in the West and elsewhere), by declaring that such a civilization is no better than primitive tribalism. More deeply, it seeks to incapacitate a mind's ability to distinguish good from evil, to distinguish that which is life promoting from that which is life negating." (2006) While multiculturalists may jump the conclusion that the Ayn Rand institute is just a group of white protestant men trying to push their egalitarian doctrine onto the backs of unwilling peasants, it is enlightening to discover that Ayn Rand is a Russian woman, who immigrated to America at the height of the communist influence in her native country in 1929. (Who2, 2006) Above many others, she understands the oppressive power of political theorists who couch their own dictatorial desires in palatable, attractive terms from personal experience. Referring back to the missing 't' tribe, multiculturalists would demand that the missing 't's be accepted as any other group of people. The presence of the missing 't's would require having special training available. The training would not be for the tribe, but for all those who have to interact with them. They would need to be taught how to understand the language when the letter 't' is missing. They would have to endure sensitivity training so that their response to the missing 't' tribe did not hurt the tribe's feelings, or make them feel like they were outcasts. The entire emphasis from a multicultural mindset is to make the exception to the rule the norm, not by improving the rules, but by eliminating the rules. Thus, the practical outcome of a multicultural agenda seems to be the introduction of an acceptable level of chaos into the social order, rather than promoting advancement through understanding and cooperation. The undercurrent of this effort is the absolute realization that those who are making the rules, (the multiculturalists) are the one in power. Therefore the goal is not a more accepting social order, but simply shifting the control from those who have been building a successful, cohesive and prosperous civilization to those who want chaos, who want to tear down what others have built in order to replace themselves as those in power. If this seems like an extreme definition, the agenda in the following article reinforces this understanding. Multiculturalism, while presented to the uninformed masses as a way for individuals to be more accepted and understood, is actually a political and cultural war, waged for the purposed which all other wars are waged - the acquisition of power. In 1985 white and black educators in the state of Louisiana organized The Louisiana Association of Education That Is Multicultural, or LAEM. This by no means marked the beginning of the new "multicultural" phase of the casualty-laden war being fought in America over education. The war to which i refer is a black-white war. It is a war for control of the nature of New Afrikan education. In fact, it is a war for control of the very soul of the New Afrikan people. (New Afrikan means an Afrikan born in the United States--what we generally refer to in the United States as a "black" person.) Still, the creation of LAEM is a salient landmark because it focuses . . . the formal marshalling of resources by the Americans (i.e., the whites), the United Statesers, under an opiatic rubric called "multiculturalism," in the continuing thrust of the whites to maintain their intellectual and physical subordination of the New Afrikans. (Obadele, 1995) Clearly those at the top of the multicultural political heap want to stay there by pushing others off their perceived "top of the social and political mountain." This is unfortunate for a nation which desires to continue to lead the world. Those on both sides of the political spectrum see the dangers of pursuing the multicultural agenda. Brian Barry, who is known for his liberal left leanings, argues in this same direction. In his book "Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism" Barry says that some forms of multiculturalism divide people when they need to unite in order to fight for social justice. (2002) Segmentation within the Economic Marketplace Pushing the multiculturalists' quest for power aside, many positive effects can be measured from the last ten years of this debate. Within the economic engine, since the industrial revolution, economies of the west have been dominated by the 'economy of scale' theory. Products which are mass produced can be done so at a fraction of the cost to produce products one at a time. The trade off is that products must be designed in order to appeal to a wide audience. Choice and variety were eliminated in order to produce merchandise at lower cost. Economically, nations mass producing products that were perceived to "meet the widest number of needs for the widest number of people" had to make the trade off, and reduce the availability of unique items, or products which are targeted to the desires of smaller groups of peoples. Under this theory, the desires for choice, or uniqueness were lost. However, as the push to recognize 'tribal' aspects of individual groups of people within the larger western society grew, the opportunity emerged for companies to begin to produce products to meet the segments of the population. This means wider selection, wider choices for the population. The benefit companies attained, those which were willing to shift to a segmentation marketing tactic, was increased market share due to the expanding choice offered to the consumer. For example, 10 years ago, in the soda aisle of the local grocer a shopper found Coca Cola, and Diet Coca Cola. Today, in the same aisle the Coca Cola manufacturers now shelve regular coke, cherry coke, coke with lime, non-caffeinated coke, black cherry - vanilla coke, as well as diet versions of each product. This ten fold increase in product availability means increased options for the consumer, increased shelf space for the manufacturer, and increased market share for the company. These benefits have been made possible by the value which has been placed on 'tribal factions' as a result of the multicultural debate. Similar marketing diversity has occurred within most industries. The music industry can produce CD's for wider diversity of musical tastes at economical productions costs. Clothing manufacturers, athletic shoe companies, and even automobile manufacturers are closing the gap between consumer desires and products offered by offering choice, and integrating application of choice into the manufacturing process. These policies were made possible in part by the advancement of computer technology, and use of the internet to facilitate instantaneous supply chain management. However, the desire to pursue a marketing strategy which includes segmentation policies has been accepted as a result of the multicultural debate. Individualism, Liberty, and Freedom A number of universals exist within the common experiences of mankind. Universally, mankind seeks an environment in which an individual is free to make their own choices. Universally, cultures which respected the individual and built a social order to harness the nuclear power of the individual have succeeded. With equal universality, social orders which built themselves on the assumption that individual must be lead, and told what to do because there existed an elite group that were more able to lead were civilizations which crumbled from within, and then were conquered from without. History has shown that when a group of people ascend the throne of power, and declare that they are better than the rest, it makes no matter if their claim is based on divine right, birth right, education, wealth, or military power. This society is destined to fail because the rights and God given desires of the people for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are trampled and abrogated. Therefore, if there is a positive message which can be gleaned from the current multicultural debate, the message is that individuals should be respected, and society prospers most when it creates a government and a social order which both applies value to the individual while at the same time both encourages and teaches individuals that by working together they can prosper more than if they work separately and demand their own way, their own rights at the expense of their fellow citizen. Works Cited Barry, B. 2002. Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. Culture and Multiculturalism. 2006 Ayn Rand Institute: The center for the advancement of objectivism. Retrieved 5-2-2006 from world wide web: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServerpagename=media_topic_multiculturalism M. Harrison, cited in Sneja Gunew, "Denaturalizing cultural nationalisms: multicultural readings of Australia" in Bhaba, Homi K. (ed.) 1990, Nation and Narration, New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall Inc. (p.99) "multiculturalism." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press., 2003. Answers.com 02 May. 2006. http://www.answers.com/topic/multiculturalism Obadele, Imari. "Multiculturalism: War in America Continues" cited in Jackson, S; Solis, J. ed. Beyond Comfort Zones in Multiculturalism: Confronting the Politics of Privilege. 1995. Bergin & Garvey. Westport, Connecticut. "Rand, Ayn." Who2 Biographies. Who2, 2006. Answers.com 02 May. 2006. http://www.answers.com/topic/ayn-rand Read More