@ Flanders Fields

You make interesting comments and, at least, you get away from the silly blame game as to which side of the Atlantic is responsible for "multiculturalism".  Since the term means different things to different people, it may be a bit harsh to put the blame for this 'original sin' on poor Auguste Comte. 

While you are certainly right that the idea is rooted in the marxist idea/illusion of "behavior modification" (or the 'malleability of man'), the question remains: does it actually improve behavior or does it lead to the absence of minimum (common) standards.  If the latter, it leads to a jungle were bad behavior will drive out good behavior.  Similar to Gresham's famous law (bad money drives out good money). 

This article claims that the term was first used in a book review by the New York Herald-Tribune in 1941. The article is at: http://www.answers.com/topic/multicultural

 
It supposedly was coined as an antidote to nationalism and,"...was named in a book review in the New York Herald-Tribune for July 1941 applauding "a fervent sermon against nationalism, national prejudice and behavior in favor of a 'multicultural' way of life."

From what is available, it seems likely that the reasoning of a French philosopher from the time around 1750, Auguste Comte, may be the origin of the thought process behind it. He is sometimes cited as the father of sociology, but he seems to have been more interested in it on the religious plane on terms we would view as secular athiesm or agnosticism. I think he may also be largely responsible for the secular aspect of the movement embracing multiculturalism.

Although I have found no direct linking to Comte, the expressed philosophy of the first president of the World Health Organization, Brock Chisholm, promoted the same reasoning in 1945.

To Chisholm, morality and judgements of right and wrong, were a hindrance to man and society. His ideas seem to have permeated the UN and leftist thought in general and is reflected in the educational systems of both the US and Europe. The modern emphasis on behavior modification in education strips away values of the parents and their kids right to learn.
It is more important to get along in a multicultural world than to do right in intelligent ways.

In the past, two groups of people used to support marxism. The first group was made of members of the working class who did not understand economics. The second group was made of leftist bourgeois intellectuals acting like stupid teenagers. Although the first group was bigger, I think that multi-culturalism only has roots in the second group.

Although marxism is supposed to be about organizing a marxist coup d'état, I think that most working class communists did not really want to destroy society. They were mostly interested in having bigger wages. But I suspect that the socialist "elites" have always been interested in destroying society. They used to say that the USA wasn't better than the Soviet Union. Now, they sometimes suggest that the West is not morally superior to the muslim terrorists or "insurgents". They have fallen out of love with the European working class and have begun to replace it with third-world immigrants. And also, now they hate Russia.

As an outgrowth of the civil rights movement. But it's theoretical origins are from the marxists who dominate American social and humanities departments in the universities. It's difficult to apply a class model on the US, since there is so much economic mobility. So instead, they switched race for class and hit paydirt.

@ Mission Impossible

Perhaps you are a good tennis player, but you certainly do not understand the economic concept of "free trade".  Which is unfortunate, especially for you, but truly for all of us.

Instead of engaging in gratuitous personal attacks, you would be well advised to take an example from Snorri Godhi.  He is trying to address a specific point, and he does it well.   I have addressed 3 specific misconceptions you have, and you have said absolutely nothing serious in response. 

My conclusion is therefore that you continue to (a) confuse colonialism with free trade, (b) to misunderstand the sources of large-scale European emigration to America in the (rapidly receding) past, and (c) that you do not understand the economic concept of "free trade".  Hence, I fear, you will continue to parrot the mass media on 'trade'.

"Never-say-die attitude" is the true hallmark of the tennis player.  Thanks for the compliment. It was unintended for sure, but nevertheless...  And, rest assured, western economies are not "being stripped bare". In fact, the cupboards are pretty much overflowing.  Do you really want to join 'voyager', Buchanan, and other 'Luddites' of our age? 

In france, supporters of massive immigration are enemies of multiculturalism. Immigrants are supposed to bring their new, superior genes, but not their culture. Arabic is still kept out of french schools and public radio. The only topic on French radio seems to be islam, the muslims, immigrants, the Middle East. But the programs are always made by french leftist ideologues, not by Arabs.

On the religious front, things are different. The french government and media have become complacent with islam, even though immigrants are probably using islam as a way to keep an ethnic identity. Although french government and media remain hostile to christianity, islamophobia has officially become a sin. French mayors are looking for ways to get around anti-religious laws so as to subsidize the building of mosques. Usually, we are told the mosque is really a cultural center.

France has been an artificial nation, a proposition nation, since the French revolution of 1789. You can find a description of what is a proposition nation on the VDare site. Building the French state was about destroying every culture, language or religion existing on french-controlled territory, except for the french language itself. It has remained the dominant french ideology to this day. Being french makes you "universal", whereas defending your Breton identity is unhealthy nostalgia, mixed with racism and "communautarisme". I am not sure that defending one's Arab identity would be better received. France has tried to do to third world immigrants what they did to the Bretons, destroy their language, try to transform them into french people. But it did not work.

As Travis Bickle said: you talkin' to me? If so, it's all here.

Marcfrans claims that Fjordman and I cannot both be right, but that is not quite true: from the context, it appears that Fjordman's position is that PC originated in America as a large-scale movement. I (or rather, Bill Lind) claim that PC originated with a small bunch of European philosophers who never had much of a following in their countries, within their lifetimes. There is no contradiction here.

However I do disagree with Fjordman when he says that PC "exists all over the Western world, but strongest in Western Europe". This is not only contrary to my experience and to the experience of some other people (NB: "Anonymous" is not me!). It is also contrary to facts that Fjordman knows very well, and has commented upon, such as: surveys showing that Europeans are more "islamophobic" than Americans; the increasing gap between the European public and elites; the fact that Fjordman himself cites mostly English-speaking academics when he talks about the failure of Western universities; and finally the failure of the American press to publish the Danish cartoons.

A related disagreement is that I do not believe it's useful to insist that PC is Marxism: PC has its origins in Marxism, but it must be understood on its own terms, otherwise it's impossible to understand why Europe is more socialist, and America more PC.

As an aside, may I suggest to both of you that, if you plan to continue posting long comments, it might be better to set up your own blogs?

Wolfie: Wlecome to the club. In reply to your comment: the way I see it, the British have lost any right they might have had, to criticize eastern Europeans, in the period 1938--1945. I don't suppose I have to explain why.

My dear marcfrans ... I will try to be as gentle as I can.

Instead of debating, you seem to prefer "my ideas are better than yours" marathon tennis matches. The trouble is, your "never say die" attitude (coupled with your less than spectacular grasp of history) can undermine people's respect for your often cogent opinions. For example, I have lost count of the number of times you have completely misinterpreted what I have written, before going off on a tangent: see your most recent para. (3). I had forgotten, but I now recall I almost got sucked-in to a similar scenario with you a month back.

Regarding your para (4) ... some more advice; you shouldn't assume to know what others do or don't understand based upon your misreading of a few paragraphs written in Comments posted on this website.

How many times do you need to split a hair before you are satisfied? With this dogmatic attitude, you'll always appear to be a "problem on top of the main problem," instead of being at the centre of the solution, where you deserve to be.

Please take up meditation, or Chi-Gung. We need people like you in tip-top shape.

Hi All,

Thousands of white immigrants from eastern Europe are deeply racist, UK's Trevor Phillips the head of the race relations watchdog has warned.

No we are not racist bigots, but yes we hate comunism and any censorship against free speech.

I have been there and no thank you I do not want to go back.

Multiculturalism with PC censorship equals Comunism!

And by the way there is nothing soft about:

"soft-totalitarian form of censorship employed to enforce Multiculturalism"

What do you mean soft if you can go to a jail for what you say?

What is the hard then - West Europeans Gullags?

@ Mission Impossible

...

(4) I am afraid that you do not understand the concept of "free trade", nor the economic theory of comparative advantage (or costs) which has provided the intellectual underpinnings for free trade since the times of David Ricardo and Adam Smith.  But that is a big subject which cannot be dealt with easily here.  It is in any case nonsense to talk (like some paleocons and most lefties do) about "western economies being stripped bare".  What ultimately matters is per capita income levels, not production structures.  Two hundred years ago roughly 90 % of total income and of employment in a typical western country was created in agriculture, whereas today less than 5 % is. That means that most people have been 'freed' to do other things.  Economic progress takes place through a process of destroying 'old' industries and 'freeing' people to do extra things. But most of the media does not understand economics and parrots what is ideologically 'fashionable' in academia.  I fear that you are just parroting the mass media on this point.

5) Snorri Godhi and Fjordman are both Scandinavians, but they can NOT be both "right" at the same time. Fjordman claims that the idea of multiculturalism was exported from America to Europe.  And Snorri Godhi says that the idea was "born" in Europe.  It makes more sense to say that the idea is a western idea, rooted in marxism and moral relativism in western academia, and that it has afflicted both sides of the Atlantic at different times and in different degrees.  But, the American motto is, even today, "out of many, one". And the old slogan of the Belgian state was "strength in unity".  But the new one in Brussels seems to be "we are all pretty much the same", which is of course nonsense.

@ Mission Impossible

1) I do not think that 'noapology' has "confirmed" Fjordman.  Far from it.  As I said, the civil rights movement originally sought integration and not separatism/multiculturalism.  Its later 'inheritors', however, continued to play the victimisation card using language borrowed from marxist academia.

2) Colonialism was driven by 'nationalism' and by 'absolute monarchism' in Europe.  In many ways it was the opposite of free trade.  Instead of trading with each other, each European power tried to set up its own larger 'empire' within which they could 'trade'.  But the economics of integration teaches that countries can more profitably trade and economically integrate with competitors (other countries at a similar level of development) instead of with countries at vastly different stages of economic development.  The economic benefits of integrating Bavaria with Hesse far exceed those of integrating Bavaria with Rumania, etc...

3)  It is NOT "free trade" that drove large-scale movements of people from Western Europe to American shores.   The reasons were different in different time periods.  They had to do with religious persecution, with economic crises (like potatoe famines etc..), with wars and other upheavals in Europe...but they had little or nothing to do with "free trade". 

.......

Good stuff, sir, but my own reading of the parasitism (in the Glenn Reynolds "Is democracy like sex?" sense) visited upon western "elites" -- both here in the USA where I live and in the larger world of like-minded true believers -- in the last period of time leads back to a wild-eyed nineteenth-century ideologue named Antonio Gramsci:

Chomsky, Moore, Fisk: Pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant

I disagree with you completely about Hitler's political leanings. Firstly, he was a nationalist in the truest sense, for he had an affinity with the German nation, which included mainly Germany and Austria. This nationalism was of a particular ethnic variety that transcended the current states and boundaries of his era. In fact, he set out to match the nation with its "rightful" state.

Secondly, he was a sub-racialist, with an ideal of the German people as 'Nordish' to be exact. While the Finns, Balts, and Poles were more Nordish than the Germans, Scandinavia was the original home of the Germanic tribes, and he inducted aesthetically "qualified" children from conquered territories to be raised as Germans, he was above all a German supremacist. Although he wanted the Germans to conform to an ideal which other groups may have been more suited for, the German was superior to all the other European nationalities.

@marcfrans ... thank you.

No comment on Civil Rights Movement, because it was irrelevant to my argument. Contributor noapology has just confirmed Fjordman vis-a-vis CRM (IMHO).

No, I didn't mix up colonialism with 19th century 'free trade'. Remember, colonialism formed skeleton or framework of 19th century free trade. I was just illustrating similarities of "world-connectedness" between then and now.

U R correct ... that free trade did not drive large-scale movements of people WITHIN Western EUROPE, but it DID drive them to American shores.

significant movements of 'peoples' [within] certain colonial 'empires' is a different phenomenon. Agreed, but I meant something quite different. My point was to show these movements did not invite any intellectualizing of multiculturalism in the West. Examples: Britain invited large numbers of Indians to British universities to help staff ICS during late 19th century. At King George V's 1911 coronation in London, there were large numbers of British Empire (ethnic) troops in attendance, and in precession.

Multiculturalism is not a problem of 'free trade', it is a problem of political culture. Agreed! But, I never said or implied otherwise.

What we see in the world today is not free trade. Free trade was never about destroying industry & commerce in western countries in order to export them, en-bloc, to underdeveloped countries for share holders to make a quick killing. If western economies continue to be stripped bare, then what will they trade in the future: carbon emission options?

Snorri Godhi has got it right (2006-11-18 23:23).

Most luminaries of multiculturalism have been European, because Marxism and Trotskiism, et al, are European also. Are you a gardener? Many plants start out in nurseries before being taken by others to be planted elsewhere, to grow and thrive. This was America's role. It provided the well-tended garden.

Fjordman, you are correct in saying that the multicultural, Political Correctness ideology
had its birth in the Civil Rights Movement. In the early 60's, every perceived racially-motivated transgression was a club used to good effect on the heads of southern politicians. As the notion of racial inequity, along with the baggage of guilt certainly didn't originate in the South, it most
probably was advanced by the ACLU, leftist professors in the Ivy League schools, the
Ford Foundation, and various leftist think-tanks, all of whom were either Marxist humanists or Gramscian inspired Leftists, who mostly languished in academic obscurity until they caught the wave of a certifiable victim:  America's Negros. The word "nigger" disappeared from the public vocabulary
of all southerners, except for poor, white trash who didn't give a sh*t what anybody thought. What were acceptable names for blacks morphed with the times, though it is still, even today, acceptable for one black to call another black a nigger.

-No Apology - 910 Group member

Along with unacceptable appellations for blacks, such as: spooks, spades, jungle bunnies, alligator bait, jigaboos, etc. came the realization that the blacks had, in fact, suffered much at the hands of the white man. As for the institution of slavery, per se, white Southern Americans certainly didn't invent the practice, but with the production of Alex Haley's TV series "Roots", a national guilt was born, and we had a perfect victim upon which to launch the Cultural Marxism ideology in the United States: the American Negro. What is interesting is that even though Haley, who lifted the "Roots" theme from Harold Courtlander's book,"The African", and was successfully sued to the tune of $650,000 for plagarism, still perpetrated the hoax, and upon the basis of "Roots",David Wolper launched "the most successful mini-series of its time", according to Stanley Crouch of the New York Daily News. Also Doubleday made a pile off the book, and even though they admitted the hoax, continued to publish the book. What is sad is that the blacks bought the hoax, hook, line, and sinker, because it legitimized their victimhood. The rest, as they say, is history.

-No Apology (Ole Miss alumnus)

910 Group member

I have found the article by Bill Lind where I learnt to blame political correctness on Gramsci, Lukaks, and the Frankfurt School.

A name that has not yet been mentioned is Edward Said. Like Kallen, Said was not born in America, but was thoroughly American-educated. Most of the other founding fathers of political correctness were Europeans who found American academics eager to lap up their nonsense. For instance, Derrida has been mentioned by Ransom and Mission Impossible, but isn't Derrida taken more seriously in America and Britain than in France? So Fjordman is right in the sense that PC first became mainstream in America; but it was not really born there.

Of course, we could go much further back in time to find the origins of multiculturalism: what about the Cyrus Cylinder?

@ Mission Impossible

.....

  3) Economic theory teaches, I repeat, that genuine free trade is a SUBSTITUTE for (large-scale) people movements.  When nations engage in trade (plus capital movements) then people movements become unnecessary. They might still take place, for other 'reasons', but they are no longer necessary. The early great economic thinkers were very well aware of this in promoting free trade, and used it as an argument in their efforts to expose the costs of protectionism of nation states.   The contemporary problems of multiculturalism in western countries (Europe, North America, and 'down under') have little or nothing to do with the fact that world trade is growing faster than world output (i.e. that countries are becoming more 'open' to trade), or with the operations of multinational corporations and their tiny elites.  Countries like China and Vietnam are opening up fast to world trade, but have no significant multicultural problem. Multiculturalism is not a problem of 'free trade', it is a problem of political culture.

 4)  I strongly disagree with your comments on a variety of American sub-cultures, and certainly with your denial of a common American culture.  But you make so many different points there that I don't know which ones to focus on.  The Asian-American, Atheling on this 'forum', is a convenient shortcut to debunk your views.  Either you are suffering from excessive self-dislike, or (if you are nonamerican) you rely too much on the superficial and negative mass media picture.  There is of course great 'diversity' in America, but there is also a common culture, which is admittedly coming under great strain due to two forces: (1) naive-left thinking in media and academia on the left, and (2) libertarianism and 'special interests' (Wall Street Journal thinking) on the right.

...not even the great Fjordman, whom I admire.

@ Mission Impossible

Thank you for your comments.  We agree on the core of the argument which is that the root cause of multiculturalism (as manifested today in many western countries) lies in marxism and moral-relativism, particularly in western academia.   However, we disagree on many specifics, and certainly on the purported role of America w.r.t. European multiculturalism.  The Europeans were quite capable of dreaming this one up themselves, and they are certainly responsible for 'implementing' it, thank you.  Selfresponsibility is a great 'conservative' value.

On specific points.

1) As I said, Fjordman misreads the "civil rights movement".  But you do not comment on that.

2) I think that you are mixing up two distinct phenomena, i.e. colonialism and 19th century (plus earlier) 'free trade'.  There are obviously links between the two, but they are not the same thing.  Part of the 19th century was a heighday of 'capitalism' and of free trade in Western Europe, but this did NOT involve large-scale movements of people WITHIN Western EUROPE. The fact that there were significant movements of 'peoples' in certain colonial 'empires' is a different phenomenon. 

....

Back to Realism - perhaps too late

All isms make an effort reach a totalitarian end, including liberalism and so-called conservatism, perhaps more or less consciously.

Ism is meant to divide to sheep from the goats, remove the one kind that does not draw in the same direction of a throught/imagined and therefore idealized reality very far from or with no connection at all to REALITY.

Nothing wrong with globalization without ideology. Why should I try to prevent the Indians to proceed in nano-technology or Russians to go to the Internet, or businesses to source out?

The problem is that both Welfare-Socialists and Liberalist with or without welfare began to compete in getting more unqualified immigrants "to train their fine arts on", and perhaps most Liberalists trying to get cheap labour from anywhere in the world to outrun the Welfare-Socialists.

They forgot their endeavours were ideological projects of very much the same type. To forget their nations, their people, their language, their culture, their family, their children and at last themselves, and from where they came naturally implies that the West shall go under.

So, help us God!

They decide - democracy was just a phrase to cool you down.

Sincerely
J. E. Vig, Denmark
http://Danmark.Wordpress.com

Take away the common pursuit of material possessions then what have Americans got in common? Outside a few New England states, a common culture doesn't exist. It's a myth. There is black culture, Hispanic culture, Asian culture, and several flavours of white culture; they don't mix and lead parallel lives. Radio stations & TV channels already cater to this de-facto balkanization.

America is the Queen of Multiculturalism, and it has tried to force their unconvincing belief in it down the throats of the rest of us, so that they would not appear too stupid. If everyone is the same as you, then you must be normal, right?

Derrida and Foucalt were opportunists, who revelled in the French habit of talking over the same issue for 10 years without resolution just so they can enjoy coffee and awful cheese in good company. The French School (as they are known) came after multiculturalism was born, not before it.

No, for me, Fjordman got things the right way around. There is no need to elaborate ad infinitum. Yes, multiculturalism could never have taken off without a Marxist input into Academe, and without the creation of its sick cousin: moral relativism. You could say these two intellectual positions are two sides of the same coin as they can barely exist without the other.

But, the key catalyst was the USA. Multiculturalism is an American export. It was sold on the idea this was the future, that it was 'modern,' and if we didn't adopt it too we would remain backward hicks.

But blame is a different thing. Those who took it up in the recipient countries, to embrace its siren calls, are the guilty ones. They are more blameworthy than America because they were already inheritors of high cultures, deeply rooted in history and proud tradition. America, meanwhile, was still the new kid on the block, still looking to "boldly go where no man has gone before" (to quote the Starfleet Enterprise).

As I said, Fjordman is 100% Correct, for all practical purposes. [END]

Why 'very', and why dubious? America's academia has been riddled with communists and marxists for over 50 years. If you want to understand the parlous state of America's leading universities (never mind the lesser ones), vis-a-vis rampant, far left-wing indoctrination, then may I suggest you spend some time visiting Frontpagemagazine.com to familiarize yourself with what David Horowitz has already identified, and what he is trying to achieve.

Between 1946 and 1975, America essentially dominated Europe and Britain with its cultural ideas, its advice, its economic leverage, its investments, its social fashions, etc; so to suggest America has had a "dubious" connection with the export and spread of multiculturalism overlooks the available evidence. Of course, we are not talking here of America in toto, just the 'nutcase' states of the North-east (esp. those led by New York) and California. Even the popular Star Trek series could be said to have broadcast subliminal messages about the attractions of multiculturalism!

You correctly quote the American motto: "out of many, one." You also added: The American creed is to create a just and FREE society out of many different INDIVIDUALS, with one common broad culture.

Fine, but I have always had great difficulty identifying a genuine American culture, that was not connected to greed, profit, and a pursuit of the American Dream. What is American culture? Baseball caps the wrong way around? Coke & Hamburgers? Baseball? 7th Avenue? Hollywood? Rap music? Niggers with attitude? (that is the name of a group or a song by the way). Dressing up 7 year old girls in women's clothes for beauty contests? Rodeo? Where can you find a Prague or a Vienna in America?

As for one common culture, really? Balkanization has already occured in America, and it is ongoing. Furthermore, a continent is too big to have a common culture!

[CONTINUED ABOVE]

marcrfrans ... you post three erudite comments, although I have some semantic differences with you.

Perhaps, in my earlier comment, I should have underlined the suffix: for all practical purposes. By over-elaborating arguments, I believe you only succeed in fazing people. I think Fjordman has admirably avoided this trap when writing his article.

The British Empire watched over globalized trade, worth £ billions, before it (the Trade system) all fell apart at the start of World War I. This was a form of "qualified free trade," as British companies obviously wanted to protect their monopolies, but all western nations, including the United States, profited hugely. Within this world-wide movement of goods and services (the forerunner of America's present model) there was also massive movements of people, to new and distant places, either to resettle or to help administer this global trade. Despite this widespread mixing, there was never any discussion of multiculturalism. Indeed, Europeans understood both themselves and all other races and cultures far better back then, than they do today.

During the inter-war years, many of the Frankfurt School took refuge in America. Some stayed permanently. Some entered America's University system, and were feted. Therefore, you are probably entirely correct when you posit: ... multiculturalism as a governing reality in the west in recent decades is rooted in two 'victorious' trends in western Academia: marxism and moral-relativism. From Academia it has spread to the media and political elites ...

Then you write: Fjordman's assertion that multiculturalism has been "exported from the Unites States to Europe" is very dubious.

[CONTINUED ABOVE]

We are now a divided society at best, on levels where you and I live. Many of our fellow citizens don't know what to believe. Many have stopped beleiving in anything. Many of us are learning and resisting what has happened.  We have problems coming together as common citizens in our own countries.  We will learn to do that again without instructions from centralized authority.  We had better learn it fast.

It is still together at the top, though, isn't it?  It is still telling us that multiculturalism is good, but that we are racist and bigoted if we oppose it.  We are now labeled reactionaries by saying that something is right or wrong, while (we are told) living in the world requires compromise and relativism. They are able and willing to enforce our "compromise" by bringing the force of the states which we once ruled as citizens of representative governments against us. The only compromise given us, however, is the option of compromising our own beliefs and values, foregoing our liberties and the good way of life that was given to us by our ancestors.  We do not owe allegience to their beliefs or their power.

We never would have accepted a few years ago, as a free people, what we now accept today.  Centralization has been foisted upon us using a gradual approach because it was known there would be powerful opposition. What we accept today would have caused revolt if it had been done without being gradual. It was presented to us as desireable to "celebrate our cultural pluralism and diverse ethnicities", and it did have attractive aspects in the beginning.
 
We liked being able to meet someone who came from a place where we had never been and would probably never go.  Multiculturalism and political correctness  were interweaved with our growing repugnance for sins of our racial pasts and this made some of us feel less guilty than those awful forefathers of ours.  It almost divorced us from our ancestry, revised our histories and erased our national prides and identities.  This revisionism was reinforced as being a good thing by our professors, our clergy, the growing UN, and especially at every opportunity by TV Newscasters.
 

The term multiculturalism, whatever its source, is nothing more than an extension of the thinking that led efforts to establish the UN.  This had its beginnings long prior to the UN formation.  It is a tool used by those who wish to have  centralized leadership of the world, which generally includes almost all leftists in positions of real power.  It does include, however, many whom we would never classify as leftist who share the vision of monolithic leadership.
 
The vision and singlemindedness of those who are accomplishing this is almost incomprehensible by most of us.  We see and increasingly feel the effects of their agenda everyday, within the media, the schools, the churches, from corporate business and others. We were first aware of it only in the higher levels of these institutions.  Gradually, it has evolved to local levels and now it is the world we live in today. There is a reason for this gradualism.
 

An interesting article... I wonder if two more points could be considered.

Many Americans have a background of oppression.  The reason they came to America was to escape discriminatory conditions in Europe by the ruling elite classes.  In America the "underdog" had a chance to be free and prosperous.  Since many Americans are very sensitive to inequality (given their background), this idea fuels the guilt complex of multiculturalism.  However, original good intentions have been hijacked.  Left-wingers in America continue to fuel this muticultural guilt complex under the guise of equality and charity even though they cannot see how it is destroying the Native American population (pockets of Marxism in a free society) and leading to civil and moral degeneration.

Another point to consider might be the dramatic decline of Christianity in Europe (now also taking over in America).  Much like some people throw around charges of racism to kill any real objective look at facts, so also many people unfairly mislabel Christianity.  But the fact remains that Christianity is all about absolute truth, right and wrong, justice and accountability, selfless and moral behavior.  With the decline of Christianity and the loss of those values, no wonder moral relitavism takes over.  People are afraid to tell the truth or tell right from wrong.  Instead of accountability we get entitlement.  And politically it becomes not about the greater good but about selfishness and gain by any means necessary.

Interesting thoughts, but I wonder about the influence of such French deconstructionist thinkers like Derrida on this whole discussion of multiculturalism.

True, one can find ample evidence for the growth of multiculturalism during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, but built on top of that (or even buttressing it) were the intellectual movements to deconstruct literature, religion, language, etc., hoping to rebuild such texts and histories from multicultural perspectives (feminist history, gay studies, etc.). Derrida, and a number of other French thinkers like him, helped in this foray. And, of course, while there were American thinkers like them, this seemed to be a very Eurocentric movement in its roots.

Now it's interesting to see people actually go ahead and deconstruct Derrida's attempts at deconstruction. Just some thoughts...

.....

'Vanishing American' made the interesting point that a bastion of purported "conservatism", the Wall Street Journal editorial board, is a fervent open borders (for people) advocate. In my view this is clearly a byproduct or outgrowth of two things: (1) the hyppie youth rebellion of the sixties and associated extreme forms of libertarianism, and (2) a confusion of 'special interests' of businesses with the general interest of the 'economy' as a whole. Needless to say, the WSJ board is close to 'business', but does not understand well the necessary cultural and institutional foundations for a succesful economy. Of course, the Chinese, among many others, do understand that better. A succesful economy requires as a minimum 'rule of law', which is incompatible with 'open borders'.

....

Fjordman misreads the earlier civil rights movement in the US. That movement in its early 'healthy' form was aiming at integration, and NOT multiculturalism. Unfortunately, it degenerated quickly into separatism/multiculturalism, in the sense that many of its subsequent leaders found it more 'profitable' to continue to play the victim card rather than stressing self-responsibility and integration. As American blacks started integrating in growing numbers, its self-appointed leaders stressed multiculturalism as a way of maintaing control over their flock.  The (hate) 'language' they used they borrowed from the marxists in Academia.  In any case, it is doubtful that this particular American phenomenon, rooted in American history, had much to do with the subsequent victory of multiculturalists on the European political scene.

 The American creed, based on the earlier necessity to populate a largely empty continent, was not a multi-cultural one, but a multi-ethnic one. Not the same thing. As the 'credo' in the American Supreme Court says in Latin: "out of many, one".  The American creed is to create a just and FREE society out of many different INDIVIDUALS, with one common broad culture. It is not aimed at creating a balkanised society with competing 'cultures' (only competing individuals!).

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As always, Fjordman provides a great read, even when he sets himself an impossible task.  And a number of commentators here have advanced interesting bits of information on 'precursors' of multiculturalism in the western intellectual tradition.

Personally, I think that multiculturalism as a governing reality in the west in recent decades is rooted in two 'victorious' trends in western Academia: marxism and moral-relativism.  From Academia it has spread to the media and political elites, and the negative results are there for everyone to see.

Fjordman's assertion that multiculturalism has been "exported from the Unites States to Europe" is very dubious.   There is some truth to that, in the sense that American universities have had a dominating influence, certainly in the early postwar decades.  But it is certainly not true in the sense of conscious government policy.  

Pvdh is correct (at least in one thing) in saying that America has given the world of the past half century "free trade and globalization".  However, that is not the same thing as "multiculturalism".  Free trade in many ways is the opposite of multiculturalism.  It is a way of strengthening self-determination of peoples by SUBSTITUTING movements of goods and services, and capital, for large-scale movements of people.  Free trade allows countries to partake in the benefits of greater economic specialisation and 'diversity' WITHOUT having to open borders to people movements.  The term "globalisation", on the other hand, can mean anything, so it is not worth bothering with it.

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The price of what (post-war) is commonly called Multiculturalism, but in realty is the deliberate and largest mass movement of people mankind has ever witnessed has been high for nation states and their indigenous people, particularly with regards to the negative impact of islam on them. That price now is almost proving to be suicidal in most European countries in particular the U.K., France and Holland.

Why? What would come at such a high price for nation states and why are our politicians both from the left and right so willing to pay it, the only explanation I can imagine for this absurdity is another absurdity – nuclear deterrents or human shields.

For my part I think it's more a matter of social function and class interest than social psychology. We have multiculturalism because it destroys social connections and authorities our rulers don't fully control.

Culture doesn't exist unless it can be taken for granted as authoritative. Multiculturalism says that no particular culture can be taken for granted or treated as authoritative, since there are lots of them and they all have to be treated the same. It follows that multiculturalism is the abolition of culture as such.

I think that's why it looks so good to all public authorities. Culture is a system of habits, assumptions, loyalties and so on that lets people cooperate informally, without having someone specifically decide what they should do and how they should do it. If you get rid of it then all social life has to be designed by someone (various experts, government functionaries, advertisers and whatnot) and carried on with the aid of formal institutions like bureaucracies and markets.

If your social position is based on bureaucratic or financial power, what's not to like? Why should you want the people to be in a position to decide things and do them without asking you?

Jim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000)

I think Fjordman’s worldview is a bit mixed up. He makes it sound as if Multiculturalism is an invention, but it’s obviously the other way around. Mono-culturalism is an invention, multiculturalism is the normal natural way of life. The invention of Mono-culturalism originated from France. The “égalité” in “liberté, egalité, fraternité” Was not only seen as “equal rights” but also as “equal values, language and culture” The nation-state was born, and enforced. State boundaries weren’t set along cultural or language lines, witch were very blurred anyway. It was the other way around. When state boundaries became also barriers for trade, they enforced people to try to make a living within the new borders. This caused cultures to start to mix, creating new cultures in a very slow process. An ever ongoing process of creation. State boundaries mostly didn’t last long enough to achieve the end result of a new unique culture. Empires succeeded each other, sometimes creating big free trade areas. Cities as ancient Rome, Constantinople, Vienna, Amsterdam, all the Hanze cities were big multicultural cities at the top of there power. They were very creative on all parts of sciences and arts.
Believe me, monoculturalism is a depressing artificial poverty.

Unexpectedly, I have had to return to make another comment. Who am I to say whether anyone is correct or not? Well, I have spent over 25 years of my life living and working in countries other than my own. I also spent time in the midst of the "multicultural hailstorm" unleashed by the Clinton administration during the 1990s: being variously in Arabia, India, Malaysia, UK, and then the UAE during that decade, and trying to cling on (economically) for dear life.

All I can say, having heard the opinions and expectations of various non-Westerners plus all the usual cack-handed western dialogues, is that if anyone can be "100% correct" about a complex and civilizational shaking political influence, then Fjordman has just been with this article above. For all practical purposes, there is no real need to deviate from his analysis. It is all the ignorant (i.e., those who don't already read The Brussels Journal regularly) need to know.

I will take Fjordman's typically thoughtful article as written, with minimal comment. I would certainly strongly agree with his opening statement, where he posited that the rise of multiculturalism is due to "a combination of forces and influences." How true this is, and this simple observation underlines the difficulty embedded in the intellectual challenge of untangling all the threads.

Having read all the comments thus far -- which were all excellent and well informed -- I cannot add another historical name to the list. Those I would have mentioned have already been.

What I would add, and briefly, is that we should not overlook the very nature of our societies: their dispositions and character. Let me give you an analogy. When introduced to the British Isles, the Chinese rhododendron plant grew like wildfire and soon became an almost weed-like species due to its all conquering abilities. Another analogistic example is the American Grey Squirrel that within a few decades of its introduction to the country, began to threaten the native Red with extincion. Thus, when multiculturalism arrived, it must have exploited something in our cultural psychology that was initially very appealing. Perhaps it played on a misplaced guilt over Empire and colonialism? It has certainly become what you might call, a classical and virulent mind virus.

First, I entirely believe it's possible, as Fjordman says, that a conservative blogger would play the race card. I have seen it on many of the 'conservative' mega-forums. On almost any thread involving illegal immigration, some self-righteous 'conservatives' accuse anyone who favors immigration control of 'racism.' Such race-baiting is surely not conservative, but there are unfortunately a number of Americans who consider voting Republican as the only criterion of 'conservatism.' And there is no shortage of 'open borders' proponents who call themselves conservative, including the Wall Street Journal editorial staff.
'Conservatism' is in disrepair in America; the only real conservatives left are the traditionalists and 'paleos', IMO.
I think Fjordman is correct that the Civil Rights movement is a starting point for multiculturalism. The idea was already incipient, but once the Civil Rights movement established (in most people's minds) that racism was the very worst crime any human could commit, then any opposition to open immigration policies could be discredited by calling it 'racism.' Thus we had no defense against the destruction of our borders and the dispossession of European-Americans and the Anglo-American culture which had prevailed in America previously.
Whether the multiculturalists planned it this way, or whether it was just a fortuitous development, the tying of multiculturalism to 'tolerance' and anti-racism has been their strong suit.

I find it hard to believe that any conservative American blog would hurl the word "racist" in any context, let alone in regards to concerns about illegal immigration. This is a term that is trademarked by the Left.

Also, can Fjordman name for us a "right-winger" who sympathizes with multiculturalism and/or "no longer feel[s] any close attachment to their countries"?

One of the defining elements of American conservatism is a visceral dislike of multiculturalism and an abiding love of country. Perhaps "right-winger" and "American conservative" are not synonymous.

I am surprised that you didn't mention the obvious candidate-the UN.  I remember seeing tracts supporting multiculturalism at, I believe, a Methodist church where a youth group was passing out tracts from UNICEF.  It was being used as a money contributor to the UN.  The concept may have predated the UN, but the usage was being promoted by them at the time they first began gaining any strength.  As now, the children were the first tools used by them to gain more popular acceptance.

I normally agree with most  Fjordman comments, but take exception to several here.  I'll explain later.

Multiculturism is a product of mass apostasy and embrace of relativism in the West. Multiculturism is a perverse twisted version of charity and humility. The only way to eradicate it is to return to the Truth.

In my experience it is absolutely right that multiculturalism is stronger in America than in Europe (socialism is stronger in Europe but that's another problem). If you are not convinced, just watch Borat (the movie). To put it another way: Europeans might be anti-American, but they are not oikophobes. Except the British, of course, who should not be confused with Europeans.

And yet, where did moral relativism come from? from Europe, I am afraid: from Gramsci and the Frankfurt School. (I might be wrong because I am no historian of ideas.) The Civil Rights movement (in itself a good idea), together with the Vietnam war, provided the fertile ground for relativism that could not be found in Europe.

One must also distinguish between the irrational, ideological multiculturalism that dominates American universities from the also irrational, but pragmatic mutliculturalism that dominates European politics. European politicians are not interested in the relative merits of different civilizations: all what they care about is to avoid civil war until their term expires. That is becoming more and more difficult.

It is entirely plausible that the cultural relativism of multiculturalism originated in the United States, but it has been embraced here mostly by the academic left, which ultimately is distrusted and dismissed by the sane majority of the electorate.  Alas, in Europe it seems that the academic-journalistic-governmental left who spew this junk is respected by the masses.  Or, at least, anyone who actually objects to the idiocy of the left keeps his mouth shut in public.  The longer I am alive, the more I appreciate and applaud American anti-elitism, vulgarity, and individualism--even if it means I have to live among so many yahoos.

Multiculturalism is a product of the sympathy towards the "Noble Savage", a Romantic idealism of the American Indian, embraced by the Left's predecessors in 19th Century American Literature, such as Thoreau and Emerson, who idolized Nature. These writers and philosophers rejected the "sterile rationalism" of the Enlightenment.

Their thought goes back to the Father of Modern Liberalism:

Jean Jacques Rousseau.

Multiculturalism the idea, as opposed to the political movement, has older roots.  The anthropologist Franz Boas (American, I think) in the 1920s wrote that it was simply not possible for anyone raised in one cultural background to make moral judgments about many practices in other cultures with which he was unfamiliar.  We might cut him some slack in that he raised these points in response to the eugenics movement, which was powerful in the U.S. at that time.  But the idea he launched has had a fatal harvest just the same.

Christopher Lasch The Culture of Narcissism is a good place to start...............Multiculturalism is the trick by which you turn the majority into just one more minority group

Christopher Lasch