Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, caused a stir recently with her comments about diversity. She criticized the doctrine that people of diverse and disparate cultures and religions can live side by side in harmony. (The fact that she is German added to the controversy.) She said that multiculturalism has "utterly failed". Her comments quickly drew the ire of multiculturalists around the world.
Some attributed her remarks to the dark streak of ignorance and fear that is always lurking just below the surface of civilization. Those resistant to the idea of multiculturalism are seen as victims of a limited horizon: a horizon constricted by the familiar and the customary. Whether through habit, fear, or ignorance, those who refuse to embrace multiculturalism are viewed as being on the wrong side of history. The world is moving towards multiculturalism and people have to adapt.
Multiculturalism is heralded as an engine of progress. For its advocates, it represents the transcending of narrow and parochial views in favor of cosmopolitan ones. The benefit is new perspectives and an added richness brought about by exposure to new customs and ideas. Society is shaken out of its complacency by the contrast between the established culture and that brought by immigrants. Things that had previously been taken for granted and assumed are reevaluated. Some gain new luster, some are discarded as anachronistic or counterproductive. Society is improved and reinvigorated. This is the view held out by advocates of multiculturalism anyway. This view has merit but it overlooks much.
Culture is not an abstract idea. Cultures are not merely differences of language or simple habits and tastes. They are not fashions or adornments. They are complex systems of beliefs, customs, and behaviors. They are sources of identity. Culture is what differentiates one people from another. Disparate people can live side by side. Disparate cultures are another matter entirely. Beliefs are personal. Cultures are public.
It is important to distinguish between values and beliefs and the expression of those values and beliefs. Different people can share the same values but rely upon different means to express them. Where this is the case, multiculturalism can be a benefit. When social values are shared, the introduction of new perspectives and approaches can deepen and enrich them. Cultures which share the same values can coexist even where the expression of those values differ. One culture may show respect for its elders through gift cards or a night on the town. Another culture may demonstrate its respect through ritual dance. The difference between the two may be jarring, but it is possible for them to coexist because, at their core, they express the same values and sentiments.
When values and beliefs are not shared the real tension ensues. For example imagine of a culture where elders are ridiculed and mocked. Could such a culture exist alongside a culture where elders are respected? Can a culture that exalts the natural world coexist with a culture that strives to exploit it? Can a culture in which women are secluded from men exist alongside a culture in which women are encouraged to mingle among men? A culture in which privacy is jealously guarded can be offended and bewildered by cultures in which privacy is merely an afterthought. A community that observes a strict sense of decorum is easily unsettled by a culture that embraces life with abandon.
Yet even if values are shared, turmoil can occur. Small differences, such as whether eye contact is a sign of respect or an act of contempt, can cause considerable friction. A gregarious, emotive culture will coexist with a formal and reserved one only with difficulty. Different cultures may coexist physically, but they cannot coexist socially without disturbing each other and breeding resentment. One will have to yield. The question is which? The guest or the host?
Where one culture offends the sensibilities of another, coexistence is problematic. If there is tolerance, it will be a resigned tolerance if only because the effort to remove or suppress the offending culture would cost more than what is hoped would be gained by the effort.
Proponents of multiculturalism frequently assert that their support is based on principal. However, those principals are selective. The principals they choose must fit within their sensibilities. They are not in the least reluctant to resort to law and compulsion to challenge principals they find objectionable. They may feign to respect diverse cultures and customs but let one adhere to a culture or religion whose customs and traditions violate multiculturalist sensibilities and one will soon feel their disdain.
To pretend that culture is simply a matter of taste and expression is simplistic. Contrary to popular belief, multiculturalism is more complicated than pride days, parades, and the international food court at the mall. But to multiculturalists who believe they have transcended custom and social mores and live in a world above and beyond the parochial concerns that plague the rest of mankind, it is the future. For them, multiculturalism is not a means to an end, it is the end. To modern elites, culture is theater and all values are subjective but their own.
