|
|
Issues | Africa | World | Philosophy | Afrikaans | Leisure | General |
| 2001 | E-Mail this page to a friend |
Is ethnic diversity an "absolute essential" of a college education? UCLA's Chancellor Charles Young thinks so. Ethnic diversity is clearly the purpose of affirmative action, which Young is defending against a long-overdue assault. But far from being essential to a college education, such diversity is a sure road to its destruction. "Ethnic diversity" is merely racism in a politically correct disguise.
Many people have a very superficial view of racism. They see it as merely the belief that one race is superior to another. It is much more than that. It is a fundamental (and fundamentally wrong) view of human nature. Racism is the notion that one's race determines one's
|
This view causes people to be condemned (or praised) based on their racial membership. In turn, it leads them to condemn or praise others on the same basis. In fact, one can gain an authentic sense of pride only from one's own achievements, not from inherited characteristics.
The spread of racism requires the destruction of an individual's confidence in his own mind. Such an individual then anxiously seeks a sense of identity by clinging to some group, abandoning his autonomy and his rights, allowing his ethnic group to tell him what to believe. Because he thinks of himself as a racial entity, he feels "himself" only among others of the same race. He becomes a separatist, choosing his friends — and enemies — based on ethnicity. This separatism has resulted in the spectacle of student-segregated dormitories and segregated graduations.
The diversity movement claims that its goal is to extinguish racism and build tolerance of differences. This is a complete sham. One cannot teach students that their identity is determined by skin color and expect them to become colorblind. One cannot espouse multiculturalism and expect students to see each other as individual human beings. One cannot preach the need for self-esteem while destroying the faculty which makes it possible: reason. One cannot teach collective identity and expect students to have self-esteem.
Advocates of "diversity" are true racists in the basic meaning of that term: they see the world through colored lenses, colored by race and gender. To the multiculturalist, race is what counts — for values, for thinking, for human identity in general. No wonder racism is increasing: colorblindness is now considered evil, if not impossible. No wonder people don't treat each other as individuals: to the multiculturalist, they aren't.
Advocates of "diversity" claim it will teach students to tolerate and celebrate their differences. But the "differences" they have in mind are racial differences, which means we're being urged to glorify race, which means we're being
|
Advocates of "diversity" claim that because the real world is diverse, the campus should reflect that fact. But why should a campus population "reflect" the general population (particularly the ethnic population)? No answer. In fact, the purpose of a university is to impart knowledge and develop reasoning, not to be a demographic mirror of society.
Racism, not any meaningful sense of diversity, guides today's intellectuals. The educationally significant diversity that exists in "the real world" is intellectual diversity, i.e., the diversity of ideas. But such diversity — far from being sought after — is virtually forbidden on campus. The existence of "political correctness" blasts the academics' pretense at valuing real diversity. What they want is abject conformity.
The only way to eradicate racism on campus is to scrap racist programs and the philosophic ideas that feed racism. Racism will become an ugly memory only when universities teach a valid concept of human nature: one based on the tenets that the individual's mind is competent, that the human intellect is efficacious, that we possess free will, that individuals are to be judged as individuals — and that deriving one's identity from one's race is a corruption — a corruption appropriate to Nazi Germany, not to a nation based on freedom and independence.
Michael S. Berliner, Ph.D., is former executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute in Marina del Rey, California, and Gary Hull, Ph.D., is a philosopher and senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.
The original was published in the Ayn Rand website
Last 25 Visitor Comments |
|||
| Name | Subject | Date | |
| Visitor | Anonymous | General Comment | 10/28/2006 |
| get them off my tv | |||
| vusi | madw_at_webmail.co.za | gender in education | 9/12/2006 |
| please sends me some info that pertains gender in education. or what value does gender have in education | |||
| Macbeth | 200504576_at_student.uj.ac.za | LOVE IS THE ONLY HOPE | 4/26/2005 |
| It will always be there to do what it does best dived teams but there is a hope in accepting it and living with it.I have no dout that it will go away for the future love wich does not know colour therefore have hope. | |||
| Dr. Strangepork | anonymous | Racism Promotes Diversity | 2/15/2005 |
| Actually it is through racism that diversity is preserved. Having pure whites, blacks, asians, hispanics, and so on results in a Diverse population. Without racism we would all be mutts. Take the dog for example, if it were not for selective breeding (racing) we would not have such a diverse range of dogs, from the Great Dane to the toy poodle. There would be only one -- the mutt. | |||
| Josh | joshkar24_at_yahoo.com | Racism / Multiculturalism | 2/4/2005 |
| there are certain statistical coorelations between skin color and behavioral patterns however - to try to pretend otherwise and teach our kids one way or the other outside of obvious observation is just plain stupid. This has nothing to do with one race being superior or inferior to another; that standard is completely objective. The main reason racism persists in my opinion is that it is easier for human beings (and therefore to be expected) to blame some other "race" or groupd for their problems, or to boost their self confidence in themselves, than for them to simply take responsibily for ones actions. you can be 100% correct in your assertations that certain injustices were performed primarily be members of a certain race, or country, or party - but why burden yourself with that constant self-perpetuated opression? how much easier to resist such notions and get on with life - if one truely beleives negative steriotypes about ones race to be false, why get so incensed over them? I can understand how a minority would feel very thretened, having been in this situation, just because there are vast number of individuals that look different from me and are in positions of power - and it becomes a temptation to think "oh they have some secret club that tries to keep me down" when things go poorly for me. there's no denying that minorities have been treated horibly in the past, but to punish or reward people according to ethnicity rather than competency is to breed resentment and hate all over again. | |||
| Mike Robbins | robbins_in_california_at_hotmail.com | comment? | 1/18/2005 |
| i'm extremely impressed! this is amazing! (i love the fountainhead, i strive to remove the peter keating in me daily) am i crazed or is this article ACTUALLY ABOUT ucla? it certainly COULD be. especially th ethnomusicology department. i dotn go there, i attended calarts, and man i know a guy who sometimes helps teach the gamelan at ucla, and, referign to how they they care about intelligence, not playing ability, and that they care only about writing SEPARATIST PAPERS about other cultures(and not PARTICIPATION and actual learning) he said"ucla sucks." funny thing indeed. how can i obtain more of this stuff? aint there some institute i can join here? thanks | |||
| NENE | arana90_at_yahoo.com | WTF? | 12/24/2004 |
| IM SICK AND TIRED OF BEING JUDGED BY MY OWN SKIN COLOR N ITS NOT JUSS THE "WHITES" WHO JUDGE ITS ALSO THE"COLOREDS" I HAVE NEVER BEEN WHITE ENOUGH TO HANG OUT WITH THE WHITE PEOPLE BLACK ENOUGH TO HANG OUT WITH THE BLACKS PUERTO RICAN ENOUGH TO HANG OUT WITH THE PUERTO RICANS IVE ALWAZ BEEN OUT CASTED AND I JUST WISH THAT PEOPLE WOULD SEE WHATS INSIDE A PERSON B4 THEY JUDGE THEM I KNOW THAT YES I DO MYSELF JUDGE PEOPLE B4 I GET TO KNOW THEM BUT ATLEAST I DONT ACT LIKE A OHHHHHHHHH WHATS THE WORD 4 THIS ASSHOLE, DICKWAD, AND SUCH OTHER NAMES THAT UNFORTNITLY FIT ALOT OF PEOPLE IN OUR WORLD 2DAY......... | |||
| Not Politically Correct | polonium@telstra.com | Multiculturalism - The Death of Unique Culture! | 3/17/2004 |
| Get a reality check: Go to: http://www.claremont.org/writings/20030207krannawitter.html The Intellectual Errors and Political Dangers of Multiculturalism Comments prepared for a debate sponsored by the Cosmopolitan Club, Santa Barbara CA Let me begin by thanking Marcus Crahan and the Cosmopolitan Club for inviting me here to speak here in lovely Santa Barbara. (After my wife and I married in 1997, we honeymooned here in Santa Barbara at a wonderful hotel, the Montecito Inn, and I welcome any opportunity to come back.) I would also like to thank my interlocutor, Ms. Saveeni Kahn-Marcus of the University of California Santa Barbara's Multicultural Center, for agreeing to this debate. I come here today in a spirit of charity and gratitude—in the spirit of Aristotle, who once remarked that after all false opinions have been removed, what remains is the truth. It is my hope that my contribution will help reveal something of that truth, and that in turn I will receive the benefit of my own thinking on these subjects becoming clearer. In the brief time that has been allotted me, I would like to discuss multiculturalism intellectually and politically. First Intellectually. How did multiculturalism become a doctrine so nearly universally accepted by educated elites? Multiculturalism is on its face the study of many cultures. That there are many and different cultures that exist in our world today, and that have existed throughout human history—and that we might learn something from these cultures—is undeniably true. But multiculturalism represents something much more than that. To see this, we need to step back and recall an older way of understanding, in order to first make clear what multiculturalism is not. Going back to the roots of the Western philosophic tradition, philosophy, or the search for truth and knowledge, begins with three premises, which are themselves indemonstrable, but which provide the foundation for any and all demonstrable propositions: 1. The first is the common sense notion that man finds himself in a world, a universe, a cosmos, that he did not create, and which he does not command, but of which he is a part. 2. The second is that there is an order to the cosmos of which man is part, evidenced by such common observations as the sun always rising in the East and setting in the West, or the fact that dogs always give birth to puppies, while human beings always give birth to babies, and there is never a mix up. 3. The third premise is that man by nature is rational, that the human mind is free to observe, think, and discover truths about the universe in which he lives—that man experiences himself as possessing the freedom to contemplate evidence presented to his intellect, and judge for himself what is more or less likely to be true. These premises are the beginning point of philosophy, providing an objective standard of truth and falsity, right and wrong, because it is a standard that exists apart from the will of man. In fact, far being a product of human will, according to the classics, the natural standards of truth and right ought to guide human will, and human investigation. This is a very general sketch of classical Western moral and political thought, though I should emphasize that while this body of thought is a feature of the West, or Western civilization, it never understood itself as Western; it assumed the possibility of discovering objective truths that transcend, and therefore are not bound by, place or time, because it assumed nature to be universal and unchanging. For the past several hundred years, however, Western philosophy has been in a state of self-destruction. Certain modern thinkers zeroed in on the fact that the premises of philosophy are indemonstrable—that man cannot freely prove the cause of his own freedom; that as soon as man's freedom is understood to be the effect of one or more causes, it is no longer freedom. Thus modern Western philosophy began to deny man's freedom. Instead of searching for objective truth, philosophy has increasingly become a search for the causes of human thought and behavior, whether they are biological (e.g. Darwinism), economic (e.g. Marxism), or psychological (e.g. Freudianism). Though they disagree on the precise causes, these modern doctrines agree on the basic premise that human thought is nothing but an effect, and that there is no truth to be discovered by the human mind. Multiculturalism is an offshoot of modern anthropology, itself a product of this self-destruction of Western philosophy. Anthropology, and ultimately multiculturalism, find their home in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an 18th Century thinker and writer who openly rejected the foundation of classic thought, and whose influence continues to dominate the humanities departments of most colleges and universities. Rousseau posited that man by nature is not rational. Prior to political life, in what Rousseau called the "state of nature," men were solitary beings, having little or no interaction with one another. Therefore, argued Rousseau, pre-political, solitary man lacked language, because he had no need for language; and if man did not possess language, he could not possess reason. For Rousseau, man by nature is not altogether different than any of the irrational beasts. Man began to speak, and therefore think, by some chance natural catastrophe, such as an earthquake or volcano, that brought men together and forced them to interact with one another. From Rousseau's premise, the very nature of language, and the elements of human thought, reflect nothing but the environmental and cultural forces that produced them. All human language and human thought—moral, political, and religious—are the varying and purposeless effects of varying and purposeless physical causes. Upon Rousseau's theoretical hypothesis—and I emphasize here that his theory was nothing more than hypothesis, though Darwin and his epigones have worked tirelessly, if in vain, to provide physical evidence of Rousseau's theory—arose the modern discipline of anthropology, the academic study of human cultures. From the anthropological point of view, it makes little sense to speak of reason as a fundamental faculty that distinguishes humans from non-human beings. Rather, reason becomes one of the many customs or habits of particular peoples living together in particular places at particular times. Instead of pursuing the truth about man and how he ought to live, anthropology, and its multicultural disciples, assume that reason is incapable of telling us how man ought to live, because reason itself is but an invention of different cultures. As evidence they trot out various examples of the many disagreements between different cultures about basic moral and political questions. From this multiplicity of perspectives, they conclude, there is no objective ground upon which we might judge or rank the many cultures of the earth—the "values" of each culture are equally valid compared to the values of any other culture. This is the intellectual basis of multiculturalism, and its emphasis on "diversity" and "non-judgmentalism." As there are many interpretations of right and wrong, the only thing we can know is truly wrong is the belief that we can know true right from true wrong. It means, therefore, it is wrong to think we can objectively distinguish civilized peoples from barbarous peoples. To the degree to which the modern academy rests on modern philosophy, this is the basis for much of what is taught under the name "higher education." Immediately, however, certain problems arise for the multiculturalist. First is the obvious fact that multiculturalism is a product of one culture, or sub-culture, modern Western philosophy. Consider that nowhere in tribal Africa, or in the Balkans, or among militant Islamists, or in Iraq, or in Communist China or North Korea is there any demand for multicultural "diversity." In short, multiculturalism is, itself, not multicultural. Second is the fact that multiculturalism, built as it is upon a denial of universal human nature, appeals unwittingly to that classical premise in its focus of study. What, or who, after all, comprises the many cultures it studies and celebrates? Human beings. Were they to reflect on this simple observation, multiculturalists would recognize that Aristotle and the other classics might in fact have much to teach them. Most problematic is the fact that multiculturalism claims to tell us something true about the human world, yet it is founded upon the denial that objective truth is possible. In its celebration of the diversity of cultural perspectives—and in its denial of any objective or true point of view—multiculturalism becomes just another perspective. That is, on its own ground, multiculturalism cannot defend itself as any more (or less) true than non-multicultural perspectives. Let us turn to the politics of multiculturalism, and in particular what it means for American politics. Rejecting the waves of modern philosophy crashing down on Europe at the time, the Americans in 1776 attempted something never before attempted: they founded a nation upon a self evident truth, a truth bound up in the "laws of nature and of nature's God." As Abraham Lincoln reminded us at the Gettysburg cemetery, "our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." That proposition has been the single greatest cause of the rise of American freedom, happiness, and prosperity. The entire American experiment in free government stands or falls by the principle of equality, and whether Americans remain dedicated to the cause of defending it. But Americans will not defend what they do not believe to be true. Under the influence multiculturalism, increasingly the upper intellectual ranks of Americans have come of the opinion that there is nothing they believe to be true, and they persist in teaching that to our children. Indeed, the most sinister aspect of multiculturalism, politically, is that it teaches American students and citizens to discard their loyalty to the United States, in the name of "diversity," and to abandon anything that smacks of "patriotism." For a nation such as the United States, one dedicated to the natural rights of man, this is problematic—especially in a time of war. It is from multiculturalists that one hears the resurrected phrase, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Of course, even some multiculturalists winced when those "freedom fighters" crashed airplanes into their cities, murdering their friends and relatives. But not all of them. Today one can still read in the journals of the multiculturalist left, such as the New York Times or The Nation, that America was ultimately to blame for September 11th, and that we should focus our efforts on reaching out to the "others" who live and think differently than do we. Some multiculturalists try to square patriotism with their multiculturalism by arguing that what unites Americans is our diversity. But the conclusion of this argument is unsustainable. Individual rights, religious and civil liberty, and the rule of law are either good, or they are not; a nation cannot affirm both simultaneously. Put another way, if America stands for everything, it can stand for nothing. As one multiculturalist intellectual extolled in the New Yorker last fall, "the whole meaning of American life is that there is no such thing as the meaning of American life." Whether he rejects or redefines patriotism, the multiculturalist believes patriotism must be subdued and subordinated to the wider claims of multicultural diversity. One solution is to subject American patriotism to the multi-national, and therefore multicultural, control of international organizations such as the United Nations or the newly formed International Court of Justice. In the rare cases that a multiculturalist will support coercive action against one culture, that action must receive the blessings of the international community, the only source of "multicultural justice," regardless of the (im)moral character of the nations that might comprise the international community. For the American multiculturalist, America is ours, which means it is not the "other," which means American in itself cannot be worth defending. When thinking about the politics of multiculturalism, we should recall that multiculturalism not only exercises leftist political influence, it is a product of those politics. Some multiculturalists try to defend the advent of the term "multiculturalism" as a new, positive way to speak about "diversity." In some sense this is true. But it was not by chance that the term "multiculturalism" was coined at the same moment, in the mid to late 1980s, when race-based preferences and quotas were coming under increasing public and legal scrutiny. At that time, the arguments for remedying past discrimination and forcing racial parity in schools and businesses were failing to persuade the American people. Why should Americans of all colors today pay for the sins of some in the past? What do Americans of all colors today owe to the many fallen Americans who gave their last full measure of devotion to make America the free country it is? And who believes that all ethnic groups are equal in preparing their children for college or work? In their desperate search for a new defense of the discriminatory policies of affirmative action, liberals concocted the notion that without race based preferences and quotas, there would be no "diversity" in the classroom and workplace. Multiculturalism was intended to lend academic authority to the racial politics of affirmative action, as multicultural centers and departments began to spring up in colleges and universities around the country. This was the political basis for multiculturalism. Let us conclude here. Intellectually, multiculturalism is indefensible. As I believe I have shown, it is embarrassingly inconsistent. It is refuted and undermined by its own argument. Politically, multiculturalism is dangerous. Multiculturalism represents nothing less than the political suicide of the West, and in particular the crown jewel of the West, the United States of America. Multiculturalism attempts to undermine the good principles upon which America is built, and it is corrosive of the patriotic spirit that fills the hearts of free men and women. Though it operates much more subtly, multiculturalism is no less a threat to our free institutions than the terrorists who attack our cities with airplanes. It is the test of the American people whether they have the intelligence to identify multiculturalism for the mistake it is, and the resolve to ensure that it does not triumph over this, the last best hope of mankind. | |||
| Tom B. | pdxtom@angelfire.com | The New Racism | 11/5/2003 |
| The term "racism" has been reduced to a somewhat meaningless word. It no longer is used with any real consideration but instead is conveniently used as a stink bomb that can be lobbed around at whomever one wants to blame because they didn't get what they wanted. The masses then buy into the idea that there is some secret corporate conspiracy to promote only those who fit a certain racial profile when anyone who has actually worked in corporate America knows that there is no such thing. When you ask these well meaning individuals to actually RECALL a situation in which they personally saw evidence of this white "conspiracy" they cannot give a single example that they've seen for themselves. The truth is quite the opposite; Everything that can be done, and sometimes in a very unfair manner, is done to promote and employ those who belong to what are considered to be "minority" groups. No, there is no phantom "them" in America that promotes racism; There is, however, a large number of people who do not think for themselves but rather buy into every bit of nonsense they hear about how people cannot get ahead unless they are white and rich. The author of this article put into words a truth that seems to be missed by those who buy into the kind of philosophy put forth by the talk shows and the current "Movie Of The Week". | |||
| Visitor | anonymous@anywhere.com | An age old problem | 7/15/2003 |
| Too many people try any divert the view from their shortfalls onto the masses. Racism no longer embodies what it did 20 years ago, yet whenever any party, especially from a previously disadvantaged group, doesn't fit it or perform to the set norm they yell racism. The past is the past, and today people coming from previously oppressed backgrounds are walking on the golden gobblestones. The old "colonist" is no the oppressed. When will we have to stop paying for the sins of our ancestry? | |||
| Visitor | Anonymous | General Comment | 7/4/2003 |
| cant someone accept the colour of a person and still see them as an individual? this document is a mass of weak arguments cloaked over a glut of intellectual jargon. | |||
| Raely | ccutie4u2luv@aol.com | Main racism | 5/19/2003 |
| the main racism going on now in days is epidermal racism. Which is the belief that one range of skin tones is better than the other ranges of skin tones. This is stupid because it wrongly presumes there is some connection between skin-tone and behavior. | |||
| Raely | ccutie4u2luv@aol.com | Main racism | 5/19/2003 |
| the main racism going on now in days is epidermal racism. Which is the belief that one range of skin tones is better than the other ranges of skin tones. This is stupid because it wrongly presumes there is some connection between skin-tone and behavior. | |||
| Raely | ccutie4u2luv@aol.com | Main racism | 5/19/2003 |
| the main racism going on now in days is epidermal racism. Which is the belief that one range of skin tones is better than the other ranges of skin tones. This is stupid because it wrongly presumes there is some connection between skin-tone and behavior. | |||
| Ms. Lucky | Anonymous | Racism | 2/27/2003 |
| I really hope people sit down and really think about racism and how it affects people. We have children now a days coming up thinking it's alright for them to judge people by the color of their skin and the parents aren't trying to do anything to change that. We as adults need to put more infuses on racism, and teach youngters how to deal with it. We have to start somewhere, and the home is a good place to start. | |||
| Ms. Lucky | Anonymous | Racism | 2/27/2003 |
| I really hope people sit down and really think about racism and how it affects people. We have children now a days coming up thinking it's alright for them to judge people by the color of their skin and the parents aren't trying to do anything to change that. We as adults need to put more infuses on racism, and teach youngters how to deal with it. We have to start somewhere, and the home is a good place to start. | |||
| Sexytemptress | lady_kenya@hotmail.com | The New Racism | 10/4/2002 |
| what can one do nut say reunion< this has many meaning> | |||
| Visitor | Anonymous | diversity | 9/26/2002 |
| I really hope that this world will be a better place if we realise that we need each other. | |||
| Previous Article | Jacques Rudolph the new Basil d'Oliviera |
| Next Article | On Columbus Day, Celebrate Western Civilization, Not Multiculturalism |
| HOME | Top | Back | E-Mail Page | E-Mail us | Guestbook | |
 |