This is the continuation from an ongoing debate at Renegade Evolution's blog.
Anthony Kennerson: Still having that racist moment, are you??
"Racist moment"? This baseless ad hom is no different than the accusations of being sexist radfems hurl at you for your defense of sex work. You can do better than that.
AK: And you didn't even bother to answer my question: how is our "Western culture" -- you know, the one who slaughtered Native Americans, enslaved Black Africans, stole Hispanic and Native American land, and dropped nuclear weapons on Asians -- any more qualified to judge anyone else on who's "superior"??
As VirtueAndVice admitted Anglo-American culture has "its faults" just as every culture throughout history has had. But if no cultures were superior to one another there would be no asylum seekers or refugees. Immigrants, yes, but not people looking to escape from the places where they were born. The greatest tragedy of at least the more extreme forms of multiculturalism is that it encourages people coming from dangerous, oppressive places to re-create the dysfunctional situations from which they came. When my ancestors came from Ireland and Italy, they brought some of their traditions with them but they did not pretend for a minute that things were better back home, or demand the right to continue traditions that would undermine the foundations of American liberty.
AK: First off, like most conservative critics of "multiculturalism', they are so desperate to take an isolated act of cruelty and make it representative of a whole culture or race or "civilization", and therefore declare their favored "Anglo-American" (read that to mean "White Western Christian civilization") to be not only superior to all but to be imposed on all others
These would be isolated acts of cruelty, except that the people engaging in them are using "culture" as an excuse. And some (not all but too many) western leftists are backing up these excuses. As for "be[ing] imposed on all others" V&V said (and I agree), "That's not to say that we should go out and bomb other countries when they don't see things our way."
AK: But I wonder, VaV...would you have gone into such histronics if the perpetrators had been fundamentalist White American Christians?? After all, it's not as if they haven't done such things themselves. Oh, wait...
Who is defending the preacher in that article? Probably not even most of his fellow Evangelicals. Certainly not any groups that have the numbers of the multi-culti defenders of similar behavior by so called victim groups.
AK: Secondly...I'm not much of a fan of the Nation of Islam for many reasons...but to compare them to the KKK is sheer madness. Not even Louis Farrakhan, for all his alleged anti-Semitic smack and belief in numerology, has ever burned a cross in a White neighborhood, or lynched a White man, or intimidated a single White person out of voting.
Farrakhan is too smart to get his own hands dirty by personally participating in acts of violence. Same with most Klan wizards (when was the last time David Duke was arrested). It doesn't mean that Farrakhan's rhetoric is any less responsible for black-on-white violence than the identical rhetoric in reverse by Klan leaders is for white-on-black violence. Similarly, as far as we know, Mary Daly has never directly committed an act of violence against a man (or a boy). It does not mean that her anti-male views are any less hateful than the Nazi's anti-Semitic views, just that she apparently has not yet had a chance to act on them.
SnowdropExplodes: The term "rape culture" has a real meaning in describing Western European cultures - so the culture isn't all that great towards women (whatever the law tries to do about it).
Rape culture is mostly a feminist invention. To the extent that it exists, it refers to a very small subset of western men. Like V&V, "I was 17 once, and 0% of the guys I knew were talking about planning violent sexual assaults."
Cassandra: VirtueandVice - I don't think you understand what multiculturalism is. It can be what you're describing in the hands of a few fools, but that is not in principle what the idea is all about, nor how it's commonly expressed.
Multiculturalism may be all sweetness and light in principle, but not in practice. All to often it is exactly as V&V described. Those fools aren't so few.
Cassandra: OK, reading VirtueandVice again further down...you're not even making a real argument, you're just a zenophobic racist. Never mind, not worth the time.
I see no evidence of racism or xenophobia on the part of V&V. If anyone is acting like a closed-minded bigot it is you. So maybe V&V's opinions (and mine) are not worth your time. Fine if you want to only associate with people who already agree with you 95% of the time. But these opinions are held by a large number of people throughout the western world - close to a majority, if not an outright majority. Furthermore, they are gaining wider acceptance in some places, particularly those - such as The Netherlands - where the damage from extreme multiculturalism has been most obvious. Given that, if you really believe we are wrong you should at least try to make a convincing argument why.
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I'm going to keep this brief, since I suspect that most of the people I'm addressing will have found a new shiny object to capture their attention by now.
To start with, I addressed *culture* and not *race*. Anglo-American culture is open to all, regardless of race. There are plenty of people of African descent who have adopted Anglo-American culture as their set of core values...one of them sits on the US Supreme Court. There are many more holding positions throughout the public and private sectors, from CEO to janitor.
AK: how is our "Western culture" -- you know, the one who slaughtered Native Americans, enslaved Black Africans, stole Hispanic and Native American land, and dropped nuclear weapons on Asians -- any more qualified to judge anyone else on who's "superior"??
I assume that *every* culture would judge itself the superior culture for its own territory. Judging one's own culture superior doesn't entitle one to go around wiping out other cultures, but I do feel it is reasonable to expect foreigners who voluntarily choose to live in US territory to adapt their behavior to correspond with societal norms here.
To be clear, what I wrote was that *I* judge Anglo-American culture to be superior in this case. If its emphasis on individual rights, self-determination and private property are unconvincing to you, so be it. I have a feeling, however, that women who voiced undesired opinions in West African culture would simply be slapped and told to be silent.
You are also ignoring the fact that a culture can evolve. Forcing a people off their land, or buying slaves for cheap labor were acceptable to Anglo-American culture at one time, but have not been for over a century. West African culture(s) are likely evolving as well, and maybe one day women there will not be abandoned by their families when they are raped.
Cassandra: OK, reading VirtueandVice again further down...you're not even making a real argument, you're just a zenophobic racist. Never mind, not worth the time.
I'm neither a xenophobe nor a racist. My argument is that values matter, and shape a society. Just as we recognize that some people are overall more capable than others, we should be willing to recognize that some value systems are overall better than others. Choosing what value systems we want for ourselves, and rejecting others, does not mean seeking them out for destruction where they exist overseas, anymore than recognizing some individuals as more capable means taking away rights from the less-capable.
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