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Assimilation
Robert — (archived)

My POV is that the "culture war" is a political contrivance, a demagogic codeword for "Anglo-Saxonism"; that the American system, if it's allowed to work, obviates motivation for culture wars through peaceful coexistence.

Whenever people use the word "assimilate" nowadays it, of course, has Borg overtones, and I guess I"m supposed to shudder at the prospect of being assimilated by Asians (oh horrors!). But I don't think that any Asian culture is capable of assimilating foreign cultures, because they're deeply nationalistic and chauvinistic. Asians historically have conquered each other and there's been little assimilation. I'd say that America is the world's expert at assimilation. It's the very foundation of who we are. Seems to me that for at least the last half century it's been America assimilating the rest of the world, hardly the other way round. If we don't make the mistake of abandoning our multiculturalism we stand a good chance of assimilating everybody else. But only if we remain true to our multicultural heritage and don't descend into "monocultural imperialism".

Europe and its problems with immigrants is often held up as an example of the evils of multiculturalism. That's pretty silly, IMHO, because Europe does not have our tradition of multiculturalism, and now that they're faced with changing demographic realities, they don't know what to do about it. As Bourne put it, the problem is the "tight and jealous nationalism of the European pattern". But America can't experience that kind of stress because absorbing immigrants is what we do. The prospect of a horde-du-jour of foreigners is routine stuff for us, and it's beyond me how a country that's weathered so many successive "invasions" of foreigners could get its knickers in a knot at this late date. We "survived" the Irish, the Eastern Europeans, the Scandinavians, the Chinese early and the rest of Asia later...why tremble in our boots because now there are Mexicans joining the mix?

From another perspective, I think that American nationalism undermines the essential message that our values and principles are universal. How can they be universal if they can only be expressed in English? How can they be universal if only descendants of Europeans can properly implement and preserve them? How can Bush possibly expect the Arab world to adopt American values if we hold the position that they're only applicable to us?

It will still be America if, in a hundred years, the dominant language isn't English and the dominant skin tone isn't fishbelly pale. America is not defined by a line of DNA that began in Europe, America is an idea that can be honored and implemented by anybody.

I have more faith in America than you do, Frank. If we avoid regressing to the "tight and jealous nationalism of the European pattern", we'll do just fine.

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