Where does one draw the line that defines "cultural cohesion"?

Is that part of Chinese culture that gives us lo mein OK, but the pentatonic scale, not? And what does that say about spaghetti?

Can only Americans eat corn? Does one have to live on the Altiplano to eat potatoes? (I have it on pretty good authority that European teenagers will let us keep peanut butter.)

How many words does English have to give back? Is the French language-police model the one to follow, or is that not a cohesive thing to do because the model is, God help us, French?

Do we have to rewrite the US Constitution because many of the Founders drew on the division of authority into executive, legislative and judicial developed by Montesquieu, a French Enlightenment philosophe, whose works enjoyed great esteem among those gentlemen?

The 10 Commandments are Hebrew. Our numerals, and the concept of zero, come from India via the Arabs.

Do we claim that which we like from other cultures as our own? Isn't that theft?

Where does George Gershwin fit? A Jew from New York writing an opera about Americans of African descent... hmmm...

To me, uniformity, cohesion, and homogeneous are poetic words. Words that symbolize strength.

And none of them AngloSaxon!

They also represent something else: inbreeding.

Diversity (divide), multicultural, and abstraction, are words that lead to anarchy and chaos.

Abstract thinking leads to scientific theories drawing together disparate facts to form a picture not seen before. Diversity is the foundation of fruitful debate. Multicultural has described America ever since the very first European brought the culture of another continent here, and if you look at the Native tribes as First Nations, it was here even before that. The wide variety of approaches foments conflict, but also provides a wide range of alternatives in dealing with problems.

Think of chicken cacciatore: chicken, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, olive oil, oregano, basil, served over rice. Three continents. That's diversity.

Think of boiled chicken. Maybe a little salt. No pepper (that's Asian). That's uniformity. It's good for babies, and for those with stomach troubles, but rather bland, and lacking in essential vitamins.

Uniformity assures that one always knows what's in the pot, but it can dull the mind with boredom. Diversity can give a person heartburn, true, but the variety keeps life interesting.

Regards--
Mary Anne