It has become fashionable in recent times to talk of the leveling of nations, and of various peoples disappearing into the melting pot of contemporary civilization. I disagree with this, but that is another matter; all that should be said here is that the disappearance of whole nations would impoverish us no less than if all the people were to become identical, with the same character and the same face. Nations are the wealth of humanity, its generalized personality. The least among them has its own special colors, and harbors within itself a special aspect of God’s design. —Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The above quoted words of the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn, given in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1972, show us that we are called to be good multiculturalists. It is, however, not the multiculturalism that the globalists are seeking to force on us but paradoxically the complete opposite. Since, however, we are so accustomed to the false multiculturalism of the globalists and not to the true multiculturalism of the subsidiarists, such as Solzhenitsyn, it will be necessary to shake ourselves up a bit so that we can see things more clearly.
G.K. Chesterton believed that we all needed to stand on our heads so that we could see things the right way up. This topsy-turvydom is not mere Chestertonian madness or “paradox” but a practical way of reorienting our perspective. We often believe that we see things the right way up and we, therefore, take our perception of things for granted. If, however, we are seeing things askew without knowing it, standing on our heads will allow us to see them from the new angle necessary to see them correctly. Solzhenitsyn’s words are a case in point. They show us that true multiculturalism in the form of a plurality of thriving national cultures is a good thing. The problem is not that multiculturalism is bad but that the form of it we are being sold by the globalists is not really multiculturalism at all.
How often are we told that those who oppose the Islamization of Europe, or who want limits on immigration levels, or who demand the restitution of national sovereignty are thereby opposed to multiculturalism? Indeed the headlines are currently full of such accusations, fueled by the globalist reaction to Brexit and to the rise of the so-called New Right across Europe. Are the ethnocentric parties throughout Europe opposed to multiculturalism, as the globalists proclaim, or are they the true multiculturalists?
Let’s compare the two forms of multiculturalism. The globalist variety does not want a multiplicity of multifarious national cultures; they want a melting pot in which all cultures meld into a global culture in which everyone wears the same global brands of clothing, shops at the same global chains, watches the same global movies and TV programs, plays the same global games, and listens to the same global music. What they want, in fact, is not any real form of multiculturalism but a worldwide monoculture of standardized people, reduced to being mere consumers of the bread and circuses that the global plutocracy provides for them. This mad and manic monoculture is what the globalists call multiculturalism.
In contrast, the subsidiarist view of multiculturalism as envisaged by Solzhenitsyn and those of kindred ilk calls for the thriving of independent national, regional, and local cultures. It calls for a Europe of the Nations and not a European Union. It seeks a patchwork-quilt cultural landscape in which local customs and cuisines flourish and are not mown down by the globalist insistence on standardization by a low standard in which the global brand is invariably bland.
When all is said and done, the globalists only seek temporary multiculturalism as a means to a global monoculture. Theirs is a false and sinister multiculturalism designed to destroy the authentic multiplicity of cultures, the latter of which have grown organically from the soil and soul of their peoples.
The globalist form of multiculturalism is in reality nothing less than cultural imperialism in which a global plutocracy imposes its will on the people, selling them the products that it produces and poisoning the roots of all cultures in which it comes into contact. The goal of the globalists is to plough down nations and their cultures in the same manner in which agribusiness ploughs down hedgerows, turning the richness of the patchwork landscape into a prairie wasteland in which only one brand of bland mass-produced culture is permitted. Such willful destruction of the cultural environment can be called many things but it is really Orwellian newspeak and doublethink of the most outrageous sort, worthy of the chutzpah of Big Brother himself, to have the temerity to call it “multiculturalism.”
The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.
I honestly don’t know _anyone_ who subscribes to the globalist conspiracy, e.g., the Communist Internationale, any more. I sincerely wish that every thoughtful conservative would recognize the following truth: Communism never invented a social issue. Every issue that the communists claimed to champion started out as an actual form of injustice perpetrated against someone else. The communists just co-opted and capitalized on the discontent that resulted from those claims.
Communism offered an alternative narrative that made sense to people who faced a persistent lack of representation in systems that claimed to be universally representative. A better alternative, one that I sincerely wish conservatism embraced in deed rather than just in word, is the ongoing fight for truly representative governance and equality of opportunity regardless of superficial differences.
Yes, there are those who have fallen for the ridiculous notion that uniformity is a virtue, but anyone who claims priority for a particular religion, be they conservative or liberal, suffers that same delusion. Multiculturalism, in its pure form, despises uniformity just as much as the author. Where conservatives bring something vital to the discussion of how people of different backgrounds and with different viewpoints can cooperate for the good of all is to continue to stand firm on the principle that individual rights take precedence over group preferences–no matter how large or influential the group. This is a principle that subsumes the morality of every culture. It is universal. And it is the profound and world-changing contribution of the West to have identified and articulated it in such a way that the world has been changed forever.
But does that make every aspect of Western society superior in every way? Not when we see the tragic legacy of Colonialism and the terrible ways in which it continues to distort and undermine conservative thought. And it is this conflation of colonialist apology with actual rights-based logic that brings such utter discredit to the movement that people could ever mistake Mr. Trump for a conservative–let alone vote for him.
Marxists and big business have always been strange bedfellows. Marx saw capitalism as a force that would “liberate” the individual from the past. It’s no different today — wealthy globalists such as George Soros want to erase borders, and leftists cheer the eradication of traditional nation-states.
God in his goodness made us all different saving one aspect our spiritual soul. Any form of government that champions mankind and his spirituality is good. Any form of government that holds out bread in exchange for the destruction of the human soul is tyranny.
“What they want, in fact, is not any real form of multiculturalism but a worldwide monoculture of standardized people, reduced to being mere consumers of the bread and circuses that the global plutocracy provides for them.”
This is spot on Mr. Pearce. Conservatives understand man to be a social being who finds greatest happiness in the small associations or intermediaries between himself and the state with all that entails concerning duties, the latter of which are anathema in the current milieu where individual rights talk reigns. Conservatives do not see the individual as Diderot’s only existent, but rather that the individual exists only through and in community, the first being naturally the family. It has always been the “liberal Enlightenment” view that has looked to smash the traditional small platoons of intermediate groups and atomize individuals from these groups until there is nothing to buffer between these individuals and the absolute power of the state which of course the “enlightened ones” wield and so much the easier then to make “standardized people.” Tolerance, individualism, and multiculturalism then become mere facades for conformity whence statists gain the “dissent from conformity” they seek, which merely means the smashing of traditional groups and institutions and replacement thereof with state managed control of behavior.
On the money.
“The globalist form of multiculturalism is in reality nothing less than cultural imperialism in which a global plutocracy imposes its will on the people, selling them the products that it produces and poisoning the roots of all cultures in which it comes into contact.”
It isn’t Left or Right. It is the Corporation State run amuck.
MARK STEYN: “Multiculturalism was conceived by the Western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own; it is, thus, the real suicide bomb.”
Modification: Perhaps our culture itself is the real, or potential, suicide bomb.