Among the Intellectualoids / Multicultural Instruction
Sowell, Thomas
M ost of the arguments for so-called "multicultural" education are so flimsy, inconsistent, and downright silly that it is hard to imagine that they would have been taken seriously if they were not...
...Since this is an empirical question, you would expect people to seek an empirical answer, yet most of those who talk this way seem content to treat the matter as axiomatic...
...There may be things written today that will survive to become classics, but we won't be here when that happens...
...None of this has anything to do with whether English is a better language than some other languages...
...Maybe men should have shared some of that work...
...The widespread revulsion which this hideous institution inspires today was largely confined to Western civilization acentury ago, and a century before that was largely confined to a portion of British society...
...You might as well open the floodgates and then say that you don't mean for people to drown...
...Take it a step at a time...
...However, the one thing that no civilization has ever been is non-judgmental...
...Why is that question asked in English, rather than in some non-Western language...
...Yet they dominate international markets, international finance, international scientific and technological advances, and send armies of tourists around the world...
...The resistance put up by Africans, Asians, and Arabs was monumental indefense of slavery, and lasted for more than a century...
...There is no point in the multiculturalists' saying that this is not what they have in mind...
...It was gotten rid of by the West—not only in Western societies but in other societies conquered, controlled, or pressured by the West...
...Why were they white...
...Arabic numerals (or Indian numerals) have displaced other numbering systems around the world because they are better—not just different...
...Worse, they condemn American society or Western civilization for sins that are the curse of the human race all across the planet...
...Books are not just different, they are better—not just in my opinion, or in the opinion of Western civilization, but in the practice of people around the world who have had an opportunity to make the comparison...
...Do we ask why the great classics of China were written by people who were Chinese...
...No one seems interested in the epic story of how this curse that covered the globe and endured for thousands of years was finally gotten rid of...
...The past is many things, but one thing it is, is irrevocable...
...English is in fact more inconsistent and less melodic than French, for example...
...Those whose real agenda is propaganda are of course untroubled by such considerations...
...A past to your liking is not an entitlement...
...If most of the people who were educated were male—as they have been throughout history, and even are today in some societies—then most of the people who leave the kind of written material left by educated people will be men...
...The things we know are classics were almost by definition written' by dead people...
...Is anyone so utterly ignorant of history that they do not know that females had more than enough other work to keep them busy for most of the history of the human race...
...It is stretching things very thin to try to cover Western civilization in two semesters...
...Often this judgment was followed by abandoning one cultural feature and using the other instead...
...Paper, printing, and books are today essential aspects of Western civilization, but all three came out of China—and they have displaced parchment, scrolls, and other forms of preserving writings all around the world...
...Or is it precisely on such campuses that separatism and hostility are worse than on campuses that have not gone in for the multicultural craze...
...But we speak English for the same practical reasons that cause people in China to speak Chinese...
...Why do we concern ourselves with the Earth, which is an infinitesimal part of the known universe...
...If we want to understand the cultural and institutional world in which we carry on our daily lives, we need to understand the underlying rationale and the historical evolution of the way of life we have been born into...
...This is not a defense of insularity or of the Japanese...
...They are written by dead people for two reasons: First, there are more dead people than living people...
...How are we to be part of the global economy, or engage in all sorts of other international activities, without being multicultural...
...Look at Yugoslavia, at Lebanon, at Sri Lanka, at Northern Ireland, at Azerbaijan, or wherever else group "identity" has been hyped...
...One of the many reasons to be against oppression is that it keeps people from achieving all that they could have achieved if they had been treated more decently...
...M ost of the arguments for so-called "multicultural" education are so flimsy, inconsistent, and downright silly that it is hard to imagine that they would have been taken seriously if they were not backed up by shrill rhetoric, character assassination, and the implied or open threat of organized disruption and violence on campus...
...If we found that the great classics of China were written by Swedes, wouldn't we wonder what the hell was going on...
...But how can a people's achievements be unaffected by their oppression...
...We use Arabic numerals today, instead of Roman numerals, even though our civilization derived from Rome, and the Arabs themselves got these numerals from India...
...Perhaps the classic case is slavery...
...Indeed, they condemn the West for sins that are worse in many non-Western societies...
...They are one of the most insular and self-complacent peoples on Earth today...
...The most obvious answer is the 24-hour day and the limited number of days we spend in college...
...Once you have opened the floodgates, you can't tell the water where to go...
...But history is what happened, not what we wish had happened...
...Should there be any mystery as to why they were written by males...
...But is there any evidence that colleges that have gone whole hog into multiculturalism have better relations among the various groups on campus...
...Why don't we study other civilizations equally...
...Because that is where we live...
...Firearms have likewise displaced bows and arrows wherever the two have come into competition...
...Let us examine the multiculturalists' questions, one by one: • Why do we study Western civilization, to the neglect of other civilizations...
...Because English is what we speak...
...Much of the advancement of the human race has occurred because people made the judgment that some things were not simply different from others, but better...
...If it had been the other way around—if Asian or African imperialists had stamped out slavery in Europe—it would still be celebrated, in story and song, on campuses across America...
...Much the same reasoning applies to other groups considered to be (1) oppressed and (2) "under-represented" among those whose historic achievements and contributions are recognized...
...It is simply a plain statement of fact that contradicts one of the many lofty and arbitrary dogmas of multiculturalism...
...Of course, this is not the kind of story that appeals to the multiculturalists...
...Ask the Japanese...
...Many of those who talk "non-judgmental" rhetoric out of one side of their mouths are quick to condemn the evils of "our society" out of the other side...
...Only the overwhelming military power of the West enabled it to prevail on this issue, and only the moral outrage of Western peoples kept their governments' feet to the fire politically to maintain the pressure against slavery around the world...
...To proclaim oppression and still expect to find the oppressed equally represented among those with historic achievements and contributions is almost a contradiction in terms...
...Attempts to turn this into aninvidious comparisons issue miss the fundamental point that (1) languages exist to serve practical purposes and (2) they serve those purposes better, the more people in the same society speak the same language...
...Second, a classic is not something that is hot at the moment but something that survives the test of time...
...Why are the traditional classics of Western civilization written by dead white males...
...You want to see multiculturalism in action...
...Don't we need multiculturalism to get people to understand each other and get along with each other...
...Any suggestion that any aspect ofWestern civilization has been admirable, or better in any way than the corresponding aspect of any other civilization, will of course be loudly denounced as showing bias instead of being "non-judgmental...
...Throw in a couple of other civilizations and you are just kidding yourself that you are educating anybody, when all that you are really doing is teaching them to accept superficiality...
...You don't get great mathematical discoveries from people who were never taught algebra...
Vol. 26 • April 1993 • No. 4
