'E Pluribus' Examined:

...However, these errors of fact and interpretation do not detract from the book's general usefulness as a contribution to the literature on human relations...

...But this inverse correlation between "troubled times" and inter-cultural relations is certainly questionable in view of the rapid strides made since World War II...

...In all these polarities, the authors suggest a point of equilibrium and reconciliation by "screening out the superior qualities" of both in order to obtain a synthesis...

...The threat of annihilation by the H-bomb, on the one hand, and of domination by the international Communist conspiracy, on the other, has lent impetus to fuller realization of the "American promise...

...Probably no period in American history since the Civil War has witnessed advances for minority groups comparable with those made in these days of international tension...

...The sane and sensible "ethics of the mean" which seeks a balance and tension between deficiency and excess leaves this reviewer with no sense of the "categorical imperative" in human relations...

...Perhaps unwittingly, they have stereotyped this dominant group in describing it as "white," "Protestant," "upper-middle- and upper-class people," "intellectually respectable," "conservative," and "laissez-faire in economics...

...The philosophy of intergroup and interpersonal relations which the authors call "dynamic democracy" is essentially that of balancing polarities...

...The generalization that "the rank and file of the Chinese resist decentralization" (p...

...In a later section of the book, at any rate, they point to the invidious nature of stereotypes, giving approval to a research finding of the Bureau of Applied Social Research of Columbia University: "In general, the Bureau indicated that a constant repetition of racial stereotypes was exaggerating and perpetuating the false and mischievous notion that ours is a white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon country in which all other racial stocks and religious faiths are of lesser dignity...

...have been "strictly Jim Crow" (p...

...Reviewed by Robert Lee Tutor in Church and Community, Union Theological Seminary THIS BOOK is probably unique in its effort to establish a theoretical frame of reference with which to underpin programs of social action and education in the area of minority groups...

...this culture exhibits four distinctive patterns: the democratic way of life, the values of the "American Creed," flexibility and adaptability to social change, and the challenge of unresolved issues...

...Such a view in social philosophy goes back at least as far as Aristotle...

...17), or that Negroes outnumber whites in Mississippi (p...

...The three derivative values of the moral law are freedom, responsibility, and a balance between them...

...While the authors present a noble statement from the perspective of rationality and self-discipline (of looking before leaping), one wonders whether such dispassionate analysis will provide the same stimulus for the participant that it does for the intelligent observer...

...While they describe the United States as a multi-culture society, the authors contend that community life is characterized by one dominant culture group: the "white Anglo-Protestants...

...79) needs to be balanced by Professor Rose Hum Lee's article in the American Journal of Sociology (March 1949), "The Decline of Chinatowns in the United States...

...While Gunnar Myrdal, in his An American Dilemma, defines the American race problem as essentially a "moral problem," the Coles go one step further and assert the existence of a "moral law" which consists of respect for individual dignity and confidence in the ideal of the perfectibility of human relations...

...The authors contend that, in our contemporary period of rapid social change characterized by mass neuroses and anxiety, the application of American democracy in the area of human relations tends to be thwarted...

...It is not true that all churches in Washington, D.C...

...Harmony is sought between the extremes of unity and diversity, "melting-pot theory" and cultural pluralism, freedom and responsibility, interdependence and independence, church-centered faith and secular idealism, enlightened self-interest and the welfare of society, dominant group and minority groups...

...While they employ the term "minority group" in the numerical sense and in the psychological sense of an out-group, they more commonly use it to designate a group differing from the dominant group in race, nationality, religion, socio-economic status, or a combination of these factors...

...The book contains some minor errors which should be noted...

...And would not the logical conclusion of this line of argument justify—indeed demand, as for Aris-totle—the continued existence of persecuted minority groups...

...The authors regard all immigrant groups apart from the "white Anglo-Protestants" as minorities...

...Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam is a bishop in the Methodist rather than the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Monroe E. Deutsch is the former provost, not chancellor, of the University of California in Berkeley...

...The last sections of the book deal with social issues in employment, housing, education, civil rights, and human relations in the international matrix...

...The Coles set the problem of minority groups in the framework of human relations in a time of tension and in the context of American culture...