Alright, all you xenophobic cultural purists

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The amount of xenophobia I hear in the United States is almost vomit inducing. To eliminate any racial element to the complaint they talk about wanting "cultural" unity through assimilation, not integration [1]. Conservatives and a surprising number of Protestant Fundamentalists have advocated this cultural purity.

So here's one little bitty question to you: do the indigenous people of America have to be assimilated into your culture? If so, what "country" do they have to go back to if certain more traditionalist members refuse to?

How course, this is largely a non-issue today. The US and Canadian governments have already had a history of forcing Native North Americans to lose their culture and traditional religious beliefs, with consequences the excessive number of xenophobic Christian Conservatives on this forum should take the time to learn of.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqetE1_jnOw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5mHa2MkzkY[/youtube]

Godbless the Anglican, United, and Catholic Churches of Canada which ran the Canadian Residential School System. Godbless the well-intentioned and virtuous Christian Conservatives of today, with their cultural supremacism.

NOTE
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1. Assimilation is about the eventual loss of distinctive cultural attributes, whereas integration refers to a society in which immigrates fully function in but retain distinctive cultural attributes.

This is USA.

1) The forum is of global membership.
2 The ideas which inspired the Residential School System ("we must assimilate all outsiders") are the same ideas that inspire modern day, "we need an ALL-AMERICAN (usually with the hidden qualifier of "white") culture, conducted predominantly by Christian Conservatives.
3) The fact remains that the existence of Native North Americans (remember, traditionally there wasn't a well-defined boarder along the North American 49th parallel) throws a huge cog into the conservative-assimilationist argument (as, unlike other minorities, the native minority cannot be "deported" to another country).
4) Indian Boarding Schools existed in the US as well.
5) Really, how socially injustice and priority schewed do you have to be to dismiss injustice occuring just North of your boarder because you only care about what happens in America?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxJEsjYsqQA[/youtube]

^ Here, Mr. "USA ONLY". Here's an example of the injustice and vice perpetuated by Conservative Cultural Purists in your nation. Here's what too many American members of Wrong Planet want to regress to.

It doesn't matter where - I hate reactionaries everywhere, be it Iran or Sweden.

I'll admit, I don't quite agree with this indigenious leader. I don't think religiousity is neccessary to reinvigorate a culture.

I haven't watched all of the videos. (I hate videos) However, is the empirical failure of certain actions motivated by a desire a condemnation of the desire itself?

Not only that, but can't the desire for cultural purity be rational? After all, the legal, economic, social, and political apparatus of the nation/society do and will correspond to prevailing cultural norms, so to promote the idea of monoculturalism will both save these people the costs of changing their own culture and effectively doing so can allow for these other people to function within society better.

I mean, how do you propose to effectively have multiculturalism, while maintaining a single set of institutions for the legal, economic, social and political systems?(note: I think it is the position of legal pluralists that diverging legal norms are a proper response to the demands of multiple cultures) Either we have weekend cultures, where a person puts on their mainstream culture face during the week and then might have some assorted culturally related associations on weekends. Or we might find that our institutions start fragmenting due to the stress of dealing with different cultures and associated norms effectively. Or what do you see? (you mentioned integrationism) After all, the Western democratic society isn't an idea that emerges from no norms, but rather it emerges from Western culture, and the moral objectives that it upholds, which people in this society may possess also emerge from our Western culture.

(note: I am not trying to advocate any particular solution, but I am trying to get a clearer view so that way we can understand this issue, as there are dumb versions of viewpoints and there are more refined versions)

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 05 Oct 2009, 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ok.

What should be the binding rule of our society? The limit to cultural rights? Simply speaking: civic rights and responsiblities.

Society should be structured based on reasonable accomodation. Determination of what's reasonable will likely be an area filled with grey, but some limits are discernable.

- You have to abide by the laws. A German can't go 130 miles/hour on the highway just because fast driving's part of "his culture" or refuse to pay taxes because "it's against my religion".
- Necessity: Even if you take pride in your language, you must speak English in a room or institution made up of only English speakers or hire a translator if your English is just developing.
- Education: You should not be allowed to deny your child education on matters like evolutionary biology just because "it's against my cultural beliefs".
- Individual Rights: You cannot coerce your spouse or marry your children off before the age of consent.

Aside from all these simple, almost humanistic, regulations (most based on the law), one should be allowed to partice their culture: speak their language freely to others, participate in ancient cultural rituals, or congregate in culturally unique neighbourhoods. Of course, hopefully there'd be a decent degree of cross-cultural interaction. That's the favourable dynamism that emerges from multicultural and pluralist societies.

Lastly, I think we've seen enough failures of forced assimilationism to infer that its either an inherently bad idea or that its highly difficult for anyone to initiate without causing enormous undue harm.

Aren't you simply including Western notions in this to start off with, as civic rights and responsibilities really just seems as if you are starting off with Western liberal individualism and going off from this.


Ok, but the laws are set up by prior cultural beliefs, and their expression will ultimately be shaped by culture as well. Just as a white jury in the south is more likely to execute a black man than a white man. People with certain mindsets are going to be flexible with the rules, and this can also spill over into the enforcement, as enforcers exist socially, not mechanically.

As for education. Once again, this will go back into cultural beliefs. If we have an influx of people with a traditionalist view on the creation of the universe, why won't they push and fight against this law that stands against their cultural beliefs? In fact, what settles any of our educational disputes without settling the underlying cultural matter? After all, if this is based upon politics, then it will be contingent on whatever social groups have power. I mean, abstinence education emerges from these cultural issues.

As for individual rights, who sets the age of consent? What counts as coercion? Are these definitions some metaphysical thing set in stone, or are they cultural terms as well?


"Humanistic"-our culture.
"most based upon the law"-the law that our culture has already put in place and that can be shifted out of place by another culture coming into power.
"one should be allowed to practice their culture"-does this include conservative Christians voting for politicians who will put Intelligent Design into schools as an expression of their culturally instilled worldview? How about their efforts to undermine women's rights? How about southerners expressing their racism unabashedly through their lives and daily actions, and political actions? Won't these efforts require a dominant culture to keep those negative actions in check?

Finally, if cross-cultural interaction isn't occurring, or even cross-cultural disputes start occurring, then what is the proper action? Should there be forces and institutions that get involved with these cultural problems?


Master_Pedant, the desire is for cultural purity, not for the use of force. The question is whether failure of certain policies is enough to condemn the desire for purity that you are condemning. After all, one can likely claim that other groups have assimilated well and better or worse than other groups. Not only that, but shouldn't we recognize that some of our concerns are emergent from our culture, and thus promote our culture as a way to maintain the validity of our own concerns?

Perhaps we are talking past each other. But the concern I am citing is that liberalism is a Western ideal rather than a transcendental/metaphysical entity, and thus a culture favorable to liberalism needs to exist to maintain the idea. Is this kind of position one that likely has any practical effect? Probably not, at least there is little reason to think that people in our nation are failing to assimilate our ideas to the point where there is a real issue, and to some extent, one can cite the conservatives as a group that actually should assimilate to a better set of values.(at least on issues like evolutionary theory) Just a concern I am having with your view of cultures.

I think it is THE WORST THING IN OUR SOCIETY that these thing's happen.

I planned on writing a letter this thanksgiving to a native American reservation apologizing for what the American people did to them. ((BTW, if you have an address of such a reservation ,could you please send post it on this thread. thanks!))

I choose that date because it is the day they extended there hand in friendship to help . so i want to extend my hand on the anniversary of that day to apologize for the many wrongs we have done. and to apologize for the lack of acknowledgment of these wrongs .

Sadly we have done this to many cultures and yet we claim to be a free country where immigrants are welcomed. Look at the Mexicans? how are they being treated?
WE TOOK THIS WHOLE COUNTRY from the native Americans and what do we do to say sorry?! Give them reservations where they can live? I'm sorry that is not good enough.

I just want to say i am not a minority so i do not know what it is like to suffer that way but do feel for them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtigDNn3 ... re=channel

The first 3 mins of this video shows how the native people of America are STILL BEING WRONGED EVEN NOW!! !!