MULTICULTURALISM'S WAR ON EDUCATION

Multiculturalism seeks to inject an anti-Western dogma into today's curriculum.

[or my subtitle == “I won't share reality with you under any circumstances, you primitive bastard”]

By Elan Journo

Op-Ed submission from the Ayn Rand Institute.

Back to school nowadays means back to classrooms, lessons and textbooks permeated by multiculturalism and its championing of "diversity." Many parents and teachers regard multiculturalism as an indispensable educational supplement, a salutary influence that "enriches" the curriculum. But is it?

With the world's continents bridged by the Internet and global commerce, multiculturalism claims to offer a real value: a cosmopolitan, rather than provincial, understanding of the world beyond the student's immediate surroundings. But it is a peculiar kind of "broadening." Multiculturalists would rather have students admire the primitive patterns of Navajo blankets, say, than learn why Islam's medieval golden age of scientific progress was replaced by fervent piety and centuries of stagnation.

Leaf through a school textbook and you'll find that there is a definite pattern behind multiculturalism's reshaping of the curriculum. What multiculturalists seek is not the goal they advertise, but something else entirely. Consider, for instance, the teaching of history.

One text acclaims the inhabitants of West Africa in pre-Columbian times for having prosperous economies and for establishing a university in Timbuktu; but it ignores their brutal trade in slaves and the proliferation of far more consequential institutions of learning in Paris, Oxford and elsewhere in Europe. Some books routinely lionize the architecture of the Aztecs, but purposely overlook or underplay the fact that they practiced human sacrifices. A few textbooks seek to portray Islam as peaceful in part by distorting the concept of "jihad" ("sacred war") to mean an internal struggle to surmount temptation and evil. Islam's wars of religious conquest are played down.

What these textbooks reveal is a concerted effort to portray the most backward, impoverished and murderous cultures as advanced, prosperous and life-enhancing. Multiculturalism's goal is not to teach about other cultures, but to promote--by means of distortions and half-truths--the notion that non-Western cultures are as good as, if not better than, Western culture. Far from "broadening" the curriculum, what multiculturalism seeks is to diminish the value of Western culture in the minds of students. But, given all the facts, the objective superiority of Western culture is apparent, so multiculturalists artificially elevate other cultures and depreciate the West.

If students were to learn the truth of the hardscrabble life of primitive farming in, say, India, they would recognize that subsistence living is far inferior to life on any mechanized farm in Kansas, which demands so little manpower, yet yields so much. An informed, rational student would not swallow the "politically correct" conclusions he is fed by multiculturalism. If he were given the actual facts, he could recognize that where men are politically free as in the West, they can prosper economically; that science and technology are superior to superstition; that man's life is far longer, happier and safer in the West today than in any other culture in history.

The ideals, achievements and history of Western culture in general--and of America in particular--are purposely given short-shrift by multiculturalism. That the Industrial Revolution and the Information Age were born and flourished in Western nations; that the preponderance of Nobel prizes in science have been awarded to people in the West--such facts, if they are noted, are passed over with little elaboration.

The "history" that students do learn is rewritten to fit multiculturalism's agenda. Consider the birth of the United States. Some texts would have children believe the baseless claim that America's Founders modeled the Constitution on a confederation of Indian tribes. This is part of a wider drive to portray the United States as a product of the "convergence" of three traditions--native Indian, African and European. But the American republic, with an elected government limited by individual rights, was born not of stone-age peoples, but primarily of the European Enlightenment. It is a product of the ideas of thinkers like John Locke, a British philosopher, and his intellectual heirs in colonial America, such as Thomas Jefferson.

It is a gross misconception to view multiculturalism as an effort to enrich education. By reshaping the curriculum, the purveyors of "diversity" in the classroom calculatedly seek to prevent students from grasping the objective value to human life of Western culture--a culture whose magnificent achievements have brought man from mud huts to moon landings.

Multiculturalism is no boon to education, but an agent of anti-Western ideology.

Elan Journo is a writer and editor for the Ayn Rand Institute(www.aynrand.org) in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

HISTORICAL SOURCES OF ARGUMENT

JOHN LOCKE == (1632-1704) --- HIS PHILOSOPHY WAS “EMPIRICISM,” THE DOCTRINE THAT ALL KNOWLEDGE IS DERIVED FROM EXPERIENCE {NOTE: DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO THE IDEA THAT THERE IS AN “OBJECTIVE REALITY”} === HE WAS THE PHILOSOPHER OF FREEDOM AND TOLERANCE === IRONICALLY, ONE OF HIS MOST FAMOUS WORKS IS “LETTERS CONCERNING TOLERANCE”

THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743-826) === AUTHOR OF THE AMERCIAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE === HE FOUNDED THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND INSTITUTED A NATION DEDICATED TO THE PRINCIPLE THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL === AS THE THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A IN HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESS HE SAID: --- “EQUAL AND EXACT JUSTICE TO ALL MEN OF WHAT EVER STATE OR PERSUASION, RELIGIOUS OR POLITICAL.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT === A MOVEMENT IN THE 18TH CENTURY THAT ADVOCATED THE USE OF REASON IN THE REAPPRAISAL OF ACCEPTED IDEAS AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS {CHALLENGED THE TRADITIONAL SOCIAL ORDER [ECCLESIASTIC/ARISTOCRATIC ELITE] WITH HUMANISTIC PHILOSOPHY ESPOUSING INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS AND INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM === FRENCH REVOLUTION --- LIBERTE/EQUALITE/FRATERNITE}

TERMINOLOGY

CULTUAL HEGEMONY

THE SUPREMACY OF A SOCIAL GROUP WHICH MANIFESTS ITSELF IN TWO WAYS: AS DOMINATION AND THE CLAIM TO INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL LEADERSHIP.

{{HISTORIAL ASIDE: IN THE AGE OF THE ENLIGHTEMENT, THE SOCIAL THEORISTS [LIKE LOCKE AND JEFFERSON] OPPOSED “THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS” === IN THE AGE OF MULTICULTURALISM, SOCIAL THEORISTS OPPOSE “ALL STRUCTURES OF DOMINATION” THAT ARE BASED ON IRRELEVANT/ARBITRARY CRITERIA.}}

“MULTICULTURALIST”

SOMEONE WHO CAN SEE THE WORLD FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE “OTHER” [=== (1) SOMEONE WHO SEES DIVERSITY AS A WAY OF LEARNING ABOUT OURSELVESAND THE WORLD AT LARGE; (2) SOMEONE WHO IS INTERESTED IN TRANSFORMING THE WORLD TO MAKE A PLACE FOR THE “OTHER” AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE WHOLE; (3) SOMEONE ONE WHO BELIEVES THAT ACTUALIZING OUR MIXED ENDOWMENTS STRENGTHENS ALL OF US AND CAN HAVE CASCADING POSITIVE EFFECTS FOR HUMANITY.]

THE MULTICULTUALIST BELIEVES THAT “REALITY” IS “SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED AND CULTURALLY CONTINGENT” === THEREFORE === IT IS MULTIDIMENSIONAL AND IN FLUX === THEREFORE === LEGITIMATES THE DYNAMIC RICHNESS AND RESONANCE OF DIVERSITY {DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO AUTHOR WHO BELIEVES IN AN “OBJECTIVE” REALITY}

CRITICAL MULTICULTURALISM

CRITICAL MULTICULTUALISM EMPHASIZES THE PRINCIPLE THAT PEOPLE ARE FUNDAMENTALLY EQUAL, AND MAKES THIS THE BASIS FOR CHALLENGING HOW POWER AND PRIVILEGE ARE DISTRIBUTED AND HOW HISTORY AND LITERATURE ARE TAUGHT.

IS A COUNTER-HEGEMONIC PROJECT THAT SEEKS TO CHALLENGE SOCIAL AUTHORITY, RESIST WHITE HEGEMONY, AND TRANSFORM SOCIETY BY CREATING SPACE FOR OTHER CULTURES.

[LIFE COMPLEX == FINDING UNITY IN OUR DIFFERENCE]

DOGMA

AN OPINION OR DOCTRINE RECEIVED ON AUTHORITY, AS OPPOSED TO ONE OBTAINED FROM EXPERIENCE OR DEMONSTRATION.

SOCIOLOGICAL ASIDE: AYN RAND’S OBJECTIVISM:

OBJECTIVISM HOLDS THAT THERE IS ONE REALITY, THE ONE IN WHICH WE LIVE. IT IS SELF-EVIDENT THAT REALITY EXISTS AND IS WHAT IT IS: OUR JOB IS TO DISCOVER IT. OBJECTIVISM STANDS AGAINST ALL FORMS OF METAPHYSICAL RELATIVISM OR IDEALISM. [[[IT HOLDS IT AS UNDENIABLE THAT HUMANS HAVE FREE WILL, AND OPPOSES METAPHYSICAL DETERMINISM OR FATALISM. MORE GENERALLY, IT HOLDS THAT THERE IS NO FUNDAMENTAL CONTRADICTION BETWEEN THE FREE, ABSTRACT CHARACTER OF MENTAL LIFE AND THE PHYSICAL BODY IN WHICH IT RESIDES. AND SO IT DENIES THE EXISTENCE OF ANY "SUPERNATURAL" OR INEFFABLE DIMENSION FOR SPIRITS OR SOULS.]]]

{{SOCRATES ALREADY ROLLING IN HIS GRAVE === SOCRATIC QUESTION: “HEY ANNIE, HOW DO YOU KNOW THE “OBJECTIVE REALITY’ OF LIFE [[EVEN THAT THERE IS ONE]] INDEPENDENT OF YOUR SUBJECTIVE MIND? === “HOW DO YOU KNOW THE UNIVERSAL EXCEPT THROUGH THE PARTICULAR? ***HOW DO YOU KNOW REALITY {LOGOS}EXCEPT THROUGH THE EXPERIENCE OF CULTURE?

FOR SOCRATES, EVERYTHING IS “CULTURALLY CONTINGENT/ CULTURALLY BOUND” --- SO, “OBJECTIVISM” IS IRONICALLY ALREADY TREATING ITSELF AS IF IT LIVED IN A VACUUM, LIKE A DISEMBODIED VOICE, INDEPENDENT OF A HUMAN SPEAKER {A CULTURED BEING}. THIS VOICE/PERSPECTIVE IS TRANS-CULTURATED” [BEYOND MERE CULTURAL INFLUENCE]AND SO FAILS TO TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT IT SAYS [AS BEING PARTICULAR/ CULTURALLY-BASED == IN OTHER WORDS == OBJECTIVISM ALREADY CLAIMS TO BE “SUPERNATURAL” [I.E., BEYOND THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ENDEAVOUR]}}

THE MULTICULTUAL POO-POOER QUESTIONS

1) THE AUTHOR STATES --- “MANY PARENTS SEE MULTICULTURALISM AS AN INDISPENSABLE EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT, A SALUTARY [BENEFICIAL, RECUPERATIVE, RESTORATIVE] INFLUENCE THAT ‘ENRICHES’ THE CURRICULUM” --- BUT --- “MULTICULTUAL EDUCATION IS DOGMA”.WHAT DOES THE AUTHOR THINK IS DOGMATIC ABOUT LEGITIMIZING THE DYNAMIC RICHNESS AND RESONANCE OF DIVERSITY?

2) THE AUTHOR STATES --- “WHAT MULTICULTURALISTS SEEK IS NOT THE GOAL THEY ADVERTISE, BUT SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY.” WHAT IS IT THAT MULTICULTUALISTS ARE THOUGHT TO BE “REALLY” SEEKING?

3) THE AUTHOR STATES, FORGET ABOUT THE PRE-COLUMBIAN {“BEFORE COLUMBUS”} UNIVERSITY IN TIMBUKTU IN WEST AFRICA {DATING BACK TO PHAROAHIC CIVILIZATIONS} --- “…OF FAR MORE CONSEQUENTIAL INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING IN PARIS, OXFORD AND ELSEWHERE IN EUROPE” == WHAT CAN WE IMAGINE OR SUMMIZE ABOUT THE AUTHOR’S CRITERIA FOR DETERMINING WHAT IS “MORE CONSEQUENTIAL?”

{HISTORICAL ASIDE: EGYPTOLOGIST TELL US ABOUT THE THE DAGOON EMPIRE CENTRED ALONG SHORES OF \TANZANIA AND UGANDA/ 800 MANUSCRIPTS WRITTEN BEFORE CHRIST/ DIVINED A GREAT NUMBER OF THINGS ABOUT UNIVERSE-ASTRONOMY/ MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY INCLUDING THE INVENTION OF WHAT WE KNOW AS THE CESARIAN SECTION.}

4) WHAT CAN WE SUMMIZE THE AUTHORS “STANDARDS FOR JUDGING’?” HOW WOULD SHE FORMULATE HER STANDARDS AS “OBJECTIVE” AND NOT MERELY “HER OWN OPINION?” === WHY IS THE MULTICULTUALIST NOT OBJECTIVE?

5) THE AUTHOR STATES THAT MULTICULTURALISM IS NOT A BROADENING OF VISION OR INCLUSIVENESS, PER SE, BUT IT IS A PECULIAR KIND OF "BROADENING." WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE THAT IS IMPLIED?

6) WHAT DOES THE AUTHOR MEAN BY --- “GRASPING THE OBJECTIVE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE OF WESTERN CULTURE?”

7) IN THE END, IS IT POSSIBLE TO “DECONSTRUCT” SCIENCE (OBJECTIVITY) TO SHOW HOW IT HAS BEEN WIDELY USED FOR POLITICAL (SUBJECTIVE) PURPOSES, ESPECIALLY BY POWERFUL SEGMENTS OF SOCIETY? IF SO, DOES THIS IMPACT THE AUTHOR'S PERSPECTIVE?

{{*THE SOCIOLOGICAL SUBTEXT OF THE ARTICLE:

1) FOR AUTHOR, THE MULTICULTURALIST IS CONCEIVED AS IGNORING THE NEGATIVES OF NON-WESTERN CULTURES == AND THIS IS TRANSLATED AS DIMINISHING THE WEST {ILLOGICAL ARGUMENT}

2) FOR THE AUTHOR, THERE IS NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN “POWER” AND “NATURE,”EXCEPT WHEN THE POWERFUL BEGIN TO LOSE IT == THREATS TO THE POWER STRUCTURE {TO THE BALANCE OF POWER} BECOME UN-NATURAL ABOMINATIONS.

3) UPSHOT/BOTTOM LINE: THIS AUTHOR IS A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF SOMEONE UNWILLING TO SHARE OWNERSHIP OF REALITY!!!

***SOCIOLICIAL MORAL OF IVAN VAN SERTIMA – “THERE IS ROOM FOR US ALL ON THE THRESHOLD OF HISTORY!”

CONTINENTAL AFRICA

PRE-COLOMBIAN AFRICA IS WHAT AFRICAN SCHOLARS REFER TO AS DEMARKING === BEFORE AND AFTER THE HOLOCAUST WHAT THE DOMINANT CULTURE KNOWS ABOUT AFRICA IS FROM TELEVISION === TARZAN MOVIES === VAN SERTIMA {EGYPTOLOGIST} CLAIMED ==== “THE IMAGE OF AFRICA IS A FANTASY CREATION

EX: MAYOR LASTMAN --- “BOILED IN A POT”.

MULTICULTUALISTS WOULD SAY THAT IT IS THE SO-CALLED “PRIMITIVE” CULTURES/CIVILIZATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN DIMINISHED BY WESTERN CIVILIZATION AND NOT VISA VERSA ==== THE SEARCHING FOR BALANCE IN THE PRESENTATION IS NOT A REFLECTION ON THE GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF WESTERN SOCIETY.