Multiculturalism

America has long been known as the “melting pot” of cultures. Immigration has been happening since the beginning of our nation.  But in a recent post RLC stated “A nation, to be a nation, needs cohesion, and it cannot achieve cohesion when its citizens are constantly reminding everyone how very different they are from each other.”

What America has done is something very different from most other countries, and this could be its downfall. Today Americans can be seen from all different kinds of backgrounds. We have; Europeans, Jews, Irish, Polish, African American, Latino, Russian, German, Just to name a few. And all of these bring with them their “heritage” and their culture. Now what America has done is set up a nation that enforces toleration of all these cultures, religions etc, so that people can live in America but maintain their own distinctiveness. Now I’m not saying that this is wrong, on the contrary each person should have their own identity, after all this is a democracy not a dictatorship. No, where I see the flaw is in America’s view of multiculturalism or rather the consequences of it.  

In a recent press interview The German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that “Germany's attempt to create a multi-cultural society has failed completely” adding that “immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany's culture and values.” Furthermore, said the chancellor "We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don't accept them don't have a place here". Now what is interesting here is Germany’s admission that their “melting pot” system does not work. It breaks down social values and ends up being a battle of religious and cultural rights rather than a unified society.

Should America be wary of this news? Is this perhaps a foreshadowing to the mounting tensions we find here in the U.S.? To get back to my point I want to reiterate that America’s flaw is its consequences of multiculturalism. Now by multiculturalism I mean the idea of having a nation with many different cultures all seeming to co-exist with each other. But that doesn’t happen now does it.... At least not on the whole, no instead what ends up happening is that we are all being forced into closed off communities. Why is this so dangerous? Firstly, when you force a society into closed off communities it creates tension between societies. Every major city has a “china town” or an Irish or Italian “bloc”, the list goes on and on.  

What this means for America is disunity and sometimes even open hatred. So what does America do with this? It creates its own “culture” and that culture can be found in industrialization. Here we see that the “American Dream” is to be successful. But is this really a helpful alternative? So we have a common goal, but what happens when that goal is not based on any culture, religion, or moral values?  What America has done is systematically made a country where the objective goal to being American is to “get ahead” in the marketplace. Basically the only thing holding America together at this point is materialism. Hmm it’s a sad state that we find ourselves in today. Maybe we should pay more attention to our German neighbors and eat a slice of “humble pie” before we too are forced to declare that American society has gone “bankrupt”.  What America needs is a true culture, not this fabricated pop-star American Dream.  So how do we do this? Only time will tell.