On the other hand, there's Chad Schuldt, for whom
every day is Groundhog Day, as he seems to be wrong in the exact same manner so
terribly often. First, note the passion. Chad can't muster an
argument. All he can do is get mad. Chad's politics are pure
passion. If an argument upsets him, it must be an illegitimate
argument. Chad is convinced that he cares more than everybody else, and
that is all the proof he needs that he is right. He does not need reasons
for his positions. It is enough that he cares. Thus his total
misreading of my post. First, one can "respect immigrants" and
find the multicultural left in deep error. In fact one can respect
immigrants and be a conservative! Also, just because the multicultural
left "respects immigrants" doesn't mean they don't hate America and
what it stands for. I really don't have time to explain
"multiculturalism" to Chad. He might want to note that this was
a qualifier in front of "left" as in "the multicultural
left." That means a part of the left, not all of it. And there are
those who are committed to "multculturalism" who really do love
America. Just as the political right is divided on immigration, so is the
left to a certain extent. I realize that makes it complex, and that is
likely to confuse Chad, but politics is not nearly as nicely differentiated
between good guys and bad guys as he thinks it is. But for Chad there are
only good guys who care (e.g., him) and then bad guys who don't care (e.g.,
everyone to the right of Joe Lieberman, and we aren't so sure about him).
The good guys are always totally right, and the bad guys are always totally wrong.
Thus Chad is freed from the task of thinking.
But more to the point, there are parts of the academic left who buy into
multiculturalism as a way of attacking America. I didn't just make that
up. For example, a liberal in good standing, Arthur Schlessinger, Jr,
wrote a book called The
Disuniting of America about just such a phenomenon. I quote from
page 123:
Beyond self-styled "multiculturalists" are
very often ethnocentric separatists who see little in the Western heritage
beyond Western crimes. The Western tradition, in this view, is inherently
racist, sexist, "classist," hegemonic; irredeemably repressive, irredeemably
oppressive.
You switch "America" for "Western" and
Schlessinger is saying almost the exact same thing I said (scroll to the last paragraph). That this is a
movement on the left almost beyond dispute. Schlessinger notes the irony
that those who attack the West borrow their theory from Western philosophers.
Where do they get their ideas?
Marx, Nietzsche, Gramsci, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan,
Sartre, de Beauvior, Habermas, the Frankfort "critical theory"
school...(page 124)
This is more Prof. Blanchard's field than mine, so I ask him
to correct me if I am wrong, but with the exception of Nietzsche, all of these
philosophers are associated with the political left. There is a portion of the
left, mostly in academia, that under the influence of leftist political theory
hates what America stands for and seeks to undermine America through the
notion of multiculturalism. Maybe Schlessinger is right, and maybe he is
wrong, but he is also one of the most respected liberal historians of the past
60 years. If I am a dumbass, so is Arthur Schlessinger, Jr.
Just because some on the left hate America and Western civilization doesn't
mean all the left does, and I did not in anyway suggest it did. Indeed,
Schlessinger is proof positive that there are responsible liberals who are
willing to police the excesses of the far left. Chad, letting his passion
get in the way of his brain, simply read something that wasn't there. Who
is the dumbass now?
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