On Multiculturalism

Every generation produces its own revolutionaries, some revolt against the moral order, by which I mean the order of the soul, and others the constitutional order, by which I mean the principles of justice and jurisprudence. These individuals perceive this inherited order as flawed and incongruent with progress—when indeed it is the fons et origo of every good we enjoy, and a springboard for the cultivation of our society.

As a student, I see many of my classmates rejecting tradition, and while they are motivated by different things, a major source of this rejection are multicultural groups on university campuses, which promote an amorphous post-modern virtue, diversity. Rather than promoting irenicism, multicultural organizations tend to splinter university campuses by encouraging a militant provincialism: At almost any university one can find scores of clubs and events geared towards one ethnic group or another. (Just this week I was e-mailed about a networking event for women and minorities, and wonder what those who do not fit into either category must think when reading similar e-mails.) And while not all such groups reject the inherited order, they do create factions on campus, which, at best, segregate part of the student body and promote a myopic sense of mankind.

Multiculturalists believe that they are the disenfranchised members of society, and that the moral and constitutional order is weighed against them. Therefore, instead of reaping the benefits of the American culture that they have inherited, they fatuously search for ways to “even the playing field.” In lieu of legitimate academic programs encouraging minorities to excel, university multicultural groups promote special networking events and internships solely for students of color. The words of Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France come to mind, “You think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature.” Indeed, multiculturalists are at war with nature when they denigrate themselves by simultaneously refusing to participate in the moral and constitutional order, and complaining that they are the victims of that order.

This is not a new phenomenon, years ago Russell Kirk noted, “multiculturalism is animated by envy and hatred,” and labeled it as not only “intellectually puny”, but “anti-cultural.” It is intellectually puny because it would replace time-tested educational standards with more diverse curriculums and modern pedagogical methods. I do not claim that universities should never adjust their curriculums, but unfortunately the modernization and diversification of university curricula produces mediocre results. It is anti-cultural because multiculturalists zealously adhere to their ideology and are prepared to polemicize their opponents, even when they are minorities themselves. A salient example is the story of Mia Martinez, a College of the Holy Cross undergraduate that criticized a pre-freshman program for minority students in her campus newspaper as encouraging self-segregation by the participating students. Her opinion being that after participating in the program the students would naturally stick together since they already knew each other. Her honest observation resulted in a scolding from the college administration and even the threat of a lawsuit.

Multiculturalists are not likely to renounce their phantasmagoria anytime soon. Multiculturalism has persisted in the academy, and will continue to persist as long as there are individuals who are willing to pander to certain minorities’ sense of entitlement. We who believe in an inherited moral order – one that holds that all men are created equal – must also be persistent, and prepared to remind those who would undo tradition that, again to quote Burke, “we owe an implicit reverence to all the institutions of our ancestors."