Multiculturalism is ignorance and ugliness
Identifying freedom with doing “whatever we like”, being limited only by the others’ freedom, while in the same time praising the ancient democracy in Athens, we forget that even the ancient Athenian democracy sought the meaning of life mainly in religion, and, even more, we form a concept of freedom that is opposite to what ancient Greeks thought.
Freedom is not only avoidance of being tyrannized by other persons, but even more, it is the avoidance of being enslaved to one’s own irrational or lower appetites. Far from doing “whatever we like”, we can not have freedom without truth - and the ultimate, most important, truth, is of course the theological knowledge. This can help us understand better our current multicultural conditions.
We can not want in the same time to have freedom/truth and to accept all religions. If we want to have freedom, we must know what religion is true or closer to the truth, and what religion is false or less true. This is a basic demand of thinking - to not cover things up, but, on the contrary, to know them by their true name, being able to identify them as they are.
The multicultural way of replacing the need to knowledge with “good manners” (political correctness) and vague concepts, is a way of avoiding freedom, not protecting it. Nor can we keep some concepts (love, peace, etc) and throw away the traditions that gave birth to these concepts. If we want love, we can have it only the way Christianity understands love, or the way Islam or Buddhism understands it, etc. We can not believe in some “God” without taking position for or against what known religions teach about God.
If we take some position, then it is obvious that we are going to want our society, the environment inside which our children grow, to be formed according to this particular understanding of God and all existence. This helps us understand that the multicultural condition is unnatural and inhuman - just like being in a room with pictures of all Gods and deities, in a situation of chaos, ignorance and ugliness that pretends to be freedom and friendliness.
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Tags : political correctness | appetites | religions | democracy in athens | Philosophy | Europe - West | Politics | good manners | ancient greeks | vague concepts | theological knowledge | ancient athenian democracy
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I very much admire Hellenic culture as well as the early Christian Church that sprouted in Greek-speaking lands. Their axioms underlie our Western view of what it means to be human. Out of that view grew notions of tolerance and multiculturalism. For example, consider how our Lord Jesus in the parable of the Good Samaritan taught that even someone from a despised people with whom we disagree even on fundamental theological issues still harbors within himself a goodness that we would do well to imitate. He did not thereby say that everyone should subscribe to Samaritan beliefs, but He did set a tone of tolerance: a hallmark of theosis.
The great Aristotle once said, “For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.” I hold dear our Western civilization and our Christian faith, yet an essential part of that tradition behooves us to be open-minded and loving of those who think differently and cherish other customs. Our tolerant of others’ ways does not at all undermine us but rather makes us even stronger; again I cite Aristotle: “Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.”
Just my humble opinion.
Dear Adin, there is no question of open mindedness; perhaps I did not make myself clear enough. Is Christ just a prophet (and a stupid prophet at that!, since He considered Himself not a prophet, but the Son of God?) You need to accept (even the possibility of) these beliefs in order to have an open mind? What is it exactly that you mean by open-mindedness?
Again, there is no question of loving people who think not only differently, but even those who are in error. It is another thing to love them, and a completely different thing to follow their error or let our societies be formed after errors. The example of Christ and the Samaritan as a multicultural attitude is inaccurate, since Christ did not endorse the Samaritan culture but a personal character. On the contrary, He said about the Old Testament that not even a word of it will be abolished. What are you going to think for Muslims who made a joke out of both the Old and the New Testaments? Are you open-minded if you baptize their ‘adaptation’ of Christianity as just “different customs”?
Multiculturalism is not to discern possible partial truths in different beliefs and religions. Multiculturalism is to deny that there exist hierarchies between cultures, multiculturalism is to deny that there exist superior and inferior cultures, multiculturalism is to deny that a culture can be closer to truth than other cultures. Thus, a multicultural state or policy, since it lacks a measure of truth, will be in the society a force of relativism. Relativism is not tolerance, nor open-mindedness. Relativism is stopping searching for truth, is to accept that truth exists everywhere and nowhere - an absurd condition that prepares indifference and nihilism.