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Krikorian’s contradiction—and America’s
Continuing from yesterday’s VFR entry about the immigration debate at the Corner, a reader writes:
At the Corner, Mark Krikorian questioned John Podhoretz’s quotation of Emma Lazarus, by saying this below: He seems to be going our way. And yet, and yet, I’m not sure! What do you make of it? (Rest assured that John P has already answered him, that Emma Lazarus poem is indeed applicable today.)
Re: Moral Universalism [Mark Krikorian]
JPod and Derb: Since I live in neither in Babylon on the Hudson nor in the Berkeley of Long Island maybe I can settle things. First of all, Emma Lazarus just doesn’t have much to tell us about immigration policy—it’s not 1910 any more and New York’s experience is no longer the norm for immigration—in fact, it’s something of an outlier. And her poem isn’t just a cliche, it’s a propaganda cliche; inserting “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor!” into an immigration-policy discussion is like answering an economics question with “Overfulfill the Plan by 110 percent!”, or settling a philosophical dilemma by chanting “Lenin Lived, Lenin Lives, Lenin Will Live!”
But it’s also not 1910 in terms of our moral worldview. The civil rights revolution really did change things, though the circle of the “we” (people considered fit for membership in the community) has been expanding pretty consistently here for centuries. It didn’t have to be this way—Japan and Finland and Israel and Botswana define their nationhood in ethnic/racial/religious terms, and more power to them. But it’s not for us. This isn’t pure “proposition nation” malarkey, but rather proposition-plus, a combination of universalist ideology with a particular ethno-cultural inheritance.
Maybe this is unsustainable, but it’s an accomplished fact. So the question for American patriots has to be how best to sustain national cohesion given this self-conception. I applaud the efforts of Ward Connerly, Roger Clegg, John Fonte, and others in combatting racial preferences, bilingual ballots, dual citizenship, and the other nation-breaking strategems of the post-Americans. But none of that can work without drastic, permanent cuts in immigration—from everywhere and anywhere.
LA replies:
Mark K. doesn’t see how contradictory it is to endorse the non-discriminatory principle of the ‘65 Act and then to speak of our “particular ethno-cultural inheritance and to seek “drastic, permanent cuts across the board.” I repeat my point: Embracing non-discrimination as our guiding principle means we have no cultural/national identity of our own that can be allowed to matter in public life. We’re open in principle to everyone. We have said, “We are the world.” But having endorsed the principle that “we are the world,” Mark thinks he can get America to resist the whole world wanting to come here.
He supports the pure liberal principle of the ‘65 Act, but then thinks he can add onto that a conservative idea of national identity, and conservative action, and conservative results. Evidence and logic suggest that this is not possible. In his blog entries yesterday, he was horrified by some of the crazy measures by which people can get green cards today. From his examples, it’s clear that the open borders agenda is getting worse. But he is unable to grasp why this is happening and effectively oppose it, because he himself subscribes to the principle that we have no national identity of our own and basically have no say about who comes in.
- end of initial entry -
Randall Parker writes:
Larry, Saw your posts on The Corner debate on immigration and this line from Mark Krikorian:
“Non-discrimination and mass immigration are just not reconcilable.”
At the risk of stating the obvious: If we totally stop immigration (and Krikorian favors that halt) then we really are discriminating. We are discriminating against everyone not already US citizens. Seems to me that Krikorian’s position is not compatible with liberal universalism.
Why is it that the obvious needs to get stated in response to so much falsehood?
LA replies:
This is a very useful debate to continue having with Mark K. Because he is thoughtful, is not an ideologue, and it’s clear he’s already moved from his former position of totally embracing liberal universalist view. Now he’s trying to balance that with some sense of nation. But as I keep saying, a sense of nation is not compatible with the unstated but real principle of the ‘65 Act, which is that America is defined by having no culture of its own, it is defined by its equal openness to all cultures.
And that’s sort of your point here as well. Krikorian wants to keep his allegiance to the principle of non-discrimination, by stopping letting people in! But of course that requires heavy duty discrimination. Any act by a nation that says, “we are this, we are not that, we will permit this, we will not permit that,” is an act of discrimination. This is what I think Mark doesn’t quite see yet, but I think one day he will see it.
Randall Parker writes:
In the below entry at the Corner is the key to Krikorian’s position: He’s a liberal universalist because he thinks he has to accept to elite ruling conventional wisdom. He starts from a position of defeat. He knows it probably isn’t sustainable. But he wants to try to defend the country by first accepting the assumptions the liberals want us all to share. Then he argues using those assumptions.
He wants to bolt some beliefs onto the liberal universalism. Sort of dilute it a little. But since liberal universalism wasn’t always the ruling ideology of our intellectuals why can’t he see that it will not always be? This too shall pass. It will pass all the sooner if we treat it as something that will pass. I think of Ronald Reagan saying that communism is going into the dustbin of history at a time that most saw the Soviet Union as a permanent fixture.
Re: Moral Universalism [Mark Krikorian]
JPod and Derb: Since I live in neither in Babylon on the Hudson nor in the Berkeley of Long Island maybe I can settle things. First of all, Emma Lazarus just doesn’t have much to tell us about immigration policy—it’s not 1910 any more and New York’s experience is no longer the norm for immigration—in fact, it’s something of an outlier. And her poem isn’t just a cliche, it’s a propaganda cliche; inserting “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor!” into an immigration-policy discussion is like answering an economics question with “Overfulfill the Plan by 110 percent!”, or settling a philosophical dilemma by chanting “Lenin Lived, Lenin Lives, Lenin Will Live!”
But it’s also not 1910 in terms of our moral worldview. The civil rights revolution really did change things, though the circle of the “we” (people considered fit for membership in the community) has been expanding pretty consistently here for centuries. It didn’t have to be this way—Japan and Finland and Israel and Botswana define their nationhood in ethnic/racial/religious terms, and more power to them. But it’s not for us. This isn’t pure “proposition nation” malarkey, but rather proposition-plus, a combination of universalist ideology with a particular ethno-cultural inheritance.
Maybe this is unsustainable, but it’s an accomplished fact. So the question for American patriots has to be how best to sustain national cohesion given this self-conception. I applaud the efforts of Ward Connerly, Roger Clegg, John Fonte, and others in combatting racial preferences, bilingual ballots, dual citizenship, and the other nation-breaking strategems of the post-Americans. But none of that can work without drastic, permanent cuts in immigration—from everywhere and anywhere.
LA replies to Randall Parker:
I agree with you 1000 percent. (Sorry for sounding like George McGovern.)
I also want to say something about the Krikorian comment. He wrote:
This isn’t pure “proposition nation” malarkey, but rather proposition-plus, a combination of universalist ideology with a particular ethno-cultural inheritance.
Maybe this is unsustainable, but it’s an accomplished fact. So the question for American patriots has to be how best to sustain national cohesion given this self-conception.
He appears to be saying that the combination of “universalist ideology with a particular ethno-cultural inheritance” is an accomplished fact. Not true. Far from having any recognition in our society, the ethno-cultural inheritance he speaks of is demonized and under continual seige by our official liberal ideology and is rapidly weakening as a result. To describe this unstable and rapidly deteriorating arrangement as an “accomplished fact” is not correct. Rather, this combination of universalism and particularism is what moderates like Krikorian would like to achieve. They are trying to modify the pure universalism to which they have previously subscribed by adding onto it a recognition of our particular ethno-cultural inheritance, something they have only begun to do very recently, largely as a result of the emphasis on the importance of particularism by traditionalists such as ourselves.
The real point here, returning us to what you said, is that liberal universalism, whether taken straight or with an admixture of particularism, is not sustainable. Liberalism, meaning the rule of liberalism, must destroy the society that it rules. Liberalism by its nature is a temporary thing. Therefore it is not necessary for us to accede to it. It is imperative that we not accede to it, and mark out a different path.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 09, 2007 09:52 AM | Send
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