The left and the “right”—sibling enemies of the West

John McNeil writes:

Re Sarkozy’s statement that multiculturalism has failed, a few years back Sarkozy called for native French to intermarry with Arabs and blacks, in order to “unify” the country. This is why I’m full of dread when I hear center-right politicians call multiculturalism a failure; to me, the integration model, the global “melting pot,” is a far worse alternative than the Balkanization that arises from multiculturalism. I’m worried that the mainstream right has a better chance than the multiculturalists at making this bleak future possible.

LA replies:

Your dread is based in reality. The point you have alluded to here needs to be constantly repeated. There are two main belief systems in the West today. These belief systems appear to be mutually opposed, because the adherents of each hate the adherents of the other. But in reality both belief systems have something fundamental in common, which is that they both must result in the dissolution of the historic cultures and peoples of the West. Therefore, though their adherents don’t realize it, the two belief systems are allied. They are the two wings of liberalism, without which the creature could not fly.

The first wing is left-liberalism, or simply the left. The left supports unqualified openness to and official recognition and subsidization of all alien groups and cultures. This is multiculturalism. The left/multicultural position places no ultimate value on the host society or Western culture, which it sees as evil and guilty and as morally obligated to help other cultures and to facilitate them in the process of replacing and eliminating the host society and Western culture. The left/multicultural position is thus simply synonymous with national and civilizational suicide.

The second wing is right-liberalism, a.k.a. the “right.” The “right” says that the West is good, but that it is good only insofar as it is defined as a universal society consisting of equal and interchangeable rights-bearing individuals. It is not good insofar as it consists of distinct historical nations, cultures, and peoples. The “right” believes in the West, but the only good the “right” recognizes in the West consists in those values and procedures that are the product of liberal individualism.

The “right” calls for non-discriminatory openness, not to alien cultures, but to the individuals who belong to those cultures. It says that people from other cultures must be admitted into the West, and that after they are admitted, they must “assimilate” and “integrate” into the Western culture. The “right” thinks this is possible, because it assumes that people from other cultures are entirely passive and have no cultures, cultural agendas, or cultural personalities of their own that they care about and seek to express. The “right” assumes that people from other cultures want nothing more than to earn a living, raise their children, and “enjoy our freedoms.” In other words, the “right” sees people from other cultures not as moral actors in their own right, but as good little children whose only role in the world is to fit into “our” right-liberal program.

So, when the tens of millions of individuals from other cultures who have been admitted into the West turn out to be, not mere faceless ciphers wanting only to earn a living and “enjoy our freedoms,” but carriers of alien cultural identities and of claims and grievances against our culture, i.e., actual human beings who are not like us and who want to make their own mark on the world, the right-liberals have no response except to dismiss such claims and grievances as irrational multiculturalism, and to say that we have not tried hard enough to assimilate the newcomers and must try harder. The call for “more assimilation”—meaning the assimilation of essentially unassimilable people—never has any practical program connected with it; it is the emptiest of rhetorical ploys, the only purpose of which is to defend from criticism and keep alive the right-liberal ideology. But the process doesn’t end there. As the society continues to become more and more diverse and multicultural, the right-liberals inevitably start using a modified form of diversity-speak themselves. They now describe America or the West as consisting of “diversity,” but a diversity which still somehow all fits into one culture. But this is a lie, which covers the fact that the right-liberals, as a result of the massive presence of unassimilable peoples in the West, no longer believe in assimilation in any meaningful sense of the word. In short, the inevitable failure of the right-liberal program leads the right-liberals to surrender to multiculturalism, without their admitting that they are doing so.

The above account of right-liberalism applies mainly to America, where assimilation, not multiculturalism, has been the more or less official policy.

Meanwhile, in Europe, where multiculturalism, not assimilation, has been the official policy, the mounting social chaos resulting from multiculturalism leads multiculturalist political leaders to declare that multiculturalism has failed and to call for … renewed efforts at integration and assimilation, i.e., the right-liberal program.

Two problems immediately present themselves. First, it is most doubtful that a society which has already been radically reshaped by multiculturalism can readily change direction and adopt right liberalism. Much more than a speech is needed; it would require a radical reversal in the institutional, ideological, and attitudinal framework of the entire society. Second, even if the shift from left-liberal multiculturalism to right-liberal assimilationism took place, the latter would inevitably lead back to left-liberal multiculturalism, as we have seen in the case of America.

Thus the inevitable failure of muliticulturalism leads to assimilationism; and the inevitable failure of assimilationism leads to multiculturalism.

Right-liberalism and left-liberalism are unconsciously allied ideologies of Western suicide. There can be no hope for the salvation of the West apart from the utter rejection of both ideologies.

- end of initial entry -

John McNeil writes:

Thank you for the insightful reply. If there was a way I could spread it on FreeRepublic and other mainstream conservative forums, I would, for it exposes the dual nature of liberalism, and how right-liberalism and left-liberalism feed off each other in a vicious cycle. Unfortunately, expressing non-orthodox viewpoints does not make oneself welcome, especially with FreeRepublic moderators.

LA replies:

Oh, FR, forget about it.

In any case, no articles by me may be posted at FR. All works by me are banned, regardless of subject matter.


Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 11, 2011 04:45 PM | Send
    

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