The False Premise Of Cultural Equivalence - Some Cultures Are Simply Better Than Others

Myrna Levitt was one of many American progressives who loved living in the city.  It was ethnically and racially diverse and gave her a sense of rightness and social responsibility.  She had fought long and hard for inclusion, tolerance, and good will to men, and here in her quarter of the the city, she saw that her efforts had paid off. 

Until the day when the peace and security of the multicultural idyll broke, and swarms of black teenagers descended into her neighborhood from across the river and trashed it. Store windows smashed, cars set on fire, trash bins overturned, and street signs pulled down. 

There was no reason for such mayhem - it was not George Floyd Day or a BLM protest.  It was just because they could - cell phones, perfume, electronics, high-end clothes were theirs for the asking. Police were under restraint - the City Council had recently passed a Juneteenth Resolution acknowledging persistent racism and white supremacy, and instructed the police to show tolerance for what was considered a legitimate cry for justice. 

 

The protests of these young black men was not unlike any other revolutionary protest, said progressives.  When a restrained reply to white oppression failed to release the ties that bound them, more aggressive, demonstrative measures were called for. 

The inner city had long been lionized by progressives.  Despite its social dysfunction - absent fathers, high rates of incarceration, drug trafficking, prostitution, and racketeering - black communities were lauded as naturally expressive social units descended from a noble African tribal culture; and that any disruption in this harmonious, sensitive, and environmentally in-tune sensitivity was merely temporary and the result of persistent racism.  

The reality was anything but harmonious and sensitive.  Assault, rape, murder, and larceny were hallmarks of the black community which lagged far behind white, Asian, and Latino populations in positive indicators.  Levels of educational proficiency, social mobility, professional and economic success, viable families, and contribution to the commonweal were at the lowest levels on any measured scale.  The culture of the black community - fatherless children, serial sex, dependency, entitlement, and anti-social behavior - was antithetical to historically successful societies. 

Cato the Elder, the Roman educator responsible for the education of the young, future leaders of the empire, wrote triptychs, codes of behavior which were to be the model not only for senators and members of the royal court, but for all Romans.  Cato stressed honor, discipline, courage, respect, compassion, tolerance, and patriotism along with more traditional elements of an education.  He understood that a moral ethos was the center of any successful civilization. 

No successful civilization has been without this core ethos.  Those that have honored and encouraged it most have been Japan and China.  Confucian and Shinto principles of right action are still deeply rooted in Chinese and Japanese cultures and provide the fulcrum for all public and private activities.  Despite the radical and remarkably rapid Westernization of these societies, these principles have never been altered. 

These Asian cultures are thousands of years old and were built on highly structured societies.  They were definitely hierarchical, imperial, and dynastic; but the core principles of the culture were universal. 

India is no different.  It, like China and Japan, is thousands of years old, and its Hindu principles of right behavior are persistent and universal within a modernization which parallels that of China.  While it focuses more on the individual and his path to spiritual salvation and less on community and social solidarity, it still is a culture with deeply-rooted ethnical, moral, and religious principles. 

African culture never had this predominant, extensive high civilization. The Gao and Ghana empires were territorial and left nothing behind.  The culture of the continent in many respects never progressed past the modalities of the earliest human settlements, and those of the diaspora are legatees of that history. Even more telling, the slave trade valued the most basic human traits - physical strength and fertility - and cared little for any of the more mature and subtle aspects of human development. 

The culture of the New World African diaspora would never emerge from this legacy; and while individuals would certainly emerge and prosper - i.e. accept, incorporate, and champion the ideals of the majority culture - most would not. 

It is no surprise that Jews in America not only prospered but contributed disproportionately to the culture, society, and the economy.  The poorest Jews in the New York City ghettos insisted on learning, education and excellence. Chinese immigrants were no different and the best, most elite public schools were filled with Chinese students.  Harvard recently lost a Supreme Court case for discriminating against highly qualified Chinese students to make way for affirmative action blacks. 

Culture - not money - was the engine of success for these groups, and both quickly made their way out of the ghetto into the mainstream and then to the very top of American society. 

In short and in other words, America is fighting a culture war not a racial one, and unless progressives - those who have repeatedly and deliberately insisted that black, diaspora, inner city culture is the equal to all others - realize and accept the reality, the inner city is doomed to yet another generation of malfunction. 

Europe is no different.  Liberals in Western Europe insisted that all cultures were equal and all have a place alongside traditional white European society.  As a result, immigration to Muslims from Africa and the Middle East was not only tolerated but encouraged.  In a short space of time, these immigrants formed their own tight, culturally sealed, radically religious communities and refused assimilation. 

With few exceptions Muslim culture has lagged far behind all others. Muslims in India, for example, have always been at the bottom of all socio-economic indicators.  In Malaysia where Chinese, Indian, and native Malay populations are almost equally divided, the Muslim Malays have always been far behind every other ethnic group. 

Muslims throughout the rest of the world have similarly low academic and social performance.  In some countries like Turkey where thanks to Ataturk's secularization, fundamentalist Islam is less prevalent, performance is more Western; but the eastern half of the country, profoundly Muslim lags far behind. 

Europe is now in crisis mode and conservative governments which have vowed to reject illegal immigrants and to deport those who refuse to adhere to majority cultural norms are taking power throughout the region.  

Finally politicians are facing reality and stating it - Western culture and civilization is superior to that of Muslim Africa and the Middle East, and they will do everything to protect it. 

American progressives have dismissed the idea of cultural superiority and have rejected America's European heritage as racist and colonialist.  As a result the core values which have been at the center of European civilization since ancient Greece and Rome are also being rejected.  

America has become a morally adrift place, one in which diversity has replaced centrality, where anything goes has replaced a foundational ethos.  It cannot end well. 

The conservative government of Donald Trump - like those now of Europe and Latin America - is beginning to roll back the extreme measures of the Left which have fragmented and divided the country; but until the population at large - not just the conservative half - endorses the essential principle that culture matters and that some cultures are indeed better than others, divisions and cultural disunity will continue.