Multiculturalism & Cohesion
This is my take on the issue on the ongoing discussion around multiculturalism, which has long been a focus on the Mankind Project. I think a lot of the messaging around multiculturalism misses the point. Differences are fine, and can benefit the whole, but there must be cohesion. Speaking of multiculturalism without linking it to cohesion is a fatal flaw.
It’s as much about a dominant culture understanding how to weave differences together for the greater whole as it is about those of separate cultures giving up some of who they are to be part of a union.
If this is not feasible, then there a clock ticking down to disaster.
Multiculturalism is a complex issue. It can be positive or negative. That seems obvious, but in some circles, the idea of it has been attached to virtue. Team dynamics often benefit from diversity (of thought/personality and experience which has been overtly, and in my view incorrectly, attached to skin tone and gender) but some of the best work comes from teams that are cohesive. There are also degrees of multiculturalism, and it works best when it exists within a shared framework. The ancient Greeks, made up a patchwork of city states, are a convenient example. When united (cohesive) few could stand against them either on sea or land and their strength derived in part from their diversity but which existed within their shared understanding of the world, religion, language, and similar ethnic backgrounds (Greeks were not a uniform people, primarily Aeolians, Ionians, Dorians, and Achaeans). Diversity within a cohesive framework was their strength and when they succumbed to battle over their differences, diversity became their undoing.
Nation states require cohesion to persist over time. The Achaemenid Empire (Persia) was renowned for its multicultural makeup and of how the Persian administration leveraged the abilities of different peoples in building projects and in their armies. In the massive Persian army that invaded Greece, units were called upon from every part of the vast empire as the various peoples exceled in warfare in different ways and also to convey the power of many (a multicultural empire) against the meager might of the few (the Greek city states). The united Greeks effectively won the war at the Battle of Salamis, and the Persians resorted to using their treasury to fund wars among the Greeks to keep them busy (the cohesion of the Greeks was lost to the desire for gold and hopes of power) and their diversity was used against them.
The Persian multiculturalism, though effective, was achieved at the point of the sword. The apex culture was Persian, and their culture was the glue that held the empire together. Most of the subjected peoples, of which there were many, did not voluntarily participate. Revolts ravaged the empire throughout its existence.
The Roman Empire worked in much the same way. In some regions, such as Gaul, the people became so Romanized that they became part of the cohesive fabric of the empire; those peoples that remained separate (eg/ the multicultural areas of the empire) were always a threat to revolt.
India , which has a large number of ethnicities and languages, is a good example of a multicultural modern state, and it has a cohesive bond tying it together—Hinduism. The primary schism in India (I’m not addressing caste system) is between those who are Hindu and those who are not—the multicultural aspect of India only really works for those that also identify with the dominant cultural expression (Hinduism) which binds these different peoples together.
The Mongolian Empire began with cohesion—the uniting of the various Mongol tribes—and under the leadership of Genghis they swept through Xi Xia, a kingdom in modern day northwestern China, where the Mongolians absorbed the brilliance of Tibetan/Chinese knowledge of siege engines and gunpowder. The diversity of knowledge gave the Mongolians the resources and know-how to conquer the great fortified cities in what is today central and northern China. Again, as the Mongolian Empire became multicultural, it became more powerful—at first—but the empire thrived within the cohesive framework of the Mongolian peoples. Later, when Kublai adopted the Chinese culture to such an extent that the Mongolian Empire was more Chinese than Mongolian, the cohesion was lost and the empire quickly fragmented and the fragments eventually succumbed to history.
This is all to say that multiculturalism can render greatness and it can render ruin when the cohesion is lost.
The Japanese have a very low birth rate yet restrict immigration because the people have decided they would rather fade away as Japanese than to survive as something else. I do not have a right or a wrong judgment to that other than to say that multiculturalism comes with a cost and for some it’s not worth it. What is often unsaid is that native cultures must give up part of their identity— in the end perhaps all of it— while multiculturalism advocates promote the virtue of separate identities. Meaning native cultures are being asked to give up that which the advocates promote. The Japanese understand this trade off, and have made their choice.
The US started out overwhelming white (including black slaves), but the US nonetheless started out as a multicultural experiment. Having a country start with immigrants from various counties was novel. On my mother’s side, the family came from France (Huguenots fleeing the Catholic pogroms), and the French had no love for the English. For many generations, it was expected that everyone in the family would marry someone who was French. Though fluent in English, the family language was French. The last name was French. Other non-English European groups maintained similar habits. Around the middle of the 1850s (I don’t reclass the exact date this happened in my family), there was a movement to Anglicize the multicultural melting pot. My family no longer passed on the requirement to speak French. The last name was Anglicized from Faure to Ford. Family members began to marry outside of the French population (which is how I have a great great full-blooded Cherokee or Choctaw grandmother who walked the Trail of Tears). The US was becoming less multicultural but it was also becoming more cohesive as an American identity took root. It’s not that people stopped being French, Irish, German, or Italian, and so on, but the American identity became more primary. Regional differences persisted especially between the North and the South which of course ended in Civil War—these regions of the US were in practice separate countries with separate identities that superseded the idea of being American—especially in the South. The lack of cohesion was not sustainable and the country was kept together at the barrel of a gun.
Europe has seen significant immigration from Africa and Asia but this multiculturalism has been problematic; native populations expect immigrants to become part of the cohesive fabric but instead parallel societies have developed throughout Europe. So yes, there are different peoples coexisting but only on paper—they are more separate than not, and populations that do not identity with the dominant culture of an ancient empire or of a modern state tend to revolt sooner or later.
The US is undergoing rapid demographic changes with influxes of peoples from all over the world. For multiculturalism to work, to be effective, to a certain extent it must go away.
In India, the multicultural differences are still prominent but the key is that there is something (religion) binding most of the people together. India has a dominant cultural that the majority of its peoples are willing to accept even as they maintain separate identities.
The dominant US culture is fading fast. Many on the Left openly mock it. The evolution of this mindset can be seen in the treatment of Superman. The motto, Truth, Justice, and the American Way has been replaced with Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow. In the Supergirl poster, a Better Tomorrow is replaced with Whatever, a clear attempt at mockery. The Left has been a stronger advocate for multiculturalism and the Right for cohesion. For multiculturalism to work over time, there must be something that binds the majority of the peoples together or they will 1) create parallel societies where multiculturalism is more on paper than reality (people living in proximity but for the most part keeping to their separate worlds) with the threat of civil war growing over time 2) revolts and violence. Both of these impulses already plague the US. There must be something that binds us together and it’s not democracy. I’m not sure what that is. Is it possible to have a cohesive cultural thread in the US today given the myriad and diverse population? Saying we are all American is meaningless when there is no longer agreement on what an American is. The modern culture has emphasized identities, see my differences, promoted our separateness, which makes cohesion all the harder.
I go back to where I started. Nation states are based on cohesion. Tribe, language, ethnicity, religion, the USSR managed it for a time with communism, but there must be something. Perhaps language will be enough but I doubt it. What defines the US as a common people? Geographic proximity is meaningless. For the US to persist, we will have to come up with an answer. Hopefully, it will be something other than a police state (or some version of one) because that’s how true multicultural states have been maintained in the past. But of course, these all ended in flame and ruin.
Multiculturalism can be a beautiful thing and it’s not a virtue. Where it has worked has been under a cohesive umbrella of a dominant culture. Cohesion, common purpose, has driven civilization.
The US once found a way to merge multiculturalism and cohesion together. But it did so with peoples that had interacted with each other for centuries. And it did so during a time when native Americans had high birth rates—the expansion of this population allowed it to remain dominant and “encourage” cohesion from different groups.
This time will be much harder. Native birth rates are below replacement rate. The dominant American culture is fracturing into segments.
I’m hoping it’s possible. But everyone must be willing to give up something just as my family did back in the 1850s. The idea of extoling separateness in identify and togetherness in practice is a fantasy. Humans do not work that way.
One thread may be enough.
Absent that, I fear for what is to come.
