Yet another of my Modern Philosophy blogs, on a very contentious issue this time. Next week I will give my final rundown on the UK General Election, this time more concisely and with the benefit of having read the party manifestos. I’m also going to be starting a new series called Best of the Week, in which I recommend the best news articles I’ve read over the week, so look out for that this Sunday!
Epicurus was remarkably cosmopolitan for his time. He famously welcomed women and slaves into his Garden, when most Athenian intellectuals would have regarded learning as an exclusively free male affair. Like most Greeks, Epicurus was a believer in Xenia, or hospitality towards foreigners. It would be lovely to end the post here by concluding simply that because Epicurus was no xenophobe, we ought to welcome foreigners in our society. But for better or for worse, the modern world is far more complex than the ancient world. Terrorism, mass migration, the nation state- all of these ought to have a bearing on our views of multiculturalism, even as they didn’t exist (at least conceptually speaking) in the ancient world.
To begin with, it goes without saying that bigotry and hatred are totally incompatible with Epicurean values. Of course, we must not discriminate against anyone for whatever reason. Every society has to have anti-discrimination legislation, and religious institutions cannot be exempt from them because that would undermine the principle of living in a secular society where every belief and individual is treated the same. I’m all in favour of free speech, but radical extremists who endorse violence against minority groups have no place in a civilised polity. That’s why Islamist and far-right hate groups are quite rightly banned in most developed countries.
However, the present-day Left, particularly in the United States, is not content with merely being against discrimination. For them, there is an inherent virtue in living in a multicultural, multiracial and multi-religious society. Equally, there is an inherent vice in living in an ethnically homogeneous society, particularly if that ethnicity happens to be white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or WASPS as the American Left sometimes derogatorily refers to them. For some reason, the American Left seems to celebrate the culture of the Irish, Italians and Spanish, but never the English, Germans or Nordics. I’ve never figured out why. But for whatever reason, most American Leftists prefer living in places where white Protestants are a minority.
The Left’s arguments are not entirely without merit. They are right to point out the perils of racial segregation. In the United States, school segregation is increasing as the Brown v Board of Education era efforts to bus black children to white areas seem to be fading away. Instead, many towns are splitting away from their wider school districts. These towns will claim they are acting in the best interests of their children, by reducing the time taken to travel to school, and increasing local autonomy over the schools. This may be true, but in practice, the effect of these towns being independent is more segregated schools. If society as a whole is multicultural, it’s very unhealthy for each culture not to interact with each other. Or else negative stereotyping and ignorance of other people’s lives will become more common.
There are other benefits to living in a multicultural society. Your knowledge of the world increases. You gain experience of other cultures and ways of life without having to travel abroad. Many people would consider it more interesting. From an intellectual viewpoint, a greater variety of philosophies, religions and outlooks on life broaden the scope of academic debates. It’s far more rewarding to hear the perspectives of a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew on who God is for example, rather than just three Christians. At the same time, a multicultural society is more likely to be a multilingual one. There are many benefits in business to being multilingual, making the society more globally competitive.
Having said that, I take issue with the American Left’s characterisation of ethnic homogeneity as an inherent vice. Partly because as I’ve just explained, this characterisation in inconsistently applied. It can also be very prejudice. It would be wrong to criticise New Orleans for being too black, or Los Angeles for being too Hispanic. Similarly, I think it’s in poor taste when a certain sort of liberal denounces American towns and cities as being ‘too white.’ And although multiculturalism may have its benefits, what is more important is individual freedom. If people of any race choose to segregate themselves, that may be unfortunate, but it is their right to do it. (Forced segregation as a result of racism is another matter entirely.) I think part of the reason why Trump won the election is because many Americans are sick of snobby urban liberals looking down on rural America as culturally inferior. This snobbery is hypocritical when you consider that many of these liberal cities have very high crime and poverty rates. To be fair, I also acknowledge that many conservatives do not see the liberal cities as being part of the ‘real America,’ which in many cases may be a characterisation motivated by xenophobia.
The American Left’s attitude to multiculturalism makes even less sense when applied to societies outside the United States. Is Israel insufficiently multicultural because it is too Jewish? Is Iran at fault for being too Muslim? Of course not, even if the United States benefits from multiculturalism. The Left ought to respect all cultures equally, regardless of whether it perceives a culture to be ‘privileged’ or ‘oppressed.’ On the one hand that means fighting ethnic chauvinism at every turn, which to its credit the American Left does very well. But it also means coming to terms with the world how it is, not how the Left wants it to be. That means accepting that much of the world, much of America included, is not multicultural, but that there is nothing wrong with that.
Multiculturalism is an even more contentious issue in Britain than in America, because the latter sees itself as a nation of immigrants, but the former does not. In Britain, many people (if not the majority) are opposed to living in a more multicultural society. This can be seen in migration patterns, where towns with a rapidly increasing ethnic minority population generally also have a declining white British population- almost a British version of white flight. The debate is much further to the Right in Britain; the Left cannot support multiculturalism as an inherent good as it would alienate too many of its supporters. Instead, it must defend refugees and asylum seekers on a humanitarian basis, while making the economic case for immigration.
In many ways, multiculturalism in Britain has been a success. Unlike in America, most ethnic minorities outperform whites at school (http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21589874-ethnic-minority-pupils-are-storming-ahead-thanks-partly-tutors-road). Considering that it is a less diverse place on the whole, segregation is not as stark in Britain, which also benefits from not having a history of formal segregation. Most people say that their neighbourhood is a place where people of all backgrounds get on well. Particularly in London suburbs like Northwood, Ruislip or Harrow, many multicultural areas are increasingly affluent.
In Britain, the solution ought to be largely the same as the United States- a visceral opposition to discrimination, combined with a respect for all places regardless of their cultural makeup. I suspect part of the reason for Brexit was that much of rural Britain feels as if a metropolitan elite regards it as culturally inferior (though I don’t believe Britain’s cultural elites are as snobby as their American counterparts.) But in Britain, an additional compromise is required of the Left. America has always been a country of immigration, and most Americans want that to continue. No such majority exists in Britain, however much the Left would like you to believe otherwise. Even as someone who is largely ambivalent on questions of culture, I accept that the UK’s migration rates need to come down, because most Britons don’t want to live in a more multicultural society, and there’s nothing that can be done to change their mind. As an old-world country, Britain is a much harder society to integrate into than the US. Our culture is very distinct and often baffling from a foreign perspective. If the British Left doesn’t understand that soon, it may never enjoy power again.