PLURALISM VS. MULTICULTURALISM
by John Cooper
cosmicflyswatter.com

May 22, 2009

"If you have to use a hyphen, you've missed the point!" I heard this from Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper USMC, Ret., many years ago. The Colonel died last year. His words have never been so alive.

It seems there is some misunderstanding about the two words that are the title of this article. I actually heard a college student say "... we were designed as a multicultural society, why do you think we have the motto 'E Pluribus Unum'... it means From One Comes Many... we are all immigrants joining in one place celebrating our different cultures!"

The UCLA student's near illiteracy and the clear idiocy displayed by making this statement points up just another item we must toss into the clarity-mill at cosmicflyswatter.com. That such a statement could have been made in earnest is clear evidence that today's students have been abused by an educational system that has no business being in business. This student belongs in a sixth grade civics class from say fifty years ago, not in a university.

E Pluribus Unum means Out of Many, One. Today the plurality of our civilization that was envisioned by the liberal thinking founders is being confused in the minds of the young by substituting the word multiculturalism. They are not the same thing. In short: Pluralism-Good, Multiculturalism-Bad.

I wasn't able to find much support for this view using a dictionary. But there is a difference here to be illustrated somehow. Pluralism in America assumes that members of many different cultural traditions merge their individual identities into a mosaic where in exchange for a partial subordination all the members gain something that is common. That something is being an American. This is why if you have to use a hyphen you have missed the point. Strictly speaking there is no such thing as an African-American, or a European-American, or an Asian-American. There are only Americans.

The use of the hyphen is a tool of the bean counters (sociologists) whose job it is to identify which group can be categorized as needing government assistance. More correctly, they define which groups and categories of folks can be classified as victims. I wonder sometimes that if these people didn't exist the government might just have to go back to its primary functions. Maybe we could balance the budget. The sociologists would have to find employment doing something honest.

Though the distinction between Pluralism and Multiculturalism is perhaps subtle, it is not insignificant. Multiculturalism is the perpetuation of isolate-group think. All cultures from anywhere are valid and equal and should be treated as such. This is a designed recipe for chaos, lawyers, and government arbiters. Pluralism on the other hand assumes that many different traditions will thrive but subjugate themselves to the common ground of Americanism.

A picture may be worth a thousand words here, so let me insert two of them. This then should be worth two thousand words of explanation.

The first picture shows a series of uniform signs all distinct from each other but ordered with a commonality. Imagine if you will that each one is a cultural style or tradition fit together as a type of tapestry. This would be plurality. This would be Americanism.

The second photograph is a wall of graffiti where every separate group continues to mark his territory by overlaying himself upon all others in an endless battle for primacy resulting in an image of near chaos. This type of society is preferred by lawyers, politicians, academics, anarchists, art students and of course the trolls in the media.

The first picture here would be the preference of those who play by the rules and try to make an honest and ordered living. Lawyers, politicians, academics, and art students are exempt from playing by the rules. Those who do play by rules prefer an order that applies to all equally. Those who are exempt from the rules and the media profit by the disorder.

We have a lot of problems today, most of which are the result of a successful agenda by the Frankfurters. If we plan on conserving what is left of the most free society man has ever seen, we need to start being clear on fundamental philosophical frames of reference. Pluralism vs. Multiculturalism is just such an issue.