Multiculturalism?

[Peaceable]

I also worry about branding a whole community as good

How about not branding whole communities full stop, per your comment below that people should be seen as individuals? This is often why whole communities are addressed—because historically there has been prejudice against them.

multiculturalism causes problems, because multiculturalism, while seeming to be the opposite of nationalism or racism or ethnism etc

Part of this sentence I can’t even parse. I can only say that the idea of tolerating people from different cultures is at the bedrock American society, as we are a nation of immigrants. This is our strength in fact.

 

[meltzerboy2]

You raise important considerations. Even in the U.S., multiculturalism has plenty of problems, let alone in countries which are not essentially immigrant nations. Mutual respect can be a hard sell for some, particularly when the dominant culture seems to be evolving so that it is no longer dominant.

 

[Convert3]

In cities like Philly or NYC, multiculturalism doesn’t bother anybody. Everyone hates everybody equally!

 

[Annie]

How about not branding whole communities full stop, per your comment below that people should be seen as individuals? This is often why whole communities are addressed—because historically there has been prejudice against them.

Altho I believe and do my best to practice treating each person as an individual, I am not blind to what others are doing. I propose treating each person as an individual to prevent both extremes, each of which I recognize occur.

I can only say that the idea of tolerating people from different cultures is at the bedrock American society, as we are a nation of immigrants.

What do you mean, tolerating people from different cultures? Tolerating is something we do with something bad: I tolerate pain because some good will come of it (at the dentist’s); or I tolerate something bad because trying to do something about it would cause more disorder than the thing itself.

To me, multiculturalism has two forms but only one word. You could say there is the virtue of multiculturalism and the vice of too much multiculturalism, and an analogy might be the virtue of patriotism and the vice of nationalism or jingoism.

An example of too much multiculturalism would be prohibiting employees to wear a cross or crucifix, or sex grooming scandals ignored for political correctness, etc.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

How about not branding whole communities full stop, per your comment below that people should be seen as individuals? This is often why whole communities are addressed—because historically there has been prejudice against them.

Multiculturalism is about the co-existence of group cultures, not cultures of individuals. A guy who reads Plato living next door to a guy reading Kant living next door to a guy reading Guru Nanak Dev, is not multiculturalism.

It is thus difficult to say that one should not look at the group, but just at the individuals, while at the same time saying, multiculturalism is [insert term of choice here]. Strictly reducing society to individuals leaves no space for multicultalism. Speaking of multiculturalism always requires an abstraction away from individuals and towards the groups.

 

[blackforest]

What is your definition of culture?

Ask 100 different scholars for a conceptual definition of culture, and you’ll get 100 different answers. To stay consistent with the OP and his concerns, let’s stick with a defining culture by language and ethnicity.

But I’m not launching a debate - just posing a genuine question about the demographic make-up of peoples’ parishes. In many different ways, the Catholic Church is globally quite diverse.

 

[Annie]

Language and ethnicity are just the outer trappings of culture. The basis for culture would be, traditionally, religion. Now that there is so much secularism, I guess we would have to say philosophical world view of the society.

It is here that cultures end up in conflict --Not saying that societies don’t end up in conflict, but among the Catholic European nations, war generally erupted due to people’s departure from their religion–

But what we see now in terms of cultural conflict arises because of the friction between different ideas of morality, for example.

The fact that he speaks Chinese and she speaks Swahili is not the problem as much as ideas such as lebensraum among the Nazis, Dar-al-Harb in Islam, Manifest Destiny in US history, wouldn’t you agree? Yet these ideas sprang from something much deeper than mere language or “ethnicity,” by which I assume you mean ancestry?

The fact that good Catholics had the idea of exploring lands in order to spread the Gospel and did so by bringing hospitals and schools to poor nations, in fact, the ideas of universities and hospitals, spring from something deeper than language or ethnicity as well.

 

[blackforest]

Well, my post asked about multiculturalism within peoples’ parishes. Of course we’re not going to encounter much religious diversity within the Catholic Church, so I wouldn’t have factored in religious or philosophical worldviews.

I don’t mind addressing your point, however, because you’re correct in your assessment. History is full of examples of such tensions emerging from competing world views, especially any time empires expand or even contract, or whenever famine or warfare engender migration. The romantic in me loves the founding-father approach, especially that of William Penn, who said that forcing beliefs on others just makes hypocrites, not converts. Western Europe can go overboard sometimes with bans on everything from burkas and minarets to simply wearing a crucifix necklace to work. Censorship of practice isn’t tolerance; on the contrary, it is the aggressive imposition of a subjective, secular world view. Perhaps that’s the source of tension. Within a multicultural framework, (using your definition inclusive of religion and philosophy), we (general “we”) feel we should hold back in the name of pluralism all the while wanting to expand our world views.