← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 19569 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2005-08-11
2005-08-11 08:07 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/opinion/11brooks.done.html?th&emc=th]New York Times[/URL] August 10, 2005 All Cultures Are Not Equal By DAVID BROOKS
Let's say you are an 18-year-old kid with a really big brain. You're trying to figure out which field of study you should devote your life to, so you can understand the forces that will be shaping history for decades to come.
Go into the field that barely exists: cultural geography. Study why and how people cluster, why certain national traits endure over centuries, why certain cultures embrace technology and economic growth and others resist them.
This is the line of inquiry that is now impolite to pursue. The gospel of multiculturalism preaches that all groups and cultures are equally wonderful. There are a certain number of close-minded thugs, especially on university campuses, who accuse anybody who asks intelligent questions about groups and enduring traits of being racist or sexist. The economists and scientists tend to assume that material factors drive history - resources and brain chemistry - because that's what they can measure and count.
But none of this helps explain a crucial feature of our time: while global economies are converging, cultures are diverging, and the widening cultural differences are leading us into a period of conflict, inequality and segmentation.
Not long ago, people said that globalization and the revolution in communications technology would bring us all together. But the opposite is true. People are taking advantage of freedom and technology to create new groups and cultural zones. Old national identities and behavior patterns are proving surprisingly durable. People are moving into self-segregating communities with people like themselves, and building invisible and sometimes visible barriers to keep strangers out.
If you look just around the United States you find amazing cultural segmentation. We in America have been "globalized" (meaning economically integrated) for centuries, and yet far from converging into some homogeneous culture, we are actually diverging into lifestyle segments. The music, news, magazine and television markets have all segmented, so there are fewer cultural unifiers like Life magazine or Walter Cronkite.
Forty-million Americans move every year, and they generally move in with people like themselves, so as the late James Chapin used to say, every place becomes more like itself. Crunchy places like Boulder attract crunchy types and become crunchier. Conservative places like suburban Georgia attract conservatives and become more so.
Not long ago, many people worked on farms or in factories, so they had similar lifestyles. But now the economy rewards specialization, so workplaces and lifestyles diverge. The military and civilian cultures diverge. In the political world, Democrats and Republicans seem to live on different planets.
Meanwhile, if you look around the world you see how often events are driven by groups that reject the globalized culture. Islamic extremists reject the modern cultures of Europe, and have created a hyperaggressive fantasy version of traditional Islamic purity. In a much different and less violent way, some American Jews have moved to Hebron and become hyper-Zionists.
From Africa to Seattle, religiously orthodox students reject what they see as the amoral mainstream culture, and carve out defiant revival movements. From Rome to Oregon, antiglobalization types create their own subcultures.
The members of these and many other groups didn't inherit their identities. They took advantage of modernity, affluence and freedom to become practitioners of a do-it-yourself tribalism. They are part of a great reshuffling of identities, and the creation of new, often more rigid groupings. They have the zeal of converts.
Meanwhile, transnational dreams like European unification and Arab unity falter, and behavior patterns across nations diverge. For example, fertility rates between countries like the U.S. and Canada are diverging. Work habits between the U.S. and Europe are diverging. Global inequality widens as some nations with certain cultural traits prosper and others with other traits don't.
People like Max Weber, Edward Banfield, Samuel Huntington, Lawrence Harrison and Thomas Sowell have given us an inkling of how to think about this stuff, but for the most part, this is open ground.
If you are 18 and you've got that big brain, the whole field of cultural geography is waiting for you.
2005-08-11 08:08 | User Profile
What's up with the NYT?
They seem to be printing a lot of this un-PeeCee stuff lately.
2005-08-11 08:39 | User Profile
I suppose they allow for a little political incorrectness since it is an Op-Ed piece, but it really doesn't even seem that political incorrect. For example, instead of pointing out that invaders from Mexico shack up by the dozens in certain neighborhoods and drive the Whites out, and that Negro and Latrino gangs are more violent than ever, he points out that nature lovers head to Boulder, Colorado.
2005-08-11 09:52 | User Profile
For those who might not know it, the author of this editorial, David Brooks, is a Jewish neocon who often appears as the "conservative" counterpart to Mark Shields on Jim Lehrer's PBS news show.
There is some truth in what he writes here, but I'm not sure what his motive is for writing it. Of course he leaves out some important points as Snouter points out, to which I'd add the central role of Jews in promoting the multiculturalism Jew Brooks is discussing.
Islamic extremists reject the modern cultures of Europe, and have created a hyperaggressive fantasy version of traditional Islamic purity. In a much different and less violent way, some American Jews have moved to Hebron and become hyper-Zionists. The Zionists are every bit as violent as the Jihadists. Even more so, in fact.
2005-08-11 12:17 | User Profile
I seem to notice a lot of articles, written by neocons, that supposedly call into question the idea of multiculturisim. The problem is that they mention arabs but the idea of questioning the idea in general to include negros or spanics, well thats un-american ya know...sheesh you must be on the same side as david duke...
Anyone else notice this or am I nuts?
2005-08-11 13:16 | User Profile
Global inequality widens as some nations with certain cultural traits prosper and others with other traits don't.
There always has been "inequalities" between cultures, in all of human history. I see this actually disappearing a bit between the general populations.
IMO, the greatest "inequalities" are between the NWO, globalist elitists and the rest of us. The elitists set themselves up as gods to be served. They enrich themselves while trying to reduce the rest of the world to a very low common denominator culturally, economically and religiously (they want the world to worship their beast, $$$$$).
In that respect, they are forcing us, at gunpoint, to accept equality with other failed cultures and religions and races. The elitists want all their serfs to be equal serfs. They are deliberately destroying the middle class, everywhere.
(Burn a UN flag in public. Down with the NWO.)
2005-08-11 14:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JoseyWales]I seem to notice a lot of articles, written by neocons, that supposedly call into question the idea of multiculturisim. The problem is that they mention arabs but the idea of questioning the idea in general to include negros or spanics, well thats un-american ya know...sheesh you must be on the same side as david duke...
Anyone else notice this or am I nuts?[/QUOTE]
Well, I think that there's a good deal of Ygg's "codespeak" going on in this article, and in other similar articles that you mention.
I mean, read this passage again, but pay attention to what is gently alluded to for those clued in to the patois.
[QUOTE]Meanwhile, transnational dreams like European unification and Arab unity falter, and behavior patterns across nations diverge. For example, fertility rates between countries like the U.S. and Canada are diverging. Work habits between the U.S. and Europe are diverging. Global inequality widens as some nations with certain cultural traits prosper and others with other traits don't.
People like Max Weber, Edward Banfield, Samuel Huntington, Lawrence Harrison and Thomas Sowell have given us an inkling of how to think about this stuff, but for the most part, this is open ground. [/QUOTE]
The author is couching this argument in terms of "culture" when it's clear that the entire mystery of these odd phenomena unravels when we simply replace the word "culture" with "nation," "ethnicity" or even "race."
It's a short step from this list of authors to Jared Taylor and David Duke, and my feeling is that the author knows that.
2005-08-11 16:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]For those who might not know it, the author of this editorial, David Brooks, is a Jewish neocon who often appears as the "conservative" counterpart to Mark Shields on Jim Lehrer's PBS news show.
There is some truth in what he writes here, but I'm not sure what his motive is for writing it. Of course he leaves out some important points as Snouter points out, to which I'd add the central role of Jews in promoting the multiculturalism Jew Brooks is discussing.
The Zionists are every bit as violent as the Jihadists. Even more so, in fact.[/QUOTE]
Angler, I typically watch the Lehrer Hour and I'm well aware of neocon Brooks "conservative" pose against the moderate Shields. I actually like and agree with Mark Shields' views. However, one thing I'll say about David Brooks is that although he's a jewish neocon, he comes off as mild-mannered and not as a raving lunatic like every other neocon-jewish or otherwise.
I can tolerate him as the one neocon I can listen to in order to keep me informed of what the enemy is up to without making me sick. As for his NYT article, it's lukewarm, but interesting enough to question what's happening inside the neocon world. Maybe the jewish NYT staff is becoming unhappier each day witnessing NewYorkCity looking more and more like Timbuktu?
2005-08-11 16:07 | User Profile
Many years ago I read a book where everyone lived in isolations and never saw each other in person, even to have syber sex all they had to do was to put on a helmet and sit across the screen or monitor and look at your partner.
I hate to say this but I am one of those in the book, living in isolation here in the woods of Oregon very seldom do I go out, and now communicate with people by phone and on my comp.
This mean of communication gives me the choice of to whom I talk to, if anyone gives me a hard time I can kill them by changing the screen on my monitor.
In the old days before comp I did enjoy being with people all the time but now days in this crazy world is not worth it.
If I sound crazy to you then fine, this is the way that I like it :thumbsup: