Multiculturalism is dead

[al Roumi]

EDIT: double post? weird.

I think I've said that why people go wrong in their thinking is interesting, but mostly because it helps you find out what the truth is (which is more interesting). And you said you would hope to "catch glimpses of it through diverse ideas" which means you sort of agree, although I don't know why you don't pursue it directly.

But I don't think the approach of "well this is true to this culture, but not true to me" is a good way to approach it. It lends itself to sticking with your current beliefs. If their idea isn't true to you, if it's just kinda relative, why change your mind in any radical way? But if you don't just value diversity, and approach say, buddhism, with the idea that it is either a good way of life or not, then you may very well reject it (how intolerant?) but you actually give yourself more of a chance of embracing it. Because you are treating seriously buddhism's claim that your beliefs are false.

I'm not sure it IS about changing my mind, although I have adopted habits or beliefs from others. It is good to experience things and "expand horizons" but perhaps more important than affecting the latest fad is an appreciation of why and how things are different for other people.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

What are you referring to with "affecting the latest fad"?

And what is "an appreciation of how and why things are different for other people"? Is that appreciation as in understanding? And what are the things that are different?

I find your use of words confusing...are you saying "it's important to understand why people believe things" or "it's important to acknowledge and respect the beliefs that other people have because they are equally valid".* The latter is multiculturalist so I assume you mean that. But I have just been arguing against that and saying that the truth is primary, and that when we treat it as such we respect other people more, and are less comfortable in our own beliefs.

*You word things in such a way that it implies both. But the second implication gets all of its apparent credibility from the truth of the first. Stated on its own it is not credible. It's the same think you do by using the word truth in quotation marks, and using "true for them" in place of "belief". Don't do that.

[al Roumi]

the same think you do by using the word truth in quotation marks, and using "true for them" in place of "belief". Don't do that.

I'll give you a better answer to the rest in the morning. I've not responded to this so far but why is it you dislike (I assume) my truth as perception/belief? You are kidding yourself if you think there is a practical absolute truth to everything. That sits at the very core of why people have different opinions in the first place. Are you going to insist that it is true that god exists or not? How on earth could you prove it either way! Much more, how could you persuade someone of the oppsoite opinion that they are wrong?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I'll give you a better answer to the rest in the morning. I've not responded to this so far but why is it you dislike (I assume) my truth as perception/belief? You are kidding yourself if you think there is a practical absolute truth to everything. That sits at the very core of why people have different opinions in the first place. Are you going to insist that it is true that god exists or not? How on earth could you prove it either way! Much more, how could you persuade someone of the oppsoite opinion that they are wrong?

I dislike your use of the word truth when you mean belief because truth is importantly different from belief. You also seem to use "absolute truth" in place of "truth". Why must I expect there to be an absolute truth to everything if I don't think truth is the same as belief? I think that reworded properly this would read "why do you think some things are true"? But you yourself think many things are true.

Belief is when you hold that a certain proposition is true. So you see why it is bad to conflate the two? If we substitute your definition, it becomes "belief is when someone believes something" which isn't really a definition.

Now, are you claiming that the reason people have different beliefs is because there is no truth about certain questions? Why don't you just think that they have different beliefs because that particular truth is hard to find? For example, think about any historical question. What started the trojan war? Was it like homer described it? Historians have a wide variety of beliefs about these questions. But it can't be doubted that the events truly happened in a certain way.

One last thing, the two suggestions you make at the end are something I think it is important to cast off. It is not about proving, it is about giving the best reason we can. Should we give up on anything that we can't be absolutely certain about? And it is not important whether someone of the opposite opinion would be convinced. Could you convince someone who believed that the external world was an illusion that he was wrong? Possibly. But if you couldn't it wouldn't say much about whether the external world is an illusion.

[al Roumi]

In the context of multiculturalism and diversity, I am indeed talking about beliefs. Belief, which to all intents and purposes, seems like truth to the person who holds it. In this I mean things where the worth of an outcome -and hence the truth of the maxim, are defined by desirability of said outcomes. The desirability itself is defined by personal or cultural values. So in the case of abortion, we have two staunchly opposed camps divided by their valuation of the possible consequences of abortion (lets not get into those!).

I am not talking about truth in the sense of irrefutable evidence, I am talking about cultural norms and values -the very interest I have in diversity.

I take your point that (forgive the paraphrasing) "appreciation without proper examination does not lead to progress", but that's also not the point. Multiculturalism, as I said at the beginning, is about different people and cultures living alongside and with each other -with tolerance wrought from mutual understanding. It is not about social engineering in the sense of cherry-picking the best of a range of cultures to create an "uber-society" -which is where I understood you saw the value of such an exercise.

Perhaps winding back to your very first post in this thread, there certainly are disucssions to be had when trying to reconcile opposing cultural values, e.g. the role of women in society. No satisfactory outcome to such conflicts will happen without a measure of mutual understanding.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

In the context of multiculturalism and diversity, I am indeed talking about beliefs. Belief, which to all intents and purposes, seems like truth to the person who holds it. In this I mean things where the worth of an outcome -and hence the truth of the maxim, are defined by desirability of said outcomes. The desirability itself is defined by personal or cultural values. So in the case of abortion, we have two staunchly opposed camps divided by their valuation of the possible consequences of abortion (lets not get into those!).

I am not talking about truth in the sense of irrefutable evidence, I am talking about cultural norms and values -the very interest I have in diversity.

I think you have to say "cultural norms and values" then. Although values is a bad word as well. Because it implies that it is good. So, "cultural norms" seems best.

You say that:

1) The worth* of an outcome
2) the truth of a maxim (?)

Are defined by the desirability. But that is only true for things that are purely a matter of taste. As in, if I like dill pickles and you like bread and butter. Or "in my culture we stand 2 feet away when talking, in yours 4 feet away". But many (most?) things that we would call cultural norms aren't purely matters of taste. And those are the things people care about the most. The truth of whether abortion is wrong is not determined by cultural norms. But that seems to be the conclusion you reach when you conflate truth and belief.

I take your point that (forgive the paraphrasing) "appreciation without proper examination does not lead to progress", but that's also not the point. Multiculturalism, as I said at the beginning, is about different people and cultures living alongside and with each other -with tolerance wrought from mutual understanding. It is not about social engineering in the sense of cherry-picking the best of a range of cultures to create an "uber-society" -which is where I understood you saw the value of such an exercise.

Perhaps winding back to your very first post in this thread, there certainly are disucssions to be had when trying to reconcile opposing cultural values, e.g. the role of women in society. No satisfactory outcome to such conflicts will happen without a measure of mutual understanding.

I don't think multiculturalism is just tolerance from understanding. There is more their ideologically. It is the acceptance or promotion of other cultures for the sake of diversity. I have already described the problems with that.

I don't think it's about creating an uber society?

But simply (as you bring up) it would be better if society was homogeneous in their acknowledgment of certain truths about how women should be treated. And so on. Why do you think opposing cultural values have to be reconciled? Some of them have to be stamped out, and don't require mutual understanding to do so, just the long arm of the law--think about "cultural values" as you call them that promote wife beating. I think it is only after talking in such a way that conflates truth with belief that you end up with a mental schema that puts basic morals in a relativistic framework like that.

*worth is another word like "values". It implies universality, but you are using it relatively.

***********************

Basically alh, there are three general ways to respond to a group of people with beliefs other than your own. You can say:

1) that's right, I was wrong
2) not important/matter of taste/live and let live
3) that's wrong

Multiculturalism focuses too much on #2. It replaces judgment of other cultures with a moral principle that they are simply to be tolerated, and it's reasoning for that is the claim that it is just a matter of belief anyway.

I think many people see it as a choice between multiculturalism and racism and xenophobia, unfortunately. They are right to argue that not discouraging other cultures simply because they aren't our own is important, and it's quite true in a modern state diversity should not be tampered with without good reason. But since it is primarily a moral position and not a philosophical one, it leads to a bad ideology. Very often when people are quite sure they are correct about a moral issue they reason about it badly.

[Fragony]

Meh we have a cancer in our society and it's called islam. The absolute majority of christians and gays who fled to my swamp are intimidated and physically assaulted by people who want nothing but peace, people who are so disrespected that robbing grannies and harassing young white women is just cause and effect. It is, people from 100% neighbourhoods know that. Getting really tired of this. And my boy is on trial. Get. the. hell. out. this. is. the. Netherlands.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

In the context of multiculturalism and diversity, I am indeed talking about beliefs. Belief, which to all intents and purposes, seems like truth to the person who holds it. In this I mean things where the worth of an outcome -and hence the truth of the maxim, are defined by desirability of said outcomes. The desirability itself is defined by personal or cultural values. So in the case of abortion, we have two staunchly opposed camps divided by their valuation of the possible consequences of abortion (lets not get into those!).

I am not talking about truth in the sense of irrefutable evidence, I am talking about cultural norms and values -the very interest I have in diversity.

I take your point that (forgive the paraphrasing) "appreciation without proper examination does not lead to progress", but that's also not the point. Multiculturalism, as I said at the beginning, is about different people and cultures living alongside and with each other -with tolerance wrought from mutual understanding. It is not about social engineering in the sense of cherry-picking the best of a range of cultures to create an "uber-society" -which is where I understood you saw the value of such an exercise.

Perhaps winding back to your very first post in this thread, there certainly are disucssions to be had when trying to reconcile opposing cultural values, e.g. the role of women in society. No satisfactory outcome to such conflicts will happen without a measure of mutual understanding.

Truth is a philosophical absolute, it exists in only one form, the correct one. Perception of truth is what you are talking about.

If you don't believe in absolute truth then you flat out don't believe in Truth, the word has not meaning for you.

In terms of multiculturalism this is important, without Absolute Truth any culture is equally valid in any circumstance provided they are considered beneficial to the one subscribing to them.

If you do believe in Absolute Truth then all cultures are measured against that Truth, or you best guess of what it is, and some are found more wanting than others.

From this we can see that Multiculturalism is litterally a proposition without value - so we can reject it as philosophically useless.

[Fragony]

Meh after reading about the hardships of an Egyptian gay who had to flee the islam only to find it here as well, it isn't just bad it's hell. Multiculture isn't dead, nobody means the Asians or the Hindu's after all. It are the arabs, they belong in the middle-east we don't have any desert to dust of, living in a modern civilisation is just too confusing.

[al Roumi]

Truth is a philosophical absolute, it exists in only one form, the correct one. Perception of truth is what you are talking about.

Yes.

If you don't believe in absolute truth then you flat out don't believe in Truth, the word has not meaning for you.

Quite. And again, where have I given you (and Sasaki) the impression I don't believe in absolute truth? My divergence from absolute truth to perceived truth is because cultural and social beliefs (perceived truths) are too complex/biased to be absolute.

In terms of multiculturalism this is important, without Absolute Truth any culture is equally valid in any circumstance provided they are considered beneficial to the one subscribing to them.

If you do believe in Absolute Truth then all cultures are measured against that Truth, or you best guess of what it is, and some are found more wanting than others.

Only if you measure cultures against each other. As I am at pains to explain, multiculturalism is not about measuring one culture or society against another. It is about mutual toleration based on understanding and negotiation.

From this we can see that Multiculturalism is litterally a proposition without value - so we can reject it as philosophically useless.

Whatever. If your purpose IS to blend cultures and identities into the best composite, then clearly multiculturalism is useless. My point is that that is not what multiculturalism is for -nor is it why its proponents like it!