Multiculturalism is dead

[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.