Apolitical Staples

If I get his meaning, I don’t think most people would disagree. There has to be some middle ground between identity politics and radical individualism (Margaret Thatcher’s famous “There is no such thing as a society”) and we are trying to get there.

If you read the whole thing I think he is closer to radical individualism. Or at least I am.

Coyne has missed the point about cultural and social survival. Everything depends on survival. There is no ‘radical individualism’ unless there is a strong durable system in place to accomodate this ultimate expression of secular enlightenment:individuality.

Genteel intellectuals in Western society cannot assume the existence of an invisible and apparently powerless, benign majority culture and then go about their business of remaining neutral about the radical displacement of that culture by the barbaric precepts of truly radical collectivists like the fascist practitioners of radical Islamism.

Melanie Phillips is fully aware of the dangers of assuming the perpetuation of majority culture.

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When has Andrew Coyne remained neutral?

I know you are, you radical you. I did read the whole thing and it is very nuanced. Individualism yes but not “my individualism is better than your individualism”. If anything it is live and let livism.

Coyne’s assumptions are management class neutralism: that the system will continue based on its own inertia. Ghost towns that were once company towns know that these certitudes are not. Ozymandias had it figured out.

Well reading that was a waste of time. First Coyne trots out the tired old Canadian identity is really just counter-American.

Then he displays his intolerance by squealing we shouldn’t have sharia courts even though he blithely accepts Catholic and Judaic courts in our society.

To end it he demonstrates his utter ignorance of multiculturalism by claiming it’s an insistence on diversity and worse yet, a narrowly defined diversity. The latter claim is made all the more preposterous by his earlier squealing about sharia courts that diplays his own narrowly defined diversity.

Multiculturalism - “It’s a slippery word, with multiple meanings. Is it, as it is sometimes used, merely a synonym for the observed fact of ethnic and cultural diversity? Is it the ideology that all cultural norms are of equal moral value, the dreaded cultural relativism? Or is it the policy of official multiculturalism, complete with grants for folk-dancing and heritage language training?”

It’s all of the above. And Canada, at least that part of Canada that adopts Liberal platitudes as its core ‘values’, holds multiculturalism up as an indispensable part of the national identity. And, like universal state-monopoly healthcare, for them it’s beyond debate.

“It is not immigrants who are barricading highways and vandalizing hydro towers to press their demands. It is not immigrants who have spent the last 40 years threatening to detach a part of Canada from the rest.”

No, but the same kind of thinking that holds multiculturalism up as a virtue beyond debate has propelled Indian and franco grievances, group think and entitlement. All very multi-culti in flavour.

“The problem is not that immigrants are not absorbing Canadian values. The problem is that there are so few Canadian values to absorb.”

Disagree with the second part. Canada has many important values, most stemming from our British/Western heritage - values that have been and continue to be responsible for our freedom and wealth. It’s the reason Canada is attractive to immigrants in the first place. Most immigrants absorb them well and, in spite of official multiculturalism, manage to be successfully assimilated, er, “integrated”.

In the end, I agree with Coyne that official multiculturalism as a national policy/strategy makes no sense and should be scrapped (did he say that?). Our national government should not be actively promoting any values, institutions or traditions except those that have led to our success and which foster a shared national identity. Given individual liberty as a core value there’s nothing stopping anyone from celebrating the cultural traditions of their countries of origin.

It’s all of the above.

No it isn’t.

Multiculturalism is nothing but a gussied up word for tolerance. And tolerance, contrary to the baloney right whingers try to peddle, does not mean tolerance of the various forms of extremism or criminality.

Official multiculturalism has two purposes. The first is to serve as an ongoing education campaign to show that the mainstream of other cultures are no different than any other. The second is an effort to allow other cultures the opportunity to be who and what they want to be within the bounds of a set of overall defining concepts such as those laid out in the Charter of Rights.

“No it isn’t….nothing but a gussied up word for tolerance”

“the mainstream of other cultures are no different than any other.”

The cultural relativism of second statement belies the first.

Why do you suppose immigrants choose to come to Canada? Because their cultures have led to the same success as Canada’s?

“It is to uphold universal human values — starting with the idea that there are such values. And amongst those values is pluralism, the principle that every human being is entitled to pursue his own vision of the good life — so far as this is compatible with the vision of others, on their own such quest.”

This all sounds oddly familiar.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I must say I prefer the original.

A brilliant observation by Anonymous.

Why thank you, JR. I thought so too.

Culture is indefinable, it is different to every individual, and no government has any business promoting or discouraging any part of “culture”. Culture cannot “survive” because it is never even the same from one minute to the next, let alone from one year to the next.

So forget culture. If you can’t define it then you can’t do anything with it or to it, especially not with an instrument as inept, wasteful, corrupt and malicious as a government agency.

The universal rights, of life, liberty and property are not “cultural” - they are understood by every person of every race living in every place on earth. If your government is any good, it will confine itself to protecting these basic rights.

BTW when socialist-Greg complains about “radical individuals”, this is shorthand for, “people who dislike paying for the cushy, goldplated, goldbricking government jobs and entitlements which I and my friends enjoy.”

If there is something that really exists called “society” dude, then why don’t you define it? Waving your arms around and saying “look all around you”, then demanding another half-dozen government spending programs doesn’t count.

Just grab a dictionary Anonymous. I just wish Thatcher had access to one.

Society

1. The totality of social relationships among humans.
2. A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture.
3. The institutions and culture of a distinct self-perpetuating group.

Santa Claus is also in the dictionary, but just because this is so, and just because a large number of people wish for him to exist - for purely selfish reasons - it does not mean that he actually exists.

The “groups” referred to in the dictionary definition are arbitrary. The only possible reason for a government to identify their alleged characteristic relationships, institutions and culture, is to either steal from them, or more especially to buy their votes with property stolen from those deemed to be outside of the group.

Whenever you hear someone close to government talk about “society” or “culture”, watch out. If you’re outside of this alleged society or culture, they wish to turn you into a tax slave or discriminate against you in some other way. This is punishment for the crime of being too successful, or too independent of means or indpendent of mind. A “radical individual”, in other words, who must be suppressed by those of a weak, lazy or dishonest consitution. It doesn’t even work in the long-term benefit of those deemed to be inside of the collectives, because the purpose of identifying them is supposedly that they are too weak or stupid to cope on their own, and unfortunately people often tend to live down to the expectations of others.

As proof, I offer you the Census of Canada. Look at how those in government seek to divide the country into non-existent racial classes, such as “Korean” versus “Chinese” versus “Japanese”, in a transparent attempt to identify and if necessary create various ethnic voting blocks.

And obviously, there is no such thing as “Black” people. There is also no such thing as “African” people, because the governmental drones who design Censuses clearly do not wish to include Arabs who live in North Africa or “white” South Africans in this group. That would spoil the wealth redistribution and lead to squabbling. And no one’s skin is actually black, and no one has ever defined how one measures skin pigment in order to qualify as a “Black” person. Everyone knows that what they really mean is, “brown-ish colored people presumably with some degree of descent from sub-Saharan Africans who feel aggrieved against their fellow citizens - or who can be made to feel aggrieved - to the point where they can be bribed into voting in a block for a particular leadership candidate or legislative candidate”.

If you wish to think of people in the collective, instead of treating them as individuals then you are free to do so. It is your loss. I would ask you however to please leave me (and my wallet) out of your ignorant and self-interested delusions.

“The universal rights, of life, liberty and property are not “cultural” - they are understood by every person of every race living in every place on earth.”

Unfortunately, these concepts are not universally understood. The great oppressions of Stalinism and Maoism are examples of how collectivism can be criminally practiced on a mass scale. These infamously involved elimination of individualism among many other abominations.

Islamist terrorists adopt the same concept of sublimation of individuality. They and their sycophants practice a dangerous form of nihilism. Mortal individuality is either suppressed or disregarded in rapturous rites of consecration- suicide bombing being one of these evil expressions of collectivist worship.

“The universal rights, of life, liberty and property are not “cultural” - they are understood by every person of every race living in every place on earth.”

Unfortunately, these concepts are not universally understood. The great oppressions of Stalinism and Maoism are examples of how collectivism can be criminally practiced on a mass scale. These infamously involved elimination of individualism among many other abominations.

Islamist terrorists adopt the same concept of sublimation of individuality. They and their sycophants practice a dangerous form of nihilism. Mortal individuality is either suppressed or disregarded in rapturous rites of consecration- suicide bombing being one of these evil expressions of collectivist worship.

Thank Anonymous that was really interesting. ;) I don’t agree that Santa=Society but it is a good defensive argument. Let me leave you with one thought though. Governments aren’t the only ones to define groups. Often they are self defined. For example I choose to go to a church where others share the same values. I am an individual but I also share the values of those in my society (church). The same goes with political parties. I am an individual who identifies with others who share my political outlook and we form a community of interests.

“we form a community of interests”

which we then proceed to impose by force on anyone stupid enough to disagree.

Yes Virginia, there is a society. To deny its existence is to risk being sandbagged by its most fervent acolytes.