“The instability of pluralism as a mathematical model for civilization”
More from the surly but well-informed The Unpopular Truth:
I think we should focus on two groups: the demographic majority, and those who want the power now held by the demographic majority (this second group is comprised of members of different ethnicities, including the majority of it, which is of the same group as the demographic majority).
Multiculturalism cannot work because it destroys consensus. It is a form of pluralism, or the idea that we can agree to disagree — on fundamental issues and values, including their means of transmission, “culture” — and still be OK as a nation. We destroy consensus, but we keep the benefits of society, so everyone thinks this is a good idea.
History shows us that it’s a path to destruction, because without consensus, it’s impossible to measure actions against an abstract yardstick. As a result, politics becomes balkanized and the question of the day becomes: “what are you gonna do for me?” and how to increase personal wealth, personal convenience, etc. at the expense of the collective.
The ethnic issue merely complicates this: those within the demographic majority who oppose consensus, generally because they are afraid of reality, use the pitied, minority ethnicity as moral justification for destroying the demographic majority.
The minority ethnicity then does what any group would do: destroys what the demographic majority created, and replaces it with something more appropriate for the demographic minority.
It’s simple math when you look at it outside of black and white. It would happen with Swedes and Russians mixed in a nation; Chinese and Vietnamese; Christians and Muslims. Any two or more groups in a pluralism are in competition. The focus should not be on ethnicity, but on the instability of pluralism as a mathematical model for civilization.
More heresy from those who believe our society is falling apart slowly (with a whimper and not a bang, with apologies to T.S. Eliot).
It makes sense that any group who collaborate need an abstract and ongoing goal, which is a values system in itself, to unite them. Any group larger than either 12 or 150 people, which are the number of people who can collaborate without a command structure and the number of people any one person can keep in mind with their daily actions, respectively.
The United States of America (USA) claims to unite itself by ideals like liberty and justice for all, but ideologies such as nationalism erode that by asking who “all” really is. Even more, some question whether that “all” should apply to those with controversial opinions, or to the group of unproductive: criminals, perverts, the retarded, the insane.
It will be interesting to watch this civilization contort as it declines, because if it follows the historical model — and it’s on the nose so far — it will first make it taboo to notice the decline, or to read Plato out loud too seriously. Second, it will begin playing with the definitions of “all” and what our ideals are or have mutated to be.