Stop the Nonsense
How Collectivist Ideology Threatens Sanity at GW
Patrick Ford
2/27/08 | Opinion
I admit it is terribly easy to mock the knee-jerk reaction of both the multiculturalists and the administration, but there is a dangerous undercurrent to their line of thinking. Behind the self-aggrandizing outrage demonstrated by these "campus leaders" is the collectivist idea that group identification is just as important, and sometimes more important, than individuality. As a result of this ideology, people become more tolerant of attacks on free speech than tolerant of intolerance itself.
Racism as Something Worth Fighting?
Racism and bigotry are products of the deepest corners of the human heart. They are products of an individual's family history, upbringing, or a dementation of the mind far deeper than sufficient psychoanalysis can tell us. Efforts to combat racism have faired as well as efforts to combat poverty. The intent is well meaning (most of the time) yet support of such movements requires such immaturity and naivety that the supporters become blind to the root cause of the problem they hope to solve. As the problem of poverty is not as easily solvable as simply giving people more money, simply punishing racists will not solve racism. Won't a racist, jailed for feeling as he does, only grow more hateful for his punishment?
The fact is that in today's society, collectivist multiculturalism has become the party ultimately responsible for racism. The Federal Government, as well as the administration here at GW, divides people among racial, gender, religious, and political lines without any attention paid to the results of these divisions. These divisions are done in the name of multiculturalism, and those who divide claim they do so for the benefit of the groups they form and espouse. But this supposed benevolence does nothing more than institutionalize group thinking and create suspicion that certain groups are being treated better or worse or even just differently than others. Resentment and hostility can only result from this line of thinking.
Racism as Something Worth Fighting?
Racism and bigotry are products of the deepest corners of the human heart. They are products of an individual's family history, upbringing, or a dementation of the mind far deeper than sufficient psychoanalysis can tell us. Efforts to combat racism have faired as well as efforts to combat poverty. The intent is well meaning (most of the time) yet support of such movements requires such immaturity and naivety that the supporters become blind to the root cause of the problem they hope to solve. As the problem of poverty is not as easily solvable as simply giving people more money, simply punishing racists will not solve racism. Won't a racist, jailed for feeling as he does, only grow more hateful for his punishment?
The fact is that in today's society, collectivist multiculturalism has become the party ultimately responsible for racism. The Federal Government, as well as the administration here at GW, divides people among racial, gender, religious, and political lines without any attention paid to the results of these divisions. These divisions are done in the name of multiculturalism, and those who divide claim they do so for the benefit of the groups they form and espouse. But this supposed benevolence does nothing more than institutionalize group thinking and create suspicion that certain groups are being treated better or worse or even just differently than others. Resentment and hostility can only result from this line of thinking.
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