I just read this essay about culture, and I have to say, it is quite thought-provoking whether you come to it as a 'multi-culturalist' or the opposite 'One American culturalist' (both are severely pummeled). An excerpt:
A century ago intellectuals worried about the degeneration of the race. Today we fear cultural decay. Is the notion of cultural decay any more coherent than that of racial degeneration? Cultures certainly change and develop. But what does it mean for a culture to decay? Or for an identity to be lost? Will Kymlicka draws a distinction between the ‘existence of a culture’ and ‘its “character” at any given moment’… So, in making the distinction between character and existence, Kymlicka seems to be suggesting that Jewish, Navajo or French culture is not defined by what Jewish, Navajo or French people are actually doing. For if Jewish culture is simply that which Jewish people do or French culture is simply that which French people do, then cultures could never decay or perish – they would always exist in the activities of people.The logic of the preservationist argument is that every culture has a pristine form, its original state. It decays when it is not longer in that form. Like racial scientists with their idea of racial type, some modern multiculturalists appear to hold a belief in cultural type.
I agree and disagree, but I would also use this to argue that the arguments of the 'multi-culturalist' opponents, those that see "Anglo-AMerican, English-speaking" culture as something in need of preservation and defense are also mistaken. I'll have to give this some thought.
