Culturism, Obama and Loyalties

Culturism, Obama and Loyalties

by John Press, author of Culturism

Divided loyalties should worry any political observer with a sense of culturism. Presidents must be born American citizens. If you're in the Congress or the Supreme Court there is no such requirement. The answer as to why brings us to recognize the importance of loyalty. Though some controversy reverberates in some circles, President-Elect Barrack Obama has American citizenship by birth. But there are still loyalty problems.

President-Elect Obama just barely got born here. His family globe-trotted and his father and step father were not Americans. He has a lot of foreign-born relatives. So now he has an illegal alien Aunt living in public housing in Boston. It would emotionally tear him up to enforce our border laws. Should he betray his aunt and send her back? Should he turn against his family to do his job as our Chief of State? Here we see the immediate impact of divided loyalties.

History has provided other evidence of the danger of diversity when it comes to loyalty. In 1846 the United States went to war with Mexico. When the treaty signing happened we had taken Mexico City militarily. It was an easy win. Today would we easily win a rematch of that war? We probably wouldn't. Why not? Divided loyalties.

This is natural. The other day I was discussing this with my classes here in New York. One fully Americanized student of Mexican -descent contributed, "you guys stole it from us." I brought his pronoun use to attention of the class. I joked about it and explained why it is dangerous. We need to discuss loyalty and teach about it in our schools.

Americanization programs met the last wave of immigrants.

These sought to get immigrants to stay in and identify with America. This was a widespread culturist reform effort concerning loyalty. They used parades contests and public schools to teach about loyalty. Many people of Mexican descent already do identify with America. And replacing multiculturalism with culturism will help with increase that number. This is our best step forward.

In Europe, they have been at war with Islam for over one thousand years. So they must ask if in their case diversity is a good thing? Does diversity make them stronger and more able to win wars or the reverse? Americanizers recognized that some cultures were harder to assimilate than others. If assimilation does not work the only choice is border laws. But here loyalty comes back into play.

In a democracy the laws represent the will of the people. In a democracy, if demographics change to where people are more concerned with opportunity for peoples of other nations than the domestic one border laws must become lax or non-existent. And I pray that President - Elect Obama find it in his heart to put American interests above all else. And, though it will be hard for Barrack to send his auntie back, the only other choice is dismantling all of our border laws for sentimental reasons. I hope President - Elect Obama has the strength to put America first.

(This article is posted at the author's request.  Let Mr. Press know what you think.)

Comments

[JS]

The facts are startling, 43 years after Brown v. Board of Education, schools are more segregated than ever, neighborhoods more homogenous, African-Americans are returning to the south in record numbers and creating distinct communities, white flight continues unabated. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam has documented how cultural diversity leads to less civil engagement, more isolation, and more alienation. And it is not just in the United States where integration has failed, all countries that have attempted to integrate racial minorities have ended up with persistent segregation and its resulting social problems. To understand why integration has failed we must understand how it was supposed to work in the first place.

Integration:
The United States and all western nations are founded on the Enlightenment view descended from Descartes that each individual is a distinct separate substance. This substance was essentially rational, and could over time acquire various beliefs, desires, etc. In this way it was believed that everything about an individual—sex, race, height, weight, religious and political beliefs—everything except for its rationality was merely contingent upon accident and/or personal experience. Specifically, the individual was born a tabula rasa (although Descartes thought there were some innate ideas) that could be provided with experiences that would form ones beliefs and character. It was presumed that if two individuals were provided with the same experiences, they would possess the same beliefs and character. Acting on these premises, the civil rights movement in the United States and similar social movements in other countries thus had two aims: to remove segregation on the one hand, and foster integration on the other. Integration was supposed to work by providing equal experiences and removing the differences that resulted in a lack of equality and thus prejudice and segregation. After all, on the Cartesian model, by giving all individuals identical experiences, or as closely identical as possible, we would remove cultural differences and result in an integrated culture. For example, bussing was an attempt to provide all citizens with the same educational experiences, a well as exposure to individuals of different races, in order to dispel prejudices resulting from ignorance due to a lack of experience of others. If all citizens were brought up in similar neighborhoods, going to similar schools, with similar exposures to others, given the same opportunities, we would achieve a society where racial differences no longer mattered since race and identity would no longer be linked. Whereas bussing was an attempt to repair educational inequalities, affirmative action was an attempt to integrate the work force so that professions were not racially determined and that racial disparities would be erased resulting in an integrated workforce with a common culture. Over time, with academic achievement equalized, cultural differences removed, and economic inequalities erased, we would move to a society where race no longer played a factor in determining personal identity, professional achievement, economic class, or cultural differences. It was thought that if people received a more or less identical eduation and were brought up in more or less identical surroundings, even things like ones views of history would be identical.

Why then has integration failed? Conservatives claim that integration has failed because ethnic and racial groups insist on self-segregating and refuse to integrate, liberals claim that persistent racism has kept integration from working. It is crucial to see that both sides accept the premises of integration, that the way to achieve it is to provide equal experiences. Since the theory on integration is correct, it is argued, if it has failed the only possible explanation is that it must have failed for moral reasons; someone is behaving immorally and thus preventing integration from succeeding. The validity of the theory of how integration was supposed to succeed is accepted by both sides, and if the theory is correct, then an explanation must be offered on why integration has failed to occur. The offered explanations are moral in character: either people are self-segregating, or people are racists. It is my contention that neither explanation is correct, and that integration failed because it was based on a faulty conception of personal identity.

Personal identity:
As I mentioned, the dominant theory of personal identity over the last several centuries was that of Descartes. For Descartes, one is individuated by being a separate spiritual substance. This substance acquires individual beliefs and desires through experience, and these can differ from individual to individual, and within the same individual over time, but the underlying substance remains constant and this is what constitutes the identity over time. Descartes’ views have largely been discarded as they give rise to all sorts of philosophical difficulties—primarily due to the mysterious nature of this spiritual substance and our vastly increased understanding of the workings of the brain. What substance theories of personal identity overlook is the crucial role of history in dertemining ones identity. What separates one from all other individuals, what “individuates” is ones history: the one thing that you can share with no other being is your history. The main import of this insight is that, as a result, to understand oneself, what makes you who you are and makes you different and unique from all other beings, is to understand your history. For example, if you want to know why you have the political beliefs you do, say why you believe in democracy, you need to know American history, why America is a democracy, what ideas lead to the political system we have today. But in order to understand this you need to understand the political disputes of the Enlightenment. And in order to understand this you need to know the political theories of the pre-Enlightenment that the Enlightenment was reacting to, etc. In order to understand why one has the religious beliefs you do one would clearly need to know ones personal history, how you were raised and any influences in your life that lead to your current beliefs. But to understand where these ideas came from would require one to know the various religious traditions, their history, the disputes that were involved in their creation, why they ended up the in form they have, and the history of how you ended up with these beliefs. To understand why you are where you are, you need to understand your personal history, why you moved from place to place through your life. But to understand this fully you need to know the history of your ancestors as they emigrated across the Earth even as far back as the original emigration out of Africa. Actually, you would need to know the history going even further back as to why the first humanids were in Africa in the first place, and the whole evolutionary history of life on earth. Race is the result of history as well, it records the migrations of people around the world from the original migrations out of Africa—in your race you wear the history of your ancestors on your sleeve as it were. The same could be said of any taste, desire, preference, aspiration, or conviction one has; to understand why you are the way you are you need to understand your history.

In summary, you are the way you are, and different from every other being (although sharing much with them) because your history is different from every other being. If this is the case, as I think it is, integration, i.e., the adoption of a new culture, is the process of dropping one history and adopting another as ones own. For example, historically, immigrants come to the US and they soon (in a generation or two) more or less forget their history and the culture that results from it and adopt their new one. Soon they're proud of how "we" defeated the British, the Nazis, and the Communists, even if they're in fact British, German, or Russian and it was their ancestors that "we" beat. Cultural practices are also the result of history--the traditions, mores, rituals, and celebrations of each culture are the result of historical events and adaptations. In integration the previous historically derived cultural practices are dropped in favor of the new and also historically evolved cultural practices. However, one can not drop their race the way you can drop other aspects of ones identity. For example, when the British celebrate “our” great naval history, Asian and middle-eastern immigrants know that that "our" does not include them—that British history does not include them. Discussions of how "we" defeated the French, or the Spanish, or the Germans do not have the same emotional weight when it is clear that "we" were not part of this history and that "we" come from someplace else. Caucasians living in non-white countries come to feel the same thing, that they can't drop their history/identity and become fully part of the culture. African-Americans can never and should never drop their history the way European immigrants have been able to and see the the United States as a land of opportunity and freedom when the fact that "they" had no freedom and opportunity is always staring them in the face.

This tension between being pressured on the one hand by the political push for integration to adopt the “mainstream” or “white” history and the resulting values, politics, and identity, and on the other hand by the obvious fact that “our” history results in a very different lessons, values, and political beliefs-- leads to the feeling of alienation that minorities universally express, and finds its way into different political beliefs, social mores, artistic expressions, etc. The cognitive dissonance between the pressure to adopt an alien history, and the impossibility of doing so when ones race and its attendant history is ever apparent, results in the widespread alienation and its attendant social ills. The facts of slavery and Jim Crow can not and should not ever be dropped for the adoption of an alien history, but since integration requires the adopting of another’s history, integration is impossible. No matter what efforts are made on behalf on integration, it could never result in people with distinct histories--African-Americans and European-Americans, or white Australians and aboriginal Australians, or the British and Middle-Eastern immigrants, or the Tamils and the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka--possessing the same histories. However, the failure of integration is not a moral failing on anybody’s part, it is the result of the adoption of a faulty theory of identity giving rise to false beliefs, and was bound to fail for this reason.

Given the fact that history is essential to ones identity, one of the worst things you can do to a person is force them to abandon ones true history/identity and adopt a false history and resulting values of another race, ethnic group, or religion whose history results in very different values, and cultural identity (as was attempted with native Americans). This is, “identitycide” and is one of the worst forms of racism imaginable. And yet identitycide is the basis of America’s educational system, and much of the alienation that plagues African-Americans and other racial groups. Almost inevitably, this very alienation itself becomes part of cultural identity and gets passed down through generations.

I would argue that the solution to this problem is to abandon liberalism and adopt some form of communitarianism.

[Kurt]

I also hope, that he will put America first, but I doubt it. I'm pretty sure, that he will follow his left-wing/socialistic ideology (together with his buddies Pelosi and Reid).

I would like to see, that I'm totally wrong and that Obama -unlike I presume- will bring America back to the traditional values and prosperity (I'll support him in any effort to reach this goal, if I'm convinced that's the right way and/or will not lead in another system) and doesn't "change" America in a cheap copy of Europe (I'll oppose him very hard on such a way). I also hope, that he keeps our nation safe and free (although I doubt it)!

[MK]

"I hope President - Elect Obama has the strength to put America first."

I hope so too, but i ain't holding my breath on that. Aunty or not, i don't see him turning back on his leftwing roots.

[Culturist John]

Mr. Matthews, that was a beautiful commentary. It is true that all loyalty stems from local attachments.

Having the overall story of the West via culturist curriculum would supplement the appreciation.

The story of the West is not more made up or artificial than the stories other cultures tell themselves. As we have brains primed to absorb culture, our duty is to transmit it to the next generation. Nothing could be more natural.

I do not think the decision will be obvious for Obama. It must, at some level, incur divided loyalties. Other presidents have never had to face deporting their relatives. His having non-American connections forces this situation.

www.culturism.us

[Stanford Matthews]

If a nation must use artificial means to develop a sense of loyalty among its citizens that same loyalty will be artificial. No one had to encourage members of my family who came to America from another land to love the idea and the place that is America. No one had to teach me to love my country although that argument could be made. To be born knowing nothing or little about where you are, your first thoughts enable attachment to those around you most notably your parents. You have love for them and where you live. When you learn that it is a country, you love that too. A sense of comfort from nurturing and belonging. You would fight to protect it. That is extended to your country.

I find it all quite simple. Just as simple is the decision for Obama. He can choose to ignore the dilemma with this aunt. Or he can be proactive and arrange for the right and legal action. Maybe subsequent action can be taken to arrange for immigration the way all should do it and let the process proceed as intended. Simple, basic, natural feelings demonstrated by a love for family and the identity of a place in this world.

Loyalty, patriotism, country, family, God and all else we value and protect come naturally or they don't came at all. Protecting them and doing right follow if one is true to these values.