Multiculturalism and Conservatives: Answering My Critics

After publishing my article at the American Thinker on the myopic view of the term “multiculturalism” and the opportunity that is being missed by conservatives to advance ideas, this morning alone, I have received a spate of utterly jejune e-mails that either intentionally misrepresent my arguments, or simply recite talking points with no supporting argumentation. I’m going to take the time to address the three main “arguments.”

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Argument #1: Mr. Okeem, you’re a liberal because you are engaging in the creation of new definitions for words. This is postmodernism. Words and meanings matter, and you cannot just create definitions! Multiculturalism is bad.

This is humorous for many reasons, but mainly because people who hold this view are probably so deficient in education that they probably believe “academia” is a fatal blood condition. As I argued in the piece, “multiculturalism” is a sociological concept that carries a whole host of varying meanings. That’s not postmodernism; it’s called social science. In academia, there is something known as “competing ideas.” This is the process in which academicians posit definitions for abstract terms and theories in order to shed new light on various topics and more concretely understand ideas. Thus, to argue that multiculturalism has one meaning, and anyone who disagrees is a postmodernist, is idiotic.

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New Article at the American Thinker

Multiculturalism and Conservatives

By Chidike Okeem

Multiculturalism is one of the hot topics in international political discourse. With the current precarious state of geopolitics, it is has become more important than ever before. More than just being an abstract sociological concept that has little meaning outside of the Ivory Tower, its impact is wide-ranging and could drastically change the world as we know it.

Recently, multiple leaders in the western world, with Nicolas Sarkozy of France being the latestaddition to the chorus, have joined to launch an attack against multiculturalism, which has led to an international spate of simultaneous furor and agreement. Indisputably, these leaders are right on the money to denounce the absurd liberal approach to culture that has left Europe teetering on the precipice of radical Islamic conquest.

The type of multiculturalism that these leaders are denouncing is inarguably toxic; however, a deeper discussion of this concept will inevitably lead to the following query: Is it conceivable for multiculturalism to be beneficial to the Western world — and, in particular, America — or is it simply an insidious notion that must be avoided at all costs?

Of course that depends on what is meant by “multiculturalism” — and any person even mildly familiar with academic sociology knows that it has an array of varying definitions.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE!