David Brooks is probably my favourite political commentator and I make no apology for including him twice within the first ten posts on this blog.
You can’t open a British newspaper at the moment without some politician or commentator renouncing multiculturalism. David Brooks turns his attention to the growth of cultural separatism today, in his regular twice-weekly column for the New York Times. He writes:
“The gospel of multiculturalism preaches that all groups and cultures are equally wonderful. There are a certain number of close-minded thugs, especially on university campuses, who accuse anybody who asks intelligent questions about groups and enduring traits of being racist or sexist. The economists and scientists tend to assume that material factors drive history - resources and brain chemistry - because that's what they can measure and count. But none of this helps explain a crucial feature of our time: while global economies are converging, cultures are diverging, and the widening cultural differences are leading us into a period of conflict, inequality and segmentation.”
New media – including blogs like this – are partly to blame for this phenomenon. New technology, Brooks notes, is allowing people “to create new groups and cultural zones… The music, news, magazine and television markets have all segmented, so there are fewer cultural unifiers like Life magazine or Walter Cronkite.”
The BBC and our national newspaper culture afford more opportunities for Britain to enjoy a ‘national conversation’ but the increased phenomenon of ‘narrowcasting’ will make it harder to integrate Muslims, say, into mainstream Britain. If you’re inclined to hate Britain you can turn off Huw Edwards and tune into Aljazeera.
Of course, as an American, Brooks is unaware that in Britain we now have a default response for anyone who accuses us of racism for questioning the value of multiculturalism:
"Are you saying Sir Trevor Phillips is a racist?"
Posted by: James Hellyer | August 12, 2005 at 12:28
The BBC gives opportinities for a national conversation. What a joke. It is the prime example of narrowcasting - leftist propganda at the licence-payers' expense!
Blogs give us the opportunity to create values-based online communities that can discuss issues publicly without the censorship of the media owners.
The media barons are worried. That is why even Rupert Murdoch is investing in blogs. People like us threaten his empire!
Brooks is misinformed. Cronkite is one of the contributors to Ariana Huffington's super-blog with fellow lefties such as Warren Beatty and Gary Hart.
Long live cultural separation! That is real diversity. We can be free to be different from leftist culture typified by the BBC and Walter Cronkite.
Posted by: Selsdon Man | August 12, 2005 at 15:57