Watch: Are Some Cultures Better Than Others?

Prager U is back with another video that proves the idea of “multiculturalism” isn’t all its cracked up to be, and that some cultures are actually more productive, peaceful, and prosperous than others.

Advertisement

Famed conservative author Dinish D’Souza, an Indian immigrant, had a few things to say about many in the west’s attitude about their own culture. As D’Souza points out, many despise their own culture despite it being a bastion of freedom, commerce, and health.

D’Souza points out that this hatred of the western culture is rooted in the teaching of “multiculturalism,” or the idea that all cultures are equally good.

“This thinking is the product of a doctrine widely taught in our schools,” says D’Souza. “It’s known as multiculturalism, the belief that all cultures are equal. Or to put it another way, no culture’s values, art, music, political system, or literature are better or worse than any other.”

However, D’Souza questioned multiculturalism’s validity, and backed it up with a couple stories:

Some years ago, Nobel-prize winning novelist Saul Bellow created a major controversy when he said, “Find me the Tolstoy of the Zulus, or the Proust of the Papuans, and I would be happy to read him.” For this, Bellow was accused of racism.

The charge was nonsense. Bellow wasn’t saying that the Zulus and Papuans are incapable of producing great novelists. He was saying that, as far as he knew, they hadn’t. But just by raising the possibility that some cultures have contributed more than others, he violated the chief tenet of multiculturalism.

More recently, President Donald Trump expressed a similar sentiment in Warsaw, Poland.

“We write symphonies. We pursue innovation…We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression…We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success…That is who we are…Those are the priceless ties that bind us together…as a civilization.”

For this, Trump was roundly condemned by the multiculturalists. How could he say these things, one writer wrote, “as if these were unique qualities to white-dominated nations, instead of universal truths of the human race across all cultures.”

Advertisement

D’Souza goes on to point out that the world has been shaped by western culture, which includes empowerment of women, abolition of slaves, and good laws. This, explained D’Souza, was a result of “a peculiar dynamism of Athens and Jerusalem––a synthesis of classical reason and Judeo-Christian morality.”

This combination of reason and morality elevated the west into its state as the dominant culture, not just because of military might, but because its unparalleled power in creating ideas and institutions.

While some point out that America itself is so powerful due to the fact that we are a multicultural nation of immigrants, D’Souza points out a nuance that is commonly missed.

“No. America is a multi-ethnic society,” says D’Souza. “We don’t want it to be a multicultural society. I’m an immigrant from India. My wife is an immigrant from Venezuela. Despite our differences of ethnic background, we have both assimilated to the unique values of America––the values embodied in our Constitution and our laws. The pursuit of happiness. The American Dream.”

Recommended

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos