Cultural change

I'm not too worried about the Hispanic immigrants, because aside from the machismo, Hispanic culture strongly values many of the things that I value, most especially, family and Christian faith. Plus, their kids are learning English and the non-assimilators would probably be less of a problem under a more liberalized immigration system because they could easily go and come back for work rather than stay here to risk the dangerous trip each time. Plus, Yesterday I saw the Hagia Sophia church for the first time. I think it's hard for any Christian to go into that massive former church and not be nearly overwhelmed by melancholy. I thought about how for nearly a thousand years, Christians prayed and sang and celebrated the Eucharist there, and must have thought it would last forever. Then, in 1453, it ended, with the fall of the city to the Ottomans. Hagia Sophia became a mosque -- and then, under the Turkish Republic in 1935, it was turned into a museum. I'm sure Muslims must feel the same sense of melancholy visiting the cathedral (formerly a mosque) at Cordoba, in Spain. . Do I sense a trade in the working? That would be awesome.

Thanks for a thoughtful post, Rod. I tend to agree with Harvey and Euro. I can only imagination what Thomas Jeffferson, who envisioned a republic of small farmers, would have thought of what America has become. Our nation evolves because the world changes. Your post, of course, acknowledges this. I think America, as a nation of immigrants, has never been bound primarily by culture in the nationalistic sense. Instead, we are something more unique and radical: a nation bound by the shared ideals of democracy and freedom. That is why I think Europe has a different, and more serious, problem with (radical) Muslim immigrants than we do with Latinos, who tend to share a Christian heritage and democratic aspirations (if not always a democratic history).

I have ongoing puzzlement about the attitude toward change expressed here. People debate the pros and cons of allowing or rejecting cultural change, as if it were something we have control over. We don t. One of the most important things you learn to understand when reading science fiction--or science, or history--is that change is the human condition. Change is the condition of everything, but we humans are able to watch it happen and reflect on it, instead of just experiencing it. Normally, we view it with alarm--but that doesn t stop it from happening. As humans, we are able to use our highly-evolved cleverness to make adaptations to change, and thus, often, to outrun it or work around it in some way. The one thing we cannot do is stop it from happening. One would think that when we start talking about building a wall across Texas, it would become clear that we re talking nonsense. Sure, in a science fictional world, if you had force fields and such, then maybe. (See Robert Heinlein s story, Coventry --published in 1940.) But here in the real world? Might as well try to stop the Mississippi from changing its course, or force people to keep attending churches that no longer say anything they think they need to hear . . . oh wait . . . I guess we re at work in those areas as well. . . . We can try to understand the forces driving change. We can attempt to mitigate those forces, though usually they are beyond our control. We can ponder different adaptations to a coming change and try to minimize the damage or even turn it to our advantage. But discussing whether or not we should allow change to occur is a pointless waste of time. It s pontificating on the levee while the hard rain continues to fall. If you think you can actually stop the rain, go for it. But as long as that remains beyond our control, we d better seek higher ground. When looking for an adequate response to change, we also have to keep the law of unintended consequences in mind. I think this was at play when state churches were instituted. That, too, was an attempt to hold back change. We must have Ruhe und Ordnung! We can t just let people decide if they re going to go to church or not! We will assign you a church, and you will pay your taxes, and everything will remain orderly. Well, in the end, this hollowed out the very idea of faith, and killed the very thing it was intended to preserve. What is faith, when it is assigned to you based on your place of residence? When the opportunity came to choose otherwise, people had already left in their hearts, so they left with their feet too. Of course it was more complicated than that, but trying to compel conscience has played a part in the death of faith in Europe.

By the time the "wagon trains" were rolling in front of your "Cherokee warrior" in the 19th century, the Cherokee had been Westernized to the point that your metaphor makes little sense. The Cherokee were kicked out of their lands by greed and the government.

Cherokee shmerokee, don't be pedantic. The point is that cultural change through immigration wasn't all that beneficial for the Indians, and they wouldn't have been bad or stupid people for fearing it.>

Also, sigaliris:

Of course we control culture. Not, obviously, in the sense of each individual being able to force or revert trends and he may please. But every time you tolerate, approve, disapprove, or condemn any fad, fashion, trend, manner, habit, etc., you are influencing culture. It is, in a large sense, the collective tastes of society. Culture doesn't have a mind of its own, nor its own free will. But we do, and when we passively accept all the innovations brought forth by restless minds, we are complicit in the change that ensues.>

I told Dr. Haqqani at dinner that I thought that unless the West truly came to terms with the psychological and cultural trauma of modernity on the Islamic world, we would never really understand why they're so afraid of it

I think you may have to define modernity . Do you mean technological progress, such as we see in developed societies? With respect, I don t believe that Muslims are afraid of modernity. If Muslims were completely modern , they would still have difficulty living with non-Muslim people.

Take the Muslim checker who couldn t scan the piece of pork. It s not the scanner that she had difficulty with, it s other people.>

Take the Muslim checker who couldn t scan the piece of pork. It s not the scanner that she had difficulty with, it s other people.

Well, technically, it was the pork she had difficulty with...>

Back to the Cherokee shmerokees. Where were the visas that those wagon trains had? Native indigenous people meet the Western European and move over! Western European descendant meet the Hispanic and now move over! What goes around comes around? You people standing there with your hands on your hips with that moral indignation crack me up.>

Narci,

There were many mistakes, and much evil done in the name of progress, as America expanded. Nevertheless, your argument has 2 basic flaws.

The wagon trains were filled with American citizens whose government claimed claimed sovereignty over the territories they were moving into. While the process was chaotic, it occurred within the legal framework of national law.

The wagon trains were backed by a military force with superior weaponry to the indigenous people being displaced. The settlers were also usually well-armed.

I'll make the necessary disclaimer that bad things were done by the white settlers who essentially stole much of America from the natives. However, the framework of a national legal system, backed by the necessary force to enforce it, makes 19th century expansion a much different situation from 21st century immigration.

At least, that's my opinion as an American citizen with some Cherokee ancestors.>

To reinforce what tovart said, when the Cherokee were first threatened by Americans in Tennessee and Kentucky, those Americans were subjects of the British Crown, violating the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade the colonials from settling west of the Appalachians. Daniel Boone was essentially a "coyote" helping illegal migrant Americans onto land belonging either to the crown or the Indians. Of course I exaggerate a little, but I think the point is valid. No one in the colonies was concerned about the "rule of law" at the time - people thought relocation to improve their economic situation was their right.>

Rod, I want to respond to your original point. I think we need to reframe this whole immigration debate. In my opinion Steve Sailer has put it best. A year or two ago, he had an exchange with the white nationalist Jared Taylor about why white nationalism was not good for America. Let me try to summarize what I see Sailer as arguing (both in that exchange, and elsewhere):

We concede that America certainly used to be a racist nation. We had segregation (back when most of us here were either too young to have a say in the matter, or not born yet). But now, both liberals and conservatives think of America as essentially a color-blind society. We feel a deep sense of injustice in what our ancestors did, but we don t endorse it anymore. Now what we want to preserve is a color-blind nation. Affirmative action for native-born blacks is debatable as to whether it achieves that goal, but affirmative action for immigrants totally violates the principle of color-blindness. It is discrimination against native-born Americans, plain and simple. Far from being color-blind, the new immigrants continue to demand that race be taken to account in every decision. If any race is, as a group, less successful, that is to be taken as evidence of a situation that needs to be corrected by government intervention. Thus this race-conscious vision of America is what we ought to oppose. By bringing in immigrants who are far more concerned with race than those now here, we are in fact importing a race problem that we should have almost done away with by now. We are also likely to make whites racist again, in a manner that is now much more morally justifiable, because of the discrimination. Instead of becoming proudly racist as Taylor suggests, whites should maintain the moral high ground of standing against racial discrimination.

In short, by excluding immigrants traditionalists are actually seeking to uphold the liberal principle (ironically) of a nation without racial discrimination. Immigrants who criticize America for its racism have no better moral claim than if Nazis had criticized America for being militaristic. After all, if this country is so oppressive and racist (against them), why did they come?

You wonder if Europeans who bluntly call affirmative action positive discrimination have a better idea what is at stake here. Positive discrimination in favor of immigrants? No way!

(For those interested, here are the links to Sailer s actual words:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050918_crime.htm
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/051008_round2.htm
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/051120_response.htm
)>

As I was reading your post, siglaris, I found several Rock 'n Roll songs running through my brain....

This is a really good post and discussion, and I don't have anything to add.

Cheers, everyone.>

Or maybe CS was thinking of this rule of law:

....Under this law . . . the aborigines of North America will ultimately disappear, and the humane policy which ought to have been pursued to them from the first would not have ensured their preservation in the land, though it would have averted the condemnation of blood-guiltiness from the European settlers....

Andrew Peabody s The Hawaiian Islands (1865)>

Elizabeth, you have a good point. I would just ask a few things. First, I haven t seen any immigration plan that suggests a way to make sure we get only the type of immigrants you describe. All the pro-immigration voices in the media think it s practically un-American to exclude anyone for any reason. Second, I would be more open to immigration if I could be assured that there would be no more affirmative action favoring immigrants. Finally, I would be heartened if I ever saw immigrants vote for anyone to the right of Rudy McRomney. If immigrants all vote for liberal Democrats, won t traditionalists be further marginalized?>

Americans are so wedded to the myth of progress, which entails a belief that change is always good, that we moralistically assume that those who wish to resist change surely have discreditable motives (irrational fear, bigotry, etc). This is how the Progressive ideology works, especially in the media (and by "progressive" here, I don't mean only leftists; G.W. Bush is a progressive in this sense).

Great point. Well said.>

DW, I think Rod was just inserting a random Indian nation into his point. If he'd said Lakota or Cheyenne or something, it would have made more sense.

Elizabeth, let me clarify: I was just trying to say that if it s not racist to suggest that Hispanics are a legitimate interest group , then it s not racist (unless you subscribe to the double standard of white guilt ) to suggest that whites are a legitimate interest group too.

Here s the problem that remains for me: Minorities and immigrants tend to vote Democratic not only because the GOP is viewed as the party of the rich, but also because the Dems favor extremely race-conscious policies to satisfy racially-identified interest groups. I would guess that in order to greatly increase its share of nonwhite votes, the GOP would have to compete to be equally race-conscious. Bush has been very much in favor of taking the party in this direction. I m sure many conservatives would agree with Sailer that they d be very reluctant to support a party in favor of racial preferences. Sailer believes that if not for the wealthy Republican donors who demand a cheap labor source, the Republican Party would take a stronger stand against racial preferences, and more than make up for lost minority votes by getting more white votes.

It sounds like a desperate measure inviting hordes of foreigners into our country in order to save us from our own decadence. If we have to do that, it s a sad commentary on America. I m not even convinced it would work, though.>

The Hispanic impact on America is not something that can or might happen, it is something that has already happened. Demography is destiny: the Hispanic children born in this country are already in the pipeline to make a huge impact on our culture and politics over the coming decades. One might as well complain about the light rays that have already left the sun but still have 8 minutes to get here.
One thing for sure: people with pro-family, pro-life values are the real losers in this immigration debate. A party that could have found natural allies in the Hispanic community on these issues is sealing its doom by alienating the country's fastest growing voting block. And the really stupid thing about it is that it was all so unnecessary: the failure of immigration reform does not do one thing to reduce the number of Hispanics or change the demographic fact of their future impact. The wave is still coming, but instead of riding it to victory, conservatives will get swamped by it like a Tsunami.
The actions of anti-immigrant conservatives ensures that the future belongs to pro-abortion Democrats who will have successfully co-opted an entire demographic because the other side was too stupid to realize where its long-term interest lay.

Cultures are a lot more resilient than we often give them credit for. If you look at Mexico, one could argue that for 500 years, the Spanish colonizers tried to change the mother cultures of Mexico.

Yet they failed: the Mesoamerican world view is still there. To be honestly true, the Spanish world view exists also. It is just very hard to tease out one and the other.

And in my experience, there are many things that Mexicans share with many ethnics groups in the U.S., especially the Scots-Irish, who are probably one of the biggest immigrant ethnic groups throughout the world.

Two things come to mind reading this blog . . .

Islam cannot be spread by peace OR a free exchange of ideas. People will choose many other things other than becoming a Musilm.

Every American SHOULD fear Mexicans coming TO America and turning it into Mexico Norte. Mexico is a country people need to flee for many bad reasons. Making America even remotely like Mexico is horror.

This isn't about "hispanics" or "latino's," this is about Americans not wanting to become Mexicans.

"Mexicans" give "Americans" no feeling that they ("Mexicans") have any desire to be, or become "Americans," other than to gain free social benefits that they do not deserve.

It is the "Mexicans" who are the real racists.

Comprende? Por que?

After so many decades of Spanish-only radio, TV, and print media to prove that, "Americans' are not going to rush to support this "amnesty" offer by politicians, to a group of people "from Mexico" that have proven their dislike of America and Americans.

OK, OK, so they gripe about California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona . . . being a part of Mexico (which proves hatred for America), than why are "Mexicans" still speaking "Spanish-only" in Illinois, Ohio, Maine, Oregon, South Dakota, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. . . .??????????

A little honesty huh?