The menace of multiculturalism
Suzanne Fields
September 15, 2005

It's not easy to dislodge a trendy fad, particularly among the public intellectuals and the aspiring sophisticates of the chattering class, but "multiculturalism" may be getting an intellectual re-examination. The strivers so easily captured by the hula hoops of academic imagination have a long way to go, but the signs are there (and not a moment too soon).

"Multiculturalism" is the notion that all cultures are inherently equal; the notion should not only be tolerated, but encouraged. The Judeo-Christian values that undergirded the founding of our country and inspired the moral rules that bound us together in a common culture, honored even when honored in the breach, are to be held in doubt and suspicion. When these values were deconstructed, so that they no longer held us together, the literary, philosophical and historical canons of Western civilization changed.

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