Editor,
It is fascinating to read the half-truths and misconceptions advanced by many within these pages and this University. One of the biggest misconceptions that I've been forced to swallow is that of multiculturalism. That is, that other cultures should be considered equal to U.S. culture. Forgetting the Enlightenment and the Renaissance, many intellectuals seek to portray the U.S. as inferior because of its majority of Christians.
What is so discouraging is the failure to view Western culture as superior because of its adherence to individual rights. Capitalism and our Constitution seek to embrace individuality as the highest standard, not a group defined by its religion, race or ethnicity.
Multiculturalism is racism in a politically correct guise. It holds that an individual's identity and personal worth are determined by ethnic or racial membership, and that all cultures are of equal worth regardless of their moral views or how they treat people. Multiculturalism holds that ethnic identity should be a central factor in educational and social policy decisions.
Multiculturalism is a grave threat to this country and to education. Instead of encouraging students to question their assumptions and the assumptions of their parents and society, multiculturalism demands that students accept blindly what they're given. Instead of encouraging reason and independent judgment, multiculturalism demands obedience to the authority of the ethnic group.
Multiculturalists would rather have students admire the patterns of Navajo blankets than learn why Islam's golden age of scientific progress was replaced by fervent piety and centuries of stagnation.
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Textbooks seek to portray Islam as peaceful in part by distorting the concept of jihad to mean an internal struggle to surmount temptation and evil. Islam's wars of religious conquest are played down. We are fed the ideology that we cannot judge other societies no matter how distorted their views are.
Many professors make a concerted effort to portray the most backward, impoverished and murderous cultures as advanced, prosperous and life-enhancing. If people were given the actual facts, or if they would recognize the whole truth, they could understand that the West is where people are politically free. Science and technology are superior to superstition. Human life is far longer, happier and safer in the West today than in any other culture in history.
By reshaping the curriculum, advocates of diversity in the classroom seek to prevent students from grasping the value of human life in Western culture, a culture whose magnificent achievements have brought man from mud huts to moon landings.
Multiculturalism is no boon to education but an agent of anti-Western ideology. We should keep that in mind, especially when professors, scholars and the Daily Lobo's writers are born, raised and obviously prefer to live in Western societies.
Damian Erasmus
UNM alumnus
