Kevin Scales outlook on The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society

 

The country is seriously vulnerable by the descendents of the cultural sensitivities that allow us to shake off generations of bigotry and intolerance

 

Half cheerleading for American history, Schlesinger shows that America is indeed become fractured along whatever lines � ethnic, racial, religious to some extent � people can dream up. This is not, repeat not, the logical consequence of our national awakening of the sixties. More and more we find in America groups choosing isolation and the politics of mass attack.

 

As a distinguished historian, Schlesinger has countless examples of how the national ideology was formed very early in our history. Citing de Tocqueville and others less famous, he shows how wild and revolutionary was the idea then, and quite a bit now, that a nation could form basing personal identity not on religion, or tribe, or language, but on the �melting pot� as it came to be known. E pluribus unum, from many one, is changed today so often to just pluribus.

 

In more concrete terms, we get a review of how multiculturalism�s worst self satire has become the norm in, for example, education, a subject discussed at great length. We see how history, an old and distinguished practice, is becoming polluted by charlatans who consider it more important to promote myths that to report on reality. When self-esteem becomes the motivating goal behind primary school history lessons, and the past itself becomes something of an obstacle, we can be sure that something is seriously wrong.

 

Of course, what makes Disuniting special is the author. Besides being a noted liberal, something the reader is never tempted to forget, he is also a clear-headed thinker and writer. This is not just a collection of anecdotes, indistinguishable from a Rush Limbaugh rant or off-the-cuff blog from the National Review. This is a warning from someone smart enough to realize, and articulate enough to express, that the answer to white on black racism is not black on white racism. That maximum tolerance for new ways of thinking and living does not mean minimal tolerance for old ways. And to return to the original and dominant theme, lest we Balkanize (or even Rwanda-ize) our own country, and turn into a land where crackpot religious leaders can condemn authors to death for writing the wrong books, let us remember that we as a country have held together now for more than two centuries by, to put it succinctly, holding together. It was a strength even in the bad old days, and should be our crowning glory now.