A Different Perspective on What's Dividing Us
Culture differences explain some things better than racial differences do...
I don’t have the time to do a lot of reading, so am quite selective. One publication I like and usually read cover-to-cover is the quarterly Academic Questions (AQ) a journal from the National Association of Scholars (NAS). FYI, NAS is involved with other good efforts — like promoting Critical Thinking in K-12 schools — so check them out.
As you know, societal discord is well on its way to tear America apart. I found one essay in the Winter 2023 Edition of AQ particularly insightful, in that it emphasizes a different perspective from what we are ordinarily presented: Whites against minorities. This is an article by Dr. Lawrence M Mead. You can read the whole thing here, but here is an extraction (with minor edits — like I put some text in bold):
In a recent book (Burdens of Freedom), I argued that America is culturally divided. Most Americans who descend from Europe display an individualist temperament. That is, they chiefly seek their own goals but are also restrained by moralistic notions of right and wrong that they internalize in childhood.
Minority groups, however, all descend from the more cautious non-West, where most people adjust to their environment rather than seeking change, and right and wrong are shaped more by the expectations of other people than by internalized standards. Many scholars of world cultural differences have said this.
That might seem like a merely academic idea, but the establishment reacted to my book with little short of panic. I had written several earlier books on poverty and welfare, all of which easily found publishers and reviewers. But all my former publishers declined Burdens of Freedom, as did several other prominent houses. Fortunately, Encounter Books accepted it. But then, in the four years since the book came out, it received only three reviews—all favorable—and no university or think tank has allowed me so much as to give a public talk about it.
What is so frightening about cultural difference? In this paper I will try to explain. Cultural difference does arouse political objections, but above all it questions something never before doubted in American commentary—that the United States is a universal nation that is open to anyone, from anywhere, who seeks a life of freedom. That vision, it turns out, presumes an individualist culture, which is found only in the West. We have never admitted the problems that non-Western peoples pose for us, as they also do for Europe. We think our problem is only racism. But culture, not race, is the true limitation to the American vision.
Rejecting Racism
Burdens’ most immediate offense was that it redefined our social problems in terms of culture rather than race. In the orthodox view, America suffers from poverty and inequality mainly because whites refuse to treat non-whites as equals, especially blacks. On the evidence, however, the great majority of whites gave up racism decades ago. They no longer view blacks as inferior. Their objection today is far more to cultural difference: many minorities do not function well in an individualist society. Many fail to get ahead, and many display unusually high levels of crime and other social problems, so they do not inspire the same trust as whites. Nor is cultural difference merely a euphemism for race. Scholars of world cultures make quite clear that culture has no necessary connection to race. This great problem would remain even if whites suddenly became completely colorblind about race, or if all blacks became white. The solution is for blacks to assimilate to mainstream society.
The antiracism movement blames all black problems entirely on white racism. White elites do not dispute that idea, but few can really believe it. The hard truth is that minorities must adopt an individualist way of life if integration is ever to succeed. That is far tougher than to harass our white upper class over racism.
Rejecting Sameness
Besides redefining race as a cultural problem, Burdens called for limits on immigration. In this connection, as with race, the establishment refuses to discuss cultural difference. Rather, it trumpets sameness—the conviction that newcomers from anywhere in the world are no different from the native born and should be accepted as such. Thus, we should have no fear of opening our borders to the multitudes now fleeing collapsing countries in the Middle East, Latin America, etc..
A cultural analysis, however, calls for caution. The vast influx of immigrants during the Progressive era, a century ago, is fondly remembered as having assimilated well. The difference was that the earlier waves nearly all came from Europe, many from countries that today are nearly as modern as America. So these newcomers were largely attuned to individualism coming in. Today’s immigrants, however, nearly all come from the non-West, where countries of origin are far poorer and less developed. Migrants come here mainly to escape adversity, not to seek freedom and its obligations (and those demands often defeat them).
Without cutting immigration sharply, America would inevitably become a non-Western country. It would lose the dynamic and civic qualities that come from an individualist culture, and which have empowered it to lead the world…
I think that this perspective has a lot of merit — so why isn’t it being widely discussed? Yes, cultural differences do not explain everything (and neither do racial differences), but shouldn't we be considering this when trying to work things out?
Evidently, the culture part is not discussed because the anti-American cabal feels that the racism narrative will give them more leverage to impose draconian measures on Americans. Note that the racial focus also subtly shifts the responsibility (and blame) about any divide to white Americans, as vs minorities.
I encourage you to support NAS and subscribe to AQ, as there are other thought-provoking commentaries.
Here are other materials from this scientist that you might find interesting:
My Substack Commentaries for 2023 (arranged by topic)
Check out the chronological Archives of my entire Critical Thinking substack.
WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.
C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.
Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2023 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?
Thanks for reading Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues! Please pass a link to this article on to other associates who might benefit. They can subscribe for FREE to receive new posts (typically about once a week).
The rules have changed, as in — there are none. By failing to recognize that, you cannot adapt to deal with it. Conventional means have no chance of breaching the envelope of intransigence around armies of unreachables in the trench warfare of our times. All of America is trying to plow through problems when you should be going around them (think asymmetrical "warfare").
“[W]e must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it.”
— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
In a nation that incessantly blames and complains (seemingly for sport) — no one’s taking responsibility for anything. The ever-rising ocean of partisan pettiness is gluttony under the guise of concern. In reference to its opening image on Without Passion or Prejudice, I wrote: “Half the country is with me on this and I just lost the other half. Had I started with the image below, it would be the opposite half.” When you make up your mind on lickety-split perception alone — in what parallel universe does that qualify as critical thinking?
But in the force fields of fallacy that people hide behind today, you can claim to be a critical thinker and not do anything that remotely reflects its requirements. What was once understood as a demanding process that puts your mind to the test: Is now one Tweet away from glory in the Gutter Games of Government. In this fantasyland where liars are loved as bastions of virtue and people telling you what you wanna hear are “geniuses”: You can “win” an argument without even knowing what the issue’s about.
And the professionals answer to America suffocating in an atmosphere of absurdity? Endlessly rehashing the same old problems in the same old ways. It’s all an illusion of progress — perfectly captured by John Wooden’s “Never mistake activity for achievement.” But there’s an opportunity to turn it all around — by taking the problem and turning it into a solution. A student wrote of her psychology professor: “Tim Wilson taught me the importance of breaking problems down into more manageable pieces.” Lo and behold, at the bedrock of my idea is exactly that. If you want to start solving problems, first you need to clear the clutter that’s crippled this country. To do that, you don’t go after everything, you go after one thing that ties to everything. And you do it by holding one man to his own “standards”: A professional know-it-all with a cult-like following unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
As I’ve been in the trenches battling hermetically sealed minds for decades, that’s saying something. His disciples see him as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes. And that — is an opportunity! How do we make people realize they’ve been lied to? You have to knock down one small pillar that’s easier to reach. I’ve got the perfect pillar — on the biggest and most costly lie in modern history (which shaped everything you see today). I don’t need mass appeal to make this happen, I just need to get to one man. Long before brain imaging to understand human behavior, we already had all the tools we needed for a hopeful humanity. We didn’t take advantage of the gifts we were given, and what a shocker — we don’t make good use of those fancy new insights either. Your field is forever fighting the forces of human nature whereas my solution banks on it.
I have a very specific target audience to get this in gear, so it wouldn’t take much. One email could set off a chain of events that could open the door to the kind of conversation this nation’s never had. Imagine! There was a time when we did.
From the Earth to the Moon to “WUT”: https://onevoicebecametwo.life/2024/04/24/from-the-earth-to-the-moon-to-wut/
To Readers: I asked Dr. Mead to respond to the several good comments here, as it was his article that readers are addressing. Regretfully, after thanking me for publishing his exerpt, he declined.