People Hearing Without Listening

               In addition to blogging here, I also write online for mediate.com’s  weekly newsletter on topics relating to conflict resolution.  This week the e-letter published a piece of mine on the election, in which I suggested that cultural conflict theory offered two useful insights into the election: first, that contact between people under appropriate conditions such as common goals and local support often eased conflict between groups, and second, that the development of "superordinate identities," e.g "we may come from different places, but now we’re all students at XY University," also was a potent force.  I suggested that many of those most concerned about terrorism and immigration live in places where they have little contact with “the other,” and that those speaking for unity needed to contend with others emphasizing separateness.  (For the curious, the piece is at http://www.mediate.com/articles/BarbieriR9.cfm.)

               Not terribly controversial, I thought, until, for only the third time ever, I received a response from a gentleman in one Crystal Lake (there are 3: Texas, Arizona, and California).

We have not succeeded in convincing the others of accepting our values. Unlike 19th century migration where many different language speaking ethnic groups came to America, they were just about all Christian white Europeans with essentially the same values.  They melted into"the Pot" rather easily. Many  of today's immigrants are not interested in assimilating. They want to bring their society here and have us accept their ways. Irish, Polish, German, Russian, French, Greek, Italian diversity was not real diverse. Strong nations are historically not diverse. Diversity weakens the central themes of successful societies. You live in a state where anything goes. Not 1 county voted  Republican, the only state in the union that can claim that dubious non-diverse distinction. But you are on the right track, we need to realize that we have much in common than differences and discuss our agreement areas first and that will allow civility to pervade the rest.

Wow, I thought, I’ve never actually heard such arguments directly.  So this is what we’re up against, I thought.  So I decided to reply to at least part of the argument.   (I did neglect to comment that it was the effort to be homogenous that doomed Hitler’s Germany, or that our successes over England in two wars, and Japan in World War II, seemed to run counter to his argument.)  I post it here so it doesn’t, to reconnect to my title, fall into he wells of silence.

“Thanks for your comments. Athough I heartily disagree with them, I prefer response to silence any time.  
            “But I do disagree.  First of all, you speak of "we" and "others."  By that very statement , you recreate the divisiveness that plagues us.  “We,” for you, are allegedly-white Christian Europeans.  That definition ignores the Declaration of Independence, the Freedom of Religion clause in the Bill of Rights, and the plain fact that people like Jefferson, Franklin, and Tom Paine were at best theists.  "We" included Puritans who had no interest whatsoever in freedom of religion, and continued to execute and banish heretics to execute heretic
            You also ignore the facts that "our" values included exterminating Indian populations, breaking treaties with them, and enslaving millions of black Africans.  "We" included thousands of preachers who defended slavery on religious grounds, and later thousands who defended segregation on the same grounds.  It included 13 Confederate states that broke away because, in the words of their vice president,  Alexander Stephens:

"The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

            I note that you exclude Spanish peoples from your list.  I don't know how Spanish Christians are much different from Italian Christians. I also think we should admit that we took a huge part of Mexico through war, so just like the Native Americans and the African Americans, we made them part of us against their will.
            Finally, how do "our values" differ from theirs?  I know many people who are not Christian -- Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Native Americans, and others -- and I have never met anyone whose values differ from mine - Irish and Italian Catholic background -- as much as the those of the Klan, the Posse Comitatus, the Bundys, and other white "Christian" Americans do.  (I also believe that many of the people you mention also maintain "their ways" as vehemently as the later peoples.)
            So I see an entirely different America from you, starting at least as early as 1620. I want to continue living in mine, and I wish you all the best living in yours, as long as you don't try to impose it on others.




 


 

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