Title: The American tradition of multiculturalism - The Washington Post
Headings: The American tradition of multiculturalism
The American tradition of multiculturalism
Content: 4. Multiculturalism as a source of knowledge for dealing with a multicultural world: The world is filled with lots of different cultures, whether we like it or not. Experience with different cultures within the U.S. helps us deal with different cultures outside the U.S. — for instance, by giving us a pool of American citizens who actually know the foreign language and culture, and more generally by making our citizens more familiar with people of other cultures. Again, these are not unalloyed benefits. Multiculturalism can create domestic tension; consider the Civil War, as I mentioned above, plus of course many ethnically, culturally, and religiously based civil wars in other countries. Advertisement
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Some cultures may teach their members to prey on outsiders. Some cultures may teach their members to prey on insiders, so that tolerating the culture may give extra happiness to some members at the expense of other members. Some of the immigrants from other cultures may come to be dangers to the nation rather than assets.