Defending Hanukah in the White House, cont.

Here is a continuation of the dialog with the reader who was defending the holding of an orthodox Jewish celebration in the White House this week, which I had criticized. He argues initially that one can favor special celebrations for Jewishness while not supporting special celebrations for Islam or supporting multiculturalism. Since there are probably more than a few people around who have the same idea, this exchange may make worthwhile reading.

Reader to LA:

You wrote:

> Do you really think (1) that there is a reasonable suspicion that the White House is overrun with anti-Jewish sentiment, and therefore (2) that the only way to show that the White House is not overrun with anti-Jewish sentiment is to turn the entire White House over to a highly orthodox Jewish religious celebration?

I’m sorry, Mr. Auster, but this isn’t even close to my position.

I think that:

(1) objectively, an Orthodox Jewish celebration doesn’t celebrate a culture that would destroy our culture, and therefore it’s not problematic the way a Muslim celebration would be, and

(2) holding an Orthodox Jewish celebration thumbs the President’s nose at those people—terrorists and liberals (and a few neoconservatives) alike—who apply intense pressure to abandon the Jews, both here and in Israel.

He may be doing it for some of the wrong reasons, but I think he’s showing in a concrete way that we will not abandon these friends of ours.

You wrote:

> In any case, the fact remains that it’s all part of one continuum, the Jewish and the Muslim. Have one, have the other. I’m amazed that people don’t see this.

I think we’re arguing about two different things. You’re focused on motivations, and I’m focused on the objective nature of the celebration.

I agree that his motivations for this dinner would provide the same motivations for holding a Muslim dinner.

Objectively, however, this dinner was not be as bad as a Muslim dinner would be.

We see this sort of thing everywhere. As one example, many people have the same motivations for preventing women from being chattel as they do for allowing them to have abortions. Objectively, one is acceptable and the other is not.

LA to reader:

You wrote:

> (2) holding an Orthodox Jewish celebration thumbs the President’s nose at those people—terrorists and liberals (and a few neoconservatives) alike—who apply intense pressure to abandon the Jews, both here and in Israel.

> He may be doing it for some of the wrong reasons, but I think he’s showing in a concrete way that we will not abandon these friends of ours.

I must speak frankly at the risk of seeming rude. This is a ridiculous argument. American Jews are not under any threat of being abandoned and are not in need of any special symbolic embrace! ISRAEL is under threat, and this dinner does nothing for Israel.

Ironically, you eschew the president’s multicultural motivations, yet you don’t realize the extent to which your own thinking and sensibilities are multiculturalist. That is, you view the Jews as the benign Other who are in need of special measures to show that the rest of us “care” about them.

Reader to LA:

Mr. Auster,

> I must speak frankly at the risk of seeming rude.

That’s much better than the alternative.

> Ironically, you eschew the president’s multicultural motivations, yet you don’t realize the extent to which your own thinking and sensibilities are multiculturalist.

I know that I have blinders. I keep picking at them, which is tough because I can’t always see where they are until they’re off. That’s one of the reasons I read your blog. I know that my thinking derives partly from my surroundings, and I need to surround myself with thoughts that help my steer away from modernist errors.

For instance, my comments on the nature of Man in my e-mail about homosexuality and nature run completely counter to the way I was brought up, but would fit reasonably well with Aristotle’s ancient, but far more reasonable, perspective.

However, I need to understand something. You don’t need to provide me with answers—you’ve graciously taken a lot of time already—but this is something we as a culture need to discuss. You said:

> That is, you view the Jews as the benign Other who are in need of special measures to show that the rest of us “care” about them.

As I understand multiculturalism, it denies that any culture can be superior to any other. Clearly that’s an error, and it’s only made possible by (my wording may not reflect your opinions accurately) people’s rejection of the transcendent: that is, people’s inability to see American culture or Western culture as social and historical realities rather than as mere abstractions.

It’s as if they couldn’t see people as people, and instead saw them merely as abstractions based on the way their atoms are structured—and then said that we should care as much for our neighbor’s body as for our own. After all, why prefer one arbitrary collection of atoms over another?

I reject all that. I believe that some cultures are better than others. But am I infected with multiculturalism if I note that some cultures are better and more worthy of support than others?

I do in fact care about Judaism as a culture. It’s less important than traditional Western Christian (and specifically Roman Catholic) culture, but it’s better than most. It’s not essentially evil, as Islam is. (And I wouldn’t have said that five years ago—I’ve come some distance since then.)

Therefore, if I’m supportive of American Jews despite the preferences of American Muslims, I don’t think I’m coming from a multicultural mindset.

Having said all that, I just read your other correspondent’s comments: “My feeling is that White House outreach on a Jewish holiday is COVER for Ramadan.” I’m sick to my stomach.

You wrote:

> This is a ridiculous argument. American Jews are not under any threat of being abandoned and are not in need of any special symbolic embrace! ISRAEL is under threat, and this dinner does nothing for Israel.

I found this interesting. You don’t think that there will be pressure brought to bear by CAIR and other Muslim organizations against American Jewish organizations?

I think it’s highly likely that as the Muslim population grows, anti-Semitism will become more entrenched in parts of our culture. It’s almost impossible for it not to. The danger isn’t immanent, but it’s coming.

LA to reader:

The confusion here is in your definition of multiculturalism, which you’re taking too much on its own terms. It’s true that multiculturalism says that all cultures are equal, but, as in Animal Farm, some are more equal than others. The multiculturalists don’t really mean that all cultures are equal, they mean that the cultures they favor are better. Equality is just the way to drag down the existing dominant culture. Also, your description of seeing people as equal atoms really applies more to liberalism than to multiculturalism per se.

So the confusion comes about because you favor the Jewish culture, yet I accused you of harboring multicultural attitudes when you do that. Your question is, how can you be multicultural if you think Jewish culture is better?

Now it’s true that you personally do not want all cultures to have equal access to the White House and so on. Yet the reality is that to give this kind of Jewish celebration in the White House is certainly part of the multicultural agenda. So, in supporting it, you are supporting at least this part of the multicultural agenda, whether you put it that way or not.

Second, your attitude is multicultural in that you said in an earlier e-mail that the White House needed to show that it was not harboring anti-Jewish feelings.

Third, even if you don’t seek equal special treatment of all cultures, you are seeking special treatment of the Jewish culture, and, further, this is something that has never been done before in this way, so that fits the multicultural paradigm. You’re not thinking of celebrating all cultures, but you do want to raise up this particular minority culture, and that is certainly a multicultural thing to do.

Finally, there is no pressure against Jewish organization now, of the kind you fear may happen in the future, so the notion that the White House must come to Jews’ support is groundless. This is even more so when we remember that along with the Jewish celebration, and as part of the same multicultural agenda, the White House is legitimizing Muslim groups, who are becoming more powerful. How are we securing Jewish groups against possible Muslim attacks, if at the same time we strengthen the political legitimacy of those very Muslim groups in America?

Reader to LA:

Thanks for your reply.

I agree 100% with this:

> Finally, there is no pressure against Jewish organization now, of the kind you fear may happen in the future, so the notion that the White House must come to Jews’ support is groundless.

> This is even more so when we remember that along with the Jewish celebration, and as part of the same multicultural agenda, the WH is legitimizing Muslim groups, who are becoming more powerful. How are we securing Jewish groups against possible Muslim attacks, if at the same time we strengthen the political legitimacy of those very Muslim groups in America?

If we’ve really been holding Ramadan dinners for years, and this is the first dinner of its kind, then I’ve basically been hoodwinked.

But I now see something more than that. I was mistaken to think that this particular Jewish celebration is benign. There may be circumstances in which a Jewish celebration is benign, but this isn’t one of them. I see now that when a Jewish celebration results from a multicultural agenda, it changes from a celebration of Jewish culture into a celebration of multiculturalism—which actually works against Jewish culture by putting it on the same level as, say, Muslim culture.

In other words, motives matter. Because I care about Jewish culture, I should reject a Jewish celebration that results from multicultural ideas.

As soon as the Hindus become powerful enough, we’ll pretend we care about them as a culture, too, and throw them a party that appears to be “about Hinduism”. In reality, our celebration will be about our celebration, about what our ability to celebrate Hinduism means for multiculturalism in America.

I think I get it now. I’m slow, but I get it. Thanks.

I’ll have to chew on the rest for a while. Sometimes it takes a while to step back, analyze yourself as objectively as possible, and determine how to accept or reject a critique of your thought patterns. So I won’t respond to the rest, but I will be thinking about it. Thanks very much for spending so many words on me.

LA to reader:

These are excellent insights. It was a worthwhile exchange.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 08, 2005 11:02 PM | Send