Drawing on the inspiration of modern philosophers like Locke and Adam Smith, the American founders altered this moral hierarchy. They argued that trade based on consent and mutual gain was preferable to plunder. The founders established a regime in which the self-interest of entrepreneurs and workers would be directed toward serving the wants and needs of others. In this view, the ordinary life, devoted to production, serving the customer, and supporting a family, is a noble and dignified endeavor. Hard work, once considered a curse, now becomes socially acceptable, even honorable. Commerce, formerly a degraded thing, now becomes a virtue.
Of course the founders recognized that both in the private and the public sphere, greedy and ambitious people might pose a danger to the well-being of others. Instead of trying to outlaw these passions, the founders attempted a different approach. As the fifty-first book of The Federalist puts it, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” The argument is that in a free society “the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, in the other in the multiplicity of sects.”16 The framers of the Constitution reasoned that by setting interests against each other, by making them compete, no single one could become strong enough to imperil the welfare of the whole.
In the public sphere the founders took special care to devise a system that would prevent, or at least minimize, the abuse of power. To this end they established limited government, in order that the power of the state would remain confined. They divided authority between the national and state governments. Within the national framework, they provided for separation of powers, so that the legislature, executive, and judiciary would each have its own domain of power. They insisted upon checks and balances, to enhance accountability.
In general the founders adopted a “policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives.”17 This is not to say that the founders ignored the importance of virtue. But they knew that virtue is not always in abundant supply. The Greek philosophers held that virtue was the same thing as knowledge—that people do bad things because they are ignorant—but the American founders did not agree. Their view was closer to that of St. Paul: “The good that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that I do.”18 According to Christianity, the problem of the bad person is that his will is corrupted, and this is a fault endemic to human nature. The American founders knew they could not transform human nature, so they devised a system that would thwart the schemes of the wicked and channel the energies of flawed persons toward the public good.
The experiment that the founders embarked upon two centuries ago has largely succeeded in achieving its goals. We see the evidence in New York, which presents an amazing sight to the world. Tribal and religious battles, such as we see in Lebanon, Mogadishu, Kashmir, and Belfast, don’t happen here. In New York restaurants, white and African-American secretaries have lunch together. In Silicon Alley, Americans of Jewish and Palestinian descent collaborate on e-commerce solutions and play racquetball after work. Hindus and Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Turks and Armenians, Irish Catholics and British Protestants, all seem to have forgotten their ancestral differences and joined the vast and varied parade of New Yorkers. Everybody wants to “make it,” to “get ahead,” to “hit it big.” And even as they compete, people recognize that somehow they are all in this together, in pursuit of some great, elusive American dream. In this respect New York is a resplendent symbol of America.
My conclusion is that the American founders solved two great problems—the problem of scarcity, and the problem of diversity—that were a source of perennial misery and conflict in ancient societies, and that remain unsolved in the regimes of contemporary Islam. The founders invented a new regime in which citizens would enjoy a wide berth of freedom—economic freedom, political freedom, and freedom of speech and religion—in order to shape their own lives and pursue happiness. By separating religion from government, and by directing the energies of the citizens toward trade and commerce, the American founders created a rich, dynamic, and tolerant society that is now the hope of countless immigrants and a magnet for the world.
Despite the fantastic scope and opportunity that America provides, many immigrants experience occasional ambivalence and anguish about their adopted country. My colleague Shelby Steele terms this “the shock of freedom.” I see it more as the anxiety of displacement. In any event, immigrants commonly report feelings of uncertainty, loss, loneliness—a sense of being adrift in unfamiliar waters. To some extent these are the natural sentiments of one who is trying to find his way in a new society. What is new is that immigrants today encounter a multicultural ideology that encourages them to cling to their native ways, to resist assimilation, to “affirm their differences.”
From the multicultural perspective, asking the immigrant to “become an American” is forcing him to give up who he is. In this view, assimilation is an expression of bigotry, because the nonwhite immigrant is required to put on a white cultural straitjacket. 19 Multiculturalists say that white Americans should be the ones who adapt: they should learn to respect and cherish cultural differences. The multiculturalists regard the “melting pot” as a racist concept. In their view, immigrants should maintain their native identity and their traditional customs. The multiculturalists want immigrants to be in America but not of America.
But this does not seem to be what most immigrants want. The reason is simple: if the immigrant wanted to preserve intact his native culture, if he wanted to be the same person that he was in his home country, then why come to the United States? Clearly the immigrant seeks something that is available here and not in his homeland. That something, I have suggested, is the opportunity to have a good life, but more important, the chance to make his own life.
Most immigrants realize that this requires adapting to the cultural strategies of success in the United States. There is nothing bigoted or racist about this. It does not mean that, in order for me to become American, I have to quit playing the sitar and stop eating curry. I can preserve elements of my native culture and still wholeheartedly participate in the American way of life. This was not always the case with earlier generations of immigrants, who were pressured to abandon their old lives and become completely new people. A century ago, one social worker in New York noted of a family that had recently arrived from Sicily, “Not yet Americanized. Still eating Italian food.”20 The nativist prejudice was that “Italian-Americans” were somehow incomplete Americans. As Teddy Roosevelt put it with characteristic pugnacity, “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americans.”21
But this is too harsh, and makes unnecessary and unreasonable demands on immigrants. A much better idea is the “melting pot,” which emerged in resistance to the nativist doctrine. The melting pot concept is that immigrants bring something new and valuable to America, just as America has much that is new and valuable to offer them. So immigrants change America, and America changes the immigrants. Pizza and hamburgers, once alien imports from Italy and Germany, have become quintessentially American foods. Chinese food is now well established, and Indian and Thai dishes are also quite popular. While Americans benefit from this variety of cuisine, immigrants, too, realize that they have choices. In India I ate curry and rice every day; now I have the option of eating southern fried chicken or enchiladas. Why, then, should I hold onto my native culture and limit myself to the options my ancestors had?
I am using the example of cuisine to make the broader point that ethnicity in the Old World is involuntary, but in America it is, to a large degree, chosen. Think about it this way: Mario Cuomo’s grandfather had no choice but to be Italian. That was an identity that was imposed on him. It defined who he was, what he ate, what he believed. But with the grandson it is a different story. No one is more Italian than Mario Cuomo—on Columbus Day. When he speaks before the Anti-Defamation League, however, he sings a different melody. I am quite sure Mario Cuomo likes pasta, but I
doubt that it encompasses the whole of his cuisine. He has chosen what he wants to retain from the Old World and what he wants to relinquish. As an American, his Italian heritage is only one part of Mario Cuomo’s identity.
I have been speaking of ethnicity largely in the cosmetic, superficial sense. At this surface level, it is possible for immigrants to live in several cultures. One doesn’t have to choose between eating curry and eating southern fried chicken; one can do both. I can watch a Hindi film this week and Harrison Ford’s latest thriller the next week. But at the deeper level, this is not possible. Cultures are fundamentally rooted in the cult, and they embody worldviews that are sometimes incompatible and irreconcilable. Either I consult my parents about whom to marry, or I decide for myself. Either I remain a Buddhist, or I become a Catholic, or give up my religion altogether. The point is that I cannot do all these things simultaneously; I have to choose.
Here is another example. In most Asian countries, the basic premise is that older people are wiser. Age is believed to confer the wisdom that derives from experience. This was the basis of ancestor worship in China; it helps to explain why, even today, the Chinese tend to be ruled by octogenarians. In America, however, the whole culture seems oriented around the preferences of fourteen-year-olds. Youth, not old age, sets the tone. There are reasons for these cultural differences, of course. Technology confers a decisive advantage on the young: they may not know about the Depression or World War II, but they do know how to program their VCRs and record messages on their answering machines. In a fast-changing, technological society, the young are “with it” and the old are constantly in danger of being “out of it.”
My purpose here is not to say which way is better, but to say that it is an illusion to believe that one can inhabit multiple cultures in a deep sense. Immigrants know that there are hard choices to be made, and these have benefits as well as costs. The immigrant who falls in love and wants to marry outside his ethnic and religious group knows that, in doing so, he might be risking his relationship with his family. The newcomer who wants to become an American is embarking on a journey that is likely to cut him off from his native country, so that he becomes a stranger to people he has grown up with. Some immigrants never manage this transition between cultures, occupying a tragic middle position in which they are at home neither in America nor in their homeland.
Even so, on some issues there are immense practical advantages to adopting the American way. The best example of this is speaking English. I have heard bilingual activists deny that speaking English is a prerequisite to enjoying the American dream. One Latino activist informed me that Cubans can get along very well in Miami without speaking a word of English: you can work for a Cuban company, shop at Cuban stores, make a deposit at a Cuban bank, read Spanish-language newspapers, and so on. But even in this exceptional case, you can flourish only if you stay in Miami. By and large, immigrants reject the harmful doctrines of the bilingual activists. The vast majority of immigrants understand perfectly well that they cannot enjoy a full life in the United States unless they can speak English.
Many conservatives have expressed concerns about the balkanization of America. The multicultural dream is their nightmare. Even though I agree that balkanization is undesirable, I do not share the conservatives’ pessimism. I know that America is not, and never will be, Bosnia. I recognize the power of the American idea and the strength of the solvent of Americanization. Consider a typical Indian woman at JFK Airport. To look at her—the sari, the beads, the dot on her forehead, and so on—she seems utterly out of place in a modern, Western civilization. But then look at her four-year-old son. The little fellow is running around, he is making a big noise, he is biting people—in short, he has been thoroughly Americanized. However fiercely the first-generation immigrant holds onto the native culture, I do not believe that he can prevent his children from being assimilated.
In general, I believe that this is a good thing, but it is not an unmixed blessing. There are some respects in which I do not want my daughter to be completely Americanized. I have noticed that when second-generation Asian-Americans become fully assimilated, they don’t study as hard and their test scores fall. I am quite willing to let my daughter date and choose the person she wants to marry, as long as the process begins at the age of thirty. I am currently doing Internet research into convent schools. “Good luck,” my American friends say sarcastically, and of course they are right. What are the chances that my effort to thwart full assimilation will succeed? Not very good. But I still intend to try. So wish me luck: I will need it.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE REPARATIONS FALLACY
What African-Americans Owe America
Other revolutions have been the insurrection of the
oppressed; this was the repentance of the tyrant.
—EMERSON
IT SEEMS CLEAR THAT AMERICA WORKS PRETTY WELL FOR immigrants, but does it also work well for domestic minority groups, such as African-Americans? This was a topic on which I debated the Reverend Jesse Jackson a few years ago at Stanford University. Jackson began by asserting that America is and always has been a racist society. To demonstrate this, Jackson evoked the painful history of slavery and segregation. He also cited a contemporary list of horrors—the Rodney King beating, the role of Mark Fuhrman in the O. J. Simpson case, racist comments at Texaco, the blacks who couldn’t get served at Denny’s, and several other examples of continuing racism against black Americans.
I did not deny that racism exists, and conceded that in a big country like the United States one could find many examples of it. But I asked Jackson to prove to me that racism today was potent enough and widespread enough that it could prevent me, or him, or my daughter, or his children, from achieving their basic aspirations? Where is that kind of racism, I said—show it to me. Jackson hemmed and hawed, wrinkled his forehead, played with his mustache. He was thinking deeply.
Finally he admitted that he could provide no such evidence. But its absence, he went on to argue, in no way demonstrated that racism had abated. No, America was in his view just as racist as in the past. The only difference is that racism has gone underground; it has become institutionalized, so that in an invisible but no less insidious way, it continues to thwart blacks and other minorities from achieving the American dream. “Racism used to be overt,” Jackson said. “Now it is covert.” He went into a rhyme sequence. “I may be well dressed, but I’m still oppressed.” And so on.
I found the concept of this rich, successful man—who arrived by private jet, who speaks at the Democratic National Convention, whose son is a congressman—identifying himself as a victim of oppression a bit puzzling and amusing. But I suppressed the urge to chuckle. I reminded myself that Jackson’s indignation was quite genuine, and that I was witnessing a clash between two perspectives, what may be termed the immigrant perspective and that of the leadership of indigenous minority groups. I use the term “indigenous” loosely to refer to African-Americans and American Indians. These are groups that have been in America even longer than most European immigrants.
That there is a clash of views between immigrants and indigenous minorities will come as news to some advocates of multiculturalism, who like to portray nonwhites, women, and homosexuals as allied in a grand coalition against that oppressive enemy of humanity, the white male heterosexual. There are many problems with this morality tale, but perhaps the most serious is that nonwhite immigrants and indigenous minorities see America very differently. Ideologically, if not geographically, they are poles apart.
Immigrants today are mostly “people of color”: this they have in common with African-Americans. But this is where the similarity ends. The immigrant comes here from South Korea, Nigeria, or the West Indies and finds America to be a terrific place. Then he runs into the likes of Jesse Jackson, who tell him that he is completely wrong, he doesn’t know anything, he should stick around for a while, he will soon discover the baleful influence of racism.
Wh
y, then, do nonwhite immigrants and the leadership of indigenous minority groups see America so differently? The immigrant typically compares America to his home country. “In Nicaragua I have to work for $6 a day. You mean that McDonald’s will pay me $6 an hour? Where do I sign up for overtime?” By this comparative or historical standard, America comes off looking good. Patriotism comes easily to the immigrant who has chosen to become an American.
African-American leaders, by contrast, use a utopian standard in judging the United States. Their argument is not that the United States is a worse place for them to live than Haiti or Ethiopia, but that the United States falls short in comparison to the Garden of Eden. “Why should I work for $6 an hour? That’s slave labor. Look at the guy in the high-rise office building who gets $75 an hour. If I’m not making as much as he is, then I am oppressed.” This is a very different psychology.
So who is right: the immigrants, who have come recently, or the indigenous minorities, who have been here a long time? In our debate, Jackson addressed this question by pointing out that African-Americans could not be compared with immigrants, because the immigrants for the most part came voluntarily, while African-Americans came to the United States in chains. This is a good point, although its contemporary relevance is unclear. Jackson also said that earlier generations of immigrants—the Jews, the Irish, and the Italians—could easily assimilate because they were white. Blacks, he added, don’t have this option.
This argument seems reasonable, but it relies for its plausibility on anachronism. Today we often have trouble distinguishing between members of ethnic groups from various parts of Europe. This, however, is only because of their high rates of intermarriage. But intermarriage between Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans, or between Protestants and Catholics, or between Christians and Jews, has only become popular in recent years. In 1850 it was quite easy to identify an Irish immigrant. That’s the only way “No Irish Need Apply” rules could be enforced.1
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