Jacques Chirac took time off last week from promoting the EU and UN to worry about the threat posed by US cultural hegemony to the ecology of cultural particularism. A single world culture that chokes out the diversity of local cultures would be a “sub-culture,” he said, and would constitute a catastrophe for humanity.
I couldn’t agree with him more, but it’s odd that concerns about the choking effect of universal systems only become prominent when the universal system to be imposed on everything everywhere is one that doesn’t give Chirac and his friends enough influence. It’s also worth noting that the ecology of particularism he has in mind is one he can control: as the article says “Chirac stressed that only with government assistance could countries maintain their cultural heritage.” Like everything else, it seems, cultural heritage is something state bureaucrats do. I think the lefties use the term “instrumentalization” for this kind of thing.
The true attitude of Chirac with regards to cultural diversity
As a member of one of the nations that the French centralism smashed when the so called French nation was build, I can asure you that the only reason why Mr. Chirac is against a single culture for the entire world is that this culture will not be the French one. To see what is the true attitude Mr. Chirac with regards to cultural diversity, one only has to know that France is the only European country that refused to sign, a few weeks ago, a document of the European Union that is intended to protect minority language groups. Many of those languages, catalan, basque, occitan, corse and alsacian, are still being used by more than four milion French citizens that have to resist even today the efforts of both the French government and the government controlled cultural establishment, to definitely eliminate them from the Frech landscape.
In fact present France could serve as a model, at a small scale, of what the world may look like in a few dozen years: one language, often violently enforced, and one culture, strongly supported with public money and closely dependent on the government. This might be one of the reasons why French culture is today far from what it was in better times.
A couple of thoughts on Wall-St./Neo-Marxist one-worldism
1) A thought experiment: If red’s the only color, people stop noticing red, such that if red came under attack the relative few who’d noticed it would have a hard time convincing the rest that it needed defending lest it disappear. In Europe the physical closeness of different cultures/languages/dialects/ethnicites/sub-races to each other lets group members see themselves as such more easily than in British-derived North America where in all directions as far as the eye can see, everything’s the same (or, used to be the same, before the Bush-Rove white-race-replacement scheme got into full swing). Talking to an American or Canadian about Anglo-Saxon ethno-culture is like talking to a fish about water: “What water?” It makes it harder to motivate them to defend their group against threats to it as a group. I think that’s one reason why in Europe you have a multiplicity of smaller groups. Being crowded against each other enables them to see themselves as groups rather than just neutral universal background matrix material. In the States and Canada we tend to think in terms of “Anglo-Saxons” on the one hand and “ethnics” on the other. But Anglo-Saxon is also an ethnicity—as much one as Mexican or any other.
2) A way to thwart the white-race-deniers’ plans for the white race’s eventual elimination (its elimination except of course for the planned white left-liberal New Nomenklatura whose members would continue in existence, in case anyone had any doubts about that whatsoever…) would seem to be to admit defeat, stop talking about the white race, and talk instead about each different sub-race. “You liberals are right. There’s no such thing as the white race. There are only Greeks, Turks, Lombards, Catalans, Andalusians, Castillians, Basques, Provençals, Bretons, Normandy French, Italian Swiss, Bavarians, Schwabians, Thuringians, Western Flemings, Eastern Flemings, Friesians, Danes, Pomeranians, Lithuanians, Norwegians, Catholic Irish, Ulstermen, Highland Scots, Lowland Scots, Welch, Midlands English, Yorkshire English,” and so on and so forth. Concede the other side’s claim that the white race doesn’t exist but is only a social construct, then speak only in terms of every single individual sub-race of the caucasian race as a separate ethnic group, call it white or call it what you will, having the right of self-preservation as an ethnic group the same as any other ethnic group. “White race? Sorry, pal—never heard of ’em. Hey I don’t think any such thing even exists. All I know is I’m a _______ [insert “Bulgarian,” “Iranian,” “East Prussian,” “Jew,” “Alsatian,” “Icelander,” “Tajik,” “Armenian,” etc.] and I damn well intend to defend my ethnic group against extinction at the hands of those who just can’t STAND it, and want to wipe it out!”
Forget the term “white race” completely. How could the foaming-at-the-mouth leftist white-Euro-Christian-race haters possibly respond to that?
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.