Some will actually defend this type of rhetorical behavior, claiming it to be absolutely proper. The rationalisation is that the victim 'chose' to let himself be manipulated. This glosses over the question of how free a choice is, when someone's view of reality has been distorted. It hearkens back to the notion fashionable in the 1980s that it is morally acceptable to take advantage of another's gullibility, because the victim was stupid to allow himself to be taken advantage of.

In arguing thusly, what sort of ethical code does one express?

Would some say that the one manipulated was stupid? So, what if he was? What sort of person would one have to be, to really view another's poor judgement as an opportunity to advance one's interests rather than as a reason to watch out for the interests and true desires of the one who, however impaired his judgement may be, ever remains a person, with needs and rights of his own? How pompous would one need to be to imagine that, if this conduct were to become commonly accepted, that he would never encounter someone who would do to him, what he had granted himself the right to do to others? Such an absence of moral value would make life needlessly, and sometimes even brutally repressive, and ultimately dangerous for all experiencing it, as it became entrenched. In a society in which "caveat emptor" has been offered as an excuse for the reckless endangerment of customers through the sale of unsafe products, employees through unsafe working conditions, even the patients of physicians who enroll them in drug trials without their knowledge or consent - we can see through the horrors of our own history how readily this may come to pass.

In judging our own actions, we must look past the surface appearance of what it is that we are doing. We must consider which values we affirm through our actions, and what the consequences of the acceptance of those values would be. It is human nature, to tend to act as seems customary, and what is custom but an understanding coming out of the memory of the past actions of the others around us?

(Some among us should pay more attention to the things they endorse. People are often seem shocked, when they awaken to the reality of what it is that they've actually said, sometimes as nothing more than a reflex.)

This attitude is not to be endorsed through our words or our actions. The replacement of overt hostility with passive aggression does not lift one to a higher moral plane. As some replace the hostile intolerance of nativism with the illusory gentleness of assimilationism, they become guilty of just that. Their actions serve to reinforce this sort of behavior, as a social expectation, as they practice it, on a certain level.

If it seems overdramatic to, as some would dismissively term this, compare the loss of a few nice recipes with that of a hand in an easily preventable factory accident, I would point out that there is more to a culture than its aesthetic preferences. There is a set of mores. There is, in a healthy culture, a system of interlocking human relationships giving cohesion to its society, and an underlying philosophy, ever evolving, that gives enough structure to social interaction to create a stable and nourishing environment for those relationships to grow in. A culture is not merely a set of recipes, a few poems, and a national garb. It is an all encompassing way of life that gives meaning to what would otherwise be a drably mechanical existence, spent coping with the soulless viciousness of the most belligerent among us. It is a font of common experience, through which we may link to each other in an unforced way, on more than a surface level.

And, one might add, it is that which, in helping us to connect to each other on an emotional level, promotes the sort of empathy, that leads us away from the predatory mentality mentioned in the passage above. A traditional culture's preservation, and continued development is not merely a reason to oppose the harmful practice described, but often provides us with a remedy for the societal ill that the practice reflects.

The subculture of assimilation that we are often pressured to become one with, has a blood soaked history at home and abroad, offers little in the way of meaningful individual freedom, and has a lengthy track record of ghastly mistreatment of those unfortunate enough to live under its domination. It isolates people, and allows those in a position of power to prey on them piecemeal. A healthy culture will bring them together in those networks of mutual compassion and support, through one may have the opportunity to find the breadth of experience needed to live a truly full life.

What we are offered is a culture that for these, and a wealth of other reasons, we have no respect for, no desire to promote, and no willingness to join.

Let's return.