"You're defending bigots?", someone will ask incredulously. No, we have not. "But look at all the harm the refusal to accept others has caused. Given this, would you say that exclusion is a good thing or would you have to admit that it is a bad thing". This, we would say, is like asking, "Are intestinal bacteria harmful or beneficial?". If you've had Biology 100, you know what a silly question that would be. One can't live without those bacteria, but if they escape through a rupture in the intestines, the resulting peritonitis can kill. So, a simple "harmful or beneficial" answer would miss the point. They are beneficial in their place, and harmful out of it. The rational reaction to this reality is not to conclude that their potential to do harm makes them evil and try to eradicate them on that basis (and thus, kill the patient), but to try to make sure that they find the right place to be and remain there.

As with the cells within the body, so with individuals within the body of society. The question of whether separatism is good or bad is rooted in this same illusion, that something (or someone) is either good or bad, independently of the context in which it (or he) is found. In the context of other societies, we have no trouble seeing that it is in the less cosmopolitan areas of a country that its traditions are best preserved. If one wants to see the "real" Mexico, one doesn't go to Mexico City, one goes to San Andres Cohamiata. The same principle applies to Western cultures.

As little as we may enjoy the company of a traditional Georgia cracker, he serves just as essential a role in the scheme of things as we do. In scaring off foreign influences from his community (and foreigners, for that matter), he maintains it as a reservoir of traditions for his own culture. Within such places, the preservation of the integrity of traditional cultures can be done in a spontaneous, unforced fashion. Outside of such places, the process requires a little more self-consciousness, and is never as effective.

So, if he keeps himself and his attitudes at home, there is no problem, we can accept him as a person and can talk things over with him if he wishes. Should, however, he attempt to spread those attitudes into the places where the cultures meet (eg. some parts of the major cities) or into places where cultures other than his are the local ones (ie. if he should pursue those whose company he rejects) into their own homes, that is harassment, and in engaging in it, he shows us there that would be no sense in trying to discuss matters with him.

But how could be accept local intolerance and yet prize global diversity, as we must, if we are to value the preservation of tradition?

Our more "progressive" crusaders for a universal brotherhood of man would tend to acknowledge that there is great value in the interaction between different cultures. Without it, a culture tends to stagnate, as there is no outside world effectively present for it, to present a point of reference when its own trends turn unwholesome, and as a new source of ideas, when its people have become too set in their ways to be truly creative or open minded. But, for such an interaction to occur, there must be more than one culture in existence. If we move toward the ill-conceived notion of the global village, that diversity is what we are casting away.

A point to remember is that someone we habitually despise in what seems a first glance to be a perfectly reasonable fashion, and remains so even after a lengthy consideration, is eventually seen to play an indispensible role. The answer isn't to cast people away or try to browbeat them into pretending that they're something they're not, and never could be. The answer is to try to find a place in the existing order where their quirks are beneficial, instead of destructive. For this reason, we exercise great restraint in casting people away and make an effort to forgive their frailties. You never know when those frailties will be needed.

One might also add, that the principle of limited egalitarianism applies on more than one level. In promoting the creation of a multicultural environment (or, at least what he expects will be one), our champion of universal diversity has acted to create an environment that suits his tastes and meets his needs. By seeking to deny another the freedom to do likewise, and maybe travelling long distances to do so, he seeks, thus, to deny another a right that he has claimed for himself. In doing so, he erects a double standard (1).

So, as usual, what the world needs to be saved from, more than anything else, are the good intentions of those who would try to save it. Let's try to find the wisdom to see that we don't have the wisdom needed to remake the world, according to our own conception. Instead, let us be satisfied with undoing the damage others have done of late, and of changing it carefully and in small steps.

. Comment: "That doesn't seem to be a very religious attitude."

....... Reply: Then perhaps you need to find a new definition for religion.

... Question : "How so?"

..... Answer: Click here

Or, click here to simply continue.