The truth might offend someone…
But there are other threats to Europe. The miserabilist view of the European past, in which achievement on a truly stupendous scale is disregarded in favor of massacre, oppression and injustice, deprives the population of any sense of pride or tradition to which it might contribute or which might be worth preserving. This loss of cultural confidence is particularly important at a time of mass immigration from very alien cultures, an immigration that can be successfully negotiated (as it has been in the past, or in the United States up to the era of multiculturalism) only if the host nations believe themselves to be the bearers of cultures into which immigrants wish, or ought to wish, to integrate, assimilate, and make their own.
In the absence of any such belief, there is a risk that the only way in which people inhabiting a country will have anything in common is geographical; and civil conflict is the method in which they will resolve their very different and entrenched conceptions about the way life should be lived. This is particularly true when immigrants are in possession, as they believe, of a unique and universal truth, such as Islam in its various forms often claims to be. If the host nation is so lacking in cultural confidence that it does not even make familiarity with the national language a condition of citizenship (as has been until recently the case in Great Britain), it is hardly surprising that integration does not proceed very far.
Is “Old Europe” Doomed? by Theodore Dalrymple
Reading this story, about schools in England dropping classes about the holocaust and about the crusades "for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial [... history lessons about the crusades are ] often contradict what is taught in local mosques." , making Dalrymple’s argument painfully clear. The willingness to give up on academic and cultural standards so some segment of the population, a new comer mainly, will not be offended is one of the most eminent evidence of the decline of Europe.
It is however, as my wife wistfully pointed out, maybe a trigger to change of approach among Europeans. The inability of some public schools to teach western history without fearing to offend someone might push parents to demand more choice in schools selections. While I don’t think that the state has the right to force someone to learn about the crusades, or the holocaust, in a way that might offend them (although I think that it would be better for them if they would), I don’t think that the state has the right not to teach these subjects. Since education is not only a simple transition of knowledge, but mainly a method to bestow values - it is has to be the right of the parents where and what education their children will receive.
Is incidents like this will further Europe’s decline or will make its citizens to push back and fight for their culture? It is very hard to tell. I’m not very optimistic.
Tags: Europe Education Western Culture Politically Correct
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