How a speaker defines a buzzword can expose his fundamental belief.
The dictionary definitions of multiculturalism differ significantly demonstrating that the word is an amorphous term, one with no clear meaning, which allows it to mean different things to different audiences. In other words, the term multiculturalism can be loaded with emotion or stripped of such; it can stand for something noble or ignoble, or; it can be used for truth or untruth.
The Oxford Dictionary gives a mostly dispassionate definition devoid of most political or social commentary defining the term as: “The presence of, or support for the presence of, several distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society.” Straightforward and why I use Oxford most often.
Take the Macmillan Dictionary meaning and you’ll notice it is a values-loaded definition: “The belief and practice of giving equal importance to each of the different cultures in a society.” Ah, with Macmillan you must accept the term as a positive unless of course you adhere to the idea that some cultures are superior to others which, by the way, is demonstrably true but an untenable position to the Left.
The popular WordNet gives up the Left’s deepest and most sincere meaning of multiculturalism with this definition: “The doctrine that several different cultures (rather than one national culture) can co-exist peacefully and equitably in a single country.” It is that parenthetical phrase “rather than one national culture” that gives it away. (It is hardly a “single country” if it doesn’t have a shared national culture.)
Oxford gives a non-loaded definition but the definitions in the Collins, Cambridge, Your Dictionary, and a host of others present the term as values-laden in a manner that makes you seem a troglodyte if you question utopian-style ideals.
One good practice for thinking people is to ask those making a political point by using buzzwords to stop and clearly define the meaning of such voguish terms. Often this alone can expose the bedrock philosophy of the arguer leaving it shivering and naked and without the sophist’s clothing used to mislead.
Multiculturalism seeks the inclusion of the views and contributions of diverse members of society while maintaining respect for their differences and withholding the demand for their assimilation into the dominant culture. Multiculturalism stands as a challenge to liberal democracy.
Yes, partly, and one cannot have a republic run by democratic means if huge sectors of the society refuse to recognize legitimacy of laws and norms they do not like because of their insistence on non-assimilation. I do not agree that, as a movement, multi-culti actually seeks to include diverse views. In practice it seems to seek only views that are critical or condemnatory of the “other” that it often wrongly identifies a “dominant” or oppressor culture or faction.