Multi-culturalism boon or bane?

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I'm not excusing anything; I certainly think a lot of the generalizations and conclusions drawn from some isolated instances about other cultures are absurd. I'm just saying, call a spade a spade, and not a rake. (Unless I'm mistaken, GM, you were taking a similar path when you retracted "racist" in favour of "xenophobic." Particularly since "racist" is about the most inflammatory slur that can be thrown currently in the political scene (at least in the US, not sure about the UK), we should be careful to only use it when it is accurate. Using such charged language indiscriminately against opponents is a standard tactic to silence discussion and impose an oppressive hegemony of thought. It's the tactic I object to, not the disagreement with inked.

Trying to discredit my point, by assuming that because I objected the rhetoric over inked's posts, I therefore agree with him (IMO, most of them are wrong, some are absurd, and many don't even really belong in this thread), also does nothing to help discussion, and leaves no room for anything except toeing a particular line. Not helpful. Meaningful discourse can only occur when we distinguish between different issues and ideas, rather than just lumping everything without distinction into either "mainstream moderate" or "conservative extremist."

Apologies. I didn't mean to say that you intended to excuse his racism. My point is that the unintended consequence of the semantics argument is to excuse his racism.

Deep down, there is no difference between xenophobia and racism. Nobody goes around saying "I'm a racist". Yet they exist. We all have the potential within us. It is our duty to, as you say, call a spade a spade, even if it is the worst thing to call someone.

Because if we don't, they will populate the discourse with their agenda. Oops, too late.