The university increasingly teaches that ethnic, sexual and cultural identities supercede--even trump--all other considerations. This multicultural ideal, springing from a postmodern mindset, has even challenged of our philosophy of knowing (epistemology): knowledge is seen by many exclusively as group-specific, culturecentric phenomenon, leaving no room for transcendant ideals that apply to all people of all cultures. You have to be a group member to know.
How did American society change from the proverbial melting pot (where all cultures supposedly blended into a new whole) to pluralism (which maintained cultural distinctives, but remained responsible for the society at large) to multiculturalism? What philosophical assumptions underpin multiculturalism and what fruit are they bearing? Has political correctness (the institutional and lingual outworking of multiculturalism's tenets) become an emancipator or a jailkeeper? And finally, what is a Christian response to multiculturalism? We touch on these issues in our special focus.
—Leadership University Editor/Webmaster, Byron Barlowe
Indoctrination 101: Professor lifts the veil on the radical takeover of liberal arts classrooms and curriculum Anonymous An English professor blows the whistle on the invasion of the "soft" disciplines by multicultural "barbarians" propounding "porno-Marxism." She warns parents and students, offering some hope for change.
Jews in Multicultural America Alan L. Mittleman Where do the Jews fit into multicultural America? Where did they fit into pluralistic America? Answering these questions involves distinguishing between pluralism and multiculturalism as well as determining what it means to move from one to the other. "A vacuum has sucked all the pieces of stained glass out of the window of American pluralism. Multiculturalism is the attempt to reassemble them without, as it were, a surrounding frame."
Academic icon exposed: But the academy rushes to her defense Gene Edward Veith When a Stanford grad student exposed the myths associated with 1992 Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchu's life story, he encountered an academic cadre whose members villified him as "truthteller." It seems that one of multiuculturalism's best examples needed preservation, no matter the falsity of her claims.
Attention Must Be Paid Edward T. Oakes A review of Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition." An Essay by Charles Taylor with commentary by Amy Gutmann (Editor), Steven C. Rockefeller, Michael Walzer, and Susan Wolf.
Christianity and Culture Jerry Solomon The Christian is encouraged to become a transformer of culture as he seeks to glorify God in all of life.
Babel Undone Richard J. Mouw Richard J. Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, analyzes the outworkings of postmodernity--in all its schizophrenia. Further, he relates the confusion of today's culture to Babel, while pointing to Pentecost as a healing multiculturalism.
Go here to see our past Special Focus features.