February, 2006

Coming Monday: When Does Inequality Matter?

Check in Monday morning for a new lead essay on “When Does Inequality Matter?” by David Schmidtz, Professor of Philosophy and joint Professor of Economics at the University of Arizona and author of the newly released Elements of Justice.
And stay tuned over the course of the next two weeks for reaction essays and blog commentary [...]

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Best of the Blogs: Old Europe Roundup

This month’s “Old Europe” issue inspired loads of high-quality online comment. Let’s take a look!

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European Identity: A Work in Progress

by Charles Kupchan

February 21st, 2006

I would like to associate myself with the perspective on multiculturalism offered by Professor Smith. I think he presents a sensible and reasoned definition of the term and how it works in practice.
I would also warn against primordial conceptions of Europe’s traditional nation-states—those holding that Europeans have a far less malleable and open notion [...]

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It Takes Capitalism to Have Socialism

I am afraid that Dr. Dalrymple exaggerates. The type of “multiculturalism” he criticizes reminds me of the far-left’s critique of capitalism. Yes, there are abuses within any large process, such as capitalism, but by focusing on them we miss the big picture. Surely what Dr. Dalrymple describes is grounded in fact, and such violations of [...]

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Multiculturalism is Marvelous for Restaurants

by Theodore Dalrymple

February 21st, 2006

I think Prof. Smith underestimates some of the difficulties of multiculturalism in the European context at any rate. No one is suggesting that people who come to European countries should forget where they come from, eat the same food as the people who are already present there, and in short should make themselves exactly identical [...]

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Integration and Wounded Pride

by Anne Applebaum

February 19th, 2006

I’m sure Dr. Dalyrymple is right about work being the best possible way to integrate foreigners. I can well imagine that much of the tolerance for immigrants that America prides itself on would evaporate pretty rapidly in the case of a severe recession here too.
But I’d like to return to another, not unrelated point, which [...]

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Integration and “Savage Liberalism”

by Theodore Dalrymple

February 17th, 2006

As the descendent of a long line of refugees, I cannot be against immigration—though common sense suggests that some immigrants may be easier to integrate successfully than others.
My mother arrived in Britain penniless, but fortunately for her—and for Britain—no one sought to persuade her that she need not learn English, and no one set up [...]

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There is Multiculturalism and Then There is Multiculturalism

There is multiculturalism and then there is multiculturalism. The type alluded to by Theodore Dalrymple is of course an extreme example. I’m not sure if I’m aware of anyone getting stoned in Canada.
But back to multiculturalism. In the Canadian definition, multiculturalism simply means that we celebrate our ethnic diversity, we welcome immigrants with open arms, [...]

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Mutlticulturalism or Assimilation?

by Anne Applebaum

February 16th, 2006

To all,
I’m not sure what is meant here by “multiculturalism.” The current American definition of the word—as used in academia for example—is the opposite of the traditional melting pot: multiculturalism means there is no “dominant” culture; there is no one definition of America or American to which all immigrants try to adhere; there [...]

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If Not Multiculturalism, What?

by Charles Kupchan

February 16th, 2006

If Dr. Dalrymple is uncomfortable with the notion of multiculturalism, then how would he propose to deal with the social and political tensions associated with Muslim immigration to Europe? Would he simply close the door to immigrants? Would he argue against trying to integrate them into the mainstream? If Europe fails to [...]

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Kicking off the Conversation: Dalrymple’s Response

by Theodore Dalrymple

February 15th, 2006

I am grateful to all three respondents.
I agree with Anne Applebaum that fear of America acts as a blind to real challenges coming from the east—including that of dependence on Russia for energy, of course. This is particularly dangerous in the light of our military unpreparedness. The challenge of India and China is, among several [...]

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Reply to Dalrymple

by Anne Applebaum

February 12th, 2006

In her reply to Dalyrmple’s lead essay, the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum lists “three factors which could, over the next decade, help reverse Europe’s course.” Market-friendly leaders, “an acknowledgment of the possibilities presented by the new members of the European Union”, and ditching “their increasingly bizarre obsession with the evil United States,” would, Applebaum argues, go a long way to “help Europe escape its current economic and psychological slump.”

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Reply to Dalrymple

by Charles Kupchan

February 10th, 2006

Disagreeing sharply with Theodore Dalrymple’s grim diagnosis, Georgetown University international affairs professor and Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Charles Kupchan maintains that “it is simply not the case that the continent is populated primarily by sclerotic, dysfunctional economies on their last gasp.” However, Kupchan argues that Dalrymple’s essay “considerably underestimates . . . the challenge of integrating Muslim immigrants into European society.” The Paris riots and the Danish cartoon imbroglio demonstrate that Europe has “embraced multiculturalism in fact, but not yet in spirit.”

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Reply to Dalrymple

According to historian Timothy Smith, author of France in Crisis, the main problem of Old Europe is that overregulated labor markets, alleged to “humanize” capitalism and promote “solidarity,” instead work to consolidate economic privileges for tenured labor unionists and state employees, and exclude broad swathes of the population, especially immigrants, from the work force. Smith is careful to distinguish the relative stagnation of France, Germany, and Italy from their more successful Scandanavian counterparts, and argues against Dalrymple that the U.K. is really in pretty good shape.

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Is “Old Europe” Doomed?

by Theodore Dalrymple

February 6th, 2006

Old Europe may not be doomed, though it is “sleepwalking to further relative decline,” says Theodore Dalrymple. “The principle motor of Europe’s current decline is,” he argues, “its obsession with social security.” If Europe is to have a fighting chance, it must overcome a politics in which “personal and sectional interest has become all-powerful” and “the goal of everyone is to parasitize everyone else.”

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Monday: Dalrymple on the Fate of “Old Europe”

Denis Dutton, editor of Arts and Letters Daily, has called Theodore Dalrymple “a writer of genius: lucid, unsentimental, and profoundly honest . . . one of the great essayists of our age.”
This Monday, Dalrymple will kick off the new issue of Cato Unbound with an essay that asks and answers the urgent question: [...]

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