Crusoe’s place, they would have begun by indoctrinating Fridayrninto the theory of class struggle and ended by having him forrnbreakfast. Shakespeare, by contrast, understands human weakness,rnand he holds out hope even for the savage Caliban, oncernhe comes to his senses and realizes that, in following a butler insteadrnof a duke, he was “an ass . . . to take this drunkard for arngod.” Prospero himself, who has perhaps relied too much onrnfairy spirits for his own good, assures us in the last lines of thernplay, thatrn. .. my ending is despairrnUnless I be relieved by prayerrnWliich pierces so that it assaultsrnMercy itself and frees all faults.rnAs you from crimes would pardon’d bernLet your indulgence set me free.rnIn this conventional appeal for applause, Shakespeare has insertedrnthe central insight of Christian morality, an enduringrnchallenge to the poisonous lies of Europhobia and of the fiihlernresponse mounted by those who are as alienated as any Aztecrnfrom the civilization of Shakespeare.rnGo to www.ChroniclesMagazine.org to find an e-text of ThernTempest and send your comments to our readers’ forum onrnShakespeare v. Montaigne, part of Chronicles’ lifetime programrnin self-education. crnCrazy Agnesrnby Donald CarlsonrnShe lifts her finger to the passing world.rnPathetic! Her wits have come unfurled.rnLove of Jesus, can’t anything be done?rnWe wonder why they let her carry on.rnEach day as decent folk drive by, alarmed.rnShe waves that bony digit like a spellrnTo penetrate the shiny molded shellrnThat lets us pass, at any rate, unharmed.rnShe curses at the plant across the road.rnWhere management drives hard with Satan’s goad.rnAt night six devils creep into her roomrnTo pinch and nibble at her in the gloom.rnWe know these visits come because she’s odd.rnShe couldn’t really be a lamb of God.rnDICTATIONSrnDiffr’nt Strokes Move the WorldrnWe are so used to living with meaningless expressionsrnthat we iiardly notice when new absurditiesrnare foisted upon us. “Multicultural” is supposedrnto suggest openi icss to diflferent cultures. But since each culture,rnto the extent that it is distinctive, is unique, to be proj>rncrly “multicultural,” would be the intellectual equivalent ofrnbeing in a dozen phKf.>> at the same time. The real object ofrnall multicultural education is to deprive its American andrnEuropean victims of cery last shred and tatter of their ownrncultural backgrourui and render them members of an “acultural”rnproletariat.rn”Diversity” is C-VCMI more absurd. In a society that encouragedrndiversity, tlie government would simply leave everyonernalone to pursue his own tastes according to the culture inrnw hich he was born and bred. But the proponents of diversityrnarc not at all interested in such a laissez-faire approach.rnHie cult of “diversity” has only one objective: to replacernChristendom with a uniform “world” culture, which (likern”world music”) borrows a few rags and tatters of conflictingrncultural traditions and stitches them, as brightly coloredrnpatches, into the gigantic plastic tarp that will cover thernglobe and smother every cultural tradition “from China tornPeni.”rnThe true meaning of “diversity” (“the condition of beingrnunlike,” as the OED defines it) is revealed by tlie word itself,rnwl’iich is derived from I ,atin diversus (opposed, different),rnthe participle oidiverto (to turn against or away from something),rnl l ie closely related “perversity” (from l^atin perverto,rnto turn away from what is right) would do as well, if it did notrnsuggest there are stauihirds of right and wrong. Those whornwant to turn away from their own culture and who spendrntheir lives opposing its fundamental assumptions have foundrnthe perfect word to sum up their cultural self-hatred.rnFor over 20 years, diversity has been a code word for tliernintolerant toleration that sailed, for a time, under the flag ofrn”|)olitical correi’luess.” Rene Dubos, tlie ecological globalistrnwho gave ns the pernicious phrase “think globally, act locally”rn(translation: think globally and work to subordinaternyour hometown to flic global culture), summed up tiie totalitarianrnessence of diersi{y: “Human diversity makes tolerancernmore than a irtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.”rnWhile there arc people whose manners (suchrnpractices as cannibalism, incest, drug use, rape, human .sacrifice.)rnoffend riiose of us who have been brought up in thernWestern tradition, it is up to the West to hold its nose andrnrefiise to pass judgiuerif. What Dubos meant, of course, wasrnthat the West could rcujain Western only up to the pointrnfliat it implied no value-judgment against anything non-rnWestern, which is to be not VVestem at all.rn— Humpty Dumptyrn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn