Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnThe Other Face ofrnMulticulturahsmrn”The values of the weak prevail,” wroternFriedrich Nietzsche, “because the strongrnhave taken them over as devices of leadership.”rnThis brief and rather crvqatic remarkrncontains virtually all we need tornknow about why contemporary movementsrnlike multiculturahsm, feminism,rnhomosexualism, and anh-white racismrnare such powerful trends in modernrnAmerican and other Western sociehes.rnIt is easy enough to say that these movementsrnare merely the revolt of Nietzsche’srnUntermenschen and the naturalrnconsequence of mass democracy andrncivilizational decline. But what Nietzscherngrasped that many modern conservatives,rnwho dislike Nietzsche almost asrnmuch as Karl Marx and Hillary Clinton,rndon’t grasp is that what looks like decline,rndecadence, and decay to conservativesrnappears to the champions of suchrntrends as progress and the birth of a newrncivilization. Because conser’atives oftenrnfail to understand this, they perceive anrnapocalyptic collapse into anarchy andrndisorder where there is only an emergingrnstructure of alternative power. Thernstrong—those who like and want to usernpower—make use of unfashionable andrnforbidden ideas to gain power for themselves.rnInsofar as they are successful, thernresults do represent the decline of thernkind of social and political order thatrnconservatives are disposed to defend, butrnthat does not mean that some sort of orderrnis not at the same moment about tornlurch forth from the apparent chaos.rnMulticulturahsm, for example, is lessrnthe result of ignorance and uninformedrnfantasies than a deliberate device byrnwhich the power-hungry can subvert arnculture, whose moral codes deny themrnpower, and build an alternative culturernwhose different moral codes yield powerrnfor themselves and none for their rivals.rnMuch of the multiculturalist agenda thatrntoday rots the minds of children and studentsrnfrom daycare centers to the postgraduaternlevel of education and researchrnin fact originates in an important but little-rnknown organization that calls itselfrnthe National Association for MulticulturalrnEducation, or NAME. Every vearrnNAME holds a convention that is attendedrnby more or less innocent butrnnonetheless power-hungry educators —rnnot only teachers but also school administrators,rnsuperintendents, and educationrnprofessors—as well as by an inner circlernof what can be described only as the professionalrnnucleus from which most of thernnutty concepts of applied multiculturalismrnderive.rnThis past year the NAME folks convenedrnin Albuquerque, New Mexico—arnsuitably obscure location for plotting thernsubversion of civilization —and woverntheir many-tangled webs. The 600 attendeesrnspent their time in seminars withrntides like “Power Consciousness: UnderstandingrnEducator Power in the Classroom,”rn”Building Race Unity,” “RacialrnIdentity, Jungle Fever, and the Politics ofrnInterracial Relations,” “Enhancing Diversityrnfrom Self to Others,” “ChallengingrnCultural and Educational Hegemony,”rnand “Educating for Equity andrnExcellence: A Challenge for BlackrnLearners to Use Anger as a Catalyst.”rnThere were at least two keynote addresses,rnone of which was delivered by PeterrnMcLaren of the University of Californiarnat Los Angeles and entided “Towards arnRevolutionary Multiculturahsm,” andrnanother, by Ward Churchill of the Universityrnof Colorado at Boulder, calledrn”Assimilation or Liberation? Crossroadsrnfor Multiculturalist Theon,-.” Essentiallyrnwhat NAME and similar organizationsrndo is transmit multiculturalist doctrine tornthe general run of dim-witted schoolrnteachers, show them how to apply it inrnclassrooms, defend it against angry parentsrnand skeptical community leaders,rnand construct a national cadre throughrnwhich their will to power may blossom.rnIn a statement of “NAME’s philosophy,”rnthe organization tells us thatrn”Xenophobia, discrimination, racism,rnclassism, sexism, and homophobia arernsocietal phenomena that are inconsistentrnwith the principles of democracyrnand lead to the counterproductive reasoningrnthat differences are deficiencies.”rnThe premises of that statement, ofrncourse, are that the social institutionsrnand identities —the “phobias” andrn”isms” listed—that define a particular orderrnare (a) pathologies (hence the pseudo-rnpsychiatric nomenclature) and (b)rnundemocratic. The implicit meaning ofrn”democracy” in the statement is perhapsrnnot what most Americans understand byrnthe term, nor for that matter are most ofrnthe phobias and “isms” mentioned of therntruly anti-social variety. The statementrnalso says that NAME “rejects the viewrnthat diversity threatens the fabric of a society.”rnBut in enunciating such disclaimersrnthe organization, like the multiculturalist,rnwears hvo faces. One face tells us thatrnAmerican society is imbued with exclusionaryrnand repressive pathologies andrncalls for the extirpation of the basicrnmechanisms by which the pathologiesrnand repression are sustained; the meansrnto extirpate them is the enhancement ofrn”diversity” and the challenging of therndominant institutional categories that inrneffect define the social order. The otherrnface denies any such goal and assures usrnthat diversity is no threat at all. Pointingrnto this contradiction is important, not sornmuch to expose and refute the muddledrnthinking of the multiculturalist mafia,rnbut rather to make clear the tactics byrnwhich this mafia seeks power.rnMulticulturahsm is entirely correct inrnone of its major premises, that Americanrnsociety or any other kind of social orderrndefines itself by the exclusion or subordinationrnof some kinds of beliefs andrnbehaviors, and therefore also the partialrnexclusion of those groups tliat are culturallyrnwedded to them. A moment’s reflectionrnshows that this is universally true,rnthat the pagan Roman Empire or Christianrnmedieval monarchies could notrnhave been the kind of societies they werernhad they not excluded and repressed alternativernbeliefs and groups that did notrnshare their identity. In the United States,rnwhere Americans have historically boastedrnof their tolerance and openness, thernprocesses of exclusion and repressionrnhave generally been lacking in the formalrnapparatus of the state, and the absencernof state action against social deviancernhas enticed many Americans intornbelieving that those processes don’t exist,rnthat America is a unique and exceptionalrnsociety that defines itself by its tolerancernand “openness.”rnThe fact is that American society, inrnpart because of the weakness of its nationalrnstate throughout its history, has re-rn32/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn