One of the more interestingly problematic characters in contemporary SF is John Ringo. As the blogger over at Aliens in This World put it, “John Ringo is an odd bird, even by comparison to the normal oddness of science fiction writers. Ringo can write really really good, bad, and creepily-unwholesome-I-need-a-shower books. Often inside the same cover.” That captures it quite well, I think—particularly the way Ringo so often juxtaposes things I really appreciate with things I really don’t. He has in some ways a very perceptive eye, but a deeply flawed worldview underlying it, which makes him one of the few people I’ve run across (along with Ann Coulter) who can articulate conservative conclusions in such a way as to make me react like a liberal. This all is probably why the only books of Ringo’s I really like are the Prince Roger/Empire of Man series he’s co-writing with David Weber. (IMHO, they fill in each other’s weaknesses quite nicely.)As I say, though, he does have a good eye, and little tolerance for nonsense (he’d use a much more pungent word there, of course, having a rather rough tongue), virtues which are often promiscuously on display in his work—along with his pronounced animus against received pieties of any kind. That animus can color and distort his perception, but at times, it can also inform and strengthen it; when it does, the attacks he unleashes can be devastating.One good example comes from the fifth chapter of his latest project, a novel titled The Last Centurion, in which he takes a swing at multiculturalism. The novel is set in the future, but the examples on which he draws are from this decade, including this one:
Group in one of the most pre-Plague diverse neighborhoods in the U.S. wanted to build a play-area for their kids in the local park. They’d established a “multicultural neighborhood committee” of “the entire rainbow.” . . . There were, indeed, little brown brothers and yellow and black. But . . . Sikhs and Moslems can barely bring themselves to spit on each other much less work side by side singing “Kumbaya.” . . .The Hindus were willing to contribute some suggestions and a little money, but the other Hindus would have to do the work. What other Hindus? Oh, those people. And they would have to hand the money to the kumbaya guys both because handing it to the other Hindus would be defiling and because, of course, it would just disappear. . . .When they actually got to work, finally, there were some little black brothers helping. Then a different group of little black brothers turned out and sat on the sidelines shouting suggestions until the first group left. Then the “help” left as well. Christian animists might soil their hands for a community project but not if they’re getting [flak] from Islamics.
Now, maybe that sounds unfair to you; but if so, check out this piece (among others) by Theodore Dalrymple, based on his extensive experience working as a doctor in one of Britain’s immigrant slums. I won’t cite any of his stories—you can read them yourself; be warned, they aren’t pleasant—but I can tell you the conclusion to which they’ve led him:
Not all cultural values are compatible or can be reconciled by the enunciation of platitudes. The idea that we can all rub along together, without the law having to discriminate in favor of one set of cultural values rather than another, is worse than merely false: it makes no sense whatever.
The problem here is the unexamined assumption that “the intolerance against which [multiculturalism] is supposedly the sovereign remedy is a characteristic only of the host society,” and thus that if those of us who belong to the dominant culture would just set aside our idea of our own superiority, then all the problems would go away. Unfortunately, life isn’t like that. For one thing, this rests on the essentially racist assumption that all “those people who are different from us” are really all alike and thus all on the same side; but it ain’t necessarily so. To be sure, this assumption isn’t only made by white folks. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assumed that Hispanic immigrants would ally themselves with American blacks, and thus supported loosening immigration laws; Jesse Jackson assumed the same, which is why he proclaimed the “Rainbow Coalition.” As Stephen Malanga writes, though, it hasn’t worked out that way.More seriously, it isn’t only Western culture that is plagued by intolerance, hatred, violence, and other forms of human evil; other cultures have their own problems, too. As Dalrymple writes, “many aspects of the cultures which they are trying to preserve are incompatible not only with the mores of a liberal democracy but with its juridical and philosophical foundations. No amount of hand-wringing or euphemism can alter this fact.” Nor will any number of appeals to the better angels of our nature; human sin is a cross-cultural reality.Does this mean multiculturalism is hopeless? No, but it means it cannot be accomplished politically. If the divisions between people, and between groups of people, are to be healed, there must be another way; and by the grace of God, there is. It’s the way incarnated in the ministry of the Church of All Nations, a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in Minneapolis which is founded and pastored by the Rev. Jin S. Kim. It’s the way that says that our divisions cannot be erased by human effort, but only by the work of the Spirit of God—and that we as Christians have to be committed to giving ourselves to that work. We can’t make it happen, but we need to do our part to be open to God making it happen. This is the vision God has given us to live toward:“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number,
from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes,
with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,
‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’
And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders
and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne
and worshiped God, saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving
and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.’”—Revelation 7:9-12 (ESV)