OPINION:
What if I told you that nothing happening in Europe should surprise you? What if I said the chaos in Paris, Milan and London was inevitable, that multiple political scholars and noted theologians have warned of this social collapse for decades and that they even identified its cause?
What if I said the root and branch of everything that ails us right now is multiculturalism and that Jesus himself even told us so?
Before we get into all the warnings that we have ignored about Western civilization’s collapse, let us first define our terms, starting with the root word of multiculturalism, “cult.”
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The word “culture” comes from the Latin noun “cultus,” which derives from the verb “colere.” These are agrarian terms describing how rural people cared for the land and looked after it. Thus, to “cultivate” a field meant to plow it, plant the seeds and, ultimately, reap a harvest of a desired crop. Likewise, a farmer was called a “colonus” or “cultivator,” and a farm was called a “cultura” or colony.
This orderly, focused work of “cultivating” produced “cults” or “colonies.” In other words, cities and states grew up around such activity: “Cultivated” fields led to “cultured” communities.
As fields with orderly, parallel rows produced predictable food, so did the “culture” of each town and village produce a shared, orderly morality and ethical life among its people. The concepts of “tilling the soil” and “tilling the mind” were understood to go hand in hand.
To be “cultured” meant being educated in the values, religion and ideals of one’s own people, tribe, family or “cult”; to “cultivate” the soul through proper ritual, behavior and respect for God.
By and large, the pejorative definition of “cult” did not emerge until the early 20th century. It then came to mean a small, dangerous or heterodox religious group. These negative associations developed largely in American literature, apologetics and sociology in the early 20th century.
Evidence of this later evolution appears in older books on Christianity and religion, where “cult” often retains its neutral meaning. The cult of the saints, for example, is not nefarious at all. It simply refers to the veneration of the faithful, without any sinister implication of deviant or heretical practice and belief.
So the point is simple. It was not until the past 100 years or so that the word “cult” took on a negative meaning. Until then, people assumed nations and states were healthier and longer-lived if they shared a common “cult” or culture. Monoculturalism was better than multiculturalism, and homogeneity better than heterogeneity. People rightly thought every country, town and village needed a common glue to hold it together; otherwise, it would fall apart and fail.
Now, we come to the chaos in France, Britain and, yes, even here in America, in cities such as Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and St. Paul. Why is this all happening? The cause is clear: our foolish experiment with multiculturalism.
Neo-multiculturalism, by definition, emphasizes diversity over unity. It thrives on division rather than common cause. This worldview is the opposite of a “melting pot” of shared values. Its agenda of intersectionality is one of class warfare: us against them, you against me, Black against White, man against woman, Gentile against Jew, and Muslims against the entire world.
Multiculturalism’s goal is not assimilation. It seeks only to divide and conquer. It is the solvent that degrades the glue — the “cult” that once bound people together in the first place.
The list of those who have warned us of this is seemingly endless. Allan Bloom, in “The Closing of the American Mind,” sounded the alarm against cultural relativism. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., in his seminal work, “The Disuniting of America,” warned that “ethnic particularism was fracturing a shared civic identity.” Samuel Huntington, in “The Clash of Civilizations,” argued that civilizations are built on religion and shared meaning, not abstract universalism.
Thomas Sowell repeatedly attacked multiculturalism, saying that cultures are not interchangeable in their outcomes and that pretending otherwise serves no one.
In “The Strange Death of Europe,” Douglas Murray said clearly that mass immigration would inevitably erode European self-definition. Robert Bork told us in “Slouching Towards Gomorrah” that radical multiculturalism would end only with America joining this biblical city on the ash heap of history.
Jesus himself made it all clear: “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.” (Matthew 12:25)
The moral of the story is obvious: Cultural suicide is inevitable without a shared national “cult.” Multiculturalism is the disease, not the cure.
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery). He can be reached at epiper@dreverettpiper.com.
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