[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > A very interesting report > > www.bradleyproject.org <http://www.bradleyproject.org> What did you find interesting about it Michael? I only read the overview, but it struck me as consisting mainly of a string of dreary generalities and commonplaces, some obviously true, some oversimplisticly half-true, and some (you will excise me, please) are just plain silly.
For instance, the US is hardly "unique among nations in being founded not on a common ethnicity..." India, China, and Russia could hardly be said to have a "common ethnicity" and, for obvious reasons, no Western hemisphere country was based an eons-old ethnicity, but on a variety of other bases (including "sets of ideas"). Most African countries have multiple ethnicities as well, due to the disregard for human geography displayed by European colonizers, as I am sure you well know. The remark applies -- and only then partially -- to European countries. The former Yugoslavia is an obvious counter-example, but even Britain (not to be confused with England) has multiple ethnicities (and languages). France did as well, until a spectacularly arrogant and ruthless monarchy suppressed them -- not something to emulate, I would think. Spain does as well. So does Italy (indeed anthropologists working in Sicily as late as the 1950s found groups of people who had never heard of "Italy" and did not think of themselves as "Italian"). Germans as well (just ask a Bavarian what s/he thinks of Prussians, and vice versa. Indeed, Germany was "unified" far later than the US). What is different is that each of them has what might be called a dominant governing ethnicity (but then again, I recall hearing in a lecture once that the plurality of Americans around the time of independence spoke German rather than English, so perhaps the US has a dominant governing ethnicity as well which, just like in so many other places, thinks it is the ONLY legitimate group in the country). More importantly, most western European countries now also have formal constitutions that specify roughly the same set of freedoms as the US constitution (Britain is a special case here, because the constitution is "unwritten," but let us not forget that the words of the US constitution were primarily drawn from those of English liberal philosophers, such as John Locke). Another for instance: contrary to the the report's claim, US immigration is nowhere near the levels it was around the turn of the 20th century. This is just Lou Dobbs-style fear-mongering. It is true that about 9 million people immigrated to the US between 1901 and 1910 (less in the 1910s and less still in the 1920s). And it is true the about 9 million people immigrated to the US between 1991 and 2000 (see -- see http://www.willisms.com/archives/2005/09/trivia_tidbit_o_168.html). But the US population was only 76 million in 1900. So an influx of 9 million represented 12% of the population. In 1990, the US population was 250 million, so an influx of 9 million represented less than 4% of the population. So, on a per-capita basis, the rate immigration in the 1900 was THREE TIMES the immigration rate in the last decade. And much more than that compared to the 1920s). More conceptually, the overview starts with "Unity not Uniformity" but then goes on to prescribe a recipe for what seems (to me) to be a population that is highly uniform in its outlook. Sure, learning English and learning more history (not just American, but general history) would be a good thing. But that is hardly incompatible with maintaining and learning other languages as well. Moreover, it would seem that learning math and science would at least as good a thing. The US currently lags very badly behind other developed countries at all these things. In short, we seem to have a rather conservative, narrow, and short-sighted document here. Different countries value and need rather different things. Perhaps the US needs this kind of retrenchment at this point in time (though my own opinion is that it is the wrong way to go in the age of global trade and communication). In any case most of these recommendations would seem to be highly debatable, and would even be decidedly out of place in many other countries, Canada among them. Regards, Chris (born and raised in the US of A) -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ "Part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise his or her views." - Melissa Lane, in a /Guardian/ obituary for philosopher Peter Lipton ================================= --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
