About "The Disuniting of America", 10 Years Later

The year was 1992, and Political Correctness was probably reaching its zenith. Bill Clinton was America's "New Democrat" and multiculturalism was one of the liberal code words for American media. That was the year ... 1992 ... that one of America's leading liberal thinkers shocked his cohorts by coming out with a little 150-page book entitled "The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society." Arthur M. Schlesinger was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner; author of several books; a Harvard professor. He was widely known as one of John F. Kennedy's special advisers. His credentials as a liberal intellectual were immaculate, but here he comes out with a book that says "The promise of this country has always been a fresh start on an equal footing, and the classic image of the republic is that of the melting pot, where differences of race, wealth, religion, and nationality are submerged in democracy. But now there is a new orthodoxy," Schlesinger's book contended, "America as a collection of self-interest groups, celebrating difference and abandoning the idea of assimilation." The book was a shock to liberals when it came out, and here 10 years later it is a shock to see how ontarget Schlesinger was.

The upsurge in ethnic awareness has had some healthy consequences, his book points out, but the cult of ethnicity has its price and pressed too far, poses this danger; (and I quote him here) if these "separatist tendencies go on unchecked, the result can only be the fragmentation, resegregation, and tribalization of American life."

And these were among his closing thoughts: "The question America confronts as a pluralistic society is how to vindicate cherished cultures and traditions without breaking the bonds of cohesion, Our task is to combine due appreciation of the splendid
diversity of the nation with due emphasis on the great unifying Western ideas of individual freedom, political democracy, and human rights." It seems to me Schlesinger is just as on-target today as he was in 1992.

This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.