[PDF] Faustian Man In A Multicultural Age
Nichole Wernett
In an age of multiculturalism and globalism one might ask the question 'Whither Western Man?' Faustian Man in a Multicultural Age digs deeply in our origins and development to try and point the reader towards the answer.
Ricardo Duchesne is a Puerto Rican-born Canadian historical sociologist and former professor at the University of New Brunswick's Saint John campus. His main research interests are Western civilization, the rise of the West, and multiculturalism. Duchesne's views on immigration and multiculturalism have been described as racist and white nationalist.[1][2][3][4] He has denied being a racist to the mainstream press,[2] but has described himself as being "the only academic in Canada, and possibly the Western world, who questions the ideology of diversity while advocating white identity politics."[5]
Duchesne has voiced vehement criticisms of political correctness, multiculturalism, and immigration. He has bemoaned what he describes as a "relentless occupation of the West by hordes of Muslims and Africans", and states that "only out of the coming chaos and violence will strong White men rise to resurrect the West."[51][52][53][54] Duchesne also criticizes some conservatives for advancing the idea that Western political identity is based only on universal liberal democratic values that are true for all human beings. He argues that liberalism is uniquely Western and that Western identity is also deeply connected to the ethnic character of Europeans.[55][56][57] More recently, Duchesne has argued that civic nationalism is consistent with a strong collective sense of ethnic national identity.[58]
Upon the invitation of UBC Students For Academic Freedom, Ricardo Duchesne gave a lecture at the University of British Columbia in the Fall of 2018, introduced by Lindsay Shepherd, entitled "Critical Reflections on Canadian Multiculturalism", in which he asserted the right of "Euro-Canadians" to "white identity politics" within the framework of Canada's official multiculturalism.[106][107] While visiting Vancouver to present the lecture, Duchesne courted controversy and publicity, walking around the university campus together with a camerawoman and challenging random passers-by to debate him on immigration, gay rights and the merits of a white ethnostate.[108]
A separate letter, listing the demands that students brought to their meeting with Faust on Thursday, includes proposals more specific to Harvard, such as increasing funding for affinity groups, creating a multicultural center to provide services specific to cultural and ethnic groups, and changing the title of College House masters.
Students who attended the meeting with Faust on Thursday said it focused on the reasoning behind their demands and the Latino experience at Harvard more generally. While attendees said no concrete plans came out of the meeting, they said Faust was open to discussing a multicultural center for the University.
At this pivotal moment in recent Western history, Richard Duchesne tackles what may be the most crucial question for people of European descent: 'What makes us unique?'
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\nCasting aside the dominant cultural Marxist narratives and dismissing the popular media attacks on concepts of 'whiteness', Duchesne draws on a range of historical examples, sources and philosophies to examine the origins of European man, his achievements, and the nature of the Faustian spirit that has driven his innovation and creativity.
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\nIn an age of multiculturalism and globalism one might ask the question 'Whither Western Man?' Faustian Man in a Multicultural Age digs deeply in our origins and development to try and point the reader towards the answer.
Ricardo Duchesne is a professor at The University of New Brunswick. His landmark book from 2011, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization, was a critique of the ongoing devaluing of Western culture in the face of multiculturalism since the 1960s. He was also the founder and is one of the chief contributors to the Council of European Canadians Website (www.eurocanadian.ca).
Ricardo Duchesne is a professor at The University of New Brunswick.His landmark book from 2011, The Uniqueness of WesternCivilization, was a critique of the ongoing devaluing of Westernculture in the face of multiculturalism since the 1960s. He wasalso the founder and is one of the chief contributors to theCouncil of European Canadians Website (www.eurocanadian.ca).
This call from students echoes what education researchers have known for decades: students learn better and more deeply when the curriculum connects to their prior life experiences and their cultural orientations, and when pedagogy allows them to learn from each other. In fact, this fundamental idea about how students learn best has served as a foundation for several strands of curriculum and pedagogy since the beginning of the twentieth century, including the four strands we have selected in this report. They include progressive education, multicultural education, ethnic studies, and culturally relevant/responsive/sustaining education. Yet, in the past two decades, the shift to a test-based approach to holding schools, educators and students accountable has ultimately diverted funding, focus, and resources away from efforts to foster curricular and pedagogical changes that support a culturally sustaining and anti-racist approach to education.17 This test-based approach to accountability was thrust upon the educational system as the student population served by our public schools became increasingly racially and ethnically diverse and no longer predominantly white and non-Latinx, even as these standardized measures of academic achievement failed to account for multiple ways of knowing that relate to culture and background, or the pre-existing racial and social-class inequality embedded in the system.18
The irony of this curricular segregation and a heavy reliance on standardized tests that validate the divisions across race and class lines is that good teaching is good teaching and there are many key components of progressive education, critical multicultural education, culturally relevant/responsive/sustaining education, and ethnic studies that they all share. But if the different constituents for each of these approaches were connected more tightly through their common tenets and understandings of child development and learning theory, they could work together to support each other in the political space to change policies and conditions for more effective and emancipatory education of young people.
We argue that it is time for advocates of progressive education, critical multicultural education, ethnic studies, and culturally relevant/responsive/sustaining education to work together to push for a united reform movement that will attract enough educators, policymakers, parents, and students to convince policy makers to support meaningful changes to the current, problematic accountability system.
Thus, even after the formal Jim Crow laws of the South were being dismantled, schooling conditions of Black students in northern urban communities fed a long history of distrust between Black parents and white educators that has fractured support for progressive education in the Black community. Indeed, so much of the rationale behind the federal No Child Left Behind legislation in 2001, which increased the testing mandates and associated consequences for all public schools, was framed in terms of the accountability that was needed to assure that Black students and other students of color received the education they deserved.39 This bipartisan support for a test-based system of accountability, which was soundly supported by civil rights organizations and lawyers in the early 2000s in an almost desperate effort to finally ensure students of color were provided a quality education, has been the force that has pushed progressive education to the margins of public education. Thus, ironically enough, despite the central role of Black educators in making progressive education truly progressive, the racist practices and systemic oppression within public education that followed the heyday of the Black progressive education movement led Black parents and advocates to support reforms that undermined the vision and mission of truly progressive schools.40 But the intellectual and social justice connection between progressive education and the Black community can be reignited through a deeper connection between progressive education strategies and the more recent move to provide culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogy via multicultural education or ethnic studies curricula.
The powerful links between curriculum and social reconstruction was a centerpiece of this more critical and socially conscious form of multicultural education. James Banks notes that the most effective way of transforming the educational system, and in turn, the society, focuses on the knowledge construction process.48This dimension, Banks argued, demonstrated how cultural assumptions, frames of reference, and perspectives influence how knowledge is constructed in ways that legitimize institutional inequality. Thus, the goals of multicultural education are to develop oppositional knowledge and liberatory curricula that challenge the status quo and sanction action and reform, providing a means for students to become effective citizens in a pluralistic, democratic society.49
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