Here and There

     I've seen this kind of post come across my feed fairly frequently, usually from friends I don't consider at all racist. Here's the most recent specimen, with the text below for the benefit of the search engines:

Welcome

You came here from there because

you didn't like there, and now you

want to change here to be like there.

We are not racist, phobic or anti

whatever-you-are, we simply like

here the way it is and most of us

actually came here because it is

not like there, wherever there was.

You are welcome here, but please

stop trying to make here like there.

If you want here to be like there you

should not have left there to come

here, and you are invited to leave

here and go back there at your

earliest convenience.

 

     So why do I object to this meme? Well, first of course there's the "We are not racist" line, which is kind of a red flag in itself, but that's kind of how this stuff works. You start out with what sounds like a perfectly reasonable position, but there's just enough ambiguity in the terms used that you find yourself agreeing wholeheartedly to one vague interpretation and subtly, perhaps even unconsciously, opening up to the more sinister implications. 

     Here's the benign reading: We don't want peaceful, tolerant, law-abiding, free and prosperous "here" to become violent, intolerant, lawless, war-torn and impoverished "there". And sure, nobody wants that. NOBODY wants that, including most especially the immigrants who choose to come to Canada (and the refugees who have less of a choice). After all, those who choose to come here pretty much unanimously choose Canada because we have a reputation for being peaceful, tolerant and all that other stuff.

     But notice how this plants an idea in your head: that immigrants do want to change "here" to be more like "there". Since no one who comes to live here actually wants us to become the kind of oppressive tyranny/anarchy that we associate with "there", what kinds of changes do they want?

     And here's where it gets offensive, because the kinds of changes to "here" that immigrants do make in their neighbourhoods are things like opening stores and restaurants that cater to their own cultural preferences in music, clothing, food and so on. They put up signage and converse in public in languages we don't understand. They practice strange religions and have strange customs. 

     Oh sure. This is all about culture, though, so it's not racist. We just want to protect our culture; we don't care if someone's skin colour isn't right, so long as they just assimilate in every other meaningful way. Ha ha. How ridiculous, how racist it would be to expect them to change their skin! No, of course, we don't want that! We're just being reasonable here.

     This is a use of "reasonable" that I've talked about before.  Here it's used to downplay the severity of a demand: a less extreme demand is more reasonable than a more extreme one. But that doesn't mean the demand is reasonable in the sense of being the result of reason.

     There is no reason in that sense about cultural preferences. Sure, we can argue about the relative benefits of various cultural practices, and even conclude that some should be avoided or even banned, but we already have a mechanism for that within the common law tradition. And that, ultimately, is what really makes "here" better than "there": our law gives us the freedom to embrace our own cultural preferences, to dress as we like, to speak the languages we prefer, and so on. Demanding that people conform to our cultural preferences is not reasonable in that sense because it is incoherent with the fundamental value of freedom that allows us to indulge our own cultural preferences. What makes Canada a good place to live is not that we have donuts and hockey, but that we can have whatever food or sport we want.

     And those who would demand that immigrants adopt our superficial cultural practices at the expense of that basic freedom? They're the ones who are making "here" more like "there".