A Nonfiction Book by O.G. Rose
If we cannot have many essences, can we be multicultural?
Can multiculturalism help stabilize the State by helping bring about “substantive democracy” — a debate between “first principles” — and can it help Cosmopolitans feel like they “belong again,” not only by stabilizing the State, but also by providing “space” for various cultures? Hunter spilled a lot of ink discussing this possibility in Before the Shooting Begins, and it is worth examining his words here. Hunter claimed that ‘[t]he principal way pluralism or diversity is understood and promoted today is through the ideas and programs of multiculturalism,’ and Hunter noted that ‘[m]ulticulturalists wish to increase the recognition, power, and legitimacy of various minority groups, in part through a delegitimation of an ‘oppressive’ mainstream American culture.’¹ The question that concerned Hunter, considering his focus on the need for “substantive democracy,” was ‘does multiculturalism equip people to come to terms with the cultural differences underlying public controversy in a democracy?’² Unfortunately, the answer Hunter came to isn’t encouraging. The intent behind multiculturalism is good and its proponents sincere, but the consequences of multiculturalism make us less of a “substantive democracy” and less ready for Pluralism, not more. It’s a cruel irony, and dangerous because it gives us an illusion of being Pluralistic while making us feel less need to take Hunter’s admonishments seriously: it makes us feel prepared precisely when we’re less ready.
Sounding like Conyers on “tolerance,” Hunter argued that multiculturalism flattens cultural differences while simultaneously praising them by unintentionally ‘trivializ[ing] […] the idea and reality of culture. How so?’³
‘We begin with an understanding of culture itself. Culture is nothing if it is not, first and foremost, a normative order by which we comprehend ourselves, others, and the larger world, and through which we order our experience. At the heart of culture is a system of norms and values, as social scientists are prone to call them. But these norms and values are better understood as commanding truths so deeply embedded in our consciousness and in the habits of our lives that to question them is to question reality itself.’⁴
‘Accordingly, culture involves the obligations to adhere to these truths, obligations that come about by virtue of one’s membership in a group.’⁵ Unfortunately for Hunter, this understanding of culture is often entirely missing from multicultural curriculums, ‘particularly for younger children,’ which often simply ‘focus on foods, clothing, recreation and holidays, styles of art, folklore, and dance of various peoples, as well as different forms in which marriage is found, the different ways caring is expressed, different ways to communicate, and so on.’⁶ Children are often taught to think that cultural practices ‘can be imitated, shared, and sometimes even experienced,’ which necessarily implies that people can be divided from their cultures (like tourists), and even share in multiple cultures with little trouble.⁷ Multiculturalism doesn’t teach that people are indivisible from culture, that it effuses their whole being, but rather treats culture and cultural differences as accidental versus essential (to use Aristotle’s distinction), often to promote unity, tolerance, empathy, and peace. ‘Multiculturalism simultaneously — and altogether unintentionally — trivializes culture and denies the essential differences among them,’ at least partially by (indirectly) presenting a vision of human ontology that is like a Cartesian “mind on a stick over the world,” as opposed to a holist human being living in and through a world.⁸
‘The problem with this perspective, of course, is that it assumes a historically specific understanding of the self, one free and independent from culture, unencumbered by moral commitments defined by virtue of one’s membership in a community. But culture is much more pervasive, powerful, and compelling than is allowed for in the liberal understanding of the self. By virtue of their birth into a community and a culture, people are bound by moral ties and obligations that are, as Michael Sandel has said, ‘antecedent to choice’. People, then, are rarely freed from the sanctions of culture and tradition and inherited status. By reducing culture to a product about which individuals may choose, multiculturalism further renders culture as a trifling matter.’⁹
Where there is an understanding that culture isn’t something people can easily move between (something much deeper than a tourist attraction), there is greater imperative for “substantive democracy,” for it is understood that a democracy composed of sides who, through elections and the State, attempted to force opponents out of their “first principles” and cultures would be doomed to suffer failure, frustration, appeals to totalitarianism, and/or violence. By presenting (indirectly) a human ontology that treats culture as nonessential, multiculturalism contributes to destressing the need for “substantive democracy” — there is no need for a “ ‘cheap culture’ versus ‘costly culture’ ” distinction, to allude to Bonhoeffer (and do note that because cultures cost people something, they are rarely quick to give cultures up, not wanting their investments to be wasted). In the name of compassion, multiculturalism can worsen the “power”-democracy we presently suffer.
An understanding of culture as indivisible from its members can help us grasp why tolerance and multiculturalism can beget a severe “double consciousness” (as has already been mentioned). As Conyers argued, the State through tolerance (and indirectly through the inflation of Taylor’s “Nova Effect”) “levels out” communities and their authorities, and yet these communities remain intricately linked to those who have been part of them. Hence, there is a weakening of the very ‘normative order by which [people] comprehend [themselves], others, and the larger world and through which [they] order [their] experience’: it’s as if part of a person’s very being increasingly “dies unto death” (while the part of them that is rooted in the abstract State grows — or at least tries to grow — to compensate) (half of them is always eroding).¹⁰ Due to the existential anxiety this is bound to cause, more events like Brexit seem probable (especially if “The True Isn’t the Rational” by O.G. Rose is correct and humans are essentially “ideology preservers”).
To return to Hunter on the essentialness of culture:
‘These practices are certainly real, and they are engaged in because they are rooted in a normative order that makes such practices ‘normal’ and ‘right’ and ‘as things should be.’ Failing to even mention such beliefs, attitudes, and practices is to fictionalize and sugarcoat the presentation of the multiple cultures we seek to understand. Failing to comprehend how such beliefs and practices are normal and true within different cultures is, in the end, to fail to understand the differences at all.’¹¹
Multiculturalism fails to teach the various “first principles” of different cultures: it tends to be shallow and to treat differences as that which we can “overcome” versus that between which we should find a “middle ground,” sowing the seeds for a democracy that ends up being one of “compromise” and lacking substance. Perhaps we cannot blame multiculturalism — understanding just Hinduism can take years, let alone the “first principles” of twenty different communities — but at least multiculturalism could humbly admit its shortcomings: that would help it not contribute to an illusion that participants are “culturally literate,” an illusion which quells the motivation to investigate and understand “first principles” (as “substantive democracy” requires).
‘Sameness is also promoted through multiculturalism’s relativization of culture.’¹² Multiculturalism (unintentionally) teaches that though we may eat different foods, speak different languages, and celebrate different holidays, at the end of the day, we’re all ultimately the same — people. This “sameness” is a foundation of tolerance, and understanding this can help us grasp how the dogma of tolerance Conyers warns about erases the very differences we supposedly need to tolerate.
Multiculturalism and tolerance work in concert by suggesting we should tolerate one another because we are essentially the same: our differences aren’t illusions but nonessential. Considering this, a person who is unwilling to give up the beliefs that divide him or her from everyone else is someone who won’t give up that which is nonessential, necessarily making that person an “ideologue,” “closed minded,” and the like. Tolerance and multiculturalism hence lead to exclusion of those who won’t play by the rules of tolerance and multiculturalism (which often benefits the secular State).
Though appreciating common humanity is important, Hunter expressed concern that this leads to a denial of the essentialness of culture:
‘In sum, children are taught that whatever differences may exist between them, deep down they are all the same by virtue of their common emotions and their common need for recognition and esteem. Thus the expression of our feelings of mutual respect is the tangible way that we see our common humanity. Through cultivating such emotions as sensitivity, empathy, appreciation, and the like, people become confident and proud of themselves and their heritage, and harmony among culturally different individuals becomes possible.’¹³
Hunter never denied that these emotional sensitives are valuable, but they are far from enough to bring about a “substantive democracy” that doesn’t devolve into sociopolitical turmoil. Additionally, multiculturalism ends up implying that those who don’t abandon their “first principles” are those who refuse to abandon nonessential beliefs and fail to exercise “sensitivity, empathy, appreciation, and the like.” Compassion comes to be defined as precisely the act of abandoning and ignoring “first principles,” which if what Hunter wrote is correct, is mostly impossible (setting us all up to be viewed as bad people). Hence, morality and empathy are set in conflict with one’s very being, and the existential tension this causes will threaten our Pluralistic society, even though it was caused precisely for the sake of preserving Pluralism.
Hunter also noted that ‘[t]he subject of ‘sameness’ in the pedagogy of multiculturalism is reinforced by the moral imperatives of ‘self-esteem’ and positive feeling. The language of sentiment and emotion is ubiquitous in the multicultural literature.’¹⁴ This is to be expected if Hunter was correct that ‘all we have left are our emotions’ after we lose our essential communities, and I think Kindly Inquisitors by Rauch provides plenty of examples of this emoting taking over.¹⁵ From Hunter:
‘The problem is the net effect of making self-esteem and the like a central emphasis of multicultural programs. The net effect of this explicit linkage is a glossing over of Difference. By emphasizing that what really matters is our sense of mutual esteem, an understanding of cultural differences quickly becomes subjugated to the imperative to make people feel good about themselves. For all its worthy intentions, the priority given to sentiment in this scheme reinforces the idea that differences really don’t matter; we need not take them seriously. Once more, Sameness triumphs over Difference.’¹⁶
‘The reduction of culture to sentiment […] has the effect of leveling out our differences. The language and logic of emotivism reinforces the idea that ‘we’re really not so different after all’.’¹⁷ This destroys the imperative to bring about substantive democracy, and additionally makes people lack the knowledge to be substantively democratic even when aware of the need for it. ‘When, on top of all of this, multiculturalism elevates emotional expression as the essence of our common humanity and good feeling as a moral and political imperative, the fundamental differences among cultures are leveled out. Culture is homogenized.’¹⁸ When sameness is dogma, difference paradoxically becomes insurmountable, and yet where essential difference is acknowledged, don’t we find ourselves in the same boat? Perhaps, but at least we know with what we’re dealing.
Similar to how tolerance establishes itself by belittling if not effacing the authority of the sources of the differences that should be tolerated, ‘multiculturalism denies the very category of Differences that constitutes the friction point between cultures — the substantive and, in this case, contradictory imperatives asserted by and embodied within different moral communities.’¹⁹ But even if in the name of raising cultural awareness, to deny the essential differences between cultures is to deny the cultures themselves: ‘one cannot hope to understand culture without understanding its central and commanding truth claims.’²⁰ Why are these claims overlooked?
‘[T]hese claims imply standards, and standards imply the moral judgment that we are not the same and not on the same moral plane. Such standards and judgments violate the central lesson multiculturalism wants students everywhere to appropriate — that ‘I am as good as you’.’²¹
Where there is moral judgment, there is essential versus accidental differences, or at the very least a call to determine if a difference is essential or accidental, which acknowledges the possibility of differences being essential — a threat to multiculturalism itself. ‘[I]nstead of the political idea that all individuals and groups should be treated equally under the law, multiculturalism asserts the normative idea that all cultures are in fact equal.’²² Hunter claimed:
‘A direct consequence of this is that moral judgment becomes not only inappropriate, but impossible. Since the substance and content of culture (its truth claims) are, for all practical purposes, hollowed out, we are left with no standards by which we can judge good from bad, right from wrong, excellent from shoddy — except the standard that no one’s feeling are hurt.’²³
This reality can help us understand why increasingly the only accepted form of judgement is legal judgment, which points to why we are increasingly reliant on the Supreme Court to end cultural disagreements over LGBT marriage, abortion, gun rights, and the like (making us “toward” the State).²⁴ We are increasingly an oligarchy (a State run by the courts); every Supreme Court appointee, an ever-bigger cause of war. As this continues to be the case, the “first principles” of communities and cultures will be overlooked and infringed upon, leading to existential tensions and rebellions like Brexit.
Hunter admonished that when “first principles” lose their authority and are “hollowed out,” ‘there is little left besides ‘feelings’: the moral language and moral imperatives of sentiment.’²⁵ To its defense, Hunter pointed out that ‘multiculturalism did not create a culture of emotivism, but it does reinforce it both ideologically and institutionally.’²⁶ In this environment, State action is ultimately decided upon by emotion more so than rationality, making the State a kind of “emotional superweapon,” shielded by law. Furthermore, acts of rationality come to feel increasingly wrong, for if we are attacked emotionally for reasoning, then we will be trained subconsciously to avoid rationality, like a rat is trained to avoid cheese if the rat is shocked every time he approaches it. In this environment, “substantive democracy” seems impossible.
Why is the loss of moral judgment dire? To start, it is this loss of the kind of judgement that recognizes that a difference rests between “first principles” amongst different communities and cultures, and hence it is the loss of the kind of judgment needed for “substantive democracy” and determining a good “middle ground” between cultures. On the topic of abortion and why multiculturalism is ill-equipped to help the debate, Hunter wrote:
‘The reason is that each side of this controversy asserts irreducible and irreconcilable truth claims about the rights of women, the ontology of the fetus, the ethics of the procedure, and so on. Thus, to assert the claim that one value (say, protecting a woman’s autonomy) is better than another (say, protecting the life of preborn children) — or vice-versa — is to assert a Difference that cannot easily be ‘appreciated’ , or ‘validated’ or ‘accepted’ or ‘celebrated’ […] All imply truth claims that are irreducible and irreconcilable.’²⁷
Moral judgment is unavoidable, and to act like it isn’t is only to doom people to perform the judgment poorly in the form of force and power. Failing to train our capacities to morally judge well, we also increase the likelihood that we will only emote.²⁸ Hunter continued:
‘These are Differences that cannot easily be trivialized or relativized or framed in terms of self-esteem. These are Differences that are, for both sides of cultural controversy, real and immutable, harsh in their implications, morally judgmental, and fundamentally offensive — not only to opponents in the controversy, but to the very notion that we are all ultimately alike. In the dispute over abortion as in all of the disputes of the culture war, ‘self-esteem’ quickly becomes beside the point.’²⁹
Without moral judgment ‘on what grounds do we say that [various] cultural practices and the political systems that embrace them are not acceptable, not valid, and not to be respected’ (and without training, how do we expect to morally judge well)?³⁰ How can we say that Pro-Lifers are wrong and Pro-Choicers correct? How can we say the Hindu is immoral who supports the widow throwing herself upon the fires of a funeral pyre? That the company that disregards the environment is immoral? ‘Here, as there, nonnegotiable claims about the ordering of public life are in conflict.’³¹ Moral judgements, based upon some philosophical or theological system, must be and will be made, and hence moral judgment should be taught and understood. But multiculturalism all too often denies the very need for moral judgment, lessening the imperative to master the art and establish “substantive democracy.” Ironically, in the name of peace and tolerance, sociopolitical tension is assured.
Multiculturalism, in failing to teach “first principles” precisely in order to maintain its tenant that “we’re all ultimately the same,” glosses over the variations between communities that generate competing and conflicting moral judgments about the world, and furthermore multiculturalism even tries to remove those differences, which threatens those communities, all as multiculturalism purports to defend diversity, tolerance, and Pluralism. Sounding very much like Conyers, Hunter wrote:
‘But is this leveling of all differences really tolerance? Surely one demonstrates neither respect nor toleration for that which is trivialized and relativized and, in some instances, ignored altogether. So long as we treat culture the way that we do, we will not only fail to understand anyone else, we will be ill-equipped to understand and reflect upon our own beliefs and values. Serious and substantive argument over the issues that divide us will be impossible.’³²
‘The test of tolerance is not so much ‘accepting’ and ‘validating’ all cultures different from one’s own,’ Hunter argued, ‘but rather living at peace with those with whom one disagrees most vehemently, cooperating with those whose claims we may detest, and defending the rights of those whom we regard as fundamentally wrong.’³³ ‘As it is presently articulated, multiculturalism simply does not go far enough.’³⁴ In denying the “first principles” which make communities themselves, multiculturalism ends up teaching a tolerance that negates the very differences the tolerance is created to manage: multiculturalism manages by negation, causing existential anxiety. Consequently, multiculturalism threatens cultures and communities, and viewed as such by people, not only does it have little power to help us live together among Pluralism (and hence help us “belong again”), but ends up being a force that further tears us apart.
To help understand how this occurs and how multiculturalism weakens communities alongside tolerance, let’s take the example of Christians facing the question of LGBT marriage. When the State defines being against LGBT marriage “bigotry” (rightly or wrongly), suddenly Christian communities are forced — under threat of punishments from the State and/or social stigma — to reexamine their position on “traditional marriage.” Christians are incentivized to determine (often via “neoreading” of the Bible, as discussed in “What is a Judge to Do?” by O.G. Rose) that “traditional marriage” isn’t essential to Christianity but rather accidental — that it is something which a Christian “could” believe but isn’t required. And perhaps this is true, but the very fact that the State can incentivize Christians to so reflect implies that the State is more powerful and authoritative than the Church: it becomes clear that the Church has less power to make the State reflect upon itself than the other way around. My point here isn’t that traditional marriage is essential to Christianity, but rather to show how multiculturalism, which supports LGBT marriage in the name of diversity and tolerance, causes (perhaps moral) existential reflection in the Church that necessarily implies a power structure at the top of which the State stands. Furthermore, the very fact that the Church, in response to the State, asks the question “Is traditional marriage essential?” is an act that will necessarily contribute to a wondering about the validity of the whole of Christianity (for if traditional marriage can be removed and the traditional Christian position shown to be false, what else could tumble?). This may lead Christians into existential anxiety about the communities which profoundly inform their identities, which could result in major backlash against the culture, State, and those whom incentivized the State (perhaps rightly) to enforce LGBT marriage.
Even when right and just, multiculturalism weakens communal authority, denies “first principles,” and contributes to existential tension that could erupt into sociopolitical backlash. By indirectly or directly forcing communities to reexamine their beliefs to determine if what the State wants them to stop is essential or could be reframed as accidental, the State not only presents itself as a spreader of (legal) justice, but also claims that communities can be altered without those communities ceasing to be themselves (like a person changing fashions and outfits). This unintentionally makes the communities feel arbitrary (even to themselves), perhaps making them feel less sure of themselves and their role in the world, and furthermore frames communities that won’t define as nonessential and/or accidental what the State disapproves of as irrational, bigoted, backwards, and the like. Additionally, if Hunter is correct that cultural differences are incredibly deep differences, but the State is multicultural and so considers cultures changeable, then State pressures for cultures to change could be pressures to do the impossible and/or perish. It is not likely that communities will take kindly to being so framed and pressured, whether Conservative, Atheist, Muslim, or British.
Yes, sometimes communities are in the wrong and the State should inspire or force them to change themselves, such as communities that supported slavery, even if those beliefs are essential to the communities. The State is not always wrong, but even when right and for the better, State action weakens communal authority and contributes to existential anxiety.³⁵ We should never fail to be unaware of this trade-off; ominously, Hunter wrote:
‘We Americans would like to imagine ourselves to be somehow above and beyond the possibility of serious civil strife. The very idea of the civil unrest that has torn apart nations like Yugoslavia, Ireland, and Lebanon happening here jolts the mind. Total nonsense, we are inclined to say; we are much too civilized for that sort of thing.’³⁶
Hunter believed that failure of America to become a “substantive democracy” would eventually lead to instability, and if Brexit and Trump’s election are any indication, Hunter is right. Yes, that same road reduces the likelihood of “the banality of evil” and WWIII — so goes the tragedy of us.
‘The institutional denial of difference in multiculturalism is problematic for [the] approach leaves us ill-equipped to defend the very democratic framework within which pluralism exists and controversy takes place.’³⁷ As currently practiced, multiculturalism isn’t helping to stabilize the State and politics; rather, it is contributing to its destabilization by not helping instigate a “substance democracy,” and consequently it is contributing to Cosmopolitans struggling to feel like they “belong.” If multiculturalism were to change how it was taught, it could help stabilize the State by helping teach people of different “first principles” to democratically debate and find middle ground between “first principles” (versus “over” them); additionally, multiculturalism could help provide “space” in a society for the various Pluralistic cultures and people.³⁸ Presently though, in unintentionally trivializing the differences between cultures (like tolerance), multiculturalism works against itself; in favor of “substantive democracy,” sounding like Conyers, Hunter wrote:
‘The central premise of this essay is that in a democratic society the unum [or ‘unity of its many parts into one’] cannot be imposed from the top down but must be generated from the bottom up, in the dialectical process of generating new working agreements out of serious confrontation with our deepest differences.’³⁹
What Thomas Sowell would call “a conflict of visions,” the debates and differences between communities of different “first principles,” will not fade under Pluralism (especially if “the map is indestructible,” as discussed in “The True Isn’t the Rational” by O.G. Rose) — in many respects, the visions and conflicts are Pluralism — ‘[b]ut the point is, neither should such controvers[ies] go away — not until we have faced up to our deepest differences over these matters directly and substantively.’⁴⁰ A hope of the second half of The True Isn’t the Rational is to provide intellectual tools to help democracies function better, stabilizing the State, and help Cosmopolitans feel at rest. In addition to what Rauch discussed in Kindly Inquisitors about liberal science, toward the end of Before the Shooting Begins, Hunter also offered some helpful guidelines:
‘First, those who claim the right to dissent should assume the responsibility to debate.’⁴¹
‘Second, those who claim the right to criticize should assume the responsibility to comprehend.’⁴²
‘Third, those who claim the right to influence should accept the responsibility not to inflame.’⁴³
‘Fourth, those who claim the right to participate should accept the responsibility to persuade.’⁴⁴
Hunter wrote that ‘[t]he potential for reviving the art of persuasion can be enhanced along a quite different path by moving away (albeit carefully and strategically) from the duality of unchallengeable and nonnegotiable principles and to practical moral problems that arise in real-life circumstances.’⁴⁵ For example, rather than debate if abortion is murder, discuss what a pregnant teenager should do whose parents may literally kill her if they find out she is pregnant (and perhaps she was a victim of sexual violence). Abstract moral principles, though important, are more likely to lead nowhere in Pluralism than debates about specific situations, not for the sake of showing that one set of “first principles” is wrong, but to help map out a way to find a middle ground between “first principles.” In this kind of debate, both sides will have to make concessions, and this might tempt the sides to end the conversation, ‘[b]ut the consequences of not allowing the give-and-take of the dialectic are potentially disastrous.’⁴⁶ If Brexit and Trump are any evidence, as Hunter warned, it is not impossible for America to end up like Yugoslavia or Ireland.
I will approach the close of this section with Hunter’s powerful words:
‘Educating people in the differences that underlie controversy requires an education into the substance of culture — the truth claims, the traditions of moral understanding within which these truth claims are elaborated, and the ways these are enacted in communities. Despite the noble intentions behind them, the current programs for accomplishing these ends, subsumed under the rubric of multiculturalism, contribute to just the opposite, at least as they are currently formulated. They gloss over what is at the heart of multiple cultures by discrediting the very idea of binding (albeit competing) truths, ideals of the good, standards of virtue, and so on. To continue to ignore these differences and their significance for public life is to maintain the status quo. The Differences must be confronted directly.’⁴⁷
Cultures are metaphysical, marrying us to “ultimate concerns” (Paul Tillich) and “visions” (Thomas Sowell) we never originally choose for ourselves. Cultures are not glasses, but eyes, and if Hunter’s words prove correct and cultures are deep and essential, then the more the State weakens the authority of cultures in its favor (as Conyers described), then the more something essential to ourselves will feel weaker and less authoritative — something we could perhaps poetically call a “soul.” To regain a sense of weight to our souls, we could try to join in on “the culture of the State,” but if it is indeed the case that we can never fully enter a different culture, then our efforts will ultimately prove futile (even if the actions of the State have been entirely justified and even moral). To gain back a sense of possessing “an authoritative soul,” citizens will need to be able to accept a new soul without dying in the process. If Hunter proves correct about the essentialness of culture, this will prove difficult and likely impossible for most, and if it is the case we require feeling we possess a “soul with authority” to feel like we belong, belonging will prove difficult to regain.
Multiculturalism cannot be the solution to “belonging again,” because people cannot actually be multicultural: we cannot have many essences, nor ever fully absorb and “become” the culture we are not born into. In a sense, there is no such thing as multiculturalism. We can and should learn empathy, but ultimately even empathy cannot help us “belong again” so much as it can help us manage our lack of belonging. We cannot remove people from their cultures anymore than we can remove people from their brains. Is it possible that the State creates a new “universal culture” based on itself, that though this present generation will be unable to fully absorb, future generations will have no problem? Again, as argued earlier, I doubt that it is possible for the State to be the foundation of the entire country’s “common life” or locality — Washington D.C. cannot bear the weight — the State is too abstract, operates by force, and so on. In fact, it seems much of our trouble today and feeling of alienation is precisely a result of the State trying to be our home.
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Notes
¹Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 191.
²Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 191.
³Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 200.
⁴Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 200.
⁵Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 201.
⁶Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 201.
⁷Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 201.
⁸Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 207–208.
⁹Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 202.
¹⁰Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 200.
¹¹Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 202.
¹²Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 203.
¹³Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 207.
¹⁴Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 206.
¹⁵Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 148.
¹⁶Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 207.
¹⁷Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 207.
¹⁸Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 208.
¹⁹Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 209.
²⁰Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 208.
²¹Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 208.
²²Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 210.
²³Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 208.
²⁴Of course, laws are written with various moral philosophies necessarily lingering in the background, so to accept “legal judgment” without “moral judgment” is contradictory and delusional.
²⁵Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 211.
²⁶Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 211.
²⁷Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 209.
²⁸If Alasdair MacIntyre is correct in After Virtue and we have lost the capacity to even discuss morality, it is doubtful we will regain the capacity to morally judge before first relearning the skill of moral discussion.
²⁹Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 209.
³⁰Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 211.
³¹Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 227.
³²Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 210.
³³Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 210.
³⁴Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 211.
³⁵This points to the importance of the State mastering the art of marketing itself well, not that this guarantees that people will listen.
³⁶Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 227.
³⁷Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 211.
³⁸Paradoxically, failures of multiculturalism and tolerance can favor State growth, for despite all its failures, the State increasingly becomes all the people of a society share.
³⁹Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 228.
⁴⁰Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 229.
⁴¹Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 239.
⁴²Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 239.
⁴³Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 239.
⁴⁴Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 239.
⁴⁵Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 241.
⁴⁶Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 242.
⁴⁷Hunter, James Davison. Before the Shooting Begins. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994: 236.
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