What's So Great About America?
Thomas Sowell writes this review of Dinesh D'Souza's new book "What's So Great About America." I've read the book and think it is excellent--a must read and a quick read. If you would like to meet Dinesh, please email events@r21online.com. I plan on writing more about it myself, but for now here is some of Sowell's review:
In contrast to those who say that we must seek to understand the "root causes" of the hatred of America in the Islamic world, in terms of things that we have done wrong, D'Souza sees the fundamental causes of that hatred in the envy and resentment of American success spawned by the Islamic world's own failures.According to D'Souza, "the fundamentalists are a humiliated people who are seeking to recover ancestral greatness." Proud Muslims "find it hard to come to terms with their contemporary irrelevance." He asks: "When was the last time you opened the newspaper to read about a great Islamic discovery or invention?"
Yet "Islam was once one of the greatest and most powerful civilizations in the world." Hating the success of Americans is a lot easier than trying to recover their own long lost greatness.D'Souza challenges one of the central premises of today's intelligentsia: The equality of all cultures. "If one begins with the multicultural premise that all cultures are equal, then the world as it is makes very little sense," he says. Some cultures have completely outperformed others in providing the things that all people seek -- health, food, housing, security and the amenities of life.
Immigrants "are walking refutations of cultural relativism," D'Souza says, because "they are voting with their feet in favor of the new culture" represented by America and the West. There is "a one-way movement from tribal, agrarian cultures toward modern, industrialized, American-style cultures." Why, he asks "would immigrants voluntarily uproot themselves and relocate to another society unless they were deeply convinced that, on balance, the new culture was better than the old culture?"
According to D'Souza, "the free society is not simply richer, more varied, and more fun: it is also morally superior." Millions of Americans "who live decent praiseworthy lives deserve our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option."
"America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world."
Chris Alden
Christopher J. Alden is Chairman & CEO of Six Apart Ltd., the world's leading blogging company. Six Apart acquired Rojo Networks, Inc., creator of an innovative RSS feed reading service, where Mr. Alden was co-founder and CEO. Before Rojo, he was CEO of Red Herring Communications, Inc., publisher of Red Herring magazine -- described by the Wall Street Journal as the "bible of Silicon Valley" - which he helped launch out of his house in 1993. Prior to that he founded Computer Guides, a consultancy.
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1 Comments
Go Dinesh! He gets better and better with age. Can't wait to read this book.