![]() ![]() In Whitman’s best lines, he casts himself as the spokesperson for women as well as men, blacks as well as whites, the well-heeled and the downtrodden. Why so? First, because the Whitmanian persona did not believe that general readers should “work hard” to get at the meaning of poems (“Come with me,” his bardic voice confidently proclaims, “and I will show you the secret of all poems.”), and second, because Whitman ruminated about the curious national arithmetic of e pluribus unum (“Out of many one”) in ways that gave concrete expression-and vivid imagery-to the abstractions at the very heart of our democracy. Instead, Whitman became “required reading,” a fate that I suspect would have attracted Whitman as much as it surely would have repulsed him. In large measure that did not happen, at least not in the ways that the Russian people embraced Pushkin, their national poet. ![]() Walt Whitman’s deepest wish was that America would embrace him as its great seer and most authentically American poet. The result often looks more akin to a face-off orchestrated by the World Wrestling Association than it does an examination of what mainstream multiculturalism means, and how it might differ from the identity politics often practiced in the groves of academe. ![]() The title of Nathan Glazer’s recent book argues that We Are All Multiculturalists Now, but how does this announcement usefully distinguish between those who would add, “And, Furthermore, We Have Always Been So” from those who find themselves uncomfortable with much that now marches under multiculturalism’s very wide banner? As with most litmus test issues, the discussion too often turns into a crude version of “which side are you on?”, with those supporting affirmative action or a curriculum driven by demographics counted on the side of the angels while those foolhardy enough to raise questions, much less sound notes of dissent, are cast as the scenario’s villains. Multiculturalism is a spongy term that has occasioned more debate than precise definition. ![]()
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