https

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDr4fLdtZi8

How successful are countries where different religions, cultures and ethnicities live side by side?

It is often asserted that Britain can be a wonderful instance of a country where Muslims and Christians, Hindus and Jews, all live happily together. A place where people from Africa, India and China can all get along and respect each other’s cultures, where those speaking different languages and observing a variety of customs can all rub along cheerfully in a multicultural paradise. History however teaches us another lesson entirely.

1

I contacted Simon Webb recently. I mentioned the fact that when whenever I've watched You Tube videos, I've never posted a comment (except for a few comments I've posted in a field remote from his interests.) I think I can easily justify making this further exception. I'm an opponent of 'political correctness' in its ridiculous, multifarious forms but it's not only 'woke' people who can be ridiculous. Simon Webb is an amiable purveyor of good sense mixed with dubious, ridiculous and false claims. Simon Webb is someone who has allowed deeply disturbing claims to go unchecked, without the least attempt to comment on them. I see Simon Webb as a liability not an asset in putting the case against 'political correctness,' despite the interesting and informative content he does offer. Simon Webb is essentially superficial. He can't possibly do justice to the issues in the time he allows himself. Of course, I can't possibly do justice to 'the case against Simon Webb' in the space available here, or in multiple comments. After these preliminaries in this comment, I'll give some specific, explicit criticisms in another comment or two. Simon Webb is short on specifics - not when it comes to criticism of 'woke' views, but when it comes to his own 'faith,' his own 'beliefs,' such as his Christian beliefs. He makes no attempt to clarify 'homogeneous.' Is a 'Christian society' homogeneous? or is that not homogenous enough? He mentions 'Arabs and Jews murdering each other' but what of Protestants and Catholics murdering each other? He's happy to put up a superficially convincing view when it comes to elementary cosmology and particle physics but getting him to put on record his view of Christianity will perhaps take him well beyond his comfort zone. I used the word 'disturbing.' His most disturbing video has the title 'How two Jewish academics in America created the modern concept of anti-racism.' Here, he was playing with fire. It was his commenters, or many of them or the majority of them, who showed what his followers are capable of. One of them, 'Joe Shmoe,' commented on the video, 'This is explained in 'Culture of Critique' by Macdonald. Wikipedia gives this information, 'The Culture of Critique series is a trilogy of books by Kevin B. MacDonald, an antisemitic conspiracy theorist, white supremacist and a retired professor of evolutionary psychology. MacDonald claims that evolutionary psychology provides the motivations behind Jewish group behavior and culture. Through the series, MacDonald asserts that Jews as a group have biologically evolved to be highly ethnocentric and hostile to the interests of white people. He asserts Jewish behavior and culture are central causes of antisemitism, and promotes conspiracy theories about alleged Jewish control and influence in government policy and political movements.' I've saved a copy of the comments on this video on the 'two Jewish academics ... ' I suppose that Simon Webb won't remove the video. If he ever does, I've taken copies of the comments. None of the comments amount to Holocaust denial but they do amount to anti-historical propaganda. Commenters on Simon Webb's output - does he read your comments? If he read the comments on his 'two Jewish academics' video, he should have taken steps to distance himself from the hideous views expressed in so many of them.

		You've left out one one prime example of the effect that non-British 
		people and foreign influences can have on a homogenous society - 
		Christianity! Pagan Britain was a relatively homogeneous society, no 
		more than that, but after the waves of missionaries reached these 
		shores, Britain was exposed to a wide range of foreign influences which 
		made it far less homogeneous. You mention 'speaking different languages' 
		as a factor which reduces homogeneity (a bad thing, you think.) You also 
		mention Jews as one of the groups which reduce the diversity of the 
		country. You obviously think that's regrettable as well (Some of the 
		people who admire you would use a much, much more extreme word than 
		'regrettable.') The missionaries claimed that Jesus, an Aramaic-speaking 
		Jew, was the son of god. The 'good news' of the gospel (which turned out 
		to be very bad news for all the victims of Christian persecution) wasn't 
		written in Anglo-Saxon or English, of course, but Greek. The Old 
		Testament, which in some passage supposedly prophesied the coming of the 
		Messiah was written in Hebrew. The names of the majority of British 
		Churches are named after non-British people, to give just one example, 
		St Augustine, born in North Africa. This is the Augustine who taught 
		that unbaptized babies go to Hell. Another 'saint' called Augustine was 
		born in Italy and came to this country to convert the natives. Later, 
		with the development and intellectualizing of Christianity, there were 
		many more foreign influences. St Thomas Aquinas, born in Italy, revered 
		the pagan Greek philosopher Aristotle. In his Summa Theologiae, written 
		in Latin, not English, St Thomas Aquinas wrote, 'With regard to heretics 
		two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the 
		side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they 
		deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but 
		also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver 
		matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge 
		money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and 
		other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular 
		authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are 
		convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to 
		death.' This saint of the Roman Catholic Church is known as the 'Angelic 
		Doctor.' The Church of England and the Protestant Churches owe their 
		origins to foreign 'reformers' such as the German Luther (born in the 
		Holy Roman Empire of the time) and Calvin, born in France and active in 
		Geneva. Calvin denounced the 'heretic' Servetus, who was burned alive. I 
		loathe political correctness but in any fair-minded survey of the 
		issues, the cruelties perpetrated by so many Christians have to be taken 
		into account, as well as the Church's interference with free and 
		reasonable expression - well into the 19th Century, the universities of 
		Oxford and Cambridge were only open to people willing to subscribe to 
		the Thirty Nine Articles, the Anglican statement of doctrine. Compare 
		and contrast 'Woke' attempts to suppress free and reasonable expression. 
		I wouldn't say that the Anglican impact was less harmful than the 'woke' 
		impact. Simon Webb seems actually to believe that Christianity is part 
		of the fabric of this country and is not just a beneficial influence but 
		vital to British identity. Any chance of fuller explanation from him in 
		a future video? But I think he's much too prolific already and instead 
		of offering so many bite-sized You Tube offerings to people hungry to 
		hear his views, he would benefit by doing more thinking, more 
		reflecting. He seems to take the view that again and again, history 
		confirms his views. Perhaps he would benefit by reading much more 
		history, but with a chastened, more critical viewpoint.

How successful are countries where different religions, cultures and ethnicities live side by side?

Simon Webb has been careless - reckless - in presenting his 'Homogeneity Thesis.' He hasn't thought things through. He doesn't seem to understand the difficulties in restoring homogeneity to a society which has become far less homogeneous. (His understanding of practical politics, of the realities of political action seems to me grossly deficient.) He doesn't seem to have realized that attempts to bring about homogeneity in societies have sometimes had catastrophic results. One comment below - i don't name the commenter but it's easy to find on the page was obviously addressed to Simon Webb: 'You overlooked two other examples - Germany [Jews] and United Kingdom [Catholics].' This loathsome comment unwittingly draws attention to some of the dangers of the 'Webb Homogeneity Thesis.' The Nazis wanted a homogeneous, Aryan Germany and saw the Jews as an obstacle, so they used extermination to remove the Jews, killing about 6 million before the war ended and the camps were liberated. Protestants who wanted a homogeneous Protestant society without the 'contagion' of the Catholics sometimes executed Catholics or went to war against them. Catholics who wanted a homogeneous Catholic society without the 'contagion' of the Protestants sometimes executed Protestants or went to war against them. In both cases, this led not to thousands of deaths but many millions, in the 17th century alone. For the record, I don't in the least regard greater diversity as automatically enriching a society, to be advocated in all circumstances. For one thing, I support stringent and effective border controls, for a variety of reasons. One is the extreme importance of doing everything possible to keep out Islamist extremists. I was surprised to find a Simon Webb video which gives a very relaxed view of some aspects of Islamism, called 'Why some people have a bee in their bonnet about Islam,' with this amplification, 'One religion [Islam] seems to be the focus of a good deal of negativity.' I was glad to find that a large number of commenters took issue with his view of the matter. The site of Migration Watch UK (an outstanding site, I think) includes a summary page 'What is the problem?' I agree with Migration Watch's approach to the massive problem -of mass immigration into this country. Intentional attempts to increase diversity can have a range of unintended consequences. For obvious reasons - the space which would be needed to discuss the issues - I can't give further details about my reasons here. What I will do is quote some more of the disturbing comments posted in reaction to his video ''How two Jewish academics in America created the modern concept of anti-racism.' 'Europe and the US would truly be something magnificent without them.' [i.e., the Jews. And the Nazis believed that Germany would be something magnificent without the Jews.] 'Good work here Simon, finally calling them out.' [Again, 'them' obviously refers to the Jews.] 'Oh yes he's finally addressing the tribe [obviously the reference intended is to Israel] ... Many other things they inflicted on the west.' [No attempt made to give examples. The Nazis did come up with examples of alleged harm to justify their policy of exclusion and then extermination.] 'I always appreciate your honesty Simon.' [Given the subject of the video, this seems to be a claim that Simon Webb is giving an honest opinion about Jews. He was doing nothing of the kind.] 'The thanks we get for saving them.' [The commenter would find in Martin Gilbert's book 'The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust' a great deal of information about 'Yad Vashem,' based in Jerusalem, which amongst other things honours, commemorates and makes completely clear the gratitude of the state of Israel for the many people who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.] 'Who would have guessed, a concept invented by the 'chosen' people.' 'It's always them. The same group behind everything.' [The Nazis believed something very similar.] 'thank you so much for being such a brave fellow this needs to be heard the truth will finally be revealed to the public one of these days the german man [obviously a reference to Hitler] tried to warn us but nobody listened people like you are so brave thank you so much sir for making this video god bless' [Punctuation as in the original.] 'They [which seems an obvious reference to Jews] even managed to make a teetotal vegetarian who loved animals and who enjoyed painting as a pastime ... into evil incarnate.' [an obvious reference to Hitler.] I think that if Simon Webb is interested in his reputation as a historian and the reputation of his video channel, he should consider the advantages of explaining himself and his policies on comments and specifically the comments on that video 'How two Jewish academics ... ' I did find today a comment which was warmly approving and praised his work and Simon Webb replied to the praise with a 'Thank you.' He likes praise, which is completely understandable, but can he stand up to critical comment? If he finds the comments on Jews which I've quoted here acceptable, then he should say so. If he finds them very disturbing, as I do, then he should do what he can to make amends. And with this comment of mine, I've nothing further to add - on this page. As I've already mentioned in a previous comment on this page, I intend to do what I can to publicize the issues, in other places.

A few minutes after posting the comment which follows this one, about the deletion of a comment of mine, I found that another of the comments has been deleted! The information that 'two of the posts are still here but the first one has been deleted' has become out of date very quickly. Now, only one of the posts is still here and two have been deleted. Any information which Simon Webb can give which would explain the circumstances would be gladly received. Obviously, I have copies of the comments of mine which are still here, like the ones which have been deleted, in case the newer comments get deleted too.

Now I find that of my original three posts, none of them remain! All three have been deleted, and not by me. Now, there's no trace on this page of the arguments and evidence I offered but the material hasn't vanished without trace. I still have it and intend to make use of it.

o expose the pretensions or falseness of, esp. by ridicule

Franz Boas

Boas also introduced the idea of cultural relativism, which holds that cultures cannot be objectively ranked as higher or lower, or better or more correct, but that all humans see the world through the lens of their own culture, and judge it according to their own culturally acquired norms. For Boas, the object of anthropology was to understand the way in which culture conditioned people to understand and interact with the world in different ways and to do this it was necessary to gain an understanding of the language and cultural practices of the people studied.

I posted three comments on this 'History Debunked' video. I intended to leave it at that. I'm posting a further comment now simply for this reason: two of the posts are still here but the first one has been deleted. Has Simon Webb been practising a little discreet censorship, or is there another explanation? I don't think it's likely that accidental deletion is the reason but perhaps Simon Webb could explain the circumstances, if he wants to. The deleted post was long and quite detailed, like the two below that are still here. It contained nothing that could be called offensive, although it's likely that he would find it uncomfortable reading. I think many members of his multifarious readership would find it uncomfortable too, if any of them decided to read it. I hope the two comments that are still here aren't here temporarily, like the deleted comment. I'll be able to include the content of all three posts on my own Website and, I hope, in other places. I'm not writing to publicize my Website so I don't give the address of the site.

I posted three comments on this 'History Debunked' video. Two of them are still here but the first one has been deleted. Has Simon Webb been practising a little discreet censorship, or is there another explanation? I don't think it's likely that accidental deletion is the reason but perhaps Simon Webb could explain. The deleted post was long and quite detailed, like the two that are still here, and contained nothing that could be called offensive, although it's likely that he would find it uncomfortable reading. I hope that the two comments that are still here aren't here temporarily, like the deleted comment. I'll be able to include the content of all three posts on my own Website and in other places. I'm not writing to publicize my Website in the least, so I don't give the address.

Although his grandparents were observant Jews, his parents embraced Enlightenment values, including their assimilation into modern German society. Boas's parents were educated, well-to-do, and liberal; they did not like dogma of any kind. An important early influence was the avuncular Abraham Jacobi, his mother's brother-in-law and a friend of Karl Marx, and who was to advise him through Boas's career. Due to this, Boas was granted the independence to think for himself and pursue his own interests. Early in life, he displayed a penchant for both nature and natural sciences. Boas vocally opposed antisemitism and refused to convert to Christianity, but he did not identify himself as a Jew.

Ruth Benedict