Paul Doonan doesn’t say how many languages he is fluent in, but he seems pretty ‘ignorant’ himself in the way he calls English-only speakers “ignorant” and “self satisfied”.

“When was the last time you read an Urdu poet in the original? Or even in translation? Hindi readers will have read Dickens, often in English, but how many English readers have even heard of Kalidasa?”

Yeah? How many of the millions of Hindi speakers have read Dickens in English?

Many people believe that it’s good to study other languages, and in some professions it is essential. But people who speak only their own native language – most people, I would think – are not “ignorant” simply because this character says so. Or, at least, we are no more ‘ignorant’ than the multitudes of people who don’t speak English

Great stuff altogether.

Mr "right" is at his usual nit-picking narkiness.

Its true we whiteys presume that we are culturally superior to everyone else. Our "education" system trains us to be so.

The (christian) white-man always ruled and won in the various "media" that I grew up with--TV, comics, books. Somehow the (heathen) darkies and coloureds always needed the whiteys (preferrably christian) to sort out their troubles. Tarzan, the Phantom and Biggles.

And in the real world christian missionaries were bringing "christ" to the "heathen savages", whilst at the same time OUR carpet-baggers were stealing the resources of the indigenous peoples, ALL over the world.

Of course traditionalist Indians, Chinese, Japanese etc etc. belief that their culture is superior. As do Moslems wherever they live. They are all quite rightly trying to defend their Traditions against the onslaught of the culturally bankrupt barbarians from the West. This is particularly so in the case of Moslems.

Classical Brahmin Indian's considered the white man to be ignorant barbarians completely devoid of any cultural sensitivity, or even the possibility of such. They even had a word to describe us ---mlecchas.

Meanwhile white might is right is championed by the titles of such books as The West Against the Rest, America Alone. And by groups that promote the idea of the Anglophone "supremacy" and even the American Century.

Ideas which can be both quite sophisticated or even god-smackingly crude as in the various white aryan nation rantings.

The world-wide emergence and swing back to the right-wing politics of cultural "purity" and their simplistic slogans is a chilling sign of the tempo of the times.

There are lots of scapegoats to be found out "there".

I really don't know what all the hoo-ha is all about. I prefer to follow the example of that famous US congressman who said:

"If english was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me."

Mr. Right, the number of people in the world who can understand more than one language outnumbers those who understand only one.

Large groups of the populations of Africa, Europe, Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia, Central and Northern America understand more than one language.

Happy to help reduce your ignorance any time.

Ho Hum,

What absolute bollocks. America Alone is a fantastic read with a wealth of supporting material. I don’t agree with everything he says, but it is insightful and razor sharp. It is clear he (Steyn) is directing his anger at people just like you, the guilt mongers and the self haters for whom cultural relativism is a workaday pastime. The black armband view of history. You whine about our behavior hundreds of year ago, as if it were yesterday, yet you are captured by the noble savage myth and seem entirely incapable of rational analysis of these cultures we were supposedly crushing.

It’s just like those idiots who try to justify Islamic terrorism by referring to our involvement in the Crusades. They miss the point that we have been through the Enlightenment, and the Reformation. Islam has not. But we could still live together without problem. The difficulty is the revival among the “youths” of literalist, (Islamist) strains of Islam, including Pan Islamism, which is not compatible with western secular democracy.

Steyn puts the valid point that any sensible analysis of western culture, today, indicates its superiority. Just look at what else there is. Show me something better. Certainly neither the Brahmins, nor the Indians in general, nor the Chinese have anything better.

Your simplistic assertion that this is race based is infantile. It seems you cannot cope with complexity and are forced to reduce everything to such puerile nonsense. To suggest that everyone who disagrees with your twisted view of history and society are racists is sloganeering of the basest kind

Wow!