What Is So Great About America

What Is So Great About America
By Dinesh D'Souza

The book clearly begins with an effort to draw a polarized view of the Islamic and Western divide. Beginning with assimilating Precleses and Greece to today's West and then drawing contrast with an Islamic faith that advocates a conquest of anything not Islamic. For the West to ignore the views of Islamic doctrine D'Souza claims to be a mistake. In as much as we lament the idea of a church run State, Islam is diametrically opposite with sound church influenced state in their beliefs.

D'Souza suggests that agreeing to disagree with Muslims is a form of liberalism that we must put in check. It is liberalism itself that is at dispute. It becomes an obstacle when demonstrating that our society is a moral improvement upon theirs.

In D'Souza's attempt to patronize America and at the same time qualify him to write the book, an interesting note can be taken. As an immigrant from India, D'Souza recognizes while that it is possible for he an Indian to become an American in America; it is not at all possible to do the same in India, or any other country. He suggest that this is one of the many reasons explored in the book that enables A Christian, Jew, Muslim to work side by side in life and give no thought to the ethnic "bad blood" in their history. Becoming an American is less about your place of birth but about embracing ideas. The evil that lurks within is the academic left who preach multiculturalism as the anecdote to patriotism. They preach that forcing Western ways on other countries is bad. Yet for example when the British left India in 1947, India chose to keep many of the British practices. I learned in reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, that this adoption on technology has been a primary part of the evolution of man since Adam and Eve. How's that for a drawing from the best of theology and evolution? While multiculturalism is teaching the traditional religions and customs of far away countries in our educational institutions as current practice, those practices are actually fading away in those countries. When I contrast this with books I recently read, with pictures of Yannomami Indians of the Brazilian Rain Forest wearing T-shirts and Levi cutoff shorts, I believe D'Souza. Sure there may be a place for the past, but evolution and improvement in a standard of living is what humans do.

In meeting the challenge of multiculturalism, D'Souza brings up the question of ethnocentricity. He demonstrates that indeed this is not the sole domain of the West. Ethnocentricity is an aspect of all civilizations and in fact the more primitive the technology and life style the more prominent the observed degree of ethnocentricity. In contrast the West has carried forward in the center of it's thinking the practice of the Greeks. Whereby we continuously question our identification of what is good. We are willing to look at other cultures for the answer. I can't help but recall in every book I have read on Islam that proclaims everything there is to know is already written in the bible. In fact in Iran science is shackled by it's limitation in terms, words not founded in the Koran.

Science, Democracy, and Capitalism are the three staples that set the West aside from the rest of the world. Now add progress. This is a Christian idea, meaning the fulfillment of a plan. In the West Human Beings build on the accomplishments and discoveries of others. With this idea, people in America have realized a society where the common man sees himself as equal to a CEO in terms of freedom to choose his destiny. In America money is not an end but a means to a longer, healthier and fuller life. Money enables immigrants to pursue a life with dignity, security and comfort that they would not have realized in their homeland. The American allows a person to choose his destiny and work towards achieving his dreams. D'Souza illustrates this by describing the conversation between the parent and child where the questions is asked; "What do you want to be when you grow up?" The phrase that captures the answer is the pursuit of happiness.

By mid book it is clear that D'Souza is staunchly opposed to the activist views of multiculturalism. While there is a sentiment within the academic left who impose their ideals on naive students; the majority of this movement comes form African-Americans. What I find so amusing in the arguments he uses you realize the rhetoric in one side or the other. Ones beliefs or desire places him to see one interpretation of history as rhetoric and the other side of the same story as fact. Take the example from the chapter on The Reparations Fallacy where Fredrick Douglas sites the Congressional view of blacks to hold that three black men were equal to five white men. The black side see this as an example of oppression They can be "well dress but still oppressed” On the other side, the intent of the ruling was to limit the South's natural population (including blacks) to diminish any voting strength on slavery bills. While D'Souza dispatches the 3/5 ruling he is a little cloudy on the framers position of our framers of the Constitution owning slaves. But I do accept his argument. And you could say within the context of this review that I do so because I am white. OKaaaay!

Let just simply say that the predicament the framers found themselves in was a technical one. I uphold the choice to preserve a union on democracy over that of a Platonian view of objectivist wise men. Had we let slavery be a qualifier for our Union our country, if at all, would be a hundred years younger today. In which case slavery would have continued anyhow. The Union was created that laid the groundwork for popular consensus to mature. Our Civil War is an testament that war is the final solution to political argument.


Who are our enemy's? They are abroad and from within: grouped as Multiculuralists looking for reparations, Third World intellectuals, Western leftists, and Islamic fundamentalists. A more colored description and rationale for each group are stated to a moderate level of detail in the book. Detail sufficient enough to get through a cocktail party debate. These three groups have one thing in common: blame America first syndrome. Situational example; D'Souza sites examples where foreign leaders are universally allowed to use "it is our best interest" for any questionable action, and Americans would be scrutinized for our defending Kuwait. We would be accused that we were doing it for the oil. Well of course, it is in our interest and by the way we liberated Kuwait.

In drawing conclusion to his argument; D'Souza ensures we understand that fundamentalist Muslims are well researched on America and they know what they do not like about us. He then summarizes what we must do to be up to the task in its War On Terrorism. Muslim appreciates their inferior position technology wise and the impact it has on their condition of life. Yet in the balance of their mind they are well rooted in their virtue and condemn the decadent life style that we maintain. The question he leaves you with is can we consolidate our strengths in terms of who we believe we as a society technically and morally are and then use this to sustain our war and homeland defense against terrorism. We know our living conditions are superior. In the past we won wars based because our public believed that we were fighting for "good" against "evil” His book at least provides enough of an argument to win a pro American cocktail party debate. So therefore it met my personal needs.