MugaSofer comments on Rationality Quotes November 2012 - Less Wrong
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What exactly is "a society at ease with the rich tapestry of human life"?
Am I "at ease" with cultures that have a hobby of cutting small girls' genitalia? Hell no! Does that make me an intolerant racist, or whatever is the most appropriate boo light today? So sue me, or at least make sure I will never get a job at academia!
Multiculturalism is an applause light, until you look at specific details. Then it sometimes gets ugly. Of course, to remain "politically correct" you have to stay in the far mode, and ignore all the details. It's easier that way.
Just like "desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit". Again, if your desire includes a desire to cut small girls' genitalia, then I think those girls deserve to have their opinion heard too. If that is against your sick religion, again, you have the choice to sue me, criticize me in media, assassinate me, or all three things combined. (In a sufficiently "politically correct" society you literally could do all three suggested things, and then have some educated people excuse your actions.)
This all is a completely different thing from when people from village X decide to wear robes with red flowers, and people from village Y decide to wear robes with blue flowers. Or if Americans pour ketchup over all their foods, while Asians use the soy sauce. With that kind of culture I have no problems. I also have no problems with folk songs, operas, paintings, or books (assuming those books don't preach something I find repulsive).
It is bad that these two things are often mixed together under a wide umbrella of "culture". Then it makes people objecting to genital mutilation seem like brain-damaged bigots obsessing about the right color of flowers on everyone's robes. And that is pretty dishonest. And evil.
To all those claiming that multiculturalism has no downsides, I would like to point out that "equal time for creationism" sprung from and used multiculturalism; the notion that you can justify anything using religious freedom can and does lead to Bad Things being justified thus. AFAIK no real society is perfectly multicultural, but that's poor implementation; a bug, not a feature.
EDIT: I am in favour of all the Good Things that spring to mind when we hear "multiculturalism", and do not advocate the Bad Things associated with opposing it (ie a single monolithic and enforced culture.)
Not outside the US it didn't
Are you saying it didn't happen outside the US or when it did it had some other origin?
The former.
That's false. It happened in 1980 in Queensland, and 1985 in Turkey (the latter continuing to the present). Just a few years ago in Switzerland, many schools had science books that gave equal time for creationism, but it was controversial and ultimately rejected.
While a separate issue, many Islamic countries ban the teaching of evolution or teach an "intelligent design" friendly version.