Reference no: EM133253018

1. What impact on the reader do you think the author or editor of this article's headline intended to have through the use of the word cult?

2. What might bring a historian to the conclusion that, "[e]thnic and racial conflict-far more than ideological conflict-is the explosive problem of our times"?

3. What, according to Schlesinger, has the American nation been able to do that other countries with members from diverse ethnic groups have not yet managed to do as successfully?

Rhetorical Analysis

4. What are some possible effects on the reader of listing many nationalities before, during, and after mention of Crevecoeur's promiscuous breed? How does doing so set the stage for mention of Zangwill's 1908 play, The Melting Pot?

5. What arguments does Schlesinger employ to build the case for the existence of a cult of ethnicity?

6. How does the author use the contrasting of healthy and unhealthy consequences to suggest a hidden, presumed subversive, agenda on the parts of those "well-intentioned individuals" who promote, celebrate, and perpetuate distinguishing among and between ethnic identities? Does such a practice come at the expense of national unity?

7. Is Schlesinger's use of the term hullabaloo to characterize the shift toward multicultural curriculum and instruction calculated to raise or lower the reader's esteem for such practices?

8. Upon what historical facts might the author base his claim that Europe is "the unique source of the liberating ideas of democracy, civil liberties and human rights"?

9. Is the author's zero-sum argument that, "[t]he balance is shifting from unum to pluribus" tenable? Are the unity and diversity conceived of by the American nation's founding fathers mutually exclusive? Explain.