A Quote by Virginia Postrel

In the fall of 1978, I left the religious, conservative, biracial, slow-paced culture of South Carolina for the secular, liberal, multi-ethnic, intense culture of Princeton University. Like most immigrants, I was looking for a better life in a place I only half understood.
Although the Nasser revolution of 1952 was secular, the culture remained deeply religious - but it was a faith of moderation and tolerance. Women made up nearly half my class at university, and my senior academic adviser there was a woman. In Alexandria, my friends were Christians and Muslims.
It may very well be that people in San Francisco don't think we have any culture in Nebraska, but we have a different culture, and it's a very deep culture. We have these Czech immigrants, who are making this marvelous ethnic food and their Catholic lives and it's very fascinating stuff.
If a harmonious relationship is established amongst societies and religious beliefs in today's multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural world, then it will surely set a very good example for others.
The University of South Carolina has always played a role in my life and the intellectual life of South Carolina.
I have dear friends in South Carolina, folks who made my life there wonderful and meaningful. Two of my children were born there. South Carolina's governor awarded me the highest award for the arts in the state. I was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. I have lived and worked among the folks in Sumter, South Carolina, for so many years. South Carolina has been home, and to be honest, it was easier for me to define myself as a South Carolinian than even as an American.
I'm from South Carolina, so I know what it's like to be accused of being a conservative from the South. And I know that to some people that means more than you're a conservative from the South.
"Culture" is a new phenomenon, I believe. Culture is the new religion. People treat you based upon your culture. You are pushed to describe yourself by your culture: Kurdish or Turkish? Left wing or right wing? Progressive or conservative? Westerner or Easterner? European or Asian? So we have a label ready for you.
I grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina, which has the proud distinction of being the home to two of the eight Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the state: South Carolina State University and Claflin University. When I was a kid riding around town with my grandfather, we often drove by the colleges.
As soon as I moved to Princeton in 1978, I became fascinated by local history, much of it Revolutionary War-era; and I became fascinated by the presidency of Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University.
Many teachers of the Sixties generation said "We will steal your children", and they did. A significant part of America has converted to the ideas of the 1960s - hedonism, self-indulgence and consumerism. For half of all Americans today, the Woodstock culture of the Sixties is the culture they grew up with - their traditional culture. For them, Judeo-Christian culture is outside the mainstream now. The counter-culture has become the dominant culture, and the former culture a dissident culture - something that is far out, and 'extreme'.
If most American cities are about the consumption of culture, Los Angeles and New York are about the production of culture - not only national culture but global culture.
Where it is the majority religion, Islam does not recognize religious freedom, at least not as we understand it. Islam is a different culture. This doesn't mean that it's an inferior culture, but it is a culture that has yet to connect with the positive sides of our modern Western culture: religious freedom, human rights and equal rights for women.
The secular and religious Left find it convenient to demonize politically conservative Christians.
The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists. To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.
My particular lifetime, my individual profile, represents something very basic to African-American history and culture because I was a second generation immigrant, so to speak, from the South. My grandfather was born in South Carolina - well, both grandfathers were born in the South.
The fact that societies are becoming increasingly multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multi-religious is good. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness.
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