MARINA DEL REY, CA -- Washington State's Makah Indian tribe is given permission to hunt whales because it is a cultural tradition. Jesse Jackson is urging computer and Wall Street brokerage companies to hire more blacks because they are "underrepresented" in these fields. Warring tribes in Kosovo are fighting each other because they do not belong to the same tribe.
     These are only a small sampling of how multiculturalism is Balkanizing American society and the world and contributing to the spread of racism, said the board chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute.
     "Multiculturalism is racism in a politically correct guise," said Peter Schwartz. "It holds that an individual's identity and personal worth are determined by ethnic or racial membership and that all cultures are of equal worth, regardless of their moral views. Multiculturalism holds that ethnic identity should be a central factor in educational and social policy decisions."
     Schwartz is the editor and contributing author of the recently released Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (Meridian/Penguin). His essay on multiculturalism, "Multicultural Nihilism," argues that the goal of the multiculturalists is the destruction of all rational values.
     Schwartz said that the way to fight multiculturalism is the same way that all racism has been fought -- by upholding individualism and rejecting collectivism.
     "The multiculturalists are racists," he said. "They want to judge all men and women by their unchosen ancestry, not by their chosen, individual character. These new racists base their morality on that which is outside moral choice: ethnic heritage, skin color, and geography. They are no better than the old-fashioned racists they claim to hate, except they practice a more insidious form of racism."
     As part of its efforts to educate the public about the dangers of multiculturalism, the Ayn Rand Institute has set up a multiculturalism Web site at http://multiculturalism.aynrand.org. The site includes editorials by Institute writers on such subjects as why western civilization is the superior culture and why individualism is the only cure for racism.