How Widespread is this Point of View?

[Occhidiangela]

Blame liberals.

No, don't. First of all, that's too broad a group of people, and too poorly defined (hmm, sorta like "European culture" to be useful.

Secondly, the Liberal influence in the modern world, it can be argued, has helped shape the acceptance of the blending of cultures without major conflict, though the post Kennedy liberals and their obsession with equivalency of cultures are a force toward social balkanization, rather than assimilation.

Liberals arcoss the world have been very big on maintaining your old culture when you move. Frankly thats not the way humanity works. The notion puts an added stress on on the already difficult process of assimilation.
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Well, it is sorta the way the world works. Religion is a key piece of culture, or historically it has been. Greek and Other Orthodox churches carryied over from "old country" to America. America, as founded, was predominantly Protestant, be it Calvinist or Anglican or Presbyterian. How many generations does it take to adopt the new land's religion? For some, it never happens. Depending on the culture arriving into, that could matter a great deal. Note that under this model, the various Jewish diaspora did not successfully assimilate into much of any culture over the years. So in at least one case, assimilation is NOT a natural progression. Is the modern strain of Liberal thought you decry heavily influenced by the successful Jewish example of non-assimilation? Or, are the tenets of Jewish culture inherently better, and tend to displace weaker cultures it encounters? I don't know. Thee doesn't seem to be any question that Jewish culture is extremely successful, at the very least in maintaining reasonable coherence for a few millenia.

Let's look at Europe as it stands today: an increasingly non religious/secular land. How then, for the assimilation of immigrants to move forward, does a Muslim, or a second/third/fourth/ generation Muslim, adopt the religion of his new land when there basically isn't one?

To assimilate, one could argue that the requirement to assimilate into Europe is to become apostate. I'd offer that the author of the piece that started this thread would endorse that approach, but to reject one's religion, the Faith one was raised to believe in and a key element of one's native culture, is no small matter. It takes time and probably some sort of epiphany.

Now, I agree with you that successful assimilation takes a few generations. Maybe the problem in Paris is the same old "process underway" or "work in progress" matter, but the 24/7 coverage of local events as national and international items of interest draw attention that it does not merit, and extrapolations from specific to general that are unfounded.

Occhi