Thread: Assimilation vs. Multiculturalism

6/27/2007

CAGE MATCH: ASSIMILATION VS. MULTICULTURALISM

Oh my. This should rock the boat a bit:

Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities. He fears that his work on the surprisingly negative effects of diversity will become part of the immigration debate, even though he finds that in the long run, people do forge new communities and new ties.
[b]Putnam’s study reveals that immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups, but also within the groups themselves. Trust, even for members of one’s own race, is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friendships fewer. The problem isn’t ethnic conflict or troubled racial relations, but withdrawal and isolation. Putnam writes: “In colloquial language, people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’—that is, to pull in like a turtle.â€

Another reason why we should slow legal immigration, stop illegal immigration, let things settle for awhile, while encouraging assimilation of newcomers. If not, we will end up like France, England -- or East Los Angeles.

Diversity, if it happens naturally, is OK - it is neither good nor bad = it just is.

Diversity, if forced, is devisive and dangerous.

I don't understand why people think they must be exposed to people of different cultures in order to understand, respect, appreciate, them.

There are many, many cultures around this world I have never been exposed to - does that mean I would be disrespectul or insulting should I meet one. Why?

The idea that one must know something of another culture in order to get along with or work with, just makes no sense to me - none at all.

If you have a basic respect for human beings and teach it to your children - nothing else is necessary.

Part of the problem is cultural relativism - the belief that no one culture is inherently better than another, which allows the current wave of immigrants to resist assimilation. This was not the case in previous waves of immigrants. They thought America and it's ways were better than the, "old country," and they actively pursued assimilation.

Another problem is the weird cult of diversity worship that has developed. Some diversity is good, but just like many things, taken to the extremes that it has been taken, it is a bad thing. Too much diversity divides a people.

bttt