Disney’s Small, Small World: the root of the problem.
The downside of diversity – The Boston Globe — And people are going to be surprised by this? One thing for sure, nobody wants to talk about it.
IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.
But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.
It’s too bad that this study on focused on only the US, it would be interesting to compare the results between different countries, such as Canada.
Also maybe the problem isn’t that the populations are diverse, but that people are not inclined to trust what they do not know.
LOL. Big surprise. This “cherish diversity” crowd also brought on the destruction of the Black family, “sexual harrassment”, “no fault divorce”, wetlands protection, the endangered species act, banning of DDT, banning construction of nuke power plants, and how many other destructive things?
“The stated purpose is not the goal. The goal is power.”
Incredible – you mean the the magical panacea for all human problems actually turns out to have – like everything else in the known universe – an upside AND a downside? It won’t bring everyone together in a joyous, all-singin-and-dancing Coke commercial of utopian bliss?? You can’t actually mean that sometimes it’s GOOD for people to group with others who share beliefs, or heritage, or interests??? I’m going to have to get a damp rag for my forehead and take a lie-down before I swoon…
This was already cited in the NYT Magazine of two Sundays ago. I was wondering if anyone here was gonna pick up on it.
I wonder if the greater the city population, the greater the “civic diversity” which in turn produces the “lessor the civic engagement”.
The is just more BS “massive studies” that have an outcome in mind.
I wonder if more “civic diversity” results shows more greater propensity of smoking or unwed child births. Therefore, bastard children and smokers contribute to less civic engagement.
Despite the BS they try to slather on in public schools and the media, people are tribal.
Amen. In the timeless words of Groundkeeper Willie, “Enjoy yer multicultural hooey.”
#4 – Hey, Dallas: Why not try reading the article and getting the answers to your questions as opposed to simply asserting your own predetermined outcome?
In Japan, where nearly everyone is of the same race and culture, they go so far as to discriminate based on blood type. Think about that. Identifying perceived differences in people is so ingrained that the Japanese are forced to consider people inferior due to their blood. (Ignoring the fact that there are third generation Koreans living in Japan who are still legally considered aliens.)
As 5 points out, we’re tribal. We look out for our own kind, but sometimes even when we’re all on the same side, we make up differences to keep our xenophobia happy.
Basically, when we’re all in the same tribe, it’s our nature to help most of the time. But when confronted by a perceived different tribe, it’s also our nature not to.
People are, and always will be tribal.
#3 – Lauren the Ghoti
This is perhaps an association where you feel at ease and can share your beliefs, heritage and interests with?
Like everything else, group identification / pride / loyalty / cohesiveness can be a positive force, if we use the power of reason to notice when it starts to get out of bounds and take steps to rein it in. Dumbass PC fuckwits can’t permit that, though. Violates their Marxist dream of a society that mandates that everyone be exactly, uniformly as mediocre as anyone else – or else.
Why is this a problem? Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, knew how to unify all the cultures under his control. He made an image of gold, ninety feet high and nine feet wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. He then summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he had set up.
“So the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials assembled for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before it. Then the herald loudly proclaimed, `This is what you are commanded to do, O peoples, nations and men of every language: As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace’.” Daniel 3.
For what it’s worth, a recent analysis of the whole “multiculturalism” phenomenon showed that, as a concept, it basically amounts to a very straight-forward redefiniion of racism, only with “ethnicity” as its main divider, and using more PC terminology.
The one (admittedly crucial) point where it differed was that it wasn’t all that common — but still not complete uncommon — to assign value depending on ethnicity in a way that would completely equate multiculturalism to racism.
Well, DUH! The “diversity is good” crowd have given us the hyphenated American. African-American, Asian-American, Italian-American, Irish-American, Mexican-American, gay-American, etc, etc, etc. A hyphenated populace is about as far as you can get from homogeneous and makes for a dysfunctional society.
The diversity craze has lead to a fragmentation of the culture into reactionary groups of minorities that all feel like they are being dissed by the others and are willing to sue to make it right. The melting pot ideal has been lost. No one seems to want to simply be called an “American” anymore.
The proponents of the diversity movement meant to correct past grievances and help create an identity for oppressed groups. They have had limited success but have made the country into a cultural basket case. They have succeeded in dividing a seemingly unified post WWII America into medieval fiefdoms that can be endlessly played against each other, all to the glee of politicians and lawyers.
Melting pot? Nope. More like divide and conquer.
Almost all of you are wrong. Either you point to the basest of human instinct, and declare it universal, or (even more bizarrely) you start throwing around everything else that annoys you as if it is even remotely relevant. Let’s start with the whole diversity thing. I am not about to defend any “movement” that has been so useless as the so called diversity movement. However, far from proving that we should be tribal monkeys, bashing each other with coconuts, this proves the very opposite. Given the state of American cites, in my experience, this is proof that separating people in tribes is a failure. When you have a jewish neighborhood, and a catholic one, and a chinatown, and an indian neighborhood, and a hispanic one, and a filipino one, (as is true in any so called ‘diverse’ American city) is it any surprise that there is no community cohesion? We have (in our fear) already balkanized ourselves, and the result is that we only feel safe within a few blocks of home, and increasingly we don’t even speak the same language, because we don’t have to. The solution to this shameful state of affairs is three fold; it couldn’t be more simple. First, stop being such a pansy and get to know other people not like you. Second, live where ever you damn well please, and make it a point to get to know and ingratiate yourself to the people around you. Third, marry someone who looks as different from you as possible. Trust me, your mutt children, endowed with hybrid vigor, and having no genetic diseases or weaknesses, will thank you for it. I thank the heavens that I am a mutt every day; it’s the luxury body all of us would have if we would stop being afraid and just love each other. And then we would have a real melting pot, instead of raw ingredients on a plate as we have now. And those people who feel sorry that the soup would have a tint of brown to it, can die of skin cancer for all I care.
Actually Li you kind of identified the real problem without knowing what you did. It’s not that easy for all layers of society to do what you say. Multi-culti only works with the educated and intelligent — or the top layers cosmopolitan types who are trying to learn more and more — rather than the C-average person from any culture. Add gangsters and see what they think. Add flunks and see what they think. This is, in fact, a failed experiment that is elitist, idealist and a luxury item.
I’m glad that Mr. Putnam found this phenomena interesting and that he have tried his best to explain it. Unfortunately he misses some of the things when it comes to immigrants and why they don’t engage in the “civic activities” that he has brought up to see as the norm. It all boils down to where the immigrants grew up. A lot of European countries got very well-developed social safety nets. In other words, the society takes care of a lot of the activities that Americans volunteer to do. And these social safety nets were already in the works before Europe started to get mass immigration, so blaming lack of civil engagement on the immigrants is just not correct. So, Europeans don’t have this urge to volunteer to this and that. Also, the first thing on immigrants minds is not to volunteer, but to establish a life in their new country… basically your starting from scratch. The American society will not fall apart from this. The society will evolve. To what you might ask… your guess is as good as mine. But I’m sure there’s a lot of narrowminded people who are afraid of losing their identity. Perhaps you should do something new tomorrow? Such as making friends with someone of a different background than yourself. It sure as hell doesn’t hurt.
#16 I don’t get the take-away from this — should we start corralling and segregation measures? where was this grand experiment performed? is there a firehose allotment in the patriot act?
I’m sorry John, I’m not sure what part of the nation you lived in, but when times are tough and you’re living off the land, getting along is not a luxury, it is a necessity. And if that ends of with a bit of marrage between blacks and whites, or indians and whites, or germans and irish, then it’s only the effete elete and their blue blood that has time to be offended.
I can’t wait for the crash. It will be the real test; do we love each other, or do we die? There is no choice three.
By the way, edit “part of the nation you lived in” to “parts of the nation you have lived in”. I did not mean to imply that you are no longer one of the living. 😛
Pretty soon… the US will become less diverse as the Latino whites take over. .. if it has not happened already.
Or, maybe Asians!
From the SF paper tonight:
“From 2000 to 2006, San Francisco’s black population decreased by 15 percent, from 62,782 to 53,234, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The City’s nonwhite Hispanic population went down from 98,530 to 93,115 — a 5 percent dip. Even the Asian population saw a 2 percent decline — from 242,776 to 238,783 — although the racial group’s percentage within The City’s overall population increased.”
The awful truth is that most immigrants come from a world where there’s no civic society but the powers that be says there is extravagantly. When they come to a country that actually has it they think it’s the same ol’ thing. It takes at least a generation before the kids buy into it.
There was a time when there was enormous pressure for them to at least fake it but along with that was a lot of bigotry. The trick is for us to bring back the pressure without the bigotry. I wish anyone trying to figure out how we do that the best of luck!
#19 but when times are tough and you’re living off the land, getting along is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
Yeah, I’m seeing a lot of -that- in that world today.
#19 then it’s only the effete elete and their blue blood that has time to be offended.
Yep, nobody else in the entire world is racist – or tribal, or whatever quaint word you want to use – when the going gets tough.
Reminds me of the section in Jared Diamond’s book where he talks about New Guinea – and how his local companions can identify a member of a different tribe just by subtle [to Jared] clues of hair-style, clothing, ornamentation, etc.
Lets see…
Import aliens that Have NO IDEA of how this country is run.
Then dont teach the kids HOW this country is run for 2 generations.
Then have a few corrupt administrations in most major cities, where NO ONE can make an impact….
What do you get??
i love how a conservatives can dismiss hundreds of studies with peer-reviewed data collection and analysis that prove that humans are causing global warming, and how broadly they can dismiss entire centuries of physical science that point to a universe that is billions of years old, but boy-howdy you give ’em one article about how it appears to be better for the races to be separate and BAM science is good again!
Duh, and the leftist/commie said what? This won’t change the leftist BS line, they’re just say we either 1.) need to spend more money on it, or 2.) we just need to give it more time. It amount to the same, but it won’t matter Globalism must go on and this isn’t going to change anything, neither will plague, the sea changing to blood, eathquakes, or rumors of war.
I’m not touching this one. 🙂
after reading most of the comments on here i realized that most people didnt read the whole article because they were asked for a password
let me quote from page 4
i love how liberals can embrace hundreds of studies with peer-reviewed data collection and analysis that prove that humans are causing global warming, and how broadly they can embrace entire centuries of physical science that point to a universe that is billions of years old, but boy-howdy you give ‘em one article about how it appears to be better for the races to be separate and BAM science is racist bullshit!