Who wants cultural diversity?
Is it better for a country if its people shared similar customs or traditions? In many ways that question goes to the heart of many debates we have in this country, right? The people who think the country is going to hell in a hand-cart usually do so because they’re worried about people who might look or act somewhat differently to them.
So a bunch of scientists decided to do a study asking that question: “It is better for a country if almost everyone shares the same customs and traditions?” for Americans and Europeans.
The result (pdf) is somewhat surprising. Seen as somewhat insular and inward looking, the Americans actually come out the best – with less than 30% agreeing that cultural homogeneity was a good thing.
So you’d think that the more open a country to immigration, as America is, the more open they are to diversity. Well, Switzerland comes next, and then Sweden, and then Germany (!!!). UK is way down the list.
See this chart
In many ways this also shatters the theory, advanced a lot by David Goodhart of Prospect magazine, that a culturally homogeneous country such as Sweden may want to preserve that sense of identity. It actually looks like the Swedes are more open minded than the Brits on diversity. Who would have thought eh?
(via the Monkey Cage)
There’s also a chart on who wants religious diversity, again the results are very curious.
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Filed in: Culture,United States
But what are “customs and traditions” in this case?
Are we talking about eating or not eating certain foods, or about equality of the sexes?
“Seen as somewhat insular and inward looking, the Americans…”
Seen by whom? Guardianista idiots and or people who have never been there I assume.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
For reasons much debated, America seems to have the better knack of making their immigrants Americans first and xxxxx-Americans second.
perhaps the reason that brits (particularly white, english brits) have trouble with this is that they aren’t entirely sure what their own customs and traditions are, seeing as they’ve been told for so long that they are a bunch of racist imperialist whatevers, plus there are a huge variety of customs and traditions here, everything from that which comes from being a city-based capitalist to being a rural agriculturalist or a WWC socialist etc etc. americans have a pretty good idea of the *overarching* culture, which is far more homogeneous to start with than ours is. i’d hazard a guess that the germans and swiss (both being, like the americans, long-established federations) have a better idea of how to do “federal” institutions than we do, seeing as ours stem in the most part from our historical-imperial legacy rather than from shared culture.
b’shalom
bananabrain
I thought the comment at the top of page 4 of the report – about how “ironically” immigrants were better integrated in the US and Canada because they had less comprehensive welfare systems was an important point.
I’ve long thought that immigrants come here to work, and if they work then they are generally obliged to work with everyone else, whom they can see as little different from themselves, rather than living off benefits in cultural ghettos and whining about how hard done by they are, etc.
My immigrant forefathers had to get on with it, and look at me – PERFECTLY integrated!
As to being uncertain about culture in the UK, to some extent I agree, and particularly because the liberal conspiracy has made many ordinary Britons feel ashamed to express and be proud about their culture. They’re labelled ignorant racist chavs. At family gatherings and the like, how often have I heard the “I’m not racist but…” before an auntie or uncle moans that “they come over here, they should abide by our rules etc”. Actually, this is a victory for the PC Police, who have succeeded in attaching shame to English cultural values to the extent that people have to apologise in advance. On the other hand, I think most indigenous Britons know precisely who they are – they’re just afraid to say so. And it aint got nothing to do with federalism!
When you say that the Americans “come out best” you’re not being entirely objective, are you? The Americans show lower levels of support for the proposition that cultural homogeneity is a good thing.
Moreover, looking at the charts reveals a somewhat different result from your assertion. The UK doesn’t come “way down the list” at all: it is actually bunched with a whole group of countries somewhere in the “liberal” half of the graph. It is, marginally, “lower down” than some others, but that is well within the margin of error. The country that is really at the bottom, with twice as many demanding cultural and religious conformity than in countries like Britain, is Greece.
Indeed, the UK shows up as less obviously prejudiced in its average responses than most of the continental European nations surveyed. Very far from being a model of informed tolerance [whatever that would be] but very far also from being an outlier of bigoted prejudice and suspicion.
‘The people who think the country is going to hell in a hand-cart usually do so because they’re worried about people who might look or act somewhat differently to them.’
Spot on, but I don’t think that per se this is about immigration or diversity or even race. These people would worry about hoodies on street corners whether they were white, black, brown or green.
I feel that diversity is a bit of a red herring. The issue is integration and that is not mutually exclusive with diversity. This I suspect is why the Polish Plumber and at once be a symbol for Daily Mail froth and have a full order book. The plumber is an immigrant may bring diversity but at the same time is integrated into the society/economy etc. I imagine it is a similar story with immigrant care-home workers.
There is no conflict between diversity and integration. However I do believe that it is for the individual to make efforts to integrate into civil society – however difficult that may be.
Who wants cultural diversity?
Er,… not me, that’s for sure.
Robert Putnam’s groundbreaking research into the effects of immigration on ‘social capital’ brings into question the entire notion that ‘diversity’ is a strength and not a weakness.
Basically, the more ethnically diverse the neighbourhood, the less likely we are to trust our neighbour, regardless of his or her ethnicity. And what follows is a long list of negative consequences, which include less confidence in local government and the media, lower voting registration (though higher participation in protest), less volunteering, fewer close friends, lower rates of happiness and perceived quality of life and more time spent watching television.
So you’d think that the more open a country to immigration, as America is, the more open they are to diversity. Well, Switzerland comes next,
Switzerland is extremely un-open to immigration – it is the home of the ‘third-generation illegals’, people with grand-parents who moved into the country before WWII. Not only were they born in the country, their parents were too, and they still don’t have citizenship rights, can’t vote (including on citizenship rules). It’s really only one step away from apartheid, and the EU keep taking them to court over it.
As for Sweden immigration is currently at new record highs:
Preliminary data showed 96,800 people will have migrated to the Nordic country by year-end, up 48% compared to the year before, it said in a statement.
In other words, Swedish immigration is as close to zero as makes no difference.
Time for another theory?
I suspect a homogoneous, successful country, with low immigration, probably wants to spice things up a bit. A country in political crisis with low legitimacy will tend to cling to what it knows. Countries in the middle are in the middle.
Soru, that’s 96,800 into a population of little more than 9 million. Which means more than one percent of the population consists of people who’ve entered the country in the last 12 months. There are higher figures elsewhere, but I hardly think that’s as negligible as you suggest.
I have never lived in a mono-cultural environment. The thought of living like that seems bizzare. Hell, even the place from where my parents hail (Panjab) was/is very diverse in terms of ethnicity and beliefs.
I get a feeling that behind the increasing fear of natives is the realisation that “immigrants” here may prove somewhat of an obstacle to their dicking around the world resurrecting “the greatest empire in the world”.
I notice that skin colour seems to play a significant role in people accepting immigrants or not. As evidence I notice that despite a MASSIVE influx of Polish and Eastern Europeans their isn’t that hardcore open hatred that characterised the 70s and 80s in reaction. Maybe the British are reluctantly accepting change?
But relating this to another thread about the BNP, I would say non white (especially “asian”) citizens need to be careful of the activity of such groups. They are plain opportunists and will use any excuse to push for conflict. This will be easier to achieve if the country goes through something like a harsh recession. Essentially be ready to battle scapegoating from those with malicious intent.
Darn it, you’ve found me out – back to the drawing-board for resurrecting the greatest empire in the world, then.
———————
Darn it, you’ve found me out – back to the drawing-board for resurrecting the greatest empire in the world, then.
———————
Yes it was great for the assholes who created it. Not for the rest of the monkeys though.
In response….
cjcjc:
Seen by whom? Guardianista idiots and or people who have never been there I assume.
By the fact they have such low passport takeup rates.
rather than living off benefits in cultural ghettos and whining about how hard done by they are, etc.
Not sure about the ghettoes bit – America has plenty of ethnic segregation on geographical grounds.
before an auntie or uncle moans that “they come over here, they should abide by our rules etcâ€.
Which is the law, and by and large they do.
Heseriarch
The Americans show lower levels of support for the proposition that cultural homogeneity is a good thing.
Yes, and to me thats a good thing
The country that is really at the bottom, with twice as many demanding cultural and religious conformity than in countries like Britain, is Greece.
I didn’t say Britain was crap, only it was halfway down the list.
MaidMarian
There is no conflict between diversity and integration. However I do believe that it is for the individual to make efforts to integrate into civil society – however difficult that may be.
Agreed!
Robert Putnam’s groundbreaking research into the effects of immigration on ’social capital’ brings into question the entire notion that ‘diversity’ is a strength and not a weakness.
Putnam is pro-diversity by the way!
yeah for the first comment. Humans do have shared customs and traditions! eating sleeping fighting making love
cultural diversity rocks, I love meeting people from different countries. it’s boring just to live in a culturally homogeneous society.
it depends to what extent people think things are shared, and what extent things are ‘different’. and what people mean by homogeneity. for example, we all eat food and enjoy eating food, that is an integral social custom for humans. now what you eat and how you prepare it might be different from place to place, and you might see it as a commonality, or a difference. of course people are different, and at the same time, share many things!
robert putnam and ‘ground breaking research’ in the same sentence hahahah.
I really don’t see this survey says very much at all.
It begs all sorts of questions.
For one thing, your attitude to ‘different customs and traditions’ may depend on how much you feel your nation has already gone down that route. If you feel secure that you are already in a homogeneous nation you may not feel nearly so apprehensive about the alternative, because you have so much room for increasing diversity while still remaining in reality quite homogenuous.
The survey also appears to say nothing about what the respondents concept of ‘shared values’ are – some may have a much broader and more liberal definition of such values in mind, while others may be thinking of something very tightly defined. Some may think it involves having the ‘right’ religion, others merely that it means ‘not wanting to blow us up’.
Finally the US is inevitably going to be different because its population density is a tiny fraction of most of the rest of those countries. Different groups are much more able to physically separate themselves.
The objective reality of behaviour seems to be different from these professed attitudes – the US doesn’t, in reality, accept any more legal immigrants than the UK does, relative to existing population (and takes far fewer, relative to size of the country).
Switzerland is notorious for making it extremely difficult for foreigners to gain citizenship.
Goodhart’s thesis is that there is a negative correlation between the ethnic diversity of a society and the strength of its welfare state, not that culturally homogenous countries want to preserve that sense of identity.
Don’t misrepresent Goodhart, Sunny.
It’s beneath you and you’re usually so good about such things.
agree with 20. I engaged recently with Prospect on this same debate – though it was more about the welfare state and implications for supporting groups in context of limited resources. Goodhart has a long-standing position on this issue.
Agree also that Putnam is a progressive force for social cohesion and finding commonality between groups by, in fact, investing and building in bridging capital – between different groups who otherwise don’t mix. His arguments point to a strengthened community and voluntary sector, mutual associations, to bring back notion of ‘community’ and trust in local neighbourhoods.
They sound like pretty good ideas to me.
The difficulty I find with debates about whether cultural diversity is good or bad is this: societies will always evolve – taking difference along with them, trick is to manage them, conflict, is a fact of life, and resolving conflict, which is the business of politics, is a part of society and government relations. Presumably our governments and democratic institutions should be up to the challenge – not just do diversity with emotive motives.
Jerry Z. Muller’s Foreign Affairs article, Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism (March/April, 2008), is a grim and timely reminder of the power of ethnicity in human affairs. It has explosive implications for the future of the United States and the West.
Muller demonstrates that, over the last 150 years or so, the general trend in Europe and elsewhere has been has been toward the creation of ethnically-based states—“ethnostatesâ€. This trend did not end with the close of World War II. In Europe, the war was followed by a forced resettlement of peoples—mainly Germans—to create ethnically homogeneous states. Indeed, the high point of ethnic homogenization in Europe was in the two generations in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
Muller writes:
“As a result of this massive process of ethnic unmixing, the ethnonationalist ideal was largely realized: for the most part, each nation in Europe had its own state, and each state was made up almost exclusively of a single ethnic nationality. During the Cold War, the few exceptions to this rule included Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. But these countries’ subsequent fate only demonstrated the ongoing vitality of ethnonationalism.â€
This point is crucial. While the recent spreading of the European Union imperium has given rise to a great deal of “post-nation†rhetoric, it has in fact been accompanied by an astonishing multiplication of ethnostates, split out of Yugoslavia and the former USSR — not to mention, of course, the Czech/Slovak division
Ethnic conflict is apparent as well throughout the developing world, and will likely lead to more partitioning and nation-creation. As Muller notes: “In areas where that separation has not yet occurred, politics is apt to remain uglyâ€.
But a huge anomaly has arisen. Recently, Western societies have embarked on a public policy project in which the ethno nationalism of white people is officially proscribed as an unadulterated evil. Multiculturalism only is encouraged and viewed as morally superior. As Muller notes: “Americans … find ethnonationalism discomfiting both intellectually and morallyâ€.
As a social scientist who takes the biological component of ethnicity seriously (although I readily agree that there is a cultural component as well), I can speak from personal experience about the hostility and moral disdain one faces from other academic social scientists when one points to these unfashionable facts.
Although World War II marked the defeat of the ethnonationalist National Socialist movement, Muller is clearly correct that it resulted in a Europe that was more accurately divided into ethnostates than ever. But World War II also saw the triumph of the political and cultural Left. These two cultural facts have been at odds ever since.
German National Socialists remain the bogeyman of the political and cultural Left to this day. The Left is utterly dedicated to eradicating any vestiges of European ethnonationalism. Opponents of immigration are routinely labeled “racists†or “Nazis†for advocating policies that are, in fact, the norm in the rest of the world. Thus Israel favors Jewish immigrants, Spain favors people from its former Latin American Empire, India its “Non-Resident Indians†(NRIs), China favors the Overseas Chinese.
As Muller notes: “In a global context, it is the [Western] insistence on universalist criteria [for immigration] that seems provincial.â€
And, Muller points out, the anomaly whereby Western nations have sought to turn their backs on ethnic homogeneity is quite modern:
“The ethnonationalist view has traditionally dominated through much of Europe and has held its own even in the United States until recently. For substantial stretches of U.S. history, it was believed that only the people of English origin, or those who were Protestant, or white, or hailed from northern Europe were real Americans. It was only in 1965 that the reform of U.S. immigration law abolished the system of national-origin quotas that had been in place for several decades. This system had excluded Asians entirely and radically restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe.â€
In attempting to account for this trend in opposition to ethnonationalism in Western societies, my own writing has emphasized the triumph of the Left and particularly the role of some Jewish intellectual and political movements and certain elements of the organized Jewish community as the vanguard of the left and the most important force in passage of the 1965 immigration law. As Muller’s essay observes, Jews were major victims of the ethnonationalism of others. Anti-Semitism was a general force throughout Eastern and Central Europe, culminating in the slaughters of World War II. And Muller notes that a prime motivation was that Jews dominated areas of the economy and segments of the social class structure to which others aspired.
This history of loss as a result of others’ ethnonationalism doubtless goes a long way toward explaining the main thrust of Jewish intellectual and political movements in the 20th Century.
For example, the Jewish opposition to immigration policies favoring the European majority of the US dates back to before the immigration cut-off of the 1920s and spans the entire mainstream Jewish political spectrum, from the far left to the neoconservative right, to this day.
However, Jewish opposition to the ethnonationalism of Europeans and European-derived peoples is in remarkable contrast to their unswerving support for the Jewish ethnonationalist state of Israel — a rather glaring double standard, to say the least. There is a rather straightforward analogy of Jews as victims of nascent ethnonationalism in Europe and Palestinians as victims of nascent Jewish ethno nationalism in Israel. (And ex-President Carter, in his recent Peace Not Apartheid, triggered much hysteria by noting the similarities between the policing techniques of Israel and the Afrikaner ethnonationalist state of pre-1990 South Africa.)
As Muller notes: “Social scientists go to great lengths to demonstrate that [ethnonationalism] is a product not of nature but of culture, often deliberately constructed. And ethicists scorn value systems based on narrow group identities rather than cosmopolitanism. But none of this will make ethnonationalism go away.â€
Indeed, a mainstay of the intellectual left since Franz Boas and his disciples came to dominate academic anthropology beginning in the 1920s has been a rejection of any theories that allow for biological influences on culture. A corollary is that different peoples and different cultures do not, therefore, have legitimate, biologically-based conflicts of interest.
But the data are quite clear: There are genetic distances between different peoples and different peoples therefore have legitimate conflicts of interest. And: there are deep psychological roots to ethnocentrism that make us attracted to and more trusting of genetically similar others.
These biological realities will not simply disappear, no matter how fervently social scientists and other political and cultural elites wish they would.
But that does not mean that these realities cannot be repressed—at least temporarily. The response of the Left has been to entrench a culture of “political correctness†in which expressions of ethnocentrism by Europeans are proscribed. Organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League seek draconian penalties against such expressions by Europeans—and only Europeans. Many European countries and Canada have savage legal penalties that enforce intellectual conformity on these issues. In America the sanctions are more informal—but nevertheless similarly effective.
Whatever the drawbacks to ethnic nationalism (and the most obvious is the bloodshed that sometimes accompanies the creation of ethnostates), it has at least three overriding advantages expressed or implied by Muller:
- As also noted by Frank Salter, because of closer ties of kinship and culture, ethnically homogeneous societies are more likely to be open to redistributive policies such as social welfare.
- Sociologists such as Robert Putnam have also shown that ethnic homogeneity is associated with greater trust of others and greater political participation.
- And finally, as noted also by historians of European modernization, ethnic homogeneity may well be a precondition of political systems characterized by democracy and rule of law.
Political correctness in the West cannot be maintained without constantly ratcheting up the social controls on individual thought and behavior. Western societies will experience increased ethnic conflict. Their governments will increasingly be obliged to enact draconian penalties for deviations from political correctness. And probably also to “correct†ethnic imbalances in social status and political power—much as the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires of old were forced in their declining years to constantly bargain with rising ethnic pressure groups. Democracy, representative government, and freedom will be likely casualties.
Finally, Muller’s essay is interesting in that it highlights how normal ethno national strivings are, even among Europeans.
In a very short period, Europe and European-derived societies, which had achieved an unprecedented level of ethnic homogeneity following World War II, have developed a stifling political correctness, in which any tiny vestige of ethnocentrism on the part of Europeans is crushed with all the power the ruling elites can muster. This is taking place while the rest of the world continues to undergo modernization via the creation of ethno states. Muller’s essay makes one realize that this multicultural fad really may be just a phase—and a backwardly echoing phase at that, recalling the failed multicultural empires of the pre-modern era.
The climate of anti-ethnocentrism in the West is utterly anomalous, and set against the rest of the world. In my own writing, I have emphasized biologically-based European tendencies toward individualism and relative lack of ethnocentrism as flaws that have predisposed European whites to these tactical blunders. And I have emphasized how political correctness works at the psychological level to suppress the legitimate ethnic aspirations of Europeans.
However, Muller’s essay reminds us that Europeans have a long history of ethnic conflict. Ethnic nationalism was a precondition of European modernization. It also reminds us that, whatever their tendencies toward individualism, Europeans certainly also have sufficient levels of ethnocentrism to assert their interests and to establish ethnically homogeneous states of their own.
As Muller points out, though, the process is can be ugly. Just ask the Israelis—and the Palestinians.
Finally, as Muller notes, ethnic homogeneity is compatible with—perhaps conducive to—liberal democracy. At a theoretical level, this is because ethnic conflict produces deep, frequently irreconcilable divisions within a society and ultimately, causes group-based competition for resources and political power. These can be very hard to mediate.
The difficulty of establishing democracy and the rule of law in societies divided by ethnic conflict is a major theme of the contemporary world.
So is the campaign to bully European-stock whites, alone of all the world’s groups, to forswear ethnocentric politics and consequently to fatally disable themselves in an unchangingly ethnocentric world.
What people wear, what they eat, their art, their poetry, their music, the daft little customs we all have, such as crossing fingers or not walking under ladders, these are cool. Cjcjc put his/her finger on the nub: there’s nothing in the manual about your huddled masses not yearning in the least to be free. Assaults on intellectual, emotional, spiritual and sexual freedom are not cool. To come here is/should be to have the opportunity to be yourself, not what a totalitarian society demands of you. There is a horrible inversion among the pseudo-Left whereby to uphold progressive values is to be reactionary and much garbage, for instance a refusal to differentiate between the freedom of conscience that demands everyone may go to church/synagogue/mosque/Dawkins lecture as he or she chooses and the non-right to inflict one’s beliefs on others and the hell with the freedom of those others. People who firmly believe one thing about life, the universe and everything think people who equally firmly believe the opposite are talking garbage and pernicious garbage at that. All have an equal right to express their views.
I with a multi-racial family with Marxist roots am immune to the fake Left. I as the heir to a poisoned chalice grok ‘Marxophobia’. There’s a lot of it about.
Definition: those who believe nothing with a Marxist tag can be compatible with a free and democratic society; anything labelled Marxist must be suspect,
Evidence: societies that have made Marxism their ruling belief-system.
Evidence: those in free societies who had therefore a choice failed to denounce and distance themselves totally from the crimes against humanity committed in the name of Marxism
Hey, I cope with it. If you are a Muslim who does not think that Saudi Arabia or Iran commits crimes against humanity, but rather are the way to go, you are not going to be flavour of the month. No garbled nonsense about objection to ‘diversity’ can change that.
Of the Far Left, only so far as I have been able to discern the CPGB stands out against the Islamist-Trot alliance. The Internationale, you may recall, unites the human race, as it exhorts one and all to cast aside superstitions and notes that no saviour from on high delivers. The gross evil here, committed equally by Right and Left, is the deliberate confusion which wrong-foots decent people of race and ideology. People reviled for objecting to fascism are going to be p***ed off people.
Isn’t there a more obvious and worrying interpretation of the data?
So countries with the biggest and longest multicultural experiences (US, UK, and France) are less keen on sharing culture and religion than others with limited experience.
That’s hardly an endorsement of cultural diversity, now is it?
In any case, here’s a separate but related theme raised by an aggrieved mother (paragraph 2):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3736237.ece
Chris writes glowingly of the well-known hard conservative social historian, Jerry Z Muller’s contentions.
In response, the following from John Feffer, writing in “Foreign Policy in Focus”, Monday, March 10, 2008:
”Jerry Muller offers a more sophisticated and yet equally sophistic set of arguments in Us and Them. Europe, he argues in Foreign Affairs, represents the triumph of ethnonationalism: “One could argue that Europe has been so harmonious since World War II not because of the failure of ethnic nationalism but because of its success, which removed some of the greatest sources of conflict both within and between countries.”
One could argue that. But I think it would be a mistake. After all, there has been plenty of post-World War II conflict within Europe based on ethnic nationalism—in Spain, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and so on. The major reason that European affairs were more-or-less harmonious was because the external threat of Soviet invasion—exaggerated by the West but a very real concern to the countries of Eastern Europe—provided a larger cohesive force that tamped down but did not eliminate internal ethnic conflict.
Such a misreading of European history leads to poor policy recommendations. If the creation of nation-states where borders correspond to presumed ethnic dividing lines creates greater harmony, then let the partitions begin! Muller recommends the partitioning of states and the inevitable population transfers that follow as “the most humane lasting solution” to intense communal conflict. But did partition really solve any of India’s communal conflicts? In addition to causing countless deaths, partition simply elevated an internal Muslim-Hindu conflict to an inter-state rivalry between India and Pakistan, a contest that now involves nuclear weapons.
Today, Europe faces a similar dilemma in its southeast corner. Nationalists in Kosovo have declared independence. Nationalists in Serbia continue to oppose any redrawing of the map. So, Gustavo de las Casas, which of the contending nationalisms is “good for us” in this standoff? And should we follow Jerry Muller’s advice and partition the new state of Kosovo, giving over the area with a large ethnic Serb population to Serbia? As with India, this would be a solution without a resolution.’
http://www.fpif.org/fpifzines/wb/5056
Chris contends that:
“As a social scientist who takes the biological component of ethnicity seriously (although I readily agree that there is a cultural component as well), I can speak from personal experience about the hostility and moral disdain one faces from other academic social scientists when one points to these unfashionable facts.”
Such disdain can hardly be a surprise to an individual who is “a social scientist” yet frames his views in the following disturbing manner:
“the campaign to bully European-stock whites, alone of all the world’s groups, to forswear ethnocentric politics and consequently to fatally disable themselves in an unchangingly ethnocentric world.”
“European-stock whites”???
Excuse me?
jeet:
Goodhart’s thesis is that there is a negative correlation between the ethnic diversity of a society and the strength of its welfare state, not that culturally homogenous countries want to preserve that sense of identity.
Well, there’s no evidence to support it, he’s making an assumption based on the fact that as society becomes more diverse, people don’t want to contribute towards the welfare state and it then falls apart. But the US always had a weak welfare state and its committed to diversity, while Sweden has a very strong welfare state and yet its people also seem open to cultural diversity.
So where is the evidence one leads to the other, unless you assume that homogenous states generally don’t like to embrace cultural diversity?
El Cid:
So countries with the biggest and longest multicultural experiences (US, UK, and France) are less keen on sharing culture and religion than others with limited experience.
You’re reading it wrong. Countries with longest multicultural experiences like the States have the lowest number of people opposed to diversity.
I stand corrected.
However, what say you to that lady’s assertion?
If you mean Ysabel Howard – I’m not sure how she is criticising what I said.
Sunny:
the US always had a weak welfare state and its committed to diversity, while Sweden has a very strong welfare state and yet its people also seem open to cultural diversity.
Sunny, you’re confusing “openness to diversity” with actual diversity.
Let us take as given that the US and Sweden are both “open” to cultural diversity.
That does not change the fact that actual cultural diversity (not mere “openness” to diversity, mind you) is higher in the US than in Sweden.
Alesina, Glaeser & Sacerdote (2001), which Goodhart cites as evidence, observe a negative correlation between diversity and social spending, not only when comparing the US to Europe, but when comparing individual American states to each other.
The paper you link to above (“Immigration and the Imagined Community in Europe and the United States”) is about public opinion.
Goodhart’s talking about social spending.
You’re comparing apples to housecats, Sunny.