Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Goober5000 on October 10, 2006, 09:00:02 pm
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Interesting:
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/printarticle.asp?Feed=FT&Date=20061008&ID=6085419
Harvard study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity
A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard University's Robert Putnam, one of the world's most influential political scientists.
His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.
This is a contentious finding in the current climate of concern about the benefits of immigration. Professor Putnam told the Financial Times he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it "would have been irresponsible to publish without that".
The core message of the research was that, "in the presence of diversity, we hunker down", he said. "We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look like us."
Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, "the most diverse human habitation in human history", but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where "diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians' picnic".
When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. "They don't trust the local mayor, they don't trust the local paper, they don't trust other people and they don't trust institutions," said Prof Putnam. "The only thing there's more of is protest marches and TV watching."
British Home Office research has pointed in the same direction and Prof Putnam, now working with social scientists at Manchester University, said other European countries would be likely to have similar trends.
His 2000 book, Bowling Alone, on the increasing atomisation of contemporary society, made him an academic celebrity. Though some scholars questioned how well its findings applied outside the US, policymakers were impressed and he was invited to speak at Camp David, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.
Prof Putnam stressed, however, that immigration materially benefited both the "importing" and "exporting" societies, and that trends "have been socially constructed, and can be socially reconstructed".
In an oblique criticism of Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, who revealed last week he prefers Muslim women not to wear a full veil, Prof Putnam said: "What we shouldn't do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us."
Copyright 2006 Financial Times
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i have an idea, lets all beciome fascists :D
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If you live in America, chances are you probably are one already.
ZING!
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**** the people who say diversity is a bad thing. That's just a bunch of stupid bull**** that's put there to hide institutionalized racism.
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I don't think he's saying diversity is a bad thing-- they're just presenting the results of a sociological study. Just because diversity might cause distrust doesn't mean we should abandon it.
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They needed a study to prove that the more types of people there are the less you find yourself able to trust them?
That seems kind of elementary to me...
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he's not saying diversity is a bad thing, he's just saying most people are so innately distrustfull of everything that isn't like them cause of hundreds of years worth of social conditioning.
Example: You've been taught all your life that everyone should be treated equally and is really just like you. but then you go watch the news, and some gangbangers just shot up a school yard, a terroist just blew up a housing project, the mayor of your town just fled to the bahamas with all the cash from the city's petty funds & his underaged student aide, and a doctor killed his family and shot himself. now imagine what the effects are of hearing that every day for your entire life. really, are you honestly going to trust people you don't know?
I personally don't think diversity is the problem. its that people are naturally afraid of the unknown, and its a lack of understanding diversity thats the problem. who can honestly say they know what other religious other then your own are really all about? do you know the history of tanzenia? how about Canada? how about Florida? schools do a great job of teaching that everyone should be treated with respect, but they should also be teaching more about other cultures. which depending on where you live happens to a greater or lesser degree. Thats the foundation of real understanding, and how real diversity can be achieved
If anything, the good ole HLP is a good example of diversity. we come from around the world, of various backgrounds, of different ethinicities and class, sexes, ages....heck, Ford Prefect really could be an alien from somewhere near Beetlegeuse for all we really know...no offense intended dude! and none of that matters is cause we're all here, joined in celebrating a great game.
So why can't we all just do that and celebrate life offline?
<edit> huh, i really didn't intend to get that into it. oh well, all that is is my own thoughts on the matter. if yours are different...well thats cool!
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Diversity is only a weakness if you let your humanity get in the way
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thats why god invented nuclear warheads :D
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I find it interesting that he found LA was the lowest on the trust scale because I question if that is anything to do with diversity. LA may be the most diverse city in the world but it's also full of people who'll stab you in the back for a chance of fame or money. There are reasons why I wouldn't trust anyone from LA further than I could throw them that wouldn't change if everyone was white :D
And ironically the same is true of all the other big cities. I'd be interested in seeing where his research relates to places which are ethically diverse but don't have reasons for distrust that aren't due to other factors like those I mentioned above or simply due to a high crime rate.
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thats why godOppenheimer invented nuclear warheads :D
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You smile because i'm different, i smile because you're all the same,..........
T-Shirts can teach us all to live in harmony...... :lol:
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There are reasons why I wouldn't trust anyone from LA further than I could throw them that wouldn't change if everyone was white :D
I think you've hit the nail, but kinda sideways instead of on the head. The more people there are the more difficult it is for you to keep track of them all if you want/need to, and so the less you feel like trusting them.
Not that their being diverse doesn't exacerbate the issue, but it's comparatively minor unless you run into somebody whose way of thinking is in total disconnect from your own.
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No no no, forget diversity, my favorite was "All modern countries are weak because there is next to no genetic improvement" :P
Didn't go across to well in class ;7.
EDIT: Unless you count ass-kissing as improvement :lol:
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there is nothing wrong with diversity so long as you do not lose yourself to it
this statement:
"What we shouldn't do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us."
is the exact thing I am referring to here, a country, or any culture needs to have some backbone to it, it needs confidence in it's self to survive and compete with the other cultures of the world. a culture that basically has no respect for itself, is not going to be able to survive, as soon as it encounters a strong willed self confident culture it's doomed, the other culture will assert itself and take over. there is a reason why no _*NO*_ culture lacks ethnocentrism, it's a cultural immune system, without this no culture would be able to survive in the presence of another.
now this said, there is strength in diversity, a diverse culture can adapt faster and can, without effort, survive things a xenophobic introverted culture would be wiped out by in an instant. but for the love of god people, there is a happy medium, have some pride in yourself, in your nation, look at the great things your people have done and realize that it was your culture that did that not the people to the north, not the people to the south, you and your kind, something about the way you do things allowed this, and you should be hesitant to change it so radically, and opposed to adopting someone else's way of life. I mean hell if your culture is not worth following then you might as well move to somewhere that is, and if someone else moves to were you live they should try to fit in as well
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I find it interesting that he found LA was the lowest on the trust scale because I question if that is anything to do with diversity. LA may be the most diverse city in the world but it's also full of people who'll stab you in the back for a chance of fame or money. There are reasons why I wouldn't trust anyone from LA further than I could throw them that wouldn't change if everyone was white :D
And ironically the same is true of all the other big cities. I'd be interested in seeing where his research relates to places which are ethically diverse but don't have reasons for distrust that aren't due to other factors like those I mentioned above or simply due to a high crime rate.
but the paradox of the situation is such that, what if the high crime rate and all these other factors you are referring to is at the root caused by this phenomenon of distrust? I think looking for diverse comunities that lack high crime rates and such would be cherry picking data, if you wanted to figure this out you should find culturally homogeneous communities with high crime rates and such rather than the other way around then compare them to the diverse comunities.
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Makes sense tough...
It's our natural instinct so stick with our own "kind" - or in other words, to stick in small, compact groups that are most like you.
Now I'm white and christian. I don't hate or despise anyone else in regard to skin color or religion, but I'd by lying if I told you that I wouldn't like it more that all the people in my town are more like me (white and Christian).
It's just natural.
Besides, anyone claiming that diversity doesn't have it's bad sides is an idiot. Everything has good nad bad sides.
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thats why god invented nuclear warheads :D
who'da thunk that Nuke would have said that? :P
Anyway, deep down inside, we wish we could all get along, but we simply can't. Us Americans have started to persecute people from the Middle East because we think that they all might be part of Osama's Big Big Plan (whatever that is). Russians have never gotten along with Americans, the English have never gotten along with the French......and it expands to the whole world. We never trust anybody but people from our own ethnicity....
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:blah:
first of all those examples you posted might have something to do with the fact that the groups involved are/were at war.
second Americans are not persecuting mid easterners... although I will admit we are bombing them.... which does sort of damage my point.... :doubt:
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second Americans are not persecuting mid easterners... although I will admit we are bombing them.... which does sort of damage my point....
So what about people refusing to fly with people who "look arabic"?
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a) hardly an American phenomenon, I seem to recall a plane full of Brits a while back.
b) a hand full of idiots in a culture does not a cultural phenomenon make
c) persecution is more things like throughing bricks threw windows and starting fires, rapeing pillageing, ect. I'll admit in the last few years there's been a bit of a strain, but I hardly think it amounts to 'persecution'. it's not like were rounding them up and indefenately putting them... in... tropical millitary prison... camps... without char..ge.....
THAT DOESN'T COUNT!!! DAMNIT!!! :mad:
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thats why godOppenheimer invented nuclear warheads :D
like theres a ****ing difference :D
thats why god invented nuclear warheads :D
who'da thunk that Nuke would have said that? :P
for explanation, see the soundbyte at the end of the Zyklon song "chaos deathcult"
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but the paradox of the situation is such that, what if the high crime rate and all these other factors you are referring to is at the root caused by this phenomenon of distrust? I think looking for diverse comunities that lack high crime rates and such would be cherry picking data, if you wanted to figure this out you should find culturally homogeneous communities with high crime rates and such rather than the other way around then compare them to the diverse comunities.
I think you should look for both. A low crime rate dispite diversity would help show that the cause of the problem is nothing to do with distrust just as much as the same thing in a culturally homogeneous community. You basically need both sets of data.
As I said I've be interested in seeing what the results in such places were.
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Diversity may possibly play into it, but I think the real driver is most likely population density. I've lived in relatively small communities with a good deal of ethnic diversity (college towns, which I'll admit are a kind of unique situation in and of themselves), but you couldn't go anywhere in town without meeting someone you knew. There wasn't that constant sense of annonymity you get in the big city. When everyone knows everyone else, it is a lot more difficult for crime to florish. When crime doesn't flourish, there's a lot less to fear. Your neighbors may annoy the hell out of you, but you know they are mostly harmless. Trust isn't that hard in a place like that.
Contrast to a place like, I don't know, Houston? Maybe more diversity there, granted, but the BIG distinction is that it is freaking huge. You can get lost in a crowd within a couple blocks from your house. Tight-knit communities exist within Houston, but they are tiny islands floating in a sea of faceless crowds. It isn't hard to see why one might get a little paranoid.
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I always found diversity to be a strength rather than a weakness, myself; it makes the cultural life of a region, area, etc so much more interesting.
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Horses for Courses, swings and roundabouts, Everyones got a strength and if everyone was the same then we couldnt compliment each other, IE if everyone was a physics god then we'd have no computers but if everyone was bill gates then music would suck and there'd be sod all on telly/movies cos we couldn't act........ :lol:
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I think the problem is that diversity works only to the extent that it's voluntary. For example, I enjoy Mexican food and Japanese art and Greek literature. But if I was forced to live in a city with Mexicans and Japanese and Greeks, I'd probably feel very uncomfortable.
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I think the problem is that diversity works only to the extent that it's voluntary. For example, I enjoy Mexican food and Japanese art and Greek literature. But if I was forced to live in a city with Mexicans and Japanese and Greeks, I'd probably feel very uncomfortable.
Why?
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Why?
Because homogeneous communities are predictable, whereas diverse communities aren't. How much do those three cultures have in common?
This isn't rocket science, it's the product of thousands of years of cultural evolution. It's also why there's so much trouble in the Middle East and in Africa: so many different cultures are forced to live in close proximity to one another.
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Why?
Because homogeneous communities are predictable, whereas diverse communities aren't. How much do those three cultures have in common?
This isn't rocket science, it's the product of thousands of years of cultural evolution. It's also why there's so much trouble in the Middle East and in Africa: so many different cultures are forced to live in close proximity to one another.
I sincerely doubt homogenous communities are anything like predictable, even if such a concept exists in reality (racial diversity is not the only kind of diversity, after all).
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Wow. What a shocker. People lose trust when they’re around members of other races. I don’t make this point here often enough, but almost every subconscious (and a fair number of conscious) human behaviour stems directly from evolution. We dislike people of other races because they’re genetically further from us than those of our own race. It’s the same reason people help out there brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews – you try to perpetuate not only your own genes, but those of the individuals who are closest to you genetically. In the past, we’d deal with this problem in the most expedient manner available – by killing the foreigner. Now, of course, that doesn’t happen but there’s still a subconscious desire to see them fail in the evolutionary race – essentially to kill them off so that you can keep all the resources for yourself and your closest genetic counterparts. This subconscious desire manifests itself as a lack of trust (because we know that if we want them dead or disadvantaged, they want the same of us) – the more foreigners, the more competition, the more distrust. It’s a relatively straightforward outgrowth of sentience trying to cope with natural selection.
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I sincerely doubt homogenous communities are anything like predictable, even if such a concept exists in reality (racial diversity is not the only kind of diversity, after all).
Sure they do. Go look at any military unit.
An ethnically homogenous community, or a community homogenous across any sort of line, will naturally be more trusting. It's rare to enounter someone of one's own culture whose way of thinking you simply do not grasp. You will better understand their values and their actions.
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I sincerely doubt homogenous communities are anything like predictable, even if such a concept exists in reality (racial diversity is not the only kind of diversity, after all).
Sure they do. Go look at any military unit.
An ethnically homogenous community, or a community homogenous across any sort of line, will naturally be more trusting. It's rare to enounter someone of one's own culture whose way of thinking you simply do not grasp. You will better understand their values and their actions.
A military unit is specialised and trained to be predictable (and even then it isn't wholly so - otherwise you wouldn't see murders by troops in Iraq, for example) - it's certainly not a community by any means, as it's picked and selected, not organically formed. Plus, military units AFAIK aren't usually formed solely by troops of a single ethnic, social, class, education, age, etc background.
Also, trust does not equate predictability; it equates assumed predictability, which is something entirely different.
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Perhaps predictability was the wrong term. I think Black Wolf said it better. :)
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But if I was forced to live in a city with Mexicans and Japanese and Greeks, I'd probably feel very uncomfortable.
Well you're off the Atlantis expedition wait list now.
That slot's going to Kazan now...
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:lol:
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Well for what it's worth, I go to a school where you can't walk out the door without hearing at least one other language besides English, and where whites are barely a majority, (if at all-- I don't know the stats), and I'm feeling alright.
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Ok. I'll grant that I would not want to live in a city in Mexico, Greece, or Japan. But why should I care if there are Mexicans, Greeks, or Japanese, or whatever living in the same town with me?
Some of the sentiments expressed in this thread are really upsetting me. I would have expected better. Shame on me for foolish optimism. I won't do it again.
For what it's worth, I grew up in a neighborhood where whites like me were the minority. When I went out to the playground, I played with blacks, whites, hispanics, asians, and I didn't think twice about it. If it wasn't important then, then why in hell should it be important now? In my observations, human loyalty is to family, not DNA. And "family" is largely who you choose to include in that category (biological family, close friends, pets, etc). If you choose not to include anyone but your own race in your "family," then it is because of your own personal insecurities. Don't cop out and blame genetics.
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If it wasn't important then, then why in hell should it be important now?
Because we have been schooled to ignore what we know and to believe in what we are told to?
Or rather, to ignore what we don't know, and to believe in what we are told to.
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I don't see various sub-types of wolves or lions or tiger or any other animal happily frolicking together.
So I'd say stickng with your own kind is a natural instinct..and there's really nothing wrong with it.
Some might consider it racist but I say bo**cks!
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Yeah, well, I hardly think those animals are fair comparisons. If a lion were to try to frolick with anything other than another lion, the poor creature would have a cracked spine in no time flat. More over, at least the examples you suggest are not capable of interbreeding. My black neighboor is not a different species than me.
But if you want examples of multiple species goofing around together, go to a farm. I have been on farms where the cats, dogs, and cows all lounged around the same watering hole. And it was an even bet whether the dog would be chasing the cat or vice versa.
I've also seen the feral dog packs in multiple cities with as many breeds of mutt as you can count trotting side by side blocking as much traffic as they can manage. Everything from tiny yipper dogs to "you're sure that isn't a wolf?" and the differences don't seem to bug them at all.
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So I'd say stickng with your own kind is a natural instinct..and there's really nothing wrong with it.
Ok. But don't you think that for humans, "my kind" has more to do with things inside a persons head, rather than the racial features?
Of course, cultural differences can be a major issue with first generation immigrants, but for later descendants, I think, the only thing that keeps them from becoming "your kind" is this idea of sticking with ones own kind.
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Race is not the least bit analogous to subspecies. It is a discursively produced construct that doesn't even have a single unifying standard. And it is a political and cultural institution, so writing its effects off as "instinctual" doesn't even come close to adequately describing the issue. Furthermore, when you dismiss it as something beyond our control, you immediately rule out the possibility that racial hegemony is a historical force that merits more careful examination-- a very real possibility considering the amount of philosophical discourse focused on the subject of race.
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I don't see various sub-types of wolves or lions or tiger or any other animal happily frolicking together.
So I'd say stickng with your own kind is a natural instinct..and there's really nothing wrong with it.
Some might consider it racist but I say bo**cks!
Well, I'd say it is rather racist if you're genuinely considering other races not to be part of homo sapiens, which is what this analogy would imply. Although I quite often see dogs of different species playing together anyways (for example).