The study of Diversity .. The Robert Putnam Study

Diversity is like making a cat and a dog live in the same tent.

 

They need to know so they can fill their minority quota to qualify for tax breaks.

Thats why its often called 'reverse discrimination.'

FTR, I agree: an application with such questions should be thrown in the garbage.

 

Nice meme but it's getting old

You could TRY to actually answer the question put, but ,yeh, you CAN'T. so you fall back on the time honored conservative tactic of attacking the questioner.

And the reason you can't answer it is there IS no difference, except that Multiculturalism requires you to actually accept some other cultures while with "assimilation" you can just say that anybody not exactly like yourself is not "assimilated", and you don't want them here.

 

Don't know or care about Mexican culture. We don't have Mexicans here. We do however, have a wide variety of other cultures .. and so that list of 'issues' is very accurate. Not one culture does all of those things .. but all of those things are done by a variety of cultures.

This is not about the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the god/s you believe in, or the language you speak in the home. This is about EMBRACING the social and legal values of your adopted nation. EMBRACE, not 'tolerate'.

 

Nobody embraces anything unless this is a porn video. Toleration is the best you get in the real world and that's from your parents as to what music you listen to.

I'm sorry, but your phrasing as to nothing being about anything makes me suspicious. You sound very much like someone saying "we don't really care what you do, but who you are, and no matter what you do, you won't be us, so get the **** out while you don't have to be carried"

 

Could you provide some references? Book titles, links to articles?

 

'Multi-culturalism' vs 'assimilation'.

First of all, don't ask what a word 'means'. You can immediately tie yourself up in semantic knots here. (On this issue, people who like to read interest, off-the-beaten-path thinkers, should have a look at this guy.)

Let's see if we can agree on what is desirable for new immigrants to the US. Concretely, I claim only two things: (1) what used to go by the probably-now-unPC term 'Protestant Work Ethic' and (2) obeying the law.

The rest doesn't matter ... it may irritate the rest of us, but it's your choice. So, if you come from a culture where women are commanded to be submissive to their husbands; which condemns homosexuality as contrary to God and nature; which forbids sex outside of marriage; which does not allow divorce; which requires weekly attendance at religious ceremonies; which teaches you to obey your religious leaders some of whom are actually directed by God Himself and so cannot, when speaking in their capacity as leader, make errors ... if you come from such a culture, just work for a living and obey the law, and we'll get along fine.

It's not that I would want to live in a society where the majority had these views -- so I will pay attention to numbers with respect to immigration. It's just that these backward beliefs and practices don't impact me, so long as you remain one of America's many diverse communities without a majority able to impose its views by law.

And ... I know that in the long term, modernity -- whatever that is -- will dissolve all these relics of a past age and turn the children of immigrants, if not them, into modern people. They'll go to modern schools, they'll get jobs in American companies where their co-workers have modern values ... the pressure to conform to one's peers will do the rest.

But ... if some of them form small, closed communities where they continue to practice women-submit-to-your-husband, or even de facto polygamy ... big deal.

It's perfectly fair to study the cultures of incoming would-be immigrants, and to base one's decision about whether they, and their descendants, will in fact have the Protestant work ethic and obey the law or will have a significant minority who won't.

You might want to have very strict scrutiny of certain classes of immigrant, and limit their numbers, based on factual realities about the two criteria I mentioned. But anything other than working for a living rather than living off welfare, and obeying the law, is almost meaningless. Also, with respect to numbers, you might want to decide on skill levels, or other economic or social criteria -- for instance, from a strict military point of view, so long as we feel we need to bestride the world like a colossus, it's handy to have a few native speakers of every language spoken on earth.

Here's a question to ask yourself re 'assimilating' to a single culture: do the Orthodox Jews in New York have the same culture as the Roman Catholic Irish of Boston? Do either have the same culture as the Vietnamese of California? [Racial stereotype joke: How do you know when your home has been burgled by a Vietnamese teenager? Answer: nothing has been stolen but all your homework has been done.]

Work hard and obey the law. That's all we should ask.

 

I did answer it when I posted the definitions of both words, and in my last post I actually included an analogy which you did not address. It's amazing to watch you have such strong opinions on issues that you don't have the foggiest idea about. It's like a religion or ideology, you don't understand what you are defending but support it 100%!

 

Ah, the analogy about color, good one, and you were smart enough to make colors black and white, but consider:

the analogy breaks down if you use any other colors, because you really can't define the difference between say, blue and green, not if you're seeing....(ahem) color as a visual phenomena anyway.

And block and white are unique among colors. Both can be defined as BOTH the absence of all color AND all colors mixed together.
Still, I will concede you may have a point but I STILL don't understand why you have such a problem with my idea that multiculturalism is just another form of assimilation (or vice versa)

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=why...&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on


I don't know of any good whole books on the subject, (can anyone help? please and thank you) but Ashley Montagu's The Natural Superiority of Women can be both entertaining and instructive when one realizes that Montagu started it as a satire on racism and then became convinced of its greater validity as he went along.

 

Okay, thanks. I think the original ur-text on this is an article published by Richard Lewontin in 1972. Here's a link to a discussion of it, with both supporting and critical arguments.

I have to confess, I've never been able even to understand this argument, on either side. Or rather, to understand why the evidence they're arguing about makes any difference to the political problems of race and racism. [Do the Kluxers really care about the distribution of protein variation in natural populations? Could they even spell 'protein'?] The American Anthropological Association made a similar official pronouncement on the biological non-existence of races some years ago, which is often brought up, clearly trying to be on the side of the angels with respect to racial oppression, but I don't see that it makes any difference at all.

People get hung up in the phrase 'social construct'. I just assume everything is a social construct, with more or less grounding in objective reality.

It seems to me orthogonal to the question people are really worried about, which is -- are people whose ancestry is mainly from sub-Saharan Africa cognitively inferior -- say, in terms of IQ tests -- to those from Europe or Asia, because of genetic reasons? We know that in the past their mean IQ is about a standard deviation below white mean IQ (although I think the gap is closing) -- but is this caused by environment, or genes, or both?

I think the argument will soon -- historically speaking -- be moot, because we'll be choosing our descendants' genes, and everyone will want very high IQ children. Maybe our children will all be carrying the genes of Ashkenazi Jews, whose mean IQ is about as far above non-Jewish whites as the whites' is above Blacks. But people who hate Blacks almost always hate Jews, as well.

Surely we need to do the best we can in providing an excellent environment for teaching kids, and for making them want to achieve academically. (It's just like the old argument about women's mathematical ability -- until a generation or so ago, you could count the number of world-class female mathematicians on one hand. So there were lots of just-so evolutionary 'explanations' for this phenomenon: men had better spatial awareness, critical for mathematics, because they had to judge how to throw a spear at a mastodon, etc. But probably social expectations were the overwhelmingly main reason for this, and now that they have begun to change ... whoa ... women are emerging as first-class mathematicians. A woman -- and a MUSLIM!!!! -- won the Fields Medal -- the Nobel Prize for mathematics -- just a couple of years ago -- an Iranian immigrant [who sadly died soon after]).

There's lots more to be said about this subject, but it's hard to have a discussion that doesn't draw the emotionally-overwrought into it, usually people who know next to nothing about IQ tests or elementary statistics.

Anyway, I've started a somewhat-related thread in another forum. It's about a really really smart Black kid who, praise Jesus, went to a school where being really really smart didn't mean 'acting White'. And whaddaya know ...

 

You mean like the opposite of Hitlers assimilation don't you, exterminate all whites and all the worlds troubles are over? That is major hateful thnking even for a liberal.
I don't see you caring as much about assimilation as you do totally eradication a certain group of people.

 

It's a form of racial activism. Much like with gender - the classical definition of the term, not the neo-Marxist one - there are especially radical political circles seeking to deny any biological basis for human differences due to that things like gender roles are considered oppressive.

The idea is that the reference 'white' was invented by the ruling class in the 1600s as a means of dividing and conquering the oppressed proletariat of all races, as a means of getting whites to think they're superior over others to provide a barrier of sorts for the bourgeoisie against proletarian revolt so they remain disunited. That is the thesis put forth by Marxist academics Theodore Allen and Noel Ignatiev.

Human populations do have genetic differences which go beyond the phenotypical. Where one draws the line with regard to race has some subjectivity, much as there is no specific point between day and night, yet we know the two do exist independently of each other. Clines in human characteristics can be an equivalent do dusk and dawn which contain both characteristics of day and night but are neither.

What science is showing thus far is this: 1) Adult IQ is largely the result of heritability and environmental impact is quite low, such as with other traits like hair color where genetics "kick in" as an adult and a given trait reflects one's genetics 2) Intelligence runs in families, 3) Environmental influence in IQ from early childhood onward is increasingly less a factor, 4) maternal IQ is a strong predictor of child IQ.

As far as the gap closing via the Flynn Effect, it hasn't shown any movement since about 1980.

"Race" aka skin color or whatever, obviously does not cause IQ. Rather, common lines of descent do, and human populations aka races or ethnicities are clusters of similar shared lineage.

 

I think you've summarized here the actual consensus, and not just the consensus of people like Charles Murray. But it's an unpleasant truth, and in any case, I personally think there is a lot more we can do with respect to the environment, not necessarily to increase raw IQ scores, but to improve knowledge, and behavior.

This is an important discussion to have. I've been thinking about starting a thread on just this issue.

Here's my bottom line: regardless of someone's IQ, and regardless of group differences with respect to IQ, we can do a hell of a lot better in the field of education, and definitely a lot better than the education that is currently available in many inner-city schools. How MUCH better is a different issue.

And the thing about the race-and-IQ debate is that there are no political consequences from it. Whichever side is right, we still have crappy inner-city schools, and we can do much better. That's what Left and Right should be discussing and debating. (Usually, someone at this point will bring up, not necessarily in these words, the 'crab-pot effect', a wonderful phrase I just learned about. So then the argument should become, can we help some of the crabs get out of the pot?)

 

It's not that I have a problem with it, it's just that multiculturalism isn't "just another form of assimilation," they're total opposites.

 

Take care with the garlic in your salad bowl, it does not assimilate well.

 

I'll try this another way. If I was in control of immigration, my criteria for citizenship would be demonstrated commitment to the nation and its established values and laws. This would be primarily demonstrated via language. If you cannot be bothered to learn our language, your contempt for our culture is made apparent. TOLERANCE is not good enough. It tells me that you are here for the wrong reasons. If you don't LOVE our nation and our culture, and seek to live that culture yourself, you have no business here.

It makes no sense at all to move to a country which you don't like, and whose people you don't care for. Only someone determined to exploit that nation, while retaining loyalty to another country/culture, would do so. These are not who we want, obviously. And yes, there are plenty of people who are willing to embrace our culture, when migrating. Asians do it all the time, and it works out very well for all concerned.

PS: do you think I'm racist, or something along those lines?

 

I think that the way the term 'multi-culturalism' has been used -- and this term, I think, is mainly a European one -- means that there are two different non-negative interpretations of it.

(1) The 'who are we' position: we should invite everyone into our country, and shouldn't criticise their cultures ... after all, we whites have committed terrible crimes against these people, haven't we done them enough harm? Who are we to criticize them? When negative features of these new cultures come up -- female genital mutilation, for example, something that few people, even on the Left, can support -- the usual diversionary tactics are used: what about Jewish circumcision? It's just a minority who do this. It's a common practice in the Third World, nothing to do with religion. This group/culture has already embraced all the values you reactionaries claim that they have to assimilate to. Etc. It's the logical consequence of the "All cultures are equal" line.

(2) The we-don't-care-about-what-you-eat-or-what-music-you-like-just-obey-our-laws. That is, multicultural in the way the US -- with its Irish, Italian, Jewish, Hispanic population components going back over a century -- is 'multi-cultural'.

Then there is the negative interpretation of the word -- against 'multiculturalism' no matter how it's interpreted: people who assert that certain cultures, like Islam, or the culture of Caribbean Blacks, are inherently undemocratic, illiberal, prone-to-crime and/or welfare dependency. Maybe not all members of this culture will be opposed to the democratic culture of the host community, maybe not most, but a significant minority, who we won't be able to screen out. People who feel this way say that position (2) above is like bringing some rattlesnakes into your home and telling them they had better behave themselves. There are others who don't like multiculturalism just because they don't like different cultures of any sort, even ones whose adherents are totally law-abiding and hard-working. They want to live exclusively among people who look like them. This is probably the default position of most ordinary people.

 

Nonsense. Most 'ordinary' people don't give a damn about your skin tone. Character (IOW ... CULTURE) is all that matters to most of us. Speak the same language (fluently, please), embrace the same values and societal expectations of behaviour, and we're golden.

 

With all due respect you are wrong about Asians and everyone else. Tolerance is all you're going to get from them and from me and even most all of your friends. Hell, your own parents probably think the music you listen to is stupid and most of what you spend your money on a waste of time at best, or they did at one time and while you've straightened up a little there's still room for improvement. Tolerance is certainly all I ever expect from you, and I probably won't get it but It doesn't matter because we are both electronic ghosts to each other and I go through considerable efforts to have us stay that way. Tolerance is what America is all about We. Are. All. Different. Each of us a little INDIVIDUAL culture of one and that is the great strength and joy of the multicultural USA and the primary reason I think it's the most pleasant country in the world to live in. We leave each other ALONE, we don't have lots of requirements to live here and I resent anyone who wants to put stringent and unnecessary requirements up which turn us into a very unpleasant place.

I don't know or care if you're a racist or not. I think you want to turn my country into a stultifying morass of conservative conformity which will be even worse than the Taliban because it will be enforced with modern totalitarian methods. You must be stopped.

 

Depends on the other ingredients, the dressing and your personal taste, Some see garlic as an abomination but others see it as the ultimate joy. My Italian uncle made a good living off of 7 acres of a type of garlic that was sought by restaurants worldwide but I could not stand it.

 

I am whiite and I'm not suicidal. Where in the devil do you get that idea from? I do believe that a lot of the world's troubles come from saying that the most natural thing for races to do is to exterminate each other. Are you one that says all the races must struggle and kill each other until only one is left? I contend that BELIEF is very wrong and harmful and should be eradicated from the human lexicon, yes, at least as a viable conviction.

 

Have you read A.E. van Vogt's The World of Null A ? flawed, but still very entertaining

 

Obeying justified and good laws are the warp and weft of society, that's true, but when the laws say that we should turn little girls hiding in attics over to the authorities to be killed then we should definitely NOT obey them. As far as working hard I agree with Buckminster Fuller that:

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”

 

On the other hand, there are a great many things that would probably never get done without good financial incentive.