Is cultural and religious diversity a good or bad thing?

But diversity, inside a country, is simply not necessary for any of that to happen. Just look at the japanese, and read my post about it. But gunpowder is an exellent example too. How many chinese moved to europe when we began using gunpowder?

Or maybe you are just arguing for diversity on a global level, in which case I agree. Is this thread about global diversity or diversity within a country? I think it's obvious that global diversity is good, so I assumed it would be about the latter.

 

One good side effect of diversity and multicultural experience is that the comparatively radical level of adjustment in thinking and behaving necessary for people to adjust and function in a different cultural environment results in a wider variety and more profound level of brain interconnectedness in the brains of those that must adapt to their new environment. This is thanks to the phenomenally wonderful brain functionality that neuroscientists have come to call "NEUROPLASTICITY".

In other words, we are not locked into a static mental box by static brain connectivity. On the contrary, the brain responds to being immersed in a new set of conditions by building new modes of connectivity and relevant structure that reflect those novel conditions. The brain is remarkably plastic when it encounters new experiences. Not only does the brain produce our experience, but our experiences produce changes in brain structure.

This is a good thing. It results in brains that are not quite as locked into more static modes of thought, but rather are better able to respond to widely varying conditions. There is almost nothing in human experience that exercises the brains ability to remodel (rewire) itself and its host's mental experiences like being immersed in a radically different cultural environment.

I would extrapolate from this that nations composed of folks from wider varieties of cultures should be more adaptable and better equipped to handle the changing circumstances that goes part and parcel with our highly accelerated modern flux of human endeavor. But, I don't know this for an experimentally proven fact. It's just a conjecture.

 

Hmm, isn't that more of a reason to keep the cultures separate then? So that they don't mix into one, so we can have different cultures to experience to begin with? You can just move to another country for a few years instead of inviting them to your own if we want to attain this plasticity. interesting though.

 

(My bold)

We incorporate sexual reproduction. Which means that genetic material is exchanged when we mate. Although cloning & such has come a long way, & I suppose we could simply swap sperm & eggs by FedEx, the whole prospect leaves me cold. No, picking & choosing from a culture means a good familiarity with that culture, & I can't see it happening in some purely technical way. Getting to know a culture from the inside means getting to know a sampling of the people who live that culture.

Ultimately, people make choices about how well they want to know another person, another culture, another way of knowing. We can tell ourselves that telepresence & video conferencing & so on are close enough to a real encounter with the Other, but I think most of us understand that these are all abstractions. There is no substitute for meeting another person in the flesh.

& while we're @ it, doesn't the term "culture" subsume "religion"? If you were to describe a Spaniard from 1500 C.E., for instance, you'd have to include his religious status as part of who he is.

I don't think that "culture" is a zero-sum game - like say, all the money in the World (if one party has more money, the other party necessarily has less). Culture includes language, foods, cooking, manner of dress, social customs, kinship patterns, government, schooling, body language, & on & on.

Neuroplasticity touches on the notion of second languages. People who learn a second language seem to have more intellectual flexibility than those who don't. That also ties into the notion of fine-motor skills (playing an instrument, or learning to touch type) tying into music and math. The stimulation of the learning process seems to help with patterning in the brain - kind of like learning to ride a bicycle until the motor pathways are instinctive & you don't have to think about making a turn any more.

Each religion is a pattern, a particular way of thinking about God, the World, man, fate & lots of big-picture items. Thinking is an intellectual exercise, & the brain needs something to think about. Therefore, I say cultural diversity is v. nearly an unqualified good thing.

 

Diversity is like most other things in life. To much of it can be bad but a little won't hurt you and it most likely good.

For example, language diversity is just stupid. Europe is a byzantine mess of forms in multiple languages while in the US everything is in English and increasingly in Spanish, still thats only two languages to deal with. Economic diversity can be a bad thing as well. In the early history of the US before the national mint many states had their own unique currency and there was no law that required that another state recognize it. Of course you can have the opposite extreme as well as we have seen with the failed euro experiment although that mostly has to do with the fact that they are forcing everyone to use the same currency but they don't have a centeralized bank overseeing everything like we do here in the US.

Cultural diversity is a double edged sword. It is good so long as the society as a whole embraces the good things about each culture but removes the bad things from the culture. For instance its good that we get food, art and music from around the world, but it is not good when we get some of the nutty religious or cultural stuff such as female circumcision or cutting off someone's hands because they stole a loaf of bread or pretty much anything from the Sharia rule book. That type of bull(*)(*)(*)(*) needs to stay with the degenerates in the (*)(*)(*)(*)holes of the world it does not belong here.

 

Personally I would be devastated if I couldnt order good greek or chinese food.

 

Eventually everyone will just keep F@%$#!@ until we all are a light shade of brown like we all have a good TAN!

AboveAlpha

 

OK, time to seal the deal! Who here practices Rishathra?

 

I'm telling you.

Someday we will all be this really good looking tan people sort of a Dwayne the ROCK Johnson...or a Derek Jeter...for Men and a Halle Berry, Alicia Keys look for the ladies! LOL!

AboveAlpha

 

Is cultural and religious diversity if forced upon people by using politics (ideology) a good or bad thing? (can also end up in cultural and/or religious uniformity, by ideology) Because via ideology a new 'religion' (one believe, and also same behaviour of people, also; emotionally, thoughts) can be created (Germany and North Korea are the two clearest examples in the worlds history were one 'religion' was created by using ideology) forced upon people, because their way of thinking can be changed (television e.g has influenced our thinking since birth, what we wear, and how we behave, and eat/drink too) The main things that are influencing the masses are tv and politics. The world (people) has become what it saw one tv and heared via politics and learned on school since birth (since the fifties when tv came into millions of living rooms)

Wouldn't cultural and religious 'freedom' be a better idea? (let people decide, not politics) Because diversity or uniformity are opposites (forced by ideology that is used in politics) Because if the world would turn off tv and politics, this world would have looked very different (because politics have installed cameras over the last fifteen years in their chambers of parliament, by that you know how bad politics want to influence people's minds)

 

The problem is this: when most Statists and Progressives sing the song of diversity, they're really singing "We hate you Christians and gunlovers because you have a specific moral code that you think gives you inalienable rights endowed to you by your Creator and stuff, so you should be more like everyone else - you know, Atheists and Humanists."

It's an old song with very bad rhymes, but they do it so well...

 

....Nope....

 

actually, truest, altough badly composed, song ever sung here.

 

Why do capitalists and thumpers think that it is a personal attack on them when the rest of us do not want to grant them a privileged position?

It's not like most of them actually create wealth or really look out for the welfare of the masses.

 

i voted, good.

 

Are you in the right thread?

Why would I, as a self-made rich person, have to care about the welfare of the masses? Can't they just care for themselves? They're not handicaped idiots are they, but smart humans like me yes? What's so supposedly good at threatening me at gunpoint to give them my money that I got through voluntary transactions?

Unless you're compaining about the government helping rich people, in that case I agree, it's terrible. Which is why I don't want you to give the government anymore power.

 

That's not a particularly helpful post.

I'll grant you this, though - neoconservatives DO have somewhat of a tendency to legislate morality. Not as much as neoliberals, but conservatives have foreign policy problems, too.

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You "granting" a position? Who the hell are you, Mein Fuhrer?

 

Such words as 'diversity' and 'culture' are never adequately defined by the left. That is because they are general terms that can be applied to any pet grievance that can be used to foment hatred, class envy and divide We The People into powerless sectors while biting and scratching at each other's throats.

The more divided We are, the more power goes to the elitist left. America IS a culture of diversity where immigrants have traditionally assimilated but have left their former nationalism behind. The left would like to resurrect esoteric foriegn-nationalist cultural division. Don't let them do that. A country is defined by borders, language and culture.

 

Naturally occurring diversity is good. The US, as a magnet for immigrants, is probably the most diverse country in the world. Acceptance of diversity is a political necessity for the US because without it we'd soon splinter into warring factions, such as we see in so many other countries. Our very diversity may protect us because we have so many factions that none could achieve primacy. In countries with only two or three major groups, civil strife is far more likely because each group hopes to win a definitive victory. In the US, that's impossible. The 2000 census showed Germans were the biggest ethnic group at 15.2%, followed by Irish at 10.8%, African at 8.8%, and English at 8.7%. (See Ethnicity in the US) That means there is literally no ethnic majority group in the US.

That being said, there is an essential difference between naturally occurring diversity, and rules for social composition imposed by the government. When government orders that businesses and organizations of all sorts display some mandated distribution of employees or members, it disregards the many reasons why groups of people choose certain occupations. For example, my father and grandfather were watchmakers and jewelers, occupations dominated in New York by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. The reasons were that most "respectable" WASP owned businesses would not hire them, and that many people they knew were doing the same thing. The same holds true for all ethnic groups - they migrate to certain occupations and locations largely because others made the same choice before them. Their social clusters are a source of strength through mutual support. Gender works the same way - there are fewer women in physically challenging work because most women would not choose it, not because of discrimination. When government tries to force people to ignore their preferences it does harm; it doesn't support true diversity.

 

I suppose it always leads to conflict with those who believe everyone should believe like they do - but true freedom has to include religious freedom for all

 

I'm for diversity only if Obama say I should be.

 

You confuse statist and progressives. They are the opposite
Statist = corperationist, National Socialism being Socialism for the Corporations, Individualism for the People.
They advocate "Trickle Down" economic theory. If the rich do well, it will trickle down to the "people".

Progressive aka Populist are anti-corperationist and should not be confused with Liberals who preform as corperationist.
Progressives advocate a Percolate Up economy, poor people spend money and drive the economy, rich people hoard it to little benefit for all.

The problem of Progressive vs Statist should be viewed as the vertical line perpendicular to the horizontal, left/right, Liberal/Conservative because; both Liberals and Conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, Left and Right serve the rich as Corperationist. Obama talks a good Progressive talk but functions as a Corperationist. Witness the Wall St recovery first approach.
Bernanke dollars to those who don't need them. Gamble with them and if they lose, they are replaced.
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Now to Thread Topic: Short answer NO !

Immigration and the EU has ruined France, Holland, England, etc.
Not every nation is America committed to diversity.
I have no problem letting the Dutch be Dutch and the Brits, Brits, etc. Their "liberal" attitude has destroyed their nations and imported race problems and religious strife.
For a good time, study up on Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. Historically they manage a multi ethnic society with grace.
All sorts of Christians and all sorts of Jews live in Turkey with no fear as experienced in other Muslim nations.
The Kurds mostly vote for the established Conservative Party and not the Kurdish Parties.
And before anyone yells about the Armenian explusion; 1) they were in negotiations to join Russia in WW1 against Turkey and
2) it was less then 100 years from America's Trail of Tears. It doesn't make it right, but it is not a "proof" that the West likes to imagine.

For nations where diversity was the norm, fine.
For nations where the population is pretty uniform, that is what a nation is all about too.

No one size fits all. Respect mono Culture nations too.

Moi
Populist since the sixties

 

How many religions are non invasive to non believer's lives ?
I am not against religious freedom for as long as it is kept at home or in the temple and it is completely banned outside them.

 

I prefer separation of church and state, keep religion in the realm of the people, not the government, both benefit from this relationship

 

Moi, it's better to use words the same way others do.

A statist believes government to be the primary source of moral and political authority, and the primary means of societal evolution. In contemporary America, most statists are on the left. Statists are in contrast to democrats (small d), who believe the people to be the primary source of moral and political authority, and the primary means of societal evolution. In contemporary America, most democrats are on the right.

"Progressive" has meant many things throughout our history, and you use it in its 1912 sense, when Theodore Roosevelt founded the Progressive Party. But in contemporary America, "progressive" is how the hard left prefers to describe itself - those who think President Obama is too far to the right. Decades ago, the same people called themselves "liberal," and before the 1950s, they were openly communists. During the McCarthy era, they learned the value of concealment in selling their ideas. "Progressive" sounds, well ... progressive, and that's a better image than Stalin and his concentration camps. Far from being opposed to statism, progressives are the chief advocates of statism in contemporary America.

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Diversity is the norm in the US - since the beginning.

Turkey is the only country where the majority of the people are Muslim but the government is secular. Kemal Attaturk, founder of the modern Turkish state, made it that way. That explains why minorities in Turkey enjoy full rights. The Turkish example makes a compelling argument for diversity, though I agree that mono-cultural nations shouldn't destroy themselves on principle.