- A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?
IMO America's problem isn't diversity, it is the cultural attitudes towards diversity. In every Canadian introductory sociology class the American and Canadian cultural perceptions on multiculturalism are dissected. In America, there is an emphasis on creating a "melting pot" or a homogenous culture. In Canada, there is an emphasis on multiculturalism. If you attempt to create a homogenous culture out of a population with diverse cultural backgrounds you are bound to alienate most ethnic groups and make them feel unwanted and "un-insert-country-here". There is an entire media culture in America that directly or indirectly asserts that WASP's are American and all others must assimilate or be viewed as "not-quite-American" (i.e., African-American, Asian-American, Native-American, etc.) but not AMERICAN. The fact that there is no phrase "European-American" or "British-American" is a product of this attitude. I do not want to end before stating that Canada is not a perfect example of multiculturalism. We also have our issues with our changing demographics and emerging identity. But our multicultural experiment has produced a more harmonious dynamic. Finally, I want to say that I think this article is dangerous because it is justifying, and even calling for, segregationist polices.
I think I quite agree that individually labeling every single minority as "X-American" is doing more harm than good. It makes it impossible to label someone as simply American, which probably weakens our national heritage. I tend to just call people what they are; White, Hispanic, Black, Asian, and the like. Everyone in my country is an American (unless they're just visiting, I suppose). However, I don't think I noticed parts in the article justifying or calling for segregation. The article specifically points out that the author of the study saying that it would be a bad thing.While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.
The only thing I found silly about the article is that it seems to frown upon other scientists being a bit upset that Putnam didn't simply present the facts about his paper. Some critics have found his prescriptions underwhelming. And in offering ideas for mitigating his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for stepping out of the role of dispassionate researcher. "You're just supposed to tell your peers what you found," says John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. "I don't expect academics to fret about these matters."
However, if I missed something regarding segregation, could you please point it out to me?
The lead researcher mentioned that "diversity brings out the turtle in all of us". However, he made this generalized statement without backing it up with data from other countries that have experimented with multiculturalism. And then the author of the article goes on to say that diversity makes people really uncomfortable. But diversity doesn't make everyone uncomfortable, and insinuates that creating diverse communities is a mistake and has failed. What these findings should do is make people focus on how they can better educate their children about tolerance. It should also make us all re-examine our media and how we discuss diversity. I was wrong to that they were calling for segregationist polices. But their language would allow for conservatives to use their line of reasoning to call for implementing such policies.
While I take offense at the insinuation that conservatives in general would want to segregate, I'll ignore that for the sake of discussion. I think the turtle thing was just to summarize, in a rather silly way, how his findings showed that, generally in America, diversity led to people keeping to themselves. The point of the article wasn't to explain that this is how all countries work, just how the majority of America seems to work. I, myself, would be rather interested in seeing how this goes in Canada or Europe. I don't think he believes that we've failed in creating diverse communities, just that we need to modify our methods a bit. Scientists have also found that babies are racist, so there is something to be said as far as this being a normal thing, if not entirely desirable.
I didn't mean to offend, but I think it is fair to state that the social right in most countries gravitate towards ideas about ethnic purity and cultural homogeneity. The thing that annoyed me the most about Putnam is that he seems to entertain the idea that diversity is "bad". IMO he should be using these findings to suggest educational programs teach people about tolerance. Just because humans are evolutionarily programmed to use phenotypes as cues for social kinship, it doesn't mean that we can't create a world that accepts and embraces diversity. Our evolutionary history has left us with a lot of genetic baggage that we must overcome by embracing inclusive cultural attitudes and ingraining the notion that we are one species; not several divided races and ethnicities.
In the later years of high school, we were told that there was a shift from the "melting pot" mentality to a "tossed salad" metaphor. With the salad, every culture is distinct (croutons, lettuce, cheese, etc.) while in the melting pot everything just mixes together into brown mush. Now, I'm no expert in the matter by any means, but imo, the main issue is that there's simply too much focus put into it. Who cares if you're white, black, brown, orange, neon green. Who cares if you're African-American, Sri Lankin-American, Antarctic-American. The important thing is that we remember where we came from and not forget our traditions. More importantly is to acknowledge the differences and respect the traditions of others. In the US, that does seem to be lacking and I'd guess that that's where a lot of the unrest is coming from.