Homogeneity allows for more progressive policy. T/F?
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Anonymous
+1 Watch the documentary White People. It dispels this and many other myths that are perpetuated by white people who think they're at a disadvantage. |
Anonymous
The entire article is based on a wrong premise. Humans are the same species. Animals help each other within the same species BUT there is no cross-species altruism. Infact I would make an argument against this article that as humans become more intermingled, marry across races, the differences gets reduced then there won't be any signs of tribalism. That tribalism itself is due to separation of multiple identities on race, religion etc. When you do not have a reason to have multiple identities OR atleast hard edged multiple identities then tribalism declines. It is not diversity that is the issue, it is infact lack of REAL AND TRUE RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY that is the issue. Look at the FOrbes(a conservative magazine) how diverse teams are more innovative. http://www.forbes.com/sites/tendayiviki/2016/12/06/why-diverse-teams-are-more-creative/ Scientific American article on how diversity makes us smarter. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-smarter/ Harvard Business REVIEW ON how diversity can drive innovation. I can go on and on. https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation I have personal experience working with many cross-cultural teams spread all over the world from Americans, Europeans, Indians ,Chinese in building a product. In a very diverse group the work gets done because everyone respects the other person's contribution and strengths. Americans are the best at identifying market niches, Europeans are strong in technical fundamentals, Asians are pretty sharp in developing applications rapidly. How can people from one culture replace this super productive but very diverse team? |
Anonymous
| Obvi. Look at the Scandinavians. |
Anonymous
Dear OP, that ship of homogeneity has sailed...quite long ago in fact, when white men invaded the land of Native Americans and then imported enslaved Africans. The United States is and has always been a land of heterogeneous populations. Nothing you can do about it that doesn't entail a holocaust of some sort. |
Anonymous
OP, it's very timely that you've revived this thread, and I'm glad you shared this article because I would have otherwise. It's more interetsing in the context of this thread, though. I think your original post did very much identify perhaps the central tension within the liberal movement today, but I think it's oversimplifying to take this election's outcome as a demonstration that diverse societies cannot have progressive policies, though they may be harder to implement. Small-government Republicans have been demonizing social programs for decades, and I know enough people in the elite of that group to know their objection is not about benefits going to non-whites. For a variety of reasons, some of which are very much rooted in fears about government overreach as a threat to liberty, they truly believe the government has no place in many of the arenas it's in. I don't think that's been the overarching goal of the majority of the Republican party, but a fundamental mistrust of government is deeply embedded in the modern GOP. And that very much informs how voters view social programs in general. This does not in any way negate the fact that Republicans (and occasionally Democrats) have also been using racially coded language since the 70s to rile up opposition to these programs as well, but it does complicate the simple picture of diversity vs. progressive social policy. I think it's strange that the last line in your quote suggests that Obama was "an effective messenger for pluralist social democracy". I think Obama won by largely ignoring pluralism in his rhetoric...and early on in his policies as well. He shifted more toward pluralism in his second term, which probably contributed to Clinton's loss (e.g. his tacit support for BLM). And the rabid white tribalism that has been a response to his Presidency from day 1 also suggests that he was never really able to unite the country in a meaningful post-racial way. [None of this is intended as criticism of him. I don't know anyone who could have done this, and I give credit to Obama for much of the grace with which he handled the backlash against his blackness.] I think the real challenge facing liberals is figuring out how to deliver the message that pluralism is good for America in every way including economically. This seems like it would be an obvious argument to make, considering the more diverse parts of this country are almost all economically better off than the more homogenous ones. But in the era of poll-tested politics, neither party really seems that interested in leading and instead drifts toward whatever random sentiments voters are expressing. |
Anonymous
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Then how is the the more diverse CA, NY etc are the engines of American technology and finance? If you have ever worked in a top technology company you will hear GLOBAL DIVERSITY in a single team meeting not just American diversity. In NYC you can find people are all ethnicity on trading floor and the big banks have huge number of asians. How is that these super diverse tech companies and banks the most productive and most innovative in the world? Obviously these states make the most revenue in the union and provides the most federal welfare dollars to the LEAST DIVERSE homogeneous states.
Diversity is a strength and thats the advantage US enjoys and it is which makes US exceptional. You take away diversity and the productive states like CA, NY will become like Montana and Wyoming. |
Anonymous
china is more homogeneous but not progressive. |
Anonymous
| Yemen is ethnically homogeneous. |
Anonymous
When "diversity" means bringing in the best and the brightest from the rest of the world then I agree that this will benefit the US. Very little of our immigration policy is based on this. Bringing in millions of third worlders w/ little education will not benefit the US. |
Anonymous
Different PP. Well CA also has millions of "third worlders" picking the produce you eat. And it doesn't seem to be turning the state red or harming their economy. So you can have your beliefs about what a good immigration policy is, but they aren't held up by reality. |
Anonymous
The boomers are retiring in big numbers and there is not enough talent or man power to replace them at many levels of skills from manual labor to highly skilled. Automation and machines will eliminate some jobs but it won't be enough. The US should re-orient its immigration policy similar to Canada, that is , skill based immigration instead of family based. That was the goal of the comprehensive immigration bill which was oriented to let the talented people to come in. Stopping that means more people will bring their uneducated family members for the foreseeable future. |
Anonymous
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OP here - two recent articles reminded me of this thread I started three years ago -
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/immigration-modern-liberalism/543744/ “The doom loop of modern liberalism. Diversity and equality seem tragically incompatible in the world today. Here’s why.” “But as the foreign-born share of the population rises, xenophobia often festers and threatens egalitarian policymaking” “This is where the story finally connects with welfare and the future of liberalism. Rich countries tend to redistribute wealth from the rich few to the less-rich multitude. But when that multitude suddenly includes minorities who are seen as outsiders, the white majority can turn resentful and take back their egalitarian promises.“ “But an unavoidable lesson of the last few years, from both inside and outside the U.S., is that cultural heterogeneity and egalitarianism often cut against each other. Pluralist social democracy is stuck in a finger trap of math and bigotry, where to pull on one end (support for diversity) seems to naturally strain the other (support for equality).” “The liberal cause requires Americans learning to break the catch-22 of diversity and equality. If multicultural egalitarianism is the future of liberal politics, the road to the future will be bumpy.” |
Anonymous
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The second article, from yesterday :
https://nyti.ms/2E5M8gU “This downward trend is not limited to Germany — in most major Western European countries, center-left parties are in retreat, and in some cases they have practically ceased to exist. Just what has happened to social democracy?” “Social democracy’s second contradiction is that you can’t promote a borderless world and the welfare state at the same time.” “In the last election, millions of angry left-wing voters in places like the Ruhrgebiet, Germany’s equivalent of the Rust Belt in America, saw a state that had plenty of money for others but not for them. The response of Social Democrat leaders was to label such critics “right-wingers” and to demand they embrace even more liberal virtues, like identity and gender politics. This prompted a defection of hundreds of thousands of Social Democratic voters to the far-right Alternative for Germany, which scored almost 13 percent in the election.” I don’t take joy in saying “told you so” - im just disheartened why the movers and shakers on our side didn’t see this 3-5 years before in order to formulate solutions. I find it sad that it took 2016/2017 for the “influencers” and policy types to figure his out. |
Anonymous
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I made this thread almost 5 years ago.
Today, this popped up on my twitter timeline: https://twitter.com/MattGrossmann/status/1113258527244656640 Dude is a michigan state political scientist currently at Harvard/MIT and a niskanen center fellow. "In racially homogeneous states, the public responds to rising economic inequality with economic liberalism; in more diverse states, the public responds to inequality with economic conservatism (& less support for welfare/education)" quoting a paper written by an academic at UNC. Looks like over the last half decade, my initial thesis has been proven more and more correct. |
Anonymous
Meaning, Dems are going in precisely the wrong direction. |