"Honey, you know I could have sworn the neighborhood used to be a nicer place to live before this guy showed up, but our HR department keeps telling me how much richer my life is now. Which is it?"
Posted on 08/05/2007 7:48:56 PM PDT by george76
IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.
But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam...has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects.
In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.
"The extent of the effect is shocking," says Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.
The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm large-scale immigration causes to the nation's social fabric...
"We can't ignore the findings," says Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The big question we have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?"
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
community
n
Definition: agreement, similarity
Antonyms: disagreement, dissimilarity
Our proximity to our neighbors is not what makes community. What we share together makes us a community, not how we are different.
Thanks.
Don’t forget that former vice-president and current weather god, The Goreon said that our motto, “E Pluribus Unum” means the exact opposite of what it says.
that’s right!
but they always stop to speak spanish to a fellow mexican
just after they’ve been rude to you.
Only if you have a priori opinions about diversity's value. And we know all scientists wouldn't dream of having preconceived notions.
"Honey, you know I could have sworn the neighborhood used to be a nicer place to live before this guy showed up, but our HR department keeps telling me how much richer my life is now. Which is it?"
Because we already know it, we're bigots. But when they discover it, they are intellectuals.
/sarc
From the article:
When he [Putnam] finally published a detailed scholarly analysis in June in the journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he faced criticism for straying from data into advocacy. His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of diversity can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.
snip
In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a broader context by describing how social identity can change over time. Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to "more encompassing identities" that create a "new, more capacious sense of 'we,'" he writes.
snip
The biggest problem I have is that very few of them understand even basic English. It’s absolutely frustrating when I go to a McDonalds and hardly anyone speaks English and their hygiene is terrible.
Totally without foundation. Anyone who believes that ethnic diversity makes a society stronger is an ignorant fool.
It wasn’t necessary to do a costly massive study. It was obvious to anyone with a brain.
My favorite thing about that photo is the beer in his back pocket. The tub wasn’t enough, he had to get every single beer he could.
Uh, I maybe white, but I am not a “European.” The closest we have to “Europeans” in this hemisphere are the Argentineans.
When I took an honors sociology course in high school (back in the 80s), it was taught that a strong, cohesive community would be a homogeneous one. I wonder when this ‘diversity is a strength’ came into vogue. IIRC, it was first touted as a good thing for companies internally in terms of reaching new markers- which might be the case.
... which is, of course exactly what the libs want - when/what the 'diverse' community won't do for themselves, they wll rely on - and demand that - gubmint to do it for them.
The libs are msart enough to figure that one out, in their malicious way.
Michigan city could become first in U.S. under Muslim control
I'm sorry, but this just is not true.
What it does is create chaos and problems, not solve them.
Diversity of values is the human equivalent of entropy and does not help solve problems.
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