Can anyone name even one single benefit to diversity? -- LiveWire Teen Forums

Quote: from hawkeye at 2:14 am on June 27, 2012

However, the United States grew by people coming here from other countries and putting a little piece of their culture into the system.

Yet they were all Western/White countries until the 60's, and I don't really see any benefit since then, just more "Racism"

While it's true that there is an idea of "Americanism" and that out of all of our differences we still all have the same values about our country, I think this is changing as we become more and more uptight about where we came from rather than where we are.
Diversity can be a good thing, I think you're confusing diversity with multi-cultriualism, which in many cases can be bad.

What is diversity then? Do the positive outweigh these negatives?

"E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture"

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1467-9477.2007.00176.x

"Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to 'hunker down'. Trust (even of one's own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration."

It's important to note that this was a very well funded study and it took the author five years to make sure he could prevent it from being used by "racists and anti-immigration activists" (http://tinyurl.com/33dzq8a)
Also

"Professor Putnam told the Financial Times he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it 'would have been irresponsible to publish without that.'"

"His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone - from their next-door neighbour to the mayor. ... 'In the presence of diversity, we hunker down,' he said. 'We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look like us.'"
http://tinyurl.com/nscvy

Here's some highlights from the study:
"in terms of the effect on neighbourly trust, the difference between living in an area as homogeneous as Bismarck, North Dakota, and one as diverse as Los Angeles is roughly as great as the difference between an area with a poverty rate of 7 percent and one with a poverty rate of 23 percent, or between an area with 36 percent college graduates and one with none."

"However, a wide array of other measures of social capital and civic engagement are also negatively correlated with ethnic diversity. In areas of greater diversity, our respondents demonstrate:

Lower confidence in local government, local leaders and the local news media.

Lower political efficacy - that is, confidence in their own influence.

Lower frequency of registering to vote, but more interest and knowledge about politics and more participation in protest marches and social reform groups.

Less expectation that others will cooperate to solve dilemmas of collective action (e.g., voluntary conservation to ease a water or energy shortage).

Less likelihood of working on a community project.

Lower likelihood of giving to charity or volunteering.

Fewer close friends and confidants.

Less happiness and lower perceived quality of life.

More time spent watching television and more agreement that 'television is my most important form of entertainment.'"

"For the primary indicators of social capital discussed earlier (i.e. social trust, community attachment and sociability) each of these two separate measures of diversity [They were "Percent Black" and "Percent immigrant"] has a significant and independent negative effect, though percent immigrant seems to have a somewhat more consistent and powerful effect."

Of course he says some stuff to make diversity seem oh so great (took him 5 years to come up with that bullshit) but it's mostly nonsense

-------
"The Jewish problem is one of the greatest problems in the world, and
no man, be he writer, politician or diplomatist, can be considered mature
until he has striven to face it squarely on its merits." - HW Steed

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