Cite please? I don’t know how immigration rates differ between the U.S. and Europe.
Where’d 30 percent come from?
The demographic issues as they relate to social programs are real. Like I said, though, it appears the influx of immigrants has lead to a backlash in some countries that gave power to people like Haider. Do you have an explanation other than bigotry?
“Europeans are not having enough children.” Concern you state. “I’m sorry I invented the pill because it means people can have sex for fun.” Not the concern you state.
It may be more a matter of perception than outright hostility to one’s own culture. There is a tendency to view one’s own culture as the default, particularly when it is a locally or regionally dominant one, and hence as the antithesis of the exotic and interesting. This can lead to the point of thinking one has no culture at all.
In fact, it’s arguable that most of us, as children, are first introduced to the concept of culture as the customs followed by people in distant lands. While this is an oversimplification, the case can be made that the value of a culture is best seen by somebody outside it. I would assert that an Austrian expert on New Guinea is better able to articulate the richness of life among the BlongoBlongos to other outsiders than The MacBlongo himself, chief of all the Blongo clans.
If you want me to delve deeper than wikiality I can do that as well.
It was my rough estimate. If Austria’s replacement rate is 1.4% then I figured that meant that essentially it was breeding at 70% replacement rate, so therefore it would need 30% immigration to make up for its lack of breeding. It is possible that my math is way off, I am relatively innumerate.
Well the problem with the ‘bigotry’ notion is that it assumes that ethnic preservation in and of itself is a negative trait. There are many reasons why a sudden influx of outsiders coming in will put stresses on a population. Yes, bigotry is a contributing factor, but the word bigotry is used far more often than it is actually useful in describing what is going on. When immigrant populations come into a nation they put real stresses on the native population, that’s just the reality of things. Bigotry is sort of a pat doctrinaire word that will get all the liberals to nod sagely and cease questioning the matter any further. It’s sort of like a punctuation mark these days, it lets people know that it’s ok to shut up and stop thinking.
Well if all that matters is economics, but if there were any poster on this board who I would expect to understand that Marxism is kind of silly and that not everything comes down to economics, that culture really and truly matters to most people, I would expect it to be you. It’s possible that I judged you wrong though. 
You’re just one of the few posters who actually has some valuable insights into cultural matters around here.
You are right that culture is a fluid thing, but no one wants to be directly responsible for the downturn in their own culture.
Well yes, he is right, that his invention is really and truly leading to the demise of his ethnic group. It’s not abstract for him like it is for you and I, it’s very real and immediate, it’s his primary legacy. He more than most other people in the world can directly link how the fruits of his labor have led to the demise of Europe as he knew it.
People in Europe are generally rather aware of their own culture.
I know Americans aren’t having kids at the replacement rate, mswas. I was asking about immigration trends in the U.S. as compared to Europe. You said America allows more immigration. That was the part I wanted a cite for.
If it’s expressed as “immigrants are destroying our culture and we need to keep them out,” yeah, I’m going to go out on a limb and call that negative. That’s not liking your own culture, it’s hating somebody else’s. Other posters have already pointed out that that attitude makes no sense when a country’s social programs are going to collapse without immigration.
Spare me the claptrap about liberals, if you don’t mind.
"Carl Djerassi…described couples who regularly contracept as “wanting to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it…”*
“Enjoy their schnitzels”? Is this guy Spike Jones’ evil twin?
“Most Austrians enjoy sexual intercourse”
Um, cite? I thought they spent most of their time eating pastry and going to Mozart festivals.
“Contracept” is a verb? Are there also people who regularly “laxatize”?**
**I don’t want to know.
Sorry about that, I knew what you wanted but got distracted halfway through. Maybe I caught a glimpse of the fantasy threesome thread and couldn’t stop thinking about being in the middle of a Kate Winslet-Rachel Weisz sandwich. 
Unless they really are destroying your culture. Of course it’s not the optimal position but I wouldn’t say it makes no sense. Essentially the argument there is that preserving the body politic is of greater value than preserving the culture. One of the problems people cite in Europe is their trouble integrating immigrant populations.
Right now much of western Europe’s immigration comes from Eastern Europe, where they have even greater demographic problems than in the west.
shrugs Just explaining why I think the term bigot is a fairly hollow word. I would make a similar comment about Conservative dogma if it were the dogma holding back the discussion.
There are a great many reasons why people might not have as many children as they used to. The pill is only one of them.
For instance, from the Population Reference Bureau’s 2006 data [pdf link], which happened to be the first thing that turned up in my search, the percentage of married women 15-49 using modern contraception is 58% for “more developed” areas, while that number drops only to 53% for “less developed” areas, yet the projected population change for 2050 is wildly out of proportion to this, with “more developed” experiencing 4% change while “less developed” would see 50% change, even though they expected a net migration out of “less developed” areas to “more developed” ones. Certainly this has to do with the age of the population. But old people can’t conceive whether they had the pill or not. So we’re talking about going back 40 years and asking whether the pill really had this effect. If so, we’d expect these up-and-coming populations to “die out” for the same reason.
Something tells me the pill won’t be the end of all culture on earth. Or even any one culture. Just a hunch, but there are ways to encourage childbirth, if that’s the desire (like more subsidies for moms and dads). Most data I’ve seen–which I must admit isn’t much–indicates that it is the ability to be successful that stops women from getting pregnant. The benefits of being childless seem, on the whole, to be better than the benefits of having children for most women. You want more kids? Tilt the balance back.
Jackmanny It’s a translation on a pro-life website.
Actually his ethnic group is apparently Jewish, which is stable or growing slightly. I imagine the Stormfronters would have a field day with this.
Well I have no stake in it. I am quite deracinated. I’m a cosmopolitan American without much in the way of roots. But I can sympathize with those who see the demise of their culture coming up quick. I think we will see the demise of culture on a great level in our lifetimes, but that’s to be expected, its the natural consequence of globalization. I’m just hoping it doesn’t mean the cheap condo trend we saw for the last three decades. I’m tired of going to places known for their great architecture and seeing some ugly modern monstrosity there. I hope that the demise of individual cultures will not necessarily mean an end to beauty overall, though that does rather seem to be the trend. I’m hoping it’s a 20th century thing.
What were we talking about again?
Which they aren’t. A culture is destroyed when its last members die off or when mass murder happens. Or what’s going on in Tibet, where China does appear to be trying to eradicate native culture (by moving Chinese in, not by killing Tibetans). That’s a great deal more extreme than what we’re discussing in this thread.
Which is pretty much where Der Trihs’s comments come in. Many different waves of immgration to the U.S. were met with bigotry and hysteria, and now the older ones are considered part of America. It happened with the Irish, with Jews, with Eastern Europeans, and with Asians. But the current immigrants, of course, are different. This time it’s serious. :rolleyes:
Problem isnt old people.
Old non working people however…
The difference in immigration between the US and Europe.
No, that’s not necessarily so. Pop culture can destroy culture, immigration can destroy culture. There are plenty of things that can. I saw the culture of the East Village in NYC where we both live die pretty rapid death. It’s kind of on life support now.
Right, that was to the US, and this is to Europe. Two different things. Europe isn’t made up of immigrants.
A culture can change into something you don’t like, but it’s only your opinion that it was destroyed. That point is useless to argue and it’s a process that is mostly useless to resist. The culture here is changing all the time and everybody always thinks it used to be better. I’m not going to be Pangloss and pretend everything must be the best it’s ever been, but there’s an obvious pattern there.
To put a rest to this. I am not saying bigotry isn’t a part of it. The word I’d use would be ethnocentrism, but the point is bigotry isn’t an explanation, it’s insufficient.
Well, yes, that’s true, but old cultural forms can be superseded, not just morph into something else. Like when Hip Hop culture moved all over the world. That’s not a morphing of culture, it’s a supersession.