# Is a homogeneous society a better, healthier option in the modern age? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 14, 2026, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066 "2026-09-14T19:18:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2026, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/81 "2026-09-16T22:14:01Z")
I think one poster upthread said it best that a society can absorb a huge number of immigrants from an infinitely diverse array of races, regions, etc. with little problem as long as they share the values of that society. But absorbing even a small number of immigrants who don’t share - or even outright oppose - the values of the society is going to lead to major friction. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2026, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/82 "2026-09-16T22:48:58Z")
Only to do the easy one, What values are not shared by, or are outright opposed by, immigrants from Central and South America that is currently causing major friction? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2026, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/83 "2026-09-16T23:33:47Z")
Well, there _is_ some griping in the Pit about where lawn care people think they are entitled to park. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2026, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/84 "2026-09-16T23:35:44Z")
Lawns and lawn care being the mostest anti-American value possible! /s ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2026, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/85 "2026-09-16T23:36:43Z")
I’m not sure how you measure diversity, but Canada’s high diversity is surely due to 1/4 of the population being French Canadian. And the lower murder rate is mainly due to the omission of the second amendment from the Canadian constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2026, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/86 "2026-09-16T23:38:45Z")
1/5 of the population is of Asian descent, so don’t pin it all on the French. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2026, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/87 "2026-09-16T23:55:04Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I think one poster upthread said it best that a society can absorb a huge number of immigrants from an infinitely diverse array of races, regions, etc. with little problem as long as they share the values of that society. But absorbing even a small number of immigrants who don’t share - or even outright oppose - the values of the society is going to lead to major friction. It’s also going to lead to major friction if one group — including if it’s one group that’s been there for generations — starts trying to define “the values of that society” as the values, in detail, of their own particular religious/ethnic group. That seems to me to be very much counter to the value “people of a wide variety of different groups can live here peacefully together, all of them free to behave in their various fashions.” Which is my central American value. What do you think the values of our society are? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2026, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/88 "2026-09-17T00:46:33Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > That seems to me to be very much counter to the value “people of a wide variety of different groups can live here peacefully together, all of them free to behave in their various fashions.” Which is my central American value. What do you think the values of our society are? I asked this of @octopus a bit earlier - they declined to answer. To repeat myself: > [@DSeid](#): > > To me a core foundational value of the United States is a broad tolerance of and freedom to have different foundational values, within broad limits. Accepting a few things, as founding papers claim, to be self evident, and making one out of many. The drive of some on the Right to define freedom as their freedom to impose their beliefs on others, to push for an American monoculture, seems unAmerican to me So yes there are some > [@Velocity](#): > > who don’t share - or even outright oppose - the values of the society and IMHO it is who @Wesley_Clark categorizes as “ethnic nationalists” … not mostly immigrants being targeted, including of Hispanic and Arab origins. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2026, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/89 "2026-09-17T01:02:03Z")
For a very large number of Americans “_the Age of Enlightenment concepts of intrinsic individual rights_” is not a shared value anymore since, according to them, those rights do not come from Enlightenment concepts they come from ~~God~~ Jesus and they are not intrinsic they are granted by the majority, grudgingly, to the minority. ---
**Author:** ![Larsedik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larsedik/32/19832_2.png) [@Larsedik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larsedik)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/90 "2026-09-20T13:29:32Z")
I have also noticed that countries with the lowest murder rates have the highest suicide rates - look at Scandinavia, for example. I agree that if someone wants to murder someone, it is best if they murder themselves. Often mass murderers kill themselves after murdering a lot of people, and it would have been better if they had murdered themselves first. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/91 "2026-09-20T14:05:19Z")
Reminds me of the old joke about the husband who comes home to find his wife in bed with some stranger. In a fit of rage he grabs the pistol from the nightstand and points it at his own head. The wife starts laughing. He responds “Don’t laugh; you’re next!” ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/92 "2026-09-20T15:30:57Z")
There are many myths on the Internet, one of them being the fact that Scandinavia is the happiest area in the world. I travel to various countries in Europe and often meet more joyful places with happier people. Speaking of low murder and suicide rates. Cyprus has the lowest suicide rate in the European Union, with 3.5 deaths per 100,000 residents. In addition, Cyprus has a very low murder rate of about 0.8 per 100,000 people. This is below the European and global averages, which are 1.0 per 100,000 people and 5.2 per 100,000 people, respectively. Mediterranean cultures sound loud and occasionally easily irritable. People in Cyprus, Greece, or Italy find it normal to express their satisfaction on the spot. They often vent about economic or political grievances. Northern cultures are more restrained. In Germany and Scandinavia there are strong norms against public complaining or making a scene. Social conformity and contentment are crucial, while admitting to be unhappy can carry a social stigma. That’s why Gallup polls nations on positive daily emotions, like smiling, laughter, or feeling well-rested. Latin American and Mediterranean countries score much higher than Northern countries based on these metrics. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/93 "2026-09-20T16:33:23Z")
Whenever I see especially low suicide numbers I suspect deliberate official underreporting. Many more traditional cultures find suicide especially troubling and will do nearly anything to try to disguise the fact it occurs at all. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/94 "2026-09-20T16:53:37Z")
Class division–the very basis of capitalism–may be an underlying cause of much of the division attributed to race and gender and ethnicity because of the inequality of incomes, power imbalances in the workplace and politics, etc. that force people to compete for jobs, incomes, education, medical care, and more. This is part of the reason that more equal societies tend to be happier and less divisive, and why, as capitalism around the world is creaking and freaking, they are becoming less so. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/95 "2026-09-20T17:00:59Z")
> [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > more joyful places with happier people. The World Happiness Index, the source for claims of Nordic “Happiness” measures answers to if someone is happy with life overall. Gallup measures daily expressions of emotion. And yes in some cultures people express emotions more, or are taught to express positive ones or not negative ones, or even the converse. Of note Denmark is near the top on both rating lists. Finlanders apparently don’t emote happiness daily as frequently. And Japan? As noted pretty low on the World Happiness Index, _and_ low on expressed happiness … and on expressed unhappiness. United States? Higher than average expressed happiness and lower than average expressed unhappiness. ---
**Author:** ![JDYanYan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jdyanyan/32/21663_2.png) [@JDYanYan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JDYanYan)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/96 "2026-09-20T17:11:14Z")
I’d put it backwards. Legalized redlining, exclusion from New Deal programs that built the American middle class, a justice system that arrested, prosecuted, and convicted non-white citizens at much lower thresholds of confidence is what has been the defining causes of 20th century economic stratification by race. Which is to say, state power trapping people in impoverished circumstances and capitalism used as an excuse to not examine it. (Or in the 80s as a reason to slash safety nets to make it worse). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/97 "2026-09-20T17:14:53Z")
> [@JDYanYan](#): > > The US is hurting itself badly right now excluding immigrants that are some of the most brilliant and talented people in the world. Half of the US’s Nobel prize winners are immigrants. We get so many doctors, researchers, scientists, and of course geniuses in music, literature, and all other disciplines of merit. I’ve heard it said that the American university system is the equivalent of a brain tax on other countries. American colleges have a good reputation around the world so other countries send their best students to study in the United States. But they have to accept the fact that a large proportion of the students they send to America will decide to remain in America rather than return to their home country when they graduate. So a foreign country will send a hundred of its most intelligent young people to America each year knowing that only fifty of them will come back. The United States benefits from this huge influx of intelligent and educated immigrants. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/98 "2026-09-20T17:22:08Z")
Well, America _did_ benefit from foreign students coming here until the country grew hostile to them. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/99 "2026-09-20T19:30:58Z")
To some degree, it really is two steps forward, one step back. I kind of wonder if this is a historical backlash to what amounted to about 40-50 years of fairly steady liberal progress in legislation. If you think about it, there has been a LOT of change for the better since _Brown v. Board of Education_, and not a whole lot of backsliding. Maybe it got to a point where there’s a backlash of sorts, or maybe policies/opinions on that side were a bridge too far. It is possible for societies to not be ready for everything that the Left wants, and they’ll push back/retaliate if they’re pushed too far too fast. I’m not sure, but that’s something I’ve wondered about. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2026, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066/100 "2026-09-20T19:55:52Z")
I’ve long argued that the most temperamentally conservative and least educated folks in a nation set a _de facto_ speed limit on lasting change change. You can only drag them so far in a lifetime before they explode in a reactionary fashion. The Shah of Iran learned about the consequences of pushing a country farther than it’s most backward folks are willing to go. I do not think it a coincidence that the USA is also full of religious conservatives who staunchly believe, and for non-rational reasons, that in large areas of society, all change is by definition bad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-homogeneous-society-a-better-healthier-option-in-the-modern-age/1033066.md?page=6)