I’d be curious for a progressive or moderate answer to this, because “diversity=white genocide” is a meme tossed around the internet alt-right community.
Basically, is diversity of ethnicity (and/or multiculturalism) good for all polities, including African, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries, or is it only good for countries that are majority white?
Seems to me pretty clear that there’s some measure of hypocrisy going on, but I can’t pass the ideological Turing test for the other side and there’s pretty much no information against this idea out there.
Yes, cultural diversity is good for everyone. The goal, in broad strokes, is a society that contains, learns from, and preserves a wide variety of cultures. As far as I know, this is pretty broadly accepted (though probably not universal) among progressives.
Neutral. People are people. The strongest nations forge a shared cultural identity regardless of the ethnic make-up of the population.
One might argue that in a global economy, a country benefits by having people who navigate through the various cultures in the world. But as we see in the US, 3rd generation immigrants are pretty much assimilated and don’t generally have the skills to navigate in their grandparent’s culture.
Where you run into problems is if certain ethnicities are marginalized in a given country. But if you don’t have those ethnicities to begin with, not biggie. Just look at Japan. It’s had to view that country as being unsuccessful because of a lack of diversity.
Well, when the “white man” goes into third-world countries and helps build up their economies it is frequently described as “first-world imperialism” (I.E. all the meddling in South American and Asian countries).
So it would seem many on the left do think that diversity is only good for the first-world, wealthy nations. All the rest are only harmed by our intrusive “meddling.”
The people themselves, in these third-world countries, typically welcome us. The left is so insulated and takes for granted the quality of life we have built for ourselves that they don’t understand why the rest of the world admires what we have accomplished.
There are studies that show organizations are more innovative and profitable when there’s gender/racial diversity. Some of the psychological reasoning of this is sorta funny to me since it boils down to tribal competitiveness vs. lazy group think. What happens in the future if everyone is considered the same tribe? Will the benefit disappear? There can also be down sides, such as increased mistrust, but I think on the whole it’s definitely a plus.
As for white genocide, it’s a fun troll meme but it doesn’t make much sense. If a white dude and a brown gal have a mixed kid where’s the genocide? What if everyone interbreeds? My god, the entire human race will be genocide’d.
Or the alternative, if other races are outbreeding white people, how is that anybody but white people’s fault? White people don’t want to screw apparently. Like pandas, let 'em go. What will the world miss? Country and western music? Frisbee sports? WASPs?
Japan is certainly far from unsuccessful…but it mistreats its Ainu minority, is very unfriendly to Koreans, and, by and large, rejects children of mixed parentage. They reject the good parts of multicultural diversity, while, it is true, they reap the benefits of homogeneity.
Diversity is good…but when it comes to bilingualism, there can be problems. It is uncomfortable for a populace to be so divided that half of them can’t talk to the other half. Yet, at the same time, most of us dislike linguistic imperialism, and most of us don’t want rules against bringing children up in other languages.
Linguistic imperialism would be if we were forcing a language upon another country. Mandating a single language within one’s own country is just common sense. Obviously its impossible to enforce what language is spoken at home but on the other hand a single language should be instructed in all schools and be the language of government/street signs etc.
Tell that to Houston. We’ve got plenty of examples of dual language street signs, in English and either Chinese or Vietnamese. And Houston isn’t exactly “liberal mecca”. It just makes good sense culturally and economically to recognize reality.
As others have said, diversity is not automatically good in and of itself. But diversity is a natural consequence of policies that are good. Freedom of movement, freedom of thought, anti-discrimination.
Isolationists and racists often use the dangers of diversity as an argument for their views, which makes the benefits an argument against.
I don’t think it counts as diversity if different ethnic groups are present but all hate each other. Diversity is when different ethnic groups can live and work together.
Diversity of thought and ideas is always a good thing. Diversity of ethnicities is neutral. It brings neither advantages nor disadvantages. Somebody once said that people should be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. That’s exactly right. A town that’s 100% white, a town that’s 100% percent black, and a town that’s 50% of each race can all be good places to live, or they can all be bad places to live. The distribution of skin colors determines nothing about the outcome. The distribution of character contents determines everything.
It is sometimes amusing to watch progressives tying themselves in knots on the issue of diversity. They’ll attack certain groups for being entirely white, usually groups that aren’t entirely white. They’ll defend or ignore groups that are entirely of another race, or anything that doesn’t fit the narrative of white oppression. See, for instance, the already-mentioned racist policies of Japan; I’ve never seen any liberal attack that.
One question is how a society can preserve the uniqueness of multiple cultures, as successive generations mingle and become more alike. Yes, you can take the best from different cultures, but over time the differences fade and you are left with one big culture again.
It reminds me of Ursula Le Guins book “The Lathe of Heaven.” One of the dream results, intended to get rid of racism, had everyone a uniform gray color. I forget why that one didn’t work and had to be undone.
All countries. It’s good for South Africa, a majority-Black country. The parts of the country that function best are also those that are the most diverse, ethnically.
