Which forms of multiculturalism do you believe are beneficial to society?

[even_sven]

I think diversity is hugely important for avoiding groupthink and opening minds to new possibilities. I work in International Development, and the vast majority of failures and missteps in my field are due to people designing programs that make perfect sense to a white first-world male, and end up having some pretty huge problems in actual implementation. I can’t imagine my education being effective without the huge number of international students and diversity of experience that we all brought in.

Even something seemingly as objective as medicine is hugely influenced by culture and diversity. Vaccines developed in US labs, for example, often function completely differently in other places. The rotavirus vaccine, for example, is only half as effective in Africa as it is in the West, and nobody is quite sure why. Culture affects what side effects people are willing to tolerate, what treatment schedules they are going to stick to, and even what it means to be “sick” and “well.” If a doctor does not come to understand other cultures, they will not be as good of a doctor as they could be.

As for language- there are a lot of multilingual countries (pretty much all of Africa, India, China and much of the rest of Asia, etc.) and I can’t think of a single one that doesn’t basically have a de facto first language for trade, business and other interactions across a large region. Even in areas where this is not organized officially, these languages emerge naturally. 66% of the world’s children are raised bilingual. The idea of a completely fragmented society where nobody can talk to each other is not a reality and never has been one.

Linguistic diversity has some advantages. For one, knowledge is often stored in languages. We know for a fact that certain Amazonian languages have many more words for local plant and animal species than we do, showing that they have knowledge of their environment that hasn’t yet been “discovered” by western science. As these languages die out, we are losing that knowledge and will have to rediscover it from scratch.

[bump]

@Shagnasty

I think multi-multiculturalism is more of a necessary evil than a plus so I voted ‘none of them’. I think there are a lot of benefits to being a mostly homogeneous society (more like Scandinavia and less like the U.S.). I don’t think multi-multiculturalism should be a societal goal in and of itself. It is closer to a problem that must be addressed or worked around rather than something to be actively encouraged.

I consider diversity to be a related but separate concept except I would argue that diversity is mostly good and large-scale multi-multiculturalism is almost always a net negative. The difference between the two concepts is subtle but very important. Multi-culturalism accepts parallel but separate cultures within a society who never fully assimilate into the mainstream (Muslims in France for example) while diversity accepts that there are different groups being added to a society but they should converge over time like the melting-pot ideal.

Man, I like your posts more and more. I was kind of thinking the same thing myself.

[MrDibble]

@SenorBeef

The best places in the world to live are pretty much all monocultural.

Hell to the No! Scandiwegia, sure, mostly monocultural (if you totally ignore the Sámi or the Greenland Inuit), but Canada? New Zealand? Switzerland? None of these is monocultural, and they are all regularly featured in lists of “best places in the world to live”. Other nice places, like Germany or Netherlands, are even less so.

[the_apples_fell]

@SenorBeef

The important thing is that immigrants don’t seperate yourself by maintaining allegiance to whatever culture they came from. They should wholly buy in to wherever it is they decided would provide them with a better life. Any resistance to that assimilation is almost entirely negative for the value of that society.

I agree with this.

[BigT]

You need a common language, even if it’s not everyone’s first language. And what you describe as racial diversity has never been tested, as far as I know–not even in Brazil, which is the most racially diverse place I can think of.

Preserving culture works, at least as it’s done in the U.S., where some lesser things are given up. Same with religious pluralism. I don’t know why other countries have so much trouble with these.

[MrDibble]

@BigT

You need a common language, even if it’s not everyone’s first language.

Entirely functional countries exist where bilingualism works and yet you don’t need to be able to speak the other language - Switzerland, Canada, Belgium…