Motus Mentis

7 Comments

1. Dr. Strangelove says

   High levels of diversity within a society = erosion of social trust and cohesion.

   That statement is a historical truth but NOT a necessary truth. Too often it feels like you mix the two up on this website. The idea behind social progress is that we are able to break away from historical truths to reap the benefits of dynamics such as diversity without the social damage. Very difficult but very worth it.

   Slight aside, the author of “Generation Me” has it mostly wrong. I’ll admit that as a member of said generation I have an interest in refuting her sweeping negative generalizations and as such am biased. However, while the conditions in which me generation grew up in made life easier for us than previous generations (for a multitude of reasons, only one of which was technological progress) we our not lazy and we are not disengaged. I believe that this NYTimes article presents a more truthful, yet unflattering portrait of my generation.

   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/weekinreview/29graduates.html?scp=1&sq=Generation&st=nyt

   Posted March 19, 2012 at 9:33 pm | Permalink
2. Malcolm says

   That statement is a historical truth but NOT a necessary truth.

   A historical truth? Indeed it is, throughout the vast sweep of human societies always and everywhere — and a present truth likewise, all over the world.

   Let us imagine, just for the sake of argument, that you are wrong, that the cult of Diversity is wrong, and that the noblest intentions of our enlightened moral guides will, in the final reckoning, be insufficient to overcome this most ancient and deeply rooted characteristic of human nature. Imagine that we find, a few short years hence, that our naive optimism and our decades-long crusade of radical heterogenization have left us with a shattered, Balkanized society aboil with bitter ethnic strife and festering resentments — resentments kept in check, as always, only by the ever-tightening grip of central authority. When that grim realization dawns on you at last, how will you put things back the way they were? What will you say to the once-happy people whose homeland you have wrecked? “Oops, my bad”??

   How’s it going so far? Look at the disintegrating society the linked article describes. Look at the intensifying tribal tensions that now darken the civic affairs of these communities, and the jackals who slink up under the gathering gloom to fatten themselves on the battlefield. And you tell us “No, trust me, the idea of social progress is that we’ll break away from these historical truths”? That we’ll reap some vaguely imagined “benefits” “without the social damage”?

   I know you mean well, my friend, but this is folly. Open your eyes. The “social damage” is already done, and there is far worse to come.

   Posted March 19, 2012 at 10:20 pm | Permalink
3. Churchgoer says

   Malcolm, what if the reason that cultural diversity hasn’t achieved all you require of it to be “right” comes down to the very sentiment you express here? What kind of cultural dynamic is created by those who don’t want “them” moving in next door? How can that create the desired result?

   If there’s far worse to come, I don’t think it will be caused by a social effort to be more tolerant and inclusive. It will come instead from those who persistently cling to the “us and them” mentality that we see, time and again, has less and less place on an Earth with 7 billion people on it.

   Posted March 20, 2012 at 9:39 am | Permalink
4. Malcolm says

   Churchgoer, this is exactly the kind of well-intentioned naivetÁ© that I’m talking about — and I sincerely admire the sentiment that gives rise to it, having shared it myself for most of my life, and having given it up only slowly and reluctantly. But your position is to wager the the survival of existing, relatively happy societies against a distant and poorly grounded hope: that with the right kind of re-education programs, government policies, and social taboos against dissent, human nature is infinitely malleable. (It also arrogates, in classic Progressive style, the right to decide for others what kind of society they should prefer to live in — and the taking of irreversible steps to bring it about, neglecting all the lessons of history, in the hope that it succeeds.)

   I’m not talking about the “hatred” of the “other” that multiculturalists are so quick to ascribe to those who don’t share their opinion about the ductility of human nature (though there is surely no shortage of genuine racists and bigots in this world). I am talking, rather, about the most deep-seated of human psychological features — the tendency to form associative trait-groups, to prefer to socialize and mate within those groups, to be happier in mostly homogeneous societies, to form loyalties to one’s group, and in particular the far greater tendency to exhibit ‘prosocial’ altruism when our communities consist mostly of people who are like ourselves. Take all that away, which we are currently doing as fast as we can, and the effect is well documented: a decline in public trust, a decrease in social generosity, constriction of social interaction, less political engagement, less volunteerism, more factionalization between groups, and so on — exactly as we see.

   Like it or not, this is how humans are. It is a universal feature. Even in the most liberal communities — and I live in two of them — people generally prefer the company of others who are very much like themselves. Look in the window at a restaurant or dinner-party here in Park Slope, Brooklyn — one of the most liberal communities in the world — and you will see, for the most part, white people dining with white people, black people with black people, gays with gays, lesbians with lesbians, Indians with Indians, Latinos with Latinos, and so on. (Look at a college dining-hall and you’ll see the same thing — and these habits of voluntary segregation are even more prominent the lower you go down the socioeconomic ladder.) Ask them if they “hate” the “Others” in their midst, and they’ll tell you, and honestly so, that of course they don’t.

   This is not about “hate”, although “hate” and “intolerance” are convenient bludgeons with which to punish dissenting voices. It is a common and self-justifying moral confusion to see this issue in simplistic moral terms. It is simply the most ancient of human truths: that people prefer to to socialize — to live, to mate, to worship, and simply to hang out — with others who are like themselves: who share their history, language, moral codes, folklore, religion, metaphysics, customs of dress and speech and birth and death and work and play and song and love, and a thousand other traits the perception and appreciation of which go far deeper than mere Diversity policies, restrictions on “hate speech”, and tendentious blog-posts.

   The real question here should be: What makes for happy societies? But instead of asking what actually makes people happy, the multiculturalist movement has decided it knows best what should make people happy, and is going to make them learn to like it, come hell or high water.

   Even if you are right, and such a project is ultimately feasible, how can you possibly know that at the end of decades or centuries of artificially induced tension and social disruption — perhaps even, if history is any guide, bloody civil war — people will actually be happier than than they were when they lived in traditionally homogeneous communities? (Even Dr. Strangelove admits, as all multiculturalists do, that it will be “very difficult” — but then blithely waves that incalculable cost aside to assure us that it will, for unspecified reasons, be “worth it”.)

   Shouldn’t maximizing human happiness be the goal of any political system?

   Posted March 20, 2012 at 10:29 am | Permalink
5. Dr. Strangelove says

   Churchgoer, I as well thought of a similar line of argument and unlike Malcolm I do believe it holds some water. One argument that I remember from my Student Congress days against affirmative action was how it would cause backlash from whites. That of course is an absurd reason to oppose a sound public policy (let us assume for the sake of argument that affirmative action was/is a sound public policy. I didn’t do myself an favors by picking such a controversially issue as an example). If a sound public policy causes social damage because backlash then the response ought not be to scrape the policy but to make those who would oppose the policy feel and be more involved in the decision making process instead of forcing it down their throats. (As a son of Civil Rights lawyer him and I disagree strongly on how to implement affirmative actions polices. He supporting quotas, I believing the damage/cost in lose of rights is to great to justify.) Additionally, convincing citizens of the soundness of a policy is a large part of being a political representative (i.e. LEADER-ship). I’m sure Malcolm is imagining re-education programs and other horribly awful government sponsored programs but good leadership includes communication to one’s constituents.

   However, this all seems to miss the point. Malcolm has the burdon of proof of showing how exactly we are going to define our community if we to reject “cult of Diversity.” By race? By shared values/mores? By language? By physical proximity? All of the above? (As an aside even though I was described as one I wouldn’t self-identify as multiculturalist) There is so much more to say and this topic deserves a more thorough treatment but I have to run to a mid-term.

   Posted March 20, 2012 at 12:51 pm | Permalink
6. Malcolm says

   Strangelove, why on earth should I have the burden of proof? I’m not the one, after all, insisting on imposing radical change on the traditional social arrangements that have nurtured and sustained mankind since the beginning.

   But since you asked, your question reveals a prejudice that needs to be brought into the light: that it is up to academics and policymakers to “define” communities. But that isn’t how it works: communities take form all by themselves. (And yes, they do indeed take form along the deep and ancient human trait-axes you identify: race, religion, language, social mores, kin relations, and so on.) Human societies are living organisms, not bureaucratic abstractions, and you don’t create them by sitting in a room “defining” them into existence, any more than you do a tree or a frog.

   Here’s something else human societies have in common with living organisms: if you tamper with them in ignorance of what they are and how they live and flourish, you can easily injure or kill them.

   It always startles me to see how sensitive most liberals are when it comes to non-interference with the living arrangements of other species, yet how blithely careless they are when it comes to the most important ecosystem of all: our own.

   Posted March 20, 2012 at 1:08 pm | Permalink
7. Malcolm says

   Strangelove, you wrote:

   If a sound public policy causes social damage because backlash then the response ought not be to scrape the policy but to make those who would oppose the policy feel and be more involved in the decision making process instead of forcing it down their throats.

   Can you see how unbelievably patronizing this is? What if the people already understand very well what you are trying to do, but fundamentally disagree with you about what constitutes “sound public policy”? In that case, your problem isn’t a matter of more “communication”, it’s a question of incompatible visions of society, of a difference in bedrock ideological axioms. (This is the same patronizing conceit that President Obama continually indulges: that if the people disagree with him, it is simply a matter of their ignorance going unremediated by his own failure to “communicate”.)

   If you magnanimously permit them to be “more involved in the decision-making process”, then they are probably going to decide against you. What will you do then?

   Posted March 20, 2012 at 1:21 pm | Permalink