Societies cannot really be cohesive without ethnic homogeneity; in order for a society to be stable the state needs to impose uniformity of culture rather than emphasize diversity. Ethnic homogeneity is not always the same thing as genetic homogeneity, but rather a sense of common identity -- a common language, a common culture, perhaps a common ancestry, et cetera.

To do otherwise is unproductive and divisive. The only thing that holds the United States together is this fanciful idea of personal freedom and liberty, and it is only reinforced by economic prosperity. The only reason immigration to Europe is possible is due to that same relative prosperity. However, beneath the surface there is always some residual tension that will be impossible to fully resolve without imposing uniformity.

If you look at Eastern Europe, for example, prior to WWII it was an ethnic hodgepodge of Germans and various Slavic peoples. Nazi Germany's solution was to subjugate the other ethnic groups in order to elevate the Germans -- which is an understandable approach -- whereas the Soviet Union's solution was to drive out all the Germans from the east and create ethnically homogeneous nation-states. There is no Danzig or East Prussia anymore; it is now Gdansk and the Kaliningrad Oblast.

In Anatolia and the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, and the various Slavic countries solved the problem of heterogeneity by means of ethnic cleansing and population exchange. Turks and other Muslims from the Balkans and the Caucasus fled to Turkey, whereas the Turks themselves drove out the Greek and Armenian population. -- And what do we have now? Ethnically homogeneous and relatively peaceful nation-states. (The only large minority left in Turkey are the Kurds, and it is they who are causing most of the problems.)

Even European states have had to impose a sense of cultural uniformity on their populace. At the eve of the French Revolution, half of the people living in France didn't even speak French -- they spoke Occitan, Breton, Alsatian, etc. -- there are also many regional German and Italian dialects, and so on.

In short a "diverse country" (that is NOT an empire or an autocratic state) is a silly idea.

It only works somewhat in cosmopolitan areas like New York because of economic prosperity and because each ethnicity is so diffuse that none can establish effective political dominance.

America is still a white country. The closer you are to being the norm, that is, white (and generally of Northern European descent), the better off you will probably be. To some extent, being a mixture of several different European ethnicities helps in the sense that you are culturally disconnected from your original ethnicity, thereby reinforcing the idea of an "American" identity. If you are of a mixed race, it helps if one of those races is white or if you have an Americanized name.

The further you are from the norm the more apt to be alienated from the mainstream culture. So in fact, a white Christian American is "more American" than a Japanese-American or an Arab-American or an Indian-American or whatever, no matter however patriotic they might feel or claim to feel.

I'll just leave this here.

Also, I am very interested to see how David Cameron's proposed solution to the multicultural problem works out, especially since Britain has much more of that particular problem than any other country in Western Europe, and until very recently, it appeared to be the least willing to do something about it. Although David Cameron is politically interesting in general, what with the whole Red Tory localist/distributist thing.

It's ironic that the line of thought in your post only serves to divide us more rather than unite us, as much as you talk about cohesiveness.

From a biological standpoint, diversity is pretty much worth the struggle. Genetically, of course, because genetic information of all kinds is extremely valuable. Aside from that, cultural and social values are largely selected also, so the more the better. The entire point of personal freedoms in America is that anyone can be whatever they are or want to be without shame, assemble without shame, etc. Not accepting that is what makes divides, not just being different.

The problem I see, here is that the examples you pull up happened somewhere in the past and might still not have had a very desirable outcome. true, the French revolution was a step towards liberal thinking. But all the while, people were getting condemned to the guillotine for stupid reasons.
Turkey these days isn't as good a place to live in as in our diverse western nations. The thing with the Kurds isn't pretty and results in unnecessary casualties on both fronts.

I can get that once again you can claim that you can't make an omelette without breaking any eggs, but how stable is homogeneity in the end? You will always have to deal with diverse cultures on the outside and you have to get pretty restrictive on the inside. At this point for example, due to mixing so far, a lot of people no longer belong to one ethnicity. And what would you do with these? Just execute them for homogeneity's sake?

I don't want to plea for lawless diversity. Overall, you just have to pick out what is important and what isn't. So in the end, integration is more important than purification. Do things fail, currently? Of course, everything is fallible. But it's all just a case of minimal of evils.

At 3/15/11 01:26 PM, Yorik wrote: It's ironic that the line of thought in your post only serves to divide us more rather than unite us, as much as you talk about cohesiveness.

How so?

From a biological standpoint, diversity is pretty much worth the struggle. Genetically, of course, because genetic information of all kinds is extremely valuable.

No. There are enough white Americans that they could interbreed exclusively for at least several centuries without developing any genetic problems resulting from interbreeding. Notice that Jews are still healthy in general, despite their strict policy of exclusively interbreeding.

Aside from that, cultural and social values are largely selected also, so the more the better.

What?

At 3/15/11 01:51 PM, RubberTrucky wrote: I can get that once again you can claim that you can't make an omelette without breaking any eggs, but how stable is homogeneity in the end? You will always have to deal with diverse cultures on the outside and you have to get pretty restrictive on the inside.

Dealing with them on the outside is very different from dealing with them on the inside. And how do you have to get restrictive?

At this point for example, due to mixing so far, a lot of people no longer belong to one ethnicity. And what would you do with these? Just execute them for homogeneity's sake?

Ethnic homogeneity is irrelevant. Cultural homogeneity is what matters.

At 3/15/11 09:34 PM, LordZeebmork wrote:

At 3/15/11 01:26 PM, Yorik wrote: It's ironic that the line of thought in your post only serves to divide us more rather than unite us, as much as you talk about cohesiveness.

How so?

From a biological standpoint, diversity is pretty much worth the struggle. Genetically, of course, because genetic information of all kinds is extremely valuable.

No. There are enough white Americans that they could interbreed exclusively for at least several centuries without developing any genetic problems resulting from interbreeding. Notice that Jews are still healthy in general, despite their strict policy of exclusively interbreeding.

Aside from that, cultural and social values are largely selected also, so the more the better.

What?

Based on your answers to my post, you seem to understand little about the way that our genetics and values are selected and ways that they are selected.

Genetics of all kinds are valuable. The more variety the better. The reason isn't just because of genetic health, it's for functions of evolution as well. Anything could happen any day that threatens us as a species - a disease epidemic, some sort of man made or natural disaster, perhaps a political event of some sort, etc. - and if/when that happens the genetics that we have available in the pool may be instrumental in determining our survival. Genetic diversity isn't just about not fucking your sister, it is about a constant shuffling and rising and falling of the frequency of genes in a population in response to some sort of selection.

Behaviors and values are also selected in a variety of ways. I'm not a sociologist, but the general idea is that behaviors that are beneficial to society tend to become commonplace while deviant behaviors tend to either be shunned or fall into obscurity. For example, most (not all) cultures align with the idea that that men should respect and not abuse women. It is selected in the sense that families with little or no abuse are more cohesive and successful than families where violence and dysfunction are commonplace. In these cultures, boys are typically taught that men should never harm women and actually tend to be hostile to men who do. So there is a lot of pressure to not abuse women, or at least to not allow anyone to know that you do.

Anyway, onto the point... Just like genetics, a large variety ideas and cultures is a valuable thing because they provide society with resources to push on into the next generation. Cultural values in pretty much any nation change a lot every few decades because of this selection and history allows us to keep track of the things we have learned at every step. The result, ideally, is a society that grows and matures desirably over time. Every culture participates in these changes in some way. Because of this, it's difficult to think of a situation where you could actually have too many ideas, too many cultures, too many opinions, etc... Because the ones that are worth keeping around will stick around and the ones that aren't will shrink and shrink. It is a non-problem that solves itself.

The problem with looking at and dividing people by culture is that it maximizes the relevance of something that is of little relevance. Is there any real reason that an asian american, a columbian american and an african muslim can't be relatively cohesive in the same workplace or the same society? They may have differing cultures and opinions, but it that wouldn't change if they were all white or all christian or all democrats or whatever. If every single human on this planet except for one given population got in a bunch of space ships and left the solar system, those people left here would still find some way to categorize and divide one another and make threads just like this. It is human nature to categorize things. It is a higher function to not allow those categorizations to cloud one's interpretations of the world.

you say that because we are not all of the same ethnic group here in america, we are having a hard time getting along with each other.

lol, well, shouldn't we just do the opposite of what you're suggesting, then? instead of thinking we're better off living with others who look like we do, why not, destroy racism and bigotry wherever we see it, teach our children that we're all human and of one group, and that it doesn't matter if the person sitting next to you is a different color? if we'd just stop fighting and at least try our best to be color-blind (no "whites are like this..." or "blacks are like that....."), wouldn't our future generations not care that we're not all from the same ethnic group?

i think it's more perception that we're in different groups than anything. in the stone age, clans fought other clans because they were different. in the bronze age, city-states fought other city-states because they were different. in the middle ages, small countries fought other small countries because they were different. now we're whining about what the *insert race here* did to the *insert another race here*.

now we're all just white or black or asian or whatever, we're not worried about what clan or city-state or tribe someone's ancestors came from, right? so why not go the next step and see that we're all human and the same species, and get out of this ridiculous tribal mindset that you can't be around someone who looks different than you?

At 3/7/11 03:01 PM, KemCab wrote: Societies cannot really be cohesive without ethnic homogeneity; in order for a society to be stable the state needs to impose uniformity of culture rather than emphasize diversity.

The very idea of ethnic homogeneity is laughable, the vast majority of all nations contain ethnic minorities.

Ethnic homogeneity is not always the same thing as genetic homogeneity, but rather a sense of common identity -- a common language, a common culture, perhaps a common ancestry, et cetera.

Then why refer to it specificly as "ethnic" homogeneity? Cultural homogeneity and ethnic homogeneity are two distinct concepts completely independent of one another. Ethnic minorities are perfectly capable of maintaining their ethnic cultural identity and still hold the fiercest of patriotic nationalist sentiments for the country and culture they live in.

To do otherwise is unproductive and divisive. The only thing that holds the United States together is this fanciful idea of personal freedom and liberty, and it is only reinforced by economic prosperity. The only reason immigration to Europe is possible is due to that same relative prosperity. However, beneath the surface there is always some residual tension that will be impossible to fully resolve without imposing uniformity.

I believe you may suffer from a warped world view.

If you look at Eastern Europe, for example, prior to WWII it was an ethnic hodgepodge of Germans and various Slavic peoples.

Just as it is today.

Nazi Germany's solution was to subjugate the other ethnic groups in order to elevate the Germans -- which is an understandable approach --

The idea that the campaigns of ethnic cleansing during the period between WWI and WWII were brought about by the unacceptable ethnic "hodgepodge" of Eastern Europe is to ignore the realities of Eastern Europe at the time. The genocides of the 20th century were triggered by a variety of factors, the most notable clearly being WWI and the tide of violant revolution, civil unrest, and economic depression that swept through Europe in it's wake. After all, WWI gave us Hitler and Stalin.

But look at Austria-Hungary before WWI, a duel monarchy made up of eleven distinct ethnic groups with equal rights progressively moving to a federation of autonomous states. A harmonious ethnic hodgepodge existing peacefully in pre WWI Eastern Europe.

whereas the Soviet Union's solution was to drive out all the Germans from the east and create ethnically homogeneous nation-states. There is no Danzig or East Prussia anymore; it is now Gdansk and the Kaliningrad Oblast.

I would think that the expulsion of Germans from Soviet occupied territories following WWII would be more of a manner of solidifying Soviet control over the region, and to some extent an act of revenge for Nazi occupation of Soviet territory during WWII.

In Anatolia and the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, and the various Slavic countries solved the problem of heterogeneity by means of ethnic cleansing and population exchange. Turks and other Muslims from the Balkans and the Caucasus fled to Turkey, whereas the Turks themselves drove out the Greek and Armenian population. -- And what do we have now? Ethnically homogeneous and relatively peaceful nation-states. (The only large minority left in Turkey are the Kurds, and it is they who are causing most of the problems.)

Madness! You claim that genocide solved the problem of heterogenity yet every single area you mention has ethnic and religous minorities to this day.

Even European states have had to impose a sense of cultural uniformity on their populace. At the eve of the French Revolution, half of the people living in France didn't even speak French -- they spoke Occitan, Breton, Alsatian, etc. -- there are also many regional German and Italian dialects, and so on.

?

In short a "diverse country" (that is NOT an empire or an autocratic state) is a silly idea.

All countries are diverse, and have been for a long time, and will be long after we are dead.

At 3/27/11 09:36 AM, Me-Patch wrote: Then why refer to it specificly as "ethnic" homogeneity? Cultural homogeneity and ethnic homogeneity are two distinct concepts completely independent of one another.

not really; theres a lot of overlap in most classifications of ethnicity, culture and society. and where there isn't, as a few people have pointed out, homogeneity is about as impossible as making us into social insects.

At 3/15/11 01:26 PM, Yorik wrote: It's ironic that the line of thought in your post only serves to divide us more rather than unite us, as much as you talk about cohesiveness.

So? I am merely pointing it out; whatever this does in the long run doesn't really matter -- so if I were writing this with a particular aim in mind, that aim would be to, in short, encourage the extirpation of incompatible elements in our society.

From a biological standpoint, diversity is pretty much worth the struggle. Genetically, of course, because genetic information of all kinds is extremely valuable.

Genetic diversity is completely different from cultural diversity. In fact, genetic diversity is encouraged enough already in modern society considering that there are laws and taboos regarding incest as well as a high degree of mobility in order to shift various alleles around -- and to some degree, mixing between different ethnic and racial groups does happen. Which is why "genetic purity" is a lofty goal.

Aside from that, cultural and social values are largely selected also, so the more the better.

Cultural mixing is also somewhat unavoidable. But the goal is not to stop the process of cultural exchange, but to promote a sense of cultural unity -- to create a new, monolithic culture that not only creates itself by absorbing other cultures, but also by destroying that which differentiates that foreign culture from itself.

The United States has done this remarkably well for a vast portion of its history. That is, it absorbs ethnic groups and cultural elements, taking in the essence of their particular qualities, but transforms them in such a manner that they become increasingly unrecognizable from their parent culture and so disconnected from it that they are said to be "truly American." In that a new culture is born.

Take the hamburger, for example. Its origin is German but it is generally considered American, simply because it has been taken from its parent culture and given a completely different meaning entirely. Same thing for pizza, or "Chinese" food. All the regional cuisines of the US are only "authentically American" by virtue of the fact that they are so completely divorced from the original that one has no other choice but to call it American.

The point is that assimilation is what makes up a healthy culture, not diversity per se -- diversity is a precondition for assimilation. An immigrant community that does not sever its cultural ties with its mother country is perpetually foreign, perpetually an island unto itself -- even more so when its inhabitants are unwilling to renounce these ties completely.

At 3/15/11 01:51 PM, RubberTrucky wrote: The problem I see, here is that the examples you pull up happened somewhere in the past and might still not have had a very desirable outcome.

Who the hell cares whether the outcome was "desirable" or not? It WORKED for the respective entities that I brought up -- France wouldn't be France, Turkey wouldn't be Turkey, China wouldn't be China, et cetera, without this action of assimilation.

Cry about the people who were guillotined for hilarious reasons at another time.

Turkey these days isn't as good a place to live in as in our diverse western nations.

What does that have to do with anything? The fact that the West has been the best place to live has nothing to do with multiculturalism, by the way.

The thing with the Kurds isn't pretty and results in unnecessary casualties on both fronts.

Which wouldn't have been as much of a problem if they had simply done the same thing to them as they did to the Greeks and Armenians.

I can get that once again you can claim that you can't make an omelette without breaking any eggs, but how stable is homogeneity in the end?

Considering that the Han Chinese culture has survived for thousands of years on its homogeneity -- that is, its regional elements being perpetually absorbed and superseded by one, large, monolithic national culture, I'd say it's pretty stable. The same thing goes for the medieval Arab culture of the caliphates.

You will always have to deal with diverse cultures on the outside

Assimilate or exterminate.

and you have to get pretty restrictive on the inside.

So what?

At this point for example, due to mixing so far, a lot of people no longer belong to one ethnicity.

Assimilate or exterminate.

Overall, you just have to pick out what is important and what isn't. So in the end, integration is more important than purification.

Did you even read the OP? This is what I was saying.

At 3/26/11 08:30 PM, Viinasu wrote: lol, well, shouldn't we just do the opposite of what you're suggesting, then?

And for our next feat: teaching humans how to fly!

why not, destroy racism and bigotry wherever we see it, teach our children that we're all human and of one group, and that it doesn't matter if the person sitting next to you is a different color?

Yeah, sure, dude! We are all human and equal and unique and all that good stuff. Let us drop all our guns and bombs and just have, I don't know, one big hug fest or something. Let's also draw some pictures to show the whole world that we are all friends! Okay okay okay I have an idea: let's paint a picture of planet Earth with five figures standing on it -- a white one and a black one and a red one and a yellow one and a brown one -- and they're all holding hands! I only have these crayons though.

We have been force fed that nonsense since kindergarten and none of it has helped one bit.

if we'd just stop fighting and at least try our best to be color-blind (no "whites are like this..." or "blacks are like that....."), wouldn't our future generations not care that we're not all from the same ethnic group?

Hey, I have an idea: let's all genetically engineer our children to be color-blind. Like, literally. Also, let's not teach them the words for black and white. Actually, you know what, let's just skip all that and just gouge everyone's eyes out from birth. And a lobotomy or two to boot.

Continued my reply because I couldn't let this one go.

At 3/26/11 08:30 PM, Viinasu wrote: i think it's more perception that we're in different groups than anything.

If you really think that all conflict can be summarized to: "people fight other people because they are different" you really need to re-evaluate your critical thinking abilities. Next time you are starving, just remember: you are only killing your neighbor over that piece of bread because he's different!

At 3/27/11 09:36 AM, Me-Patch wrote: The very idea of ethnic homogeneity is laughable, the vast majority of all nations contain ethnic minorities.

The very idea of medicine is laughable, the vast majority of all humans contain viruses and bacteria.

Then why refer to it specificly as "ethnic" homogeneity? Cultural homogeneity and ethnic homogeneity are two distinct concepts completely independent of one another.

Because it skips the step between "national identity" and "ethnic identity" by simply equating the two. Take the Turkish nationality law, for example: "Everyone bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship is a Turk." The goal is unity -- everyone should be of one ethnicity, one nation, one culture, et cetera -- and therefore they should be the same.

I believe you may suffer from a warped world view.

What does that even mean?

Just as it is today.

In generally ethnically homogeneous nation-states. Why are you nitpicking the most irrelevant statement of my argument?

The idea that the campaigns of ethnic cleansing during the period between WWI and WWII were brought about by the unacceptable ethnic "hodgepodge" of Eastern Europe is to ignore the realities of Eastern Europe at the time

Since you seem to be unable to attack anything but a straw man argument, let me just clarify what I have done here. This is called a simplification. I never said that the Germans just suddenly decided one day that the ethnic makeup of their region was somehow "unacceptable" and that was the cause of WWII. The ethnic hodgepodge is simply the state of affairs.

The genocides of the 20th century were triggered by a variety of factors, the most notable clearly being WWI and the tide of violant revolution, civil unrest, and economic depression that swept through Europe in it's wake. After all, WWI gave us Hitler and Stalin.

You are essentially saying: "You are wrong! That forest is not a forest, it is actually a collection of trees!" All you are doing is describing the state of affairs. "Variety of factors," lol. Get out of that history paper mindset.

In a time of crisis like that, what are the first groups of people that you are going to stick to? Your family, your clan, your nation, et cetera. This is not a particularly new phenomenon.

But look at Austria-Hungary before WWI, a duel monarchy made up of eleven distinct ethnic groups with equal rights progressively moving to a federation of autonomous states. A harmonious ethnic hodgepodge existing peacefully in pre WWI Eastern Europe.

Oh right, which is why it broke up! And why that Franz Ferdinand guy was assassinated! And why there were a bunch of militant nationalist movements! Yeah, that sure ended well.

I would think that the expulsion of Germans from Soviet occupied territories following WWII would be more of a manner of solidifying Soviet control over the region, and to some extent an act of revenge for Nazi occupation of Soviet territory during WWII.

You obviously have misunderstood my use of the word "solution." The "solution" is something that benefited them in their effort to attain DOMINANCE over the region, which occurs so many times throughout history that it should pretty much be IMPLIED.

So yes, they expelled the Germans so that they could gain a better hold over the region -- creating homogeneous nation-states means having to worry about ethnic unrest, simplifies administration, and gets rid of a particularly troublesome minority.

Madness! You claim that genocide solved the problem of heterogenity yet every single area you mention has ethnic and religous minorities to this day.

Man, are you stupid or what? Every ethnic minority removed is one more little problem removed. If the Turks had not expelled the Greeks from Izmir and the Black Sea coast, there would also be a Greek liberation movement. And an Armenian liberation movement. And so on.

You are being absolutely disingenuous with the assertion that "all these areas have ethnic and religious minorities to this day" -- well, of course.There are still some Greeks in Turkey and some Turks in Greece -- there will ALWAYS be some remnants left but at that point their population is so small that they are essentially insignificant.

All countries are diverse, and have been for a long time, and will be long after we are dead.

You could take this to a ridiculous extreme by saying that every person is his own ethnic group and that we really just have seven billion different ethnic groups -- but that would render the concept of ethnic diversity completely meaningless. Which is what you are doing here -- you are decontextualizing the meaning of "diverse," which is thought-terminating.

"Oh, all countries are diverse so there is no reason to worry about all the Mexicans crossing into the border every year." "Who cares if we're drowning? The human body is about 57% water anyway."

At 3/27/11 11:10 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: Assuming your above statement is true.
No two people can ever be 100% ethnically the same.
Therefor, 100% cohesiveness is impossible.
Hence, achieving cohesiveness is a fool's errand. The maximum population of 1 already exists in the example of every person.

Again, just like the other guy, you are decontextualizing the concept that I am trying to convey in an attempt to make the concept of cultural homogeneity sound meaningless. Ethnicity, nationality, and culture are all arbitrarily bounded; in fact there are no clear-cut boundaries or definitions -- it is up to people to make these distinctions. It will always be arbitrary. It will always be abstract.

Moreover, the goal I am presenting is not "100% cohesiveness" -- it is to strive for cohesion.

At 3/7/11 03:01 PM, KemCab wrote: Societies cannot really be cohesive without ethnic homogeneity; in order for a society to be stable the state needs to impose uniformity of culture rather than emphasize diversity. Ethnic homogeneity is not always the same thing as genetic homogeneity, but rather a sense of common identity -- a common language, a common culture, perhaps a common ancestry, et cetera.

To do otherwise is unproductive and divisive. The only thing that holds the United States together is this fanciful idea of personal freedom and liberty, and it is only reinforced by economic prosperity. The only reason immigration to Europe is possible is due to that same relative prosperity. However, beneath the surface there is always some residual tension that will be impossible to fully resolve without imposing uniformity.

No. The main thing holding the United States together is the diverse image of what is an American, an American can be of any other nationality, German, Taji, Chinese, African etc. as long as they pledge allegiance to it (bad pun there), whereas in other nations like Croatia there is a clear image, a white Slav who is Catholic, speaks Croatians and celebrates Croatian traditions. Essentially America was always a multi-ethnic immigrant nations while Croatia never was.

If you look at Eastern Europe, for example, prior to WWII it was an ethnic hodgepodge of Germans and various Slavic peoples. Nazi Germany's solution was to subjugate the other ethnic groups in order to elevate the Germans -- which is an understandable approach -- whereas the Soviet Union's solution was to drive out all the Germans from the east and create ethnically homogeneous nation-states. There is no Danzig or East Prussia anymore; it is now Gdansk and the Kaliningrad Oblast.

The Soviet Union already was a multi-national state though....

In Anatolia and the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, and the various Slavic countries solved the problem of heterogeneity by means of ethnic cleansing and population exchange. Turks and other Muslims from the Balkans and the Caucasus fled to Turkey, whereas the Turks themselves drove out the Greek and Armenian population. -- And what do we have now? Ethnically homogeneous and relatively peaceful nation-states. (The only large minority left in Turkey are the Kurds, and it is they who are causing most of the problems.)

Nah just Turks, for the most part Bosniaks and Albanians remained as well as other Muslims like the Bulgarian ones (which by the time Bulgaria was independent were already equal with everyone else).

Even European states have had to impose a sense of cultural uniformity on their populace. At the eve of the French Revolution, half of the people living in France didn't even speak French -- they spoke Occitan, Breton, Alsatian, etc. -- there are also many regional German and Italian dialects, and so on.

In short a "diverse country" (that is NOT an empire or an autocratic state) is a silly idea.

Why? Because people are stupid? All of the examples you showed were mostly brutal, barbaric and undeveloped nations at the time and many of those places still to this day aren't very well off. Take Albania in the Balkans, the Communist leader was talking with his friend when his friend slightly disagreed with him and he immediately took out his pistol and shot his closest friend, obviously their childhoods weren't like those in Western nations and their ideals are very far behind. For the most part it is because of Nationalism, which in most Western countries with diversity coming in is rather coming up as friendly competition in contrast to the retarded two world wars it caused, which of course the idea of Nationalism came from Napoleons conquests which caused the fall of Monarchies blah blah blah, essentially Nationalism isn't a standard idea humans get on their own.

all i heard was heil hitler, dirty jew, gwailow and gaijin.

At 3/27/11 06:16 PM, Warforger wrote: No. The main thing holding the United States together is the diverse image of what is an American, an American can be of any other nationality, German, Taji, Chinese, African etc. as long as they pledge allegiance to it (bad pun there), whereas in other nations like Croatia there is a clear image, a white Slav who is Catholic, speaks Croatians and celebrates Croatian traditions. Essentially America was always a multi-ethnic immigrant nations while Croatia never was.

No, that's a fantasy. If the United States were not economically prosperous, racial tensions would increase dramatically. And note that a lot of nationality laws in developed countries follow similarly -- for example, a citizen of France is, under the law, a Frenchman.

Also, when I think of a "typical American," I think of a white person.

The image of the American man is that of one with mostly mixed European heritage. His lineage is so diffuse that it really matters little to him whether he is half-Polish, half-German, half-Irish, et cetera -- he is generally so disconnected from the culture of Poland or Germany or Ireland or wherever that the only country that he can truly identify himself with is America -- and this is much more so with earlier immigrants than later ones.

At his "core," so to speak, he is Anglo-Saxon. He speaks English as his mother tongue. He is indoctrinated from childhood with liberalist and empiricist "philosophies" which are ultimately English in origin (specifically, that of John Locke -- the Founding Fathers were also Englishmen). His country continues the British tradition of imperialism and have a shared culture -- even if the two have diverged somewhat over time.

Other races and ethnicities don't really matter all that much, and only really economically prosper if they are willing to integrate into the (predominantly) white American culture. Other whites generally integrate seamlessly. Asians also integrate well, if not always fully -- the Chinese, for example, have generally been willing to assimilate into other cultures and settings, in America and elsewhere. Blacks and Hispanics integrate well wherever they have not formed their own ethnic enclaves. Native Americans are either out of sight and out of mind, and are often part white, so that they also can mix well (especially since it was "their land" to begin with).

In short, America has never really been about cultural pluralism -- rather it has generally been about assimilation. Pluralism has generally been a source of discontent rather than harmony.

The Soviet Union already was a multi-national state though....

Your point? That doesn't change anything: it was held together by the Russians (which had traditionally dominated most of the lands of what were the other Soviet republics) and justified by a pan-national political ideology. Moreover, the Soviets held their territory under an iron fist so that nationalism had never really gotten the chance to emerge until the entire system started to unravel.

Why? Because people are stupid?

Is this not evident at all to you?

All of the examples you showed were mostly brutal, barbaric and undeveloped nations at the time and many of those places still to this day aren't very well off.

I just gave Germany, Italy, and France as examples of this phenomenon. Also, what does this have to do with anything?

obviously their childhoods weren't like those in Western nations and their ideals are very far behind.

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH "IDEALS," FOR CHRIST'S SAKE -- THE WEST INDUSTRIALIZED FIRST. THEY DOMINATED THE WORLD WITH TECHNOLOGY. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR STUPID PHILOSOPHIES.

What's next -- are you going to make the assertion that Christianity replaced paganism because it was a better religion?

essentially Nationalism isn't a standard idea humans get on their own.

What does that even mean lol. I mean really, this doesn't even really qualify as an argument.

Nationalism is merely another form of the cohesive forces which hold all social groups together. However large the group, people feel a sense of identity towards it -- whether it is a family, clan, tribe, city, or nation. It is solidified by familiarity -- common language, similar experiences, a history: culture. Culture is, like the group that holds it, a dynamic thing -- it is constantly transforming itself through the mechanisms of assimilation and exchange.

A culture that embraces multiculturalism is essentially a failed culture.

At 3/27/11 03:53 PM, KemCab wrote:

At 3/27/11 09:36 AM, Me-Patch wrote: Then why refer to it specificly as "ethnic" homogeneity? Cultural homogeneity and ethnic homogeneity are two distinct concepts completely independent of one another.

Because it skips the step between "national identity" and "ethnic identity" by simply equating the two. Take the Turkish nationality law, for example: "Everyone bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship is a Turk." The goal is unity -- everyone should be of one ethnicity, one nation, one culture, et cetera -- and therefore they should be the same.

And everyone bound to the American state through the bond of citizenship is an American. America has always been a nation of immigrants, ethnic homogeneity is not only unnecessary but impossible. Even white America consists of a wide range of ethnic and cultural heritage. Your belief that ethnic homogeneity is necessary for the prosperity of a nation is wrong, and you can just claim that it only works in economic prosperity but aside from being a conveniently conjectural argument it's also wrong. America has been a melting pot through better and worse.

You believe that minority racial groups are an inherent problem in need of a solution. I am saying that ethnic homogeneity is not the natural or ideal state of a nation, and that it took no less than the greatest catastrophes of the modern world to bring about the senseless barbarity that you believe was a natural solution.

Our points of view will not be reconciling any time soon, i'm done with it.

At 3/27/11 11:10 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: Assuming your above statement is true.

No two people can ever be 100% ethnically the same.

Therefor, 100% cohesiveness is impossible.

Hence, achieving cohesiveness is a fool's errand. The maximum population of 1 already exists in the example of every person.

this is completely correct

no matter how many people wish it wasn't

even i realize that my "irish" ancestry is mostly a mix of basque/anglo-saxon

my "korean" girlfriend very likely has some chinese in her ancestry as well

who cares? does it matter? does it effect anything at all?

eventually we'll move past silly attachment to religion/class/ethnicity/"culture"

the roots of the past need to be destroyed before we move forward as a whole

At 3/29/11 01:10 AM, Me-Patch wrote: And everyone bound to the American state through the bond of citizenship is an American.

If you cared to read, I wrote in another post: "And note that a lot of nationality laws in developed countries follow similarly -- for example, a citizen of France is, under the law, a Frenchman."

America has always been a nation of immigrants, ethnic homogeneity is not only unnecessary but impossible. Even white America consists of a wide range of ethnic and cultural heritage.

A nation of mostly white immigrants, from which you can constitute -- if not a proper ethnic group outright -- a group that can be identified as "uniquely American" in the sense that their cultural heritage is so diffuse that it eventually makes little sense to contemplate on one's European roots.

Your belief that ethnic homogeneity is necessary for the prosperity of a nation is wrong, and you can just claim that it only works in economic prosperity but aside from being a conveniently conjectural argument it's also wrong. America has been a melting pot through better and worse.

Do you even know melting pot is? The idea of the melting pot is that a heterogeneous society becomes more homogeneous. Some immigrants don't melt in the pot simply by virtue of the fact that the United States is above all a Western nation -- some groups will always be foreign and alien to the American mind, Asians and Muslims among them.

Furthermore, the United States has pretty much prospered for the vast majority of its history -- there has never really been a significant threat to it for the last two centuries.

You believe that minority racial groups are an inherent problem in need of a solution.

Yes -- solutions from most desirable to very least: emigration, expulsion, segregation, subjugation, and extermination.

I am saying that ethnic homogeneity is not the natural or ideal state of a nation, and that it took no less than the greatest catastrophes of the modern world to bring about the senseless barbarity that you believe was a natural solution.

So I take it that you imagine the solution is that we brainwash people that all peoples are equal, and that we can all get along, and that through this we can create an ideal society.

This just leads to nihilism.

At 3/28/11 11:20 AM, KemCab wrote: Culture is, like the group that holds it, a dynamic thing -- it is constantly transforming itself through the mechanisms of assimilation and exchange.

A culture that embraces multiculturalism is essentially a failed culture.

so by that logic, all culture is failed culture. after all... how can "the mechanisms of assimilation and exchange" occur where no cultural overlaps exist? why would you suggest that a state-imposed cultural stasis would solve anything when you later admit that culture is dynamic and constantly transforming?

it's like saying that there would be less arguments between people if only we could prevent the free exchange of ideas between them. well, sure, i suppose that's true... but it's pretty stupid and unrealistic, not to mention that it sounds boring as shit.

At 3/29/11 01:42 PM, SteveGuzzi wrote: so by that logic, all culture is failed culture. after all... how can "the mechanisms of assimilation and exchange" occur where no cultural overlaps exist? why would you suggest that a state-imposed cultural stasis would solve anything when you later admit that culture is dynamic and constantly transforming?

You pretty much misread what I had said here.

A healthy culture assimilates and dominates; a failed culture attempts to accommodate and make concessions. (The United States has a healthy culture insofar as it is economically prosperous -- for America is, in essence, a mercantile nation.) The former has the willpower and wherewithal to assure that internal forces do not tear it apart while the latter slowly rots away from the inside. Co-existence of cultures is possible -- multi-ethnic nations have evidently existed -- but this existence of a plurality is often the source of societal tensions.

At 3/29/11 03:50 PM, KemCab wrote: A healthy culture assimilates and dominates; a failed culture attempts to accommodate and make concessions.

that seems to create one hell of a false dichotomy. many strong/dominant cultures/ethnicities/nations have made considerable accommodations and concessions without themselves being overshadowed or eliminated, while weaker/less influential ones have failed despite attempts to assimilate and dominate (or through introversion, which should increase internal homogeneity and strength).
assimilation and accommodation are both part of well and poorly defined cultures/peoples (though it seems unlikely accommodation and/or assimilation can be undertaken as a product of a weak culture).

This thread is both ironic and amusing because OP himself is not ethnically homogeneous.

Half-Turkish and half-Chinese. Indeed.

At 3/27/11 04:09 PM, KemCab wrote:

At 3/27/11 11:10 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: Assuming your above statement is true.
No two people can ever be 100% ethnically the same.
Therefor, 100% cohesiveness is impossible.
Hence, achieving cohesiveness is a fool's errand. The maximum population of 1 already exists in the example of every person.

Again, just like the other guy, you are decontextualizing the concept that I am trying to convey in an attempt to make the concept of cultural homogeneity sound meaningless. Ethnicity, nationality, and culture are all arbitrarily bounded; in fact there are no clear-cut boundaries or definitions -- it is up to people to make these distinctions. It will always be arbitrary. It will always be abstract.

Moreover, the goal I am presenting is not "100% cohesiveness" -- it is to strive for cohesion.

That was my point. These things only have the meanings that a person gives them, so why bother giving them any power? There is nothing stopping Mexican immigrants from being cohesive with Indian immigrants other than their own constructs. So don't limit your cohesion by these constructs and everyone can be what they are and do whatever they want and still be a functional community.

The difference is that you want everyone to shed what they are for a new uniform identity that will make them be more cohesive while what I want is for everyone to continue being themselves and still be one nation. It's a big difference, and if you ask me it's actually an issue of personal freedom you are dealing with here. Why does Pedro's family celebrating some Mexican traditions affect the condition of America? Or an Irish family speaking Gaelic and singing Irish folk songs? Or Polish people coming here and making traditional Polish cuisine? The short answer is that it doesn't. And if people really, truly don't care for that stuff it will not be strongly represented years from now just because nobody cares. There's no need to push it.

At 3/29/11 07:33 PM, SolInvictus wrote: that seems to create one hell of a false dichotomy.

It's not even a dichotomy, you know.

many strong/dominant cultures/ethnicities/nations have made considerable accommodations and concessions without themselves being overshadowed or eliminated

Yes, because they were strong enough not to be overcome by them. The Romans, for example, made many concessions to their subject peoples -- but the other side of that coin involved them massacring a rebellious population to teach them an object lesson.

Minority or not, the Romans seized power because they were a dominating culture. Rome's monuments, administrators, governors, writers, legions, et cetera, were all signs of their cultural and military hegemony.

while weaker/less influential ones have failed despite attempts to assimilate and dominate (or through introversion, which should increase internal homogeneity and strength).

Yes, because they were weak. It isn't surprising that weak nations (with weak leaders, generals, administrators, etc.) fail to do what stronger ones accomplish.

assimilation and accommodation are both part of well and poorly defined cultures/peoples

Again, there is no dichotomy -- there are just two sides of a single spectrum. A strong culture will tend to use (cultural, political, military, economic) domination and assimilation to get its way -- or at the very least hold it as a last resort -- whereas a weaker culture will tend to concede and accommodate because it cannot truly dominate and assimilate.

In another analogy: suppose you have a (physically) strong man and a weak man of roughly equal intelligence pitted against each other. The strong man could use either intimidation by force or trickery and wit to realize his wishes, whereas the weaker man only has his guile to work with.

At 3/30/11 02:46 AM, Yorik wrote: That was my point. These things only have the meanings that a person gives them, so why bother giving them any power? There is nothing stopping Mexican immigrants from being cohesive with Indian immigrants other than their own constructs.

What you are saying is that the solution to this is to dismantle any meaning of ethnicity and nationality -- essentially, to dismantle culture.

So don't limit your cohesion by these constructs and everyone can be what they are and do whatever they want and still be a functional community.

"Everyone can be what they are and whatever they want" lol. Are we still in grade school or something?

The difference is...

Last I checked, it wasn't a question of what either you or I wanted.

And if people really, truly don't care for that stuff it will not be strongly represented years from now just because nobody cares.

Nihilism.

At 3/29/11 10:55 PM, Odio wrote: This thread is both ironic and amusing because OP himself is not ethnically homogeneous.

Oh, come on, don't ruin the surprise.

Keep details about my life to yourself, Kyle.

At 3/30/11 09:52 AM, KemCab wrote:

At 3/29/11 10:55 PM, Odio wrote: This thread is both ironic and amusing because OP himself is not ethnically homogeneous.

Oh, come on, don't ruin the surprise.

That you're just obstinately pounding away on a bullshit topic in an attempt to prove that anyone can argue any point indefinitely? Cause if you really believe this shit fuck you.

At 3/30/11 08:54 AM, KemCab wrote:

At 3/29/11 07:33 PM, SolInvictus wrote: that seems to create one hell of a false dichotomy.

It's not even a dichotomy, you know.

i can't read minds; if you are going to present something as a spectrum and expect people to understand it as such, you have to explain it that way.