Multiculturalism is dead

Or at least, so thinks Merkel and the CDU/CSU.

Some interesting quotes:

"A recent survey showed that more than 30% of Germans believed Germany was "overrun by foreigners."

"Mrs Merkel stressed that immigrants living in Germany needed to do more to integrate, including learning to speak German. "Anyone who does not immediately speak German", she said, "is not welcome"."

And so I don't have to go ahead and make the Godwin:

"Our correspondent adds that there also seems to be a new strident tone in the country, perhaps leading to less reticence about no-go-areas of the past."

Perhaps most significantly of all...

"Such recent strong anti-immigrant feelings from mainstream politicians come amid an anger in Germany about high unemployment..."

At least one good thing of all this could be that the ridiculous PC-ness that makes immigrants above criticism amongst any centre-right/left-wing politician may be coming to an end.

IMO one of the reasons for the lack of dialogue on this issue is that the lefties/liberals are far too sensitive and afraid to speak up on real problems, and so the only people that do are the far-right loonies, and then things get polarised and stupid and there is never any sensible discussion on the matter. Hopefully people can now start to get over their knee-jerk reactions.

Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

"Mrs Merkel stressed that immigrants living in Germany needed to do more to integrate, including learning to speak German.

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I'm one of the three or four people on the planet who never had a problem with this kind of thinking. I wouldn't bar someone from entry into a country if they couldn't speak the native language, but it strikes me as astonishingly rude to not even try to learn it if you plan on living there.

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

Thoughts?

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Looking at the statements from Merkel and Seehofer you should keep the current polls in mind.

Our current administration (Conservatives + Liberals - hope that combination does not confuse our US patrons ~;)) is not looking very good in the polls, Socialists and Greens (especially the latter) are gaining ground again - so CDU and FDP are desperate for a topic that ight help them to recover.
Immigration is a welcome and classic topic for the CDU/CSU to turn to when the :daisy: hits the fan. Not surprising at all that they try to utilize the current rochus after Sarrazin published his book to gain a couple of percentage points.

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anger in Germany about high unemployment

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That statement strikes me as very odd (and somewhat uninformed) considering the current unemployment statistics and the trend.

NB: I would agree that learning the language is the minimum prerequisite when immigrating to another country - if you are not willing to take that step it tells a lot about the willingness to integrate. Nevertheless, the current discussion in Germany is too much about trying to get some easy points in the polls that about actually doing something constructive and tangible - hopefully this will change again.

I don't understand the whole "let's not learn the local language" thing. If I were relocated to Tunisia, I would consider learning Maghreb Arabic a top priority. If I hadn't learned it in a year or two, I would be very disappointed.

What is the logic (or even illogic) or not learning the most common local tongue? Can anyone explain this to me?

My thought is to look back through history. It shows that human cultures, once every 10 years have a minor panic about cultural and ethnic change, and once every 40 years have a major panic about it.

Go and take look. Any culture, any period, and it will be there. It's all rather tedious and unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

What is the logic (or even illogic) or not learning the most common local tongue? Can anyone explain this to me?

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It can be any number of factors. From a lack of money or time to pay for lessons or a lack of decent available lessons, right the way through to being lazy and never needing to because you can pay for others to do the translation stuff for you.

If people want to try and live in a foreign country without learning the language, then who really cares - that's their daft decision.

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Originally Posted by Idaho

If people want to try and live in a foreign country without learning the language, then who really cares - that's their daft decision.

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Well, it's not just daft; it's rude, as another poster stated. If I'm living and working in Germany, the least I can do is get passable in Deutsch. I don't need to be writing sonnets or sestinas, but I should be able to navigate the basics of life in the local lingo. That's so basic I don't even know how to argue the opposite side.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

I don't understand the whole "let's not learn the local language" thing.

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It's slightly more complex than that. On the whole pretty much anyone will pick up the basics out of sheer necessity: chances are your life is too complex to define in point & grunt semantics, so you need the local lingo to help you out. But there are people who consider it not necessary or not sufficiently necessary to bother with actually learning the language. I guess because they tend to migrate to a place where they will be among other people of similar backgrounds who understand their native tongue well enough.

Anyway, Lemur, learning a language beyond the basics takes rather more than two years. Ten is nearer to the mark.

I have me doubts that there are really that many people as a percentage of any immigrant population who cannot speak whatever local language is required.

What is far more likely is that the ones who cannot speak the lingo for a variety of reasons are the one who we remember the most.


However I would agree that if they spend a long time there and don't learn the lingo then it is like given the locals the two fingers

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

I have me doubts that there are really that many people as a percentage of any immigrant population who cannot speak whatever local language is required.

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Well for some purely anecdotal evidence, even since I started my new job I've served a good few customers who could barely speak English. Doesn't bother me at all but it would surely help their own prospects a lot if they learned it.

Minimum wage dead end jobs have a lot to do with it too the owners like hiring foreigners even when the people who frequent the service find it annoying having to explain what a plate of spuds is.

The service jobs in pubs clubs shops etc employ these people and we deal with them every day reinforcing the idea none of them can speak the lingo.

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

Well for some purely anecdotal evidence, even since I started my new job I've served a good few customers who could barely speak English. Doesn't bother me at all but it would surely help their own prospects a lot if they learned it.

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There is a new factor at play here too the world has got far too small nowadays technology and modern communications allow us to live our own life separate from the vast majority of the people we live beside.

Hence even in smallish size towns in Ireland now there can be what everyone calls Polish Shops in reality there selling more than Polish stuff. You can come from Warsaw work as a housekeeper in a hotel eat your own food read Polish newspapers speak to a lot of people from home in the local Polish bar and with the sat dish on the roof you can watch the news from home even.

I don't really mind it so much i mean everyone gets homesick but I do feel these people are missing out on an entire experience of living in a different country and that is kind of sad.

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Anyway, Lemur, learning a language beyond the basics takes rather more than two years. Ten is nearer to the mark.

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But don't you also agree that it kinda depends on the relationship between your native language and the language spoken in the country you're living in? I mean, German would be a lot easier for the English to learn than say Russian, Arabic or Farsi. Same with Japanese and French, for example (the horror..).

I'm with Idaho, although I do believe that learning the language of the country you've moved to is something the government should enforce. Either fining or subsidizing people that respectively don't and do try to actively learning the language is very important. It'll help to close the gap between immigrants and the native population.

On the other hand, especially with the immigrant laborours, who do not wish to stay very long, speaking your own language is a natural thing; the farther people get removed from their roots, the stronger their resolve will be to get back to those roots. Language, religion(!), food and such things are all parts of their culture they've taken with them and wish to cling to as well.

I think the real death knell of multiculturalism is the backlash building over relativism between cultures and ideas even when one of the two is obviously moonbat crazy people try to draw an equivalence thats wrong.

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Originally Posted by Idaho

It can be any number of factors. From a lack of money or time to pay for lessons or a lack of decent available lessons, right the way through to being lazy and never needing to because you can pay for others to do the translation stuff for you.

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I think the courses should be free and probably are already, they're also not too lazy to go to the government to try and ask for money, which then takes ten times as long because the civil servants will have to try and extract all the necessary info out of them without a common language. And the same happens in shops as well, it's kinda annoying when five customers have to wait just because it takes me five minutes to solve a minor misunderstanding with someone who doesn't get my simplest explanations.
It doesn't happen often though, but I've had some truck driver lately who had to do some toll collect stuff or whatever, well, I think he did, he kept saying "vignette", I shook my head, told him we don't sell vignettes but he kept wanting one, spoke no german, no english, had no idea what to do with the toll collect machine (they offer several languages including polish, english, german etc.). In the end he seemed to have given up after I left him standing there serving other customers while I was wondering what kind of company sends a truck driver to Germany who cannot communicate with Germans at all???
Maybe he wasn't an immigrant but the problem is the same, no communication, no cooperation. :shrug:

Kinda odd as she tried to destroy Sarazin in a policor-craze a few weeks back. What caused this U-turn? His book being a huge hit of course. Pure politics she knows that the populist-right have enourmous electoral potential just like here so she takes a more popular stand. Very hypocrite.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

I think the real death knell of multiculturalism is the backlash building over relativism between cultures and ideas even when one of the two is obviously moonbat crazy people try to draw an equivalence thats wrong.

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This.

Multiculturalism is dead? Meh, I'm sure it's the same all over the world. There's always a handful of people in every country who manage to shamefully publicise their zero-tolerance-integrate-100%-or-GTFO stance toward immigrants.

I'd always thought that the idea of multiculturalism is that it has multiple cultures. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Raz

I'd always thought that the idea of multiculturalism is that it has multiple cultures. :shrug:

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No it's an genuine ideoligy, the idea is to destroy nationalism with diversity, ultimately to prevent armed conflict. It's a real political theory.

Reality, importing votes

Well Merkel raised some basic points really. It isn't "multiculturalism" if your an immigrant living in a country, making no effort to speak the native language or to mix with the native population. In that case your basically a squatter, by choice.

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Originally Posted by Hax

But don't you also agree that it kinda depends on the relationship between your native language and the language spoken in the country you're living in? I mean, German would be a lot easier for the English to learn than say Russian, Arabic or Farsi. Same with Japanese and French, for example (the horror..).

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That's mainly the initial learning curve being less steep as you pick up the basics.

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Originally Posted by tibilicus

Well Merkel raised some basic points really. It isn't "multiculturalism" if your an immigrant living in a country, making no effort to speak the native language or to mix with the native population. In that case your basically a squatter, by choice.

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Thats actual an excellent point the immigrant bringing their own culture to wherever the locals imbibe bits of it but the immigrant also should reciprocate from whatever is the native culture.

To often I feel the whole debate on Multiculturalism is driven by people who wish to somehow legislate and control actual culture. How we could actually control culture is a bit beyond me I don't think you can but the quango types end up increasing the budgets they get by trying to implement it which is probably half the point anyway for them.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

To often I feel the whole debate on Multiculturalism is driven by people who wish to somehow legislate and control actual culture. How we could actually control culture is a bit beyond me I don't think you can but the quango types end up increasing the budgets they get by trying to implement it which is probably half the point anyway for them.

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Oh really do they.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

Oh really do they.

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Eh??

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Eh??

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You seemed to agree that the multicultist want to control

Then I think you meant to say

"Oh they do really" what you said put the inflection of your statement on me more than them.

I do believe the Multicultists think that way but I also think that the whole the foreigners are here not integrating is slightly overblown by the media.

The OP is not against a country having multiple cultures in it but the idea that is foisted on people that we must somehow create special spaces for culture in society.

This idea is really dangerous and I think it actually reinforces the differences and barriers between people.

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Originally Posted by Idaho

It can be any number of factors. From a lack of money or time to pay for lessons or a lack of decent available lessons, right the way through to being lazy and never needing to because you can pay for others to do the translation stuff for you.

If people want to try and live in a foreign country without learning the language, then who really cares - that's their daft decision.

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Seems that the locals actually care.

On topic, multiculturalism is indeed dead except in the head of a few hardcore leftist carebears. The bad news is that the other side of the coin (ie. "Integrate 100% or leave") doesn't work either in a democracy.

100% is arguably meaningless as of course there is no one way in any country.

But getting rid of leaflets in several languages / free translation services would be a good place to start.

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

It's slightly more complex than that. On the whole pretty much anyone will pick up the basics out of sheer necessity: chances are your life is too complex to define in point & grunt semantics, so you need the local lingo to help you out. But there are people who consider it not necessary or not sufficiently necessary to bother with actually learning the language. I guess because they tend to migrate to a place where they will be among other people of similar backgrounds who understand their native tongue well enough.

Anyway, Lemur, learning a language beyond the basics takes rather more than two years. Ten is nearer to the mark.

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I don't think this is true, if you have a basic grounding in a language (very basic) and are then immersed in the culture and forced to speak it every day you will reach fluency somewhere between 6 months and a year. If this was not so we wouldn't be able to send in English students to France or Germany and dump them into the Universities there, which we do.

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

I don't think this is true, if you have a basic grounding in a language (very basic) and are then immersed in the culture and forced to speak it every day you will reach fluency somewhere between 6 months and a year. If this was not so we wouldn't be able to send in English students to France or Germany and dump them into the Universities there, which we do.

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For the immigrants who do not learn the language: they are not immersed in the culture, nor forced to speak the language every day. Otherwise they would learn it.
For the rest there is more to a language than being able to do shopping, day to day communication etc. You become fluent in a subset of it, but not necessarily competent with the whole framework of syntax, grammar, idiom etc.

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Originally Posted by Ser Clegane

Immigration is a welcome and classic topic for the CDU/CSU to turn to when the :daisy: hits the fan. Not surprising at all that they try to utilize the current rochus after Sarrazin published his book to gain a couple of percentage points.

Nevertheless, the current discussion in Germany is too much about trying to get some easy points in the polls that about actually doing something constructive and tangible - hopefully this will change again.

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The shift to hardright ideas transcends current German political events. The shift is structural and pan-European, therefore anything temporary or specifically German falls short as an explanation.

The Sarrazin debate served as a catalyst. The dam was going to break sooner or later. Like elsewhere in Europe, the hardright has managed to become mainstream. Things are now said openly for which one would've been ostrasiced fifteen years ago. For reasons of historical legacy, 'decent' German society kept the lid on for longer than all of its neighbours. Not anymore. Germany has followed Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands.



As for Merkel, maybe like the overwhelming majority of Ossies she's just not so into anything brown. There is still an iron curtain in Europe, running midway through Germany. To the west, societies are open, mixed, there are foreigners on the streets, gays too. To the east, societies are closed, violent, and bare chested skinheads patrol the streets. Yikes....

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A third of Germans say they want foreigners repatriated, and 10 percent of Germans would prefer to have a “führer”

The Muslim community was particularly singled out by respondents. Over 55 percent of respondents said Arabs were not pleasant people, compared with 44 percent in the foundation’s 2003 report. As to whether Muslims should face restrictions in practicing their religion, 58 percent agreed. It was 75 percent in the Eastern Germany.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/wo...many.html?_r=2

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10 percent of Germans would prefer to have a “führer”

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Thats gotta be what 7 maybe 8 million people you sure about that stat

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Thats gotta be what 7 maybe 8 million people you sure about that stat

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We're talking about Germans here. Not Cree. Not Saulteaux. Not Blackfoot. Hell, not even Metis.

GERMANS. Roll with it, bro.

Yeah, I wish we had a Führer like Kemal Atatürk or so.

Forgetting a neighbour huh Luigi, the populist party's of the countries you mention are nothing compared to your own Front National, they are scum. It's good that the -moderate- right is on the rise, bye makeble hellow pragmatic

I always found it funny how countries with an actual rich history to protect were until recently so accepting of having their immigrants not merge with the mainstream while the country born from groups of different cultures living together has been so culturally hostile to foreigners since it's beginning.

Europe should protect their cultures imo or at least not concede so much to radicals who want to change the culture to their liking.

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Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah

We're talking about Germans here. Not Cree. Not Saulteaux. Not Blackfoot. Hell, not even Metis.

GERMANS. Roll with it, bro.

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'Unlike all X, I never generalise' :smash:


The Germans are the most anti-fascist people in Europe. The people are more attached to democracy, and the state has done more to ensure democracy in Europe, than any other.

On the internets, all political-sociological-historical knowledge is reduced to war history, this war history is limited to the last war, in a simplified form, and from this pityful substrate everything one needs to know about the world is then extrapolated.
However, German history is slightly more complex than 'they are racist orcs'.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

Forgetting a neighbour huh Luigi, the populist party's of the countries you mention are nothing compared to your own Front National

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Ah, but two things:

Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands have hard/extreme rightwing parties as part of their government, or allied with the government. That's why I named them. Things that were a grave social taboo fifteen years ago are now government policy.

What happened in Germany is more comparable to France, Switzerland, Belgium: the mainstream rightwing adopting elements of the policies and language of the hardright. Sarkozy, not the FN is the proper comparison.



I notice this shift in myself too. I am a peculiar brew of anti-fascist instincts combined with bizarre rightwing ideas. Part of me is firmly to the right of PJ and Hitler.
Am I being consumed by the Dark Side? I do not know. It unsettles me and is cause for some soul searching.

That 10% was probably never gone, there is an enomous gap between the ultra-nationalists and the centre and it's getting filled. I don't think Germany got more rightwing, all stable in the leftist front.

Wait, you're telling me during times of economic hardship easily recognizable minorty groups are being singled out and deomnized?

This is amazing and unprecedented.

Has someone told the Germans Irish Jews Italians Poles Asians Mexicans?

Nobody is being demonised where did you read that, and probably more interestingly, how. It just isn't there. Merkel just admits that mistakes have been made.

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South

Wait, you're telling me during times of economic hardship easily recognizable minorty groups are being singled out and deomnized?

This is amazing and unprecedented.

Has someone told the Germans Irish Jews Italians Poles Asians Mexicans?

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:applause:

For my part, as a self-confessed multiculturalist, I think the main failing of the policy is precisely that it doesn't actually stimulate or rather neccessitate broad cross cultural interaction. What I like about the policy is that it allows such exchange and (at its best) values diversity, I am saddened to see ghettoisation or complete non-integration -for whatever reason.

As has been alluded to by others already, the reason some immigrants do not learn the native language is ultimately because they don't have to. There are often large enough communities from the same background (due to the natural tendency for people to huddle around what is familiar in an unfamiliar world/country) that it is possible for a given individual to deal almost entirely with people speaking their mother-tongue, never mind go about the same daily business/lifestyle as in their homeland.

I admit this seems a bit strange to people of the "host" country, and as I said above, I think it's a shame. However, the reason people emmigrate is perhaps different to what some immagine, in that it is surely based on (usually short term, even if 10-20 years) economic incentive rather than accession to a different culture -it should therefore be (depressingly) unsurprising that some have no interest in integration to the host country and its culture.

Personaly, I think it would be fair for those seeking residency to pass a basic level of English (Edit: perhaps with subsidised classes), although this should not be expected for those seeking asylum -which is a whole other kettle of fish.

I also enjoy life in my multicultural town and the multicuisine and of course I like black women, not the point, multiculturalism is a dangerous form of social-enginering. There is an idea behind it, it's an ambitious pacifist ideoligy to combat nationalism, by transforming the cultural landscape.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

I also enjoy life in my multicultural town and the multicuisine and of course I like black women, not the point, multiculturalism is a dangerous form of social-enginering. There is an idea behind it, it's an ambitious pacifist ideoligy to combat nationalism, by transforming the cultural landscape.

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There was me thinking it was one way (of a few) to accomodate the modern world's economic migrants into their host nations.

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Originally Posted by alh_p

There was me thinking it was one way (of a few) to accomodate the modern world's economic migrants into their host nations.

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In it's philosophical roots they aren't supposed to integrate, if people have no affinity with their own culture they are less likely to pick up arms to defend it. It's a political theory, a dangerous one.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

I also enjoy life in my multicultural town and the multicuisine and of course I like black women, not the point, multiculturalism is a dangerous form of social-enginering. There is an idea behind it, it's an ambitious pacifist ideoligy to combat nationalism, by transforming the cultural landscape.

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So your family has been occupying the same swap drained land for eons and eons?

"Multicultralism" is an unfortunate by product of the 24 hrs news cycle and modern post industrial socitey. Humans have been transversing the continents for years intermingling and yes even settling in new places. Such movement is intertwined with the human condition and can not be stopped. Soon after the modern state was created the torch of hating diffetent people was passed for the church to the government.

Both institutions had a vested interest in keeping a scapegoat. Immagration and the movement of peoples is unstoppable and to assume that somehow the Germans can put up a sign that says no vacancy is even more impossible. Times are tough for allot of reasons. The least of which being because the Turk down the street can't say Guten Tag and wont take the meat off the kebab.

Now this is not a wholesale endorsement of unlimited immagration OR the culture that some bring. Of course my veiw on immigration is closely related to economics and as such is outside the purview of this thread.

Things such as honor killings and repression of women have no place in a civllized socitey (no matter what the ethnic group) As more immigrants and there children rise to the middle class such stigmas will fade.

It always has been about money and power, the rest is just white noise meant to distract and demonize.

Times aren't tough, crisis is non-existant for the average German, no scapegoat needed. It's something else, people are tired of politicians blaming the weatherman for the existance of rain. Good. Bad part of it is that problems that used to be downplayed are now exegarated, it will pass. Europe is just recovering from the latest insanity.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

Times aren't tough, crisis is non-existant for the average German, no scapegoat needed.

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Win.

People are getting worked up over nothing. Even if the people who move there don't want to learn the local lingo, their kids will. Unless you want to chuck a North Korea, multicultural societies and integration are both unavoidable.

"valuing diversity" :furious3:

Some immigrant groups have nothing but admirable qualities. They should be admired for their admirable qualities. We should say "they are objectively good people". But when you 'value diversity" you aren't doing that. And the flipside is that when they aren't admirable, you are still "valuing diversity". It's wrong both ways. It's a phrase that's terribly weak in praise, and lacks the capacity for criticism.

If I was a composer, I'd want people to value my music because they liked the music itself, not because they valued diversity. That's a kind of parent/child "aw you did real good sweety" dynamic.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

"valuing diversity" :furious3:

Some immigrant groups have nothing but admirable qualities. They should be admired for their admirable qualities. We should say "they are objectively good people". But when you 'value diversity" you aren't doing that. And the flipside is that when they aren't admirable, you are still "valuing diversity". It's wrong both ways. It's a phrase that's terribly weak in praise, and lacks the capacity for criticism.

If I was a composer, I'd want people to value my music because they liked the music itself, not because they valued diversity. That's a kind of parent/child "aw you did real good sweety" dynamic.

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Do you do anything other than complain about semantics?

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Originally Posted by alh_p

Do you do anything other than complain about semantics?

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I've never seen him make an anti-Jewish comment here.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

"valuing diversity" :furious3:

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Diversity can be a virtue in and of itself. For example, if you go on a holiday, you don't just visit your favourite place everyday, most poeple would rather do a mix of things. When compared with their favourite place/activity, they would never choose these other places/activities over it given a one-off choice to do one of them. But for the sake of some diversity/variety, they do the different activities which are on their own merits not as good as their favourite one.

Gah! Why do you have to make things so complicated? It is always you Sasaki! :stare:

It's pretty simple, because it's not.
A lot of the political discussion so far was either one of the two extremes, you're either pro or con, like the US two-party system, it's flawed and both options are bad.
There should be more options than "throw them all out" and "leave them all alone you naughty person", that is what we are seeing now I guess, there are bad people among immigrants, shock, horror and we don't want to import bad guys or people who only come to leech money, how surprising.
The other really, totally surprising thing is that this small shift is an atrocity for the one lunatic fringe and a big victory for the other lunatic fringe, who represent the extremes we had all the time and would like to keep/get their extreme. Now whether the government does anything and why is not as important as long as they finally do what a center lunatic like me thinks is right. ~D

https://img106.imageshack.us/img106/...reurp52iu1.jpg

:stare: :beadyeyes2: :stare:

35% of Germans wish to expell all black ducks but they won't allow us oh no sirree they wont allow us we're stuck with those black anatidae in our midst forever

I must protest to the Mods many of the people on the org may suffer from Anatidaephobia

https://img138.imageshack.us/img138/...aduckfeard.jpg

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Originally Posted by alh_p

Do you do anything other than complain about semantics?

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Yeah language means nothing, some of my best friends are :daisy:. Saki is right imho it's patronising, preaching diversity is being the loving caretaker of one's private zoo.

I have always hoped that Germany would return to a more normal stance regarding culture and integration before serious damage was done. The country has one of the richest - and most productive - cultures in the world; a culture that has produced many - dare I say, most - of the advancements in science, industry, art, and technology that occurred during the 19th and 20th centuries. 12 years of Nazism shouldn't erase that. It is perfectly acceptable for Germans to expect immigrants to learn the language and the cultural standards. Whether Merkel brought it up for political reasons or not, it is good for Germany that she broached the subject.

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Originally Posted by miotas

People are getting worked up over nothing. Even if the people who move there don't want to learn the local lingo, their kids will. Unless you want to chuck a North Korea, multicultural societies and integration are both unavoidable.

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I agree. At my work I deal with Hispanic immigrants all the time. Sometimes the adults don't speak any English, but their kids almost always do. The kids not only translate for their parents but they chat with their siblings in English. I think that assimilation happens naturally, it just takes some time. In my opinion, the best way a government could help facilitate the assimilation of an immigration populace would be through bi-lingual education. Teach the immigrant children in their own language, so they don't fall behind, but also teach them in the native language so they can learn to speak it.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

"valuing diversity" :furious3:

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Perhaps I owe you a more substantive response, but I do think you are missing the point in railing against "diversity".

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

"Some immigrant groups have nothing but admirable qualities. They should be admired for their admirable qualities. We should say "they are objectively good people". But when you 'value diversity" you aren't doing that. And the flipside is that when they aren't admirable, you are still "valuing diversity". It's wrong both ways. It's a phrase that's terribly weak in praise, and lacks the capacity for criticism.

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"Diversity", and valuing it is precisely not about productivity or worth and is certainly not a scoring chart for integration. It's just about not being a homogenous blob of society and taking pleasure in that.

it is not the governments job to enforce diversity on its citizens, which is what has happened in towns and cities up and down the land.

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Originally Posted by alh_p

Perhaps I owe you a more substantive response, but I do think you are missing the point in railing against "diversity".



"Diversity", and valuing it is precisely not about productivity or worth and is certainly not a scoring chart for integration. It's just about not being a homogenous blob of society and taking pleasure in that.

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When done right, but 'wanting' diversity is a form of racism, the 'how good of you!' kind. Equality should be a given, a policy of diversity rules that out. People feel best when treated with respect.

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

it is not the governments job to enforce diversity on its citizens, which is what has happened in towns and cities up and down the land.

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Indeed not, how is it that the (presumably past) government has enforced diversity?

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Originally Posted by alh_p

Indeed not, how is it that the (presumably past) government has enforced diversity?

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They even admitted that it was active policy 'rubbing diversity in the noses of the right', exact words, googlydo

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Originally Posted by alh_p

Indeed not, how is it that the (presumably past) government has enforced diversity?

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by uncontrolled immigration leading to the ghettoisation of our immigrant populations, and the crowding out of marginal groups among the native population.

if you want to create a more cohesive and happy society, which ought to be the goal of any government, then uncontrolled immigration is exactly the wrong way to go about it.

i realise you are happy eating your cous-cous salad in the local somalian restaurant, well guess what, so am i, but there are a lot of working class people who feel marginalised in their own society and squeezed out of their own community.

that does not make a cohesive and happy society, it is that simple. end of!

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

by uncontrolled immigration leading to the ghettoisation of our immigrant populations, and the crowding out of marginal groups among the native population.

if you want to create a more cohesive and happy society, which ought to be the goal of any government, then unconctrolled immigration is exactly the wrong way to go about it.

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While I might quibble on what the assumed alternative is to uncontrolled immigration (but not here), I agree that it was wishfull thinking, verging on negligence, to assume that everyone would just get along fine.

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

i realise you are happy eating your cous-cous salad in the local somalian restaurant, well guess what, so am i

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:grin:

I have always thought that the purpose of immigration should be to try to improve the populace of the country - to gain those with the most to give in terms of skills etc, not to take in all and sundry who view it as a better option than where they currently come from by means legal or otherwise.

Coupled with the utter fear of implicit or explicit integration one ends up where we currently are.

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by alh_p

While I might quibble on what the assumed alternative is to uncontrolled immigration (but not here), I agree that it was wishfull thinking, verging on negligence, to assume that everyone would just get along fine.

:grin:

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just so long as you don't lose sight of the most important part of what i said, the bit you forgot to quote:

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

but there are a lot of working class people who feel marginalised in their own society and squeezed out of their own community.

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Originally Posted by alh_p

"Diversity", and valuing it is precisely not about productivity or worth and is certainly not a scoring chart for integration. It's just about not being a homogenous blob of society and taking pleasure in that.

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I still don't quite get it though.

The sport I like is football. Other people in the world watch cricket and nascar and baseball etc. But I don't take pleasure in the fact that football isn't the only sport that everyone watches. I watch the olympics and the world cup, and I'm glad they exist because they are fun to watch. But there's never a moment when my happiness comes from being glad that there's diversity. Same with food, music, art...so I don't understand where that pleasure comes from for you. I like what I like, other people like what they like. There's also lots of cultural practices that I think we'd be better off if they died out. Generally people are always striving to change their own culture for the better. I don't think it's different for other cultures. If drinking too much soda is a negative aspect of american culture, then it's a negative aspect of mexican culture too.

I don't think any culture is a homogeneous blob either. There's many different kinds of people in the world.

Thirdly (I think), it seems to me that culture is something that comes into existence in response to a certain situation (like how companies will work to create a certain company culture). So non-western cultures becoming westernized seems perfectly natural.

And I think it goes without saying that it would be nice if society was a homogeneous blog regarding things like the equality of women.

Not just those, it's kinda ironic but my anti-immigration blond Mozart would be nothing without immigrants. He gets a considerable amount of votes from non-ethnic Dutch

edit @ furuncules, and yay to SK

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Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

I have always hoped that Germany would return to a more normal stance regarding culture and integration before serious damage was done. The country has one of the richest - and most productive - cultures in the world; a culture that has produced many - dare I say, most - of the advancements in science, industry, art, and technology that occurred during the 19th and 20th centuries. 12 years of Nazism shouldn't erase that. It is perfectly acceptable for Germans to expect immigrants to learn the language and the cultural standards. Whether Merkel brought it up for political reasons or not, it is good for Germany that she broached the subject.

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While Germany was at the forefront of many achivements during this time, I think you would be remiss if you didn't point out that Germany did try to exterminate many of these people who actually achieved these things.

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

just so long as you don't lose sight of the most important part of what i said, the bit you forgot to quote:

...but there are a lot of working class people who feel marginalised in their own society and squeezed out of their own community.

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Their marginalisation is a massive issue, but not one I would blame on or tie to immigration. I concede that the public eye has perhaps strayed from their plight to that of more recent arrivals to the UK, but again -that does not mean that immigrants or immigration are the cause or root of the UK's poor and their condition.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

I still don't quite get it though.

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Are you not interested in the world and understanding the people and things around you? I know how trite that sounds but if I'm totally honest, that's about the most basic level of "valuing diversity".

Have you ever travelled outside of the US? We can stop this conversation right here if you never have and have no interest in doing so, but that would (IMO) be a pretty sad indictement on your view of the world.

It's perfectly understandle that one might prefer familliar things, but familliar things are only so by dint of er, familliarity -built up over time. Don't you get bored of them either? On the most basic level, are you never tempted to try a different beer, just to mix things up a bit (maybe the one in the odd bottle with the strange writing)?

You don't have to take "valuing diversity" to the level of anthropology (or turning the world into a cultural zoo) but, for my part I find it fascinating to understand how and why people live in differnt ways -precisely because they are and have been affected by such a range of circumstances.

Neither do I think valuing diversity is turning one's back on one's "mother culture", to drop another cliche, you appreciate things more when you come back to them. Having a strong grounding in one's own culture also helps to contextualise another -it also gives you more to share (i.e. not just the dope or LSD I'm clearly taking to get this - far out, man).

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South

While Germany was at the forefront of many achivements during this time, I think you would be remiss if you didn't point out that Germany did try to exterminate many of these people who actually achieved these things.

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That's not what Himmler said! How dare you say otherwise!

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Originally Posted by alh_p

Are you not interested in the world and understanding the people and things around you? I know how trite that sounds but if I'm totally honest, that's about the most basic level of "valuing diversity".

Have you ever travelled outside of the US? We can stop this conversation right here if you never have and have no interest in doing so, but that would (IMO) be a pretty sad indictement on your view of the world.

It's perfectly understandle that one might prefer familliar things, but familliar things are only so by dint of er, familliarity -built up over time. Don't you get bored of them either? On the most basic level, are you never tempted to try a different beer, just to mix things up a bit (maybe the one in the odd bottle with the strange writing)?

You don't have to take "valuing diversity" to the level of anthropology (or turning the world into a cultural zoo) but, for my part I find it fascinating to understand how and why people live in differnt ways -precisely because they are and have been affected by such a range of circumstances.

Neither do I think valuing diversity is turning one's back on one's "mother culture", to drop another cliche, you appreciate things more when you come back to them. Having a strong grounding in one's own culture also helps to contextualise another -it also gives you more to share (i.e. not just the dope or LSD I'm clearly taking to get this - far out, man).

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Well we are back to semantics again, but I think that's the key (it's no the trivial kind of semantics). It seems to me that the multiculturalist movement starts from what you are saying here and then by using poor language to argue for it gets itself all mixed up.

I enjoy a wide variety of things, and the anthropology type stuff is interesting (history falls into this category too I think, one of the most fascinating things about it is getting a glimpse of a different time), but none of that is valuing diversity. It's always the thing itself that's valuable. I think you take this as a trivial criticism but how is it trivial? It seems important to me to be clear on what it is we are valuing. In America we have a kind of amusing thing where in a cafeteria we might have an italian food stand, a hot dog stand, a taco stand, and then to add some "diversity" we add vietnamese food. Because pizza, hot dogs, and taco's are all american food now due to being so popular. They were valued because of their qualities as food. The appeal of diversity just seems to be that people feel good about not being western-centric or whatever it is they think is so terrible. It's akin to how they market certain products as environmentalist and people buy them for that. I feel strongly that if I am reading a book of philosophy from another culture, it should be because I want and expect to learn something that will change my life--it shouldn't be because it's different. Because if I value it just because its different then I don't care if it's true or false. But the author cared if it was true or false, he cared very much!

Well, that is why I think the semantic difference is important. One way of talking about it verbally lends itself to relativism and a purely anthropological view of other cultures. It's not my belief that all the people who call themselves multiculturalists go that route, but the language leads them that way. How we talk reflects how we think. I think the other way of talking treats other cultures on the same level that we treat our own.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

I enjoy a wide variety of things, and the anthropology type stuff is interesting (history falls into this category too I think, one of the most fascinating things about it is getting a glimpse of a different time), but none of that is valuing diversity. It's always the thing itself that's valuable. I think you take this as a trivial criticism but how is it trivial? It seems important to me to be clear on what it is we are valuing. In America we have a kind of amusing thing where in a cafeteria we might have an italian food stand, a hot dog stand, a taco stand, and then to add some "diversity" we add vietnamese food. Because pizza, hot dogs, and taco's are all american food now due to being so popular. They were valued because of their qualities as food. The appeal of diversity just seems to be that people feel good about not being western-centric or whatever it is they think is so terrible. It's akin to how they market certain products as environmentalist and people buy them for that. I feel strongly that if I am reading a book of philosophy from another culture, it should be because I want and expect to learn something that will change my life--it shouldn't be because it's different. Because if I value it just because its different then I don't care if it's true or false. But the author cared if it was true or false, he cared very much!

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Maybe the difference is that you want to know what is "true", where I'm more interested in understanding how someone else thinks something can be "true" -whether I agree with them or not. You seem to be keen to ascribe a sort of absolute value to diverse things, whereas I think that there is no absolute, especially when you consider the multiplicity of perceptions and how our own perceptions change according to experiences and exposure.

Fascinating. What tribe did you say you were from? :wink:

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Originally Posted by alh_p

Maybe the difference is that you want to know what is "true", where I'm more interested in understanding how someone else thinks something can be "true" -whether I agree with them or not. You seem to be keen to ascribe a sort of absolute value to diverse things, whereas I think that there is no absolute, especially when you consider the multiplicity of perceptions and how our own perceptions change according to experiences and exposure.

Fascinating. What tribe did you say you were from? :wink:

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But, some things are true and some things are false. Surely our perception of something can't change what's true? It can only change things that have to do with our perceptions. It may be our perception that the sun goes around the earth, and there may be a multiplicity of perceptions about it, but there is still an absolute truth about astronomy. If you were reading Aristotle, and he argued that a certain way of life lead to happiness and not living that way led to less happiness, wouldn't you be interested in whether what he was saying was true?

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

But, some things are true and some things are false. Surely our perception of something can't change what's true? It can only change things that have to do with our perceptions. It may be our perception that the sun goes around the earth, and there may be a multiplicity of perceptions about it, but there is still an absolute truth about astronomy. If you were reading Aristotle, and he argued that a certain way of life lead to happiness and not living that way led to less happiness, wouldn't you be interested in whether what he was saying was true?

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Well, for one I think there are times when many things can be true -even at the same time. Secondly, I think that -using your example of astronomy, things can be and are disproven, then replaced by another "truth".

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Originally Posted by alh_p

Well, for one I think there are times when many things can be true -even at the same time.

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Yeeeess, 1+1=2 is true at the same time as 2+2=4 is true and so one to infinity. I don't think that's what you are talking about. But you agree that 1+1=2 is true and it is not true that 1+1=3?

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Secondly, I think that -using your example of astronomy, things can be and are disproven, then replaced by another "truth".

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You mean, sometimes we think something is true and it turns out it isn't? Ok. Is that a reason to doubt that the earth goes around the sun?

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Yeeeess, 1+1=2 is true at the same time as 2+2=4 is true and so one to infinity. I don't think that's what you are talking about. But you agree that 1+1=2 is true and it is not true that 1+1=3?

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The fact you are using maths to define your logic is illustrative of your absolute way of seeing things, while I'd perhaps not dare be so absolute. While obviously I'd be hard pushed to argue that 1+1.5 also equaled 2, that is kind of what I'm saying -it just depends what 1, 1.5 and 2 actually are to you. Maths is not the tool to explain this, just as its also not the best tool to use in approaching the massively complex issues of real life.

Basically, what I'm saying is that to so someone who has grown up believing in god and the bible verbatim, creation and god's existence will be "true" to them, as sure as 1+1=2. Equally, to someone who has grown up without religion -but with science, the absence of god and theory of evolution wil be "true" -also as 1+1=2 to them.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

You mean, sometimes we think something is true and it turns out it isn't? Ok. Is that a reason to doubt that the earth goes around the sun?

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Well, we believe something is true untill it is proved otherwise. Our opinions change -as may our beliefs, according to external circumstances, basicaly according to new information. Science is only as robust as the evidence it uses. Even then, the brain can make one individual disbelieve things in the face of what to another might be apparently overbearing evidence to the contrary.