Multicultural versus monocultural societies and countries

[Tellos Athenaios]

Long ago, the potato came to this country. It didn't come with people from the Americas. Currently, the Llama is appearing more and more as a farm animal here, and I it was doubt immigrants from South America who first brought it in. Today, I can buy Korean mobile phones in the nearest electrical shop, and I don't need to have a Korean immigrant move into my home in return.

You don't need representatives of a culture to come over to stay in your country in order for your culture to absorb parts of their culture. You don't need the rest of their culture either.

Ah but you see, the potato did not come to your country without some society somewhere turning multicultural. Same with the llamas and the cellphones. Truly monocultural societies will stagnate or at least advance at a much slower rate than others, since they are unable to benefit from the advances of other cultures without engaging in some form of cultural exchange (which precludes retaining a monoculture). You cannot have writing, for example, without it fundamentally altering your culture.

Unless your argument is really all "NIMBY", I'm afraid it doesn't hold water.

And finally, as plenty of farmers have found out to their cost: a monoculture may be easy and efficient in the short run but it will leave you to starve to death in the long run. That's why until late in the 20th century China was regularly plagued by famine as a matter of course whereas it took the introduction of the potato and severe mismanagement to trigger it in Ireland. I would contend that the same also holds for culture in the people sense: a monoculture leaves you ill prepared for a changing modern world, and more likely than not at some point your erratic and unprepared behaviour when confronted with something that is so far beyond your grasp will lead social studies the world over to name a particular human folly after it. All it needs is some reference to the subject of the culture shock... say 'cargo' ?

[Pannonian]

Ah but you see, the potato did not come to your country without some society somewhere turning multicultural. Same with the llamas and the cellphones. Truly monocultural societies will stagnate or at least advance at a much slower rate than others, since they are unable to benefit from the advances of other cultures without engaging in some form of cultural exchange (which precludes retaining a monoculture). You cannot have writing, for example, without it fundamentally altering your culture.

Unless your argument is really all "NIMBY", I'm afraid it doesn't hold water.

And finally, as plenty of farmers have found out to their cost: a monoculture may be easy and efficient in the short run but it will leave you to starve to death in the long run. That's why until late in the 20th century China was regularly plagued by famine as a matter of course whereas it took the introduction of the potato and severe mismanagement to trigger it in Ireland. I would contend that the same also holds for culture in the people sense: a monoculture leaves you ill prepared for a changing modern world, and more likely than not at some point your erratic and unprepared behaviour when confronted with something that is so far beyond your grasp will lead social studies the world over to name a particular human folly after it. All it needs is some reference to the subject of the culture shock... say 'cargo' ?

For an example of what happens to strict monocultures, see what happened to the greatest and most powerful empire in the world after they enforced their extreme internalism. The monocultural Chinese came under pressure from and were bullied by the multicultural Europeans. Their self-admitted turning point came when a faction resolved to take on board the best of what they found in British culture, and using a British colony as their springboard, won power in and proceeded to modernise China.