Multicultural versus monocultural societies and countries

[Pannonian]

Yet another problem:

On what basis do you distinguish "group cultures"? How are you going to categorize each and every human such that they can be placed with their groups and, you know, not bring along any other cultures? People are multicultural to a far greater extent than implied by even the smallest-scale terminological specifications.

I don't want to disparage you, but if you can't explain some more of the concrete details of this worldview in a way that addresses these issues, it will be revealed as another poorly-thought-out utopian thought-exercise fatally riddled with inconsistencies

It's a misconception of those who don't have much experience of how multiculturalism works in practice. For those of us who do live in a multicultural world, we know that "melting pot" is probably a better description of the reality. Throw everything into the mixer, and each person will take what they will from it.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Looks like its the same old story here - people talking at cross-purposes and attributing their own meaning to terms. Proponents of one view tend to view the other only in its most extreme sense, while keeping to a more sensible understanding of their own.

Another problem is that people here are focusing on highly specific historical examples, rather than considering the inherent merits of either of the forms of social organisation. No doubt throughout history there will be many instances where monoculturalism and multiculturalism have been sources of good, and many instances when they have been sources of evil. However, we should not forget that the mode through which they are implemented (eg whether by organic cultural spread, or more forcibly by oppression) is really a separate matter entirely, yet it has been conflated constantly throughout this thread.

Personally, I think the most important thing with culture is that it develops naturally, or organically - that is both reflects and binds the common experience of the people who give it its being. This is crucial for creating a society where there is mutual respect, where there is a sense of solidarity, and where there is something that can provide a bridge across more individual differences (gender, age, etc). I suppose such a culture would not be monocultural or multicultural, since there would neither be a single, dominant culture, nor would there be vastly different cultures living side by side. But for me, that would be the most healthy kind of culture.

[Fragony]

I have given it up, I know I am right but being right is not the same as being recognised as being right. There is only so much you can take in the end before you start feeling really uncomfortable with those who think differently. Dead discussion, it's a given that it ought to work, we will always have Paris.

[Furunculus]

Do we recognise a difference between its use as a descriptive term, and as a normative term:

“The term is used in two broad ways, either descriptively or normatively.[1] As a descriptive term, it usually refers to the simple fact of cultural diversity: it is generally applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, sometimes at the organizational level, e.g., schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities, or nations.
As a normative term, it refers to ideologies or policies that promote this diversity or its institutionalization; in this sense, multiculturalism is a society “at ease with the rich tapestry of human life and the desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit.”[2]”

I can fully get behind my statements above, i guess they would be descriptive, but I’m not sure i’d bandwagon on a normative internationalist ideology. Particularly not transnational progressivism, which I regard as a particular kind of foolishness!

[Papewaio]

"Countries are breaking up in significant numbers due to cultural and ethnical differences. Just in very recent history we have: Kosovo from Serbia, East Timor from Indonesia, South Sudan from Sudan.

As unrecognised\less successful examples there are Kurdistan (from Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria), Abkhazia and South-Ossetia from Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan."

Are you sure these are failings of a multicultural society or a society where the ruling group is trying to impose just their culture?

Because if you delve into these examples you will find that these are monoculture/mono (central) control failures where the central rulers try and rinse and repeat the same process without regards for local cultures.

Kurds are pretty famous for being ran roughshod over in the Middle East. With the local rulers putting their culture ahead.

East Timor is another case. The locals were pushed around with the Javanese putting there language and people above the locals and not integrating. It is a text book example of the failings of pushing a monoculture onto an invaded populace.

A lot of countries devolve because the citizens only accept one culture so they can't have neighbors of a different ilk. USSR was quite happy to support Russian language in its client states and surpress local cultures. Part politburo centralization part mono culture attempt.

=][=

The English language has many many more words then the average language something in the order of five times as many as it has absorbed languages from around the world add in food and beverages to the mix too.

So for me language isn't the most important part of culture. It is food and celebrations. Want an easy way to learn a culture do it by eating and celebrating with the locals.

[Viking]

"Countries are breaking up in significant numbers due to cultural and ethnical differences. Just in very recent history we have: Kosovo from Serbia, East Timor from Indonesia, South Sudan from Sudan.

As unrecognised\less successful examples there are Kurdistan (from Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria), Abkhazia and South-Ossetia from Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan."

Are you sure these are failings of a multicultural society or a society where the ruling group is trying to impose just their culture?

Because if you delve into these examples you will find that these are monoculture/mono (central) control failures where the central rulers try and rinse and repeat the same process without regards for local cultures.

Kurds are pretty famous for being ran roughshod over in the Middle East. With the local rulers putting their culture ahead.

East Timor is another case. The locals were pushed around with the Javanese putting there language and people above the locals and not integrating. It is a text book example of the failings of pushing a monoculture onto an invaded populace.

A lot of countries devolve because the citizens only accept one culture so they can't have neighbors of a different ilk. USSR was quite happy to support Russian language in its client states and surpress local cultures. Part politburo centralization part mono culture attempt.

It's a lot like the debate of the chicken or the egg. Did the minority desire autonomy because they were oppressed, or did the minority become oppressed because they desired autonomy?

For me, the answer is "a lot of both". I view this friction between the central authorities and minorities as an inherent trait of multiculturalism.

The minority does not recognise the authority, given by their numbers, to the majority. The minority want to have their own laws and norms for their own lands and communities, the majority is reluctant to give them this as it would undermine the status of their own laws and norms.

[HoreTore]

It's a lot like the debate of the chicken or the egg. Did the minority desire autonomy because they were oppressed, or did the minority become oppressed because they desired autonomy?

For me, the answer is "a lot of both". I view this friction between the central authorities and minorities as an inherent trait of multiculturalism.

The minority does not recognise the authority, given by their numbers, to the majority. The minority want to have their own laws and norms for their own lands and communities, the majority is reluctant to give them this as it would undermine the status of their own laws and norms.

Please enlighten me as to how this is any different from a general "Urban vs rural"-thing?

How is what you described different from, say, the cultural battle between the US deep south and east coast?

[Viking]

Please enlighten me as to how this is any different from a general "Urban vs rural"-thing?

How is what you described different from, say, the cultural battle between the US deep south and east coast?

Well, duh. If you can't spot the differences between urban vs rural and, as an example, Georgian vs Abkhazian, you need to read up.


The Abkhazians consider themselves a distinct ethnic group from the Georgians, while both sides of the rural-urban and east-west-north-south divides consider themselves part of the same ethnic group. Urban and rural groups of the same ethnicity tend to view themselves as different parts of the same organism. Different ethnic groups tend to view each other as separate organisms.

Just look to what actually happens in practice to see that there is a difference: I can't think of any country that split into Urbanistan and Ruralistan. Northistan and Southistan is more likely, but not so likely without considerable cultural differences (and there does seem to be considerable cultural differences within the US).

In part, the difference is qualitative: Identity versus ideology.

In part it is quantitative: not many people will seriously support autonomy without some concept of differing ethnic identities. Many Scots will vote in favour of secession, but if you pick an area within Scotland and ask if it should secede from the rest of Scotland, the amount of serious support in most cases (perhaps all, I don't know Scotland well enough) would drop to near zero.

Once the cultural differences reach a certain point (like languages that are not mutually intelligible), I think a great deal of serious support for separatism is always going to be present, even if most of it may lay dormant.

[Sir Moody]

Personally, I think the most important thing with culture is that it develops naturally, or organically - that is both reflects and binds the common experience of the people who give it its being. This is crucial for creating a society where there is mutual respect, where there is a sense of solidarity, and where there is something that can provide a bridge across more individual differences (gender, age, etc). I suppose such a culture would not be monocultural or multicultural, since there would neither be a single, dominant culture, nor would there be vastly different cultures living side by side. But for me, that would be the most healthy kind of culture.

What you are describing is the Multicultural model - overtime cultures do naturally "bleed" into each other simply by living close to each other.

Multiculturalism does not require "vastly different" cultures to live side by side - the multiple cultural groups can easily be very similar (and often are) - for example (to massively oversimplify it) the English and the Welsh were distinct cultural groups who shared a great number of cultural traits and over time the 2 cultures have "merged" - while there are still distinct differences between the culture groups, these are now much smaller.

Obviously that was a grossly simplified example as the "English" and "Welsh" culture groups are in fact a conglomerate of a large number of smaller Culture groups and are not true culture groups themselves.

Obviously this process will take far longer with vastly different cultures but it is the same process.

[HoreTore]

Obviously this process will take far longer with vastly different cultures but it is the same process.

I wonder what specifically identifies a "vastly different cuture"?

[Montmorency]

However, we should not forget that the mode through which they are implemented (eg whether by organic cultural spread, or more forcibly by oppression) is really a separate matter entirely, yet it has been conflated constantly throughout this thread.

I'm not so sure. Viking is using the sense of "multi"-culturalism in the sense of 'sheer number of "cultures" within some defined geographical area'.

Now, whether or not monoculturalism counts as "organic" depends on whether you want to consider coercion as organic or not; anyway, clearly multiculturalism by the OP's definition is the default, and certainly "organic", state unless we're talking about scattered non-agricultural tribal groups across thousands of miles, basically similar to what Moody has pointed out.

Therefore, one versus the other will inherently draw on different, though not necessarily un-overlapping, "modes of implementation".

[Viking]

“Multiculturalism never prevented the USSR's imperialistic ambitions, neither does it prevent Russia's imperialistic ambitions now. It did not prevent the Holodomor, it did not prevent the USSR from ethnic cleansing (like the Crimean Tatars). Who was in charge of the USSR when the two previous examples took place? Josepth Stalin aka Ioseb Jughashvili, an ethnic Georgian ruling from a mostly ethnically Russian city.” This is not a problem of multiculturalism, it is a problem of politic, beliefs and dictatorship. The “holodomor” was not against an ethnic group as it killed as well Russians, as the Tatars were deported for political reason, as the Germans and others minorities who did collaborate with the German Armies (i.e. Cossack of Crimea). As the famine in Ireland and in India under UK regime, the famines in USSR happened because/for economic principles push to the extreme and the refusal by leaders to recognise mistake.

The point of those references were opposite of what you imply, namely that whatever bad things monocultural countries do and whatever bad things happen in them, multicultural countries are no better.

As a larger point, conflict between cultures is one of the surest ways we have for the development and dissemination of improvements of any sort.

All the more reason to look into the emulation of this; or even better stuff. In the future, we hope to be able to grow extra organs in the lab. Organ donation is so crude and random.

Freedom of movement is directly correlated with economic efficiency and power. However, with your tightly-gerrymandered vision of the world, movement would have to be heavily controlled and restricted to prevent more than a small degree of mixing. It would have to be a small degree as obviously if there's no movement between cities or whatever geopolitical unit you have in mind, then ultimately there will be almost no contact of any sort between them, and really that's the end of civilization. Ultimately, this will totally undermine your world unless you plan for periodic purges of some sort.

In the longer-term, preventing free mixing in commerce and settlement means it is absolutely necessary for the state to immediately implement systematic reproductive pairing schedules to minimize inbreeding within cultures.

Basically, you'd be taking some of the worst elements of the Soviet Union's system (not to say that all of yours would have been in the USSR - the folly exceeds even that).

Mixing is a good thing; separation is bad. That's what I think. As per above, to some extent, you seem to be talking about cultural conservatism.

First point: that's unwarranted, silly, dangerous, and inherently impossible and self-contradictory.

I'd like to see your premises, to put it mildly.

Second point: it obviously depends on the country or countries, and the size of the "nearest cit[ies]" we're talking about.

Yeah, this country was what I wrote. I have a feeling though, that the cultural differences between local countryside and local city will become small in any egalitarian country. Sure, different norms and behaviours will develop because of the different surroundings; but purely practical cultural elements (like norms for public transport) are near insignificant in the larger schemes of things.

Yet another problem:

On what basis do you distinguish "group cultures"? How are you going to categorize each and every human such that they can be placed with their groups and, you know, not bring along any other cultures? People are multicultural to a far greater extent than implied by even the smallest-scale terminological specifications.

I don't want to disparage you, but if you can't explain some more of the concrete details of this worldview in a way that addresses these issues, it will be revealed as another poorly-thought-out utopian thought-exercise fatally riddled with inconsistencies

This isn't intended to be a grand political theory and a roadmap to be implemented at the UN to fanfares and with ecstatic politicians. This is realpolitik. It's pragmatism. If you see a bridge that is flooded, year after year, you try to make sure that is built it in a way that makes its road unreachable by the flood water, or you dig the river deeper.

I could generalise this to a theory when it comes to adjusting the height of the bridges to the typical max water level in the rivers they cross. It still would not be an invitation to obsess over this; an eternal struggle for finding the perfect height above rivers, or that bridges should be built so tall that it is inconceivable that water from the river should ever cover its tarmac.

Because that kind of obsession is not the point, the point is to find solutions that work better than many of the most typical implementations of bridges.

I disregard this post by simply pointing you in the direction of the months-long "bygdedyret"-debate in Aftenposten a few years back.

The "bygdedyr" ('village animal') concept has it roots not in culture, but in the social dynamics of smaller groups. Smaller groups are less tolerant, regardless of culture, as even little deviance from shared group ideals can be perceived as a danger to the integrity of the group. Case in point.

Anyway, I see few differences between the identifiers of the rural west and the urban east in Norway, and the differences between the Hutu and the Tutsi.

The rural west has sheep, the east has wheat. The Tutsi had animals, the Hutu grew plants. The west is coast-bound, the east is inland. There is a geographic difference between the Hutu and Tutsi, but I can't recall at the moment what it was. Unlike the Hutu and the Tutsis, the east and west in Norway do not share a common language.

If Norways rural and urban populations equal a monoculture, then so does Rwanda. And Rwanda ended in a genocide...

As I said, cultural identity is to a large extent in the minds of the culture's members. What I'd focus on here, is the fact that these divisions in identity actually existed. No matter how similar these people actually were, they considered themselves as fundamentally distinct. I haven't studied the Rwanda case in detail, so I'll add two short replies dependent on what reality actually is like:

a) The group identity in Hutus and Tutsis was stronger than what you find in Norway; regardless of how similar lives they may live

b) If a) is based on a false premise, the focus needs to be on failing security apparatus, and similar. I've never suggested monocultural societies could not experienced things like genocide.

It's a misconception of those who don't have much experience of how multiculturalism works in practice. For those of us who do live in a multicultural world, we know that "melting pot" is probably a better description of the reality. Throw everything into the mixer, and each person will take what they will from it.

A melting pot quickly ceases to be multicultural, as the cultures merge. Once there is segregation in the frame, the edges might experience melting and mixing, and these changes might spread to cores and centres of each cultural area. But these cores and surrounding areas can still remain culturally distinct for centuries and be anything but melting pots; ensuring a continious multicultural reality.

[Montmorency]

All the more reason to look into the emulation of this; or even better stuff.

Perhaps, but in the near-term that's incredibly vague, like saying we should 'look into improving our political institutions' - well, of course we should, and...?

I'd like to see your premises, to put it mildly.

As I said in the other thread, I am not searching for the ultimate monoculture. I want a monoculture that is varied on an individual level, as opposed to a polyculture that is varied on a group level. I want people to say "I am an individual and have my own opinions" rather than "My people are Flutniks and think X, while those people over there are Gragturts and think Y".

How do you prevent people from automatically forming smaller groups over time? How do you get this monoculture to form in the first place? That's what individuals do: they form groups, and are indeed constituted in such a way as to want very much to cooperate with these groups. As an aside, keep in mind that nationality per-se affect culture, but is not equivalent to it.

This is realpolitik. It's pragmatism. If you see a bridge that is flooded, year after year, you try to make sure that is built it in a way that makes it's road unreachable by the flood water, or you dig the river deeper.

So where's the pragmatism? You're talking about what you'd like to do or see done in a meta sense here, but you're not really offering any solutions.

Fundamentally, are you sure what you are talking about couldn't just be replaced by 'a programme to teach citizens critical and independent thinking'?

[Viking]

Perhaps, but in the near-term that's incredibly vague, like saying we should 'look into improving our political institutions' - well, of course we should, and...?

The fact that it has benefits does not make it the best system, not even in practice. You can read the reply this way, alternatively: So what?

How do you prevent people from automatically forming smaller groups over time? How do you get this monoculture to form in the first place? That's what individuals do: they form groups, and are indeed constituted in such a way as to want very much to cooperate with these groups. As an aside, keep in mind that nationality per-se affect culture, but is not equivalent to it.

I don't have any intent to prevent people from forming groups. My intent is to avoid the facilitation of multiculturalism on a larger scale, as far as that is feasible and reasonable.

So where's the pragmatism? You're talking about what you'd like to do or see done in a meta sense here, but you're not really offering any solutions.

I've already offered the most relevant solution for the world today: don't accept mass-immigration. Be conscious of the segregation that it may cause.

Fundamentally, are you sure what you are talking about couldn't just be replaced by 'a programme to teach citizens critical and independent thinking'?

...which I theorise will work best in non-partisan environments. Segregated societies are ideal for partisan thinking, methinks.

My primary goal with non-multiculturalism is the stabilisation of society, anyway.