1950 words
Diversity is, supposedly, “something that is our strength“. How ever, a lot of people who live in ethnically and racially diverse communities don’t seem to think that way. “White flight“—that is, fleeing an area once it becomes diverse—is prevalent in America. If “diversity is our strength”, then why do whites “flight” out of neighborhoods that become ethnically diverse? Diversity is only good insofar as minorities get better social programs and societal structure. When whites move in, blacks move in then whites move out. Blacks then follow whites to their new areas and the process begins anew.
From the article cited above:
“People know what is a white suburb and what is a black suburb,” Lichter says. “Whites are still attracted to those suburbs that are white.”
Why are whites still attracted to suburbs that are white? Because we want to congregate around others that are like ourselves, genetically similar others. When diversity increases, crime increases; when diversity increases, social trust decreases. This phenomenon is the focus of this article.
Diversity in the Social Context
The purpose of this tonight is to talk about diversity in the social context. Diversity can be anything from diversity in politics, to diversity at school, diversity in the workplace, and diversity in the neighborhood, to diversity at Church etc. Robert Putnam analyzes neighborhoods (keep that in mind before extrapolating this to other settings, research is only applicable to what is studied) to discover the side effects of diversity—including race and ethnicity.
From the abstract of his paper:
Ethnic diversity is increasing in most advanced countries, driven mostly by sharp increases in immigration. In the long run immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities. Illustrations of becoming comfortable with diversity are drawn from the US military, religious institutions, and earlier waves of American immigration.
Diversity is shown to not be conducive to a strong, trusting, altruistic and cooperative society both scientifically and the real world. However, Putnam does say that creativity, economic growth, “young immigrant workers (both documented and undocumented) (pg. 140-1) and:
New research from the World Bank has highlighted yet another benefit from immigration, one of special relevance to the Nordic countries that have long played a disproportionate role on issues of global development. This new research suggests that immigration from the global South to the richer North greatly enhances development in the South, partly because of remittances from immigrants to their families back home and partly because of the transfer of technology and new ideas through immigrant networks. So powerful is this effect that despite ‘brain drain’ costs, increasing annual northward immigration by only three percentage points might produce net benefits greater than meeting all our national targets for development assistance plus cancelling all Third World debt plus abolishing all barriers to Third World trade (World Bank 2005; Pritchett 2006).
So economically and creatively speaking, he says, diversity “immigration and multicultural diversity have powerful effects for both sending and receiving countries” (pg. 141). What about the effects of diversity on social capital?
Putnam says:
Across workgroups in the United States, as well as in Europe, internal heterogeneity (in terms of age, professional background, ethnicity, tenure and other factors) is generally associated with lower group cohesion, lower satisfaction and higher turnover (Jackson et al. 1991; Cohen & Bailey 1997; Keller 2001; Webber & Donahue 2001).
• Across countries, greater ethnic heterogeneity seems to be associated with lower social trust (Newton & Delhey 2005; Anderson & Paskeviciute 2006; but see also Hooghe et al. 2006).
• Across local areas in the United States, Australia, Sweden, Canada and Britain, greater ethnic diversity is associated with lower social trust and, at least in some cases, lower investment in public goods (Poterba 1997; Alesina et al. 1999; Alesina & La Ferrara 2000, 2002; Costa & Kahn 2003b; Vigdor 2004; Glaeser & Alesina 2004; Leigh 2006; Jordahl & Gustavsson 2006; Soroka et al. 2007; Pennant 2005; but see also Letki forthcoming).
He also shows that within experimental game settings such as the prisoner’s dilemma, people who are dissimilar from one another defect more with this being seen from Uganda to America. Across companies in the Union army, the greater the internal homogeneity of the group, the higher the desertion rate.
Why does this occur? Because we tend to favor people who are genetically similar to ourselves; even, of course for things like marriage and divorce, to speed-dating. This is Rushton’s genetic similarity theory in action, developed from Dawkins’s (1976) book The Selfish Gene.
In the book, he talks about “replicators and vehicles“; a replicator is “anything in the known universe of which copies are made”, while a vehicle is the organism itself. Basically, we’re just meat, bones, genes trying to replicate. We’re only 10 percent human (great book) and 90 percent bacteria!!! We’re driven by our genes to reproduce copies of said genes since against the worldwide variance, the average similarity between people within a single population is on the magnitude of second cousins.
This is how ethnic genetic interests arises and why some people are more ‘racist’—that is, ethnocentric than others. Ethnic genetic interests causes people to congregate in neighborhoods with genetically similar others. Putnam’s work corroborates Rushton’s genetic similarity and shows the cause for white flight and less social trust within and between groups/ethnies/races.
Replicators, vehicles, genes, and EGIs/GST, is why Putnam found negative social consequences with diversity in the social context in regards to social trust in neighborhoods.
However, Putnam then says:
Diversity itself can only be conceived in terms of socially constructed identities. We saw that earlier when we were forced to define ‘diversity’ in our research in terms of the currently canonical four ethno-racial categories in the United States Census. However, how people are assigned by others to racial and ethnic categories has varied greatly over time and space. Thus, adapting over time, dynamically, to immigration and diversity requires the reconstruction of social identities, not merely of the immigrants themselves (though assimilation is important), but also of the newly more diverse society as a whole (including the native born). (159-60)
He then gives several personal anecdotes in which “races are socially constructed“. Just because people have misconceptions on race and what constitutes a race doesn’t mean that what matters—the underlying genetics which drives social distrust and other variables—aren’t the cause for lower social trust in genetically heterogeneous neighborhoods.
Putnam then said that his research was “twisted” to give a negative context for diversity, thus giving ‘racists’ ammo for their views. Showing the benefits to his research, he says that people have misconstrued what he said in his paper. However, Steve Sailer then says:
The story of how Putnam shelved his findings for five years while he tried to think up a pro-diversity spin to put on them is documented here:
Why would you wait 5 years to publish something that was positive? Even then, why would he attempt to derive a pro-diversity conclusion off of his work if it was so positive? Because ethnic/racial diversity, despite the positive variables he cites, has a negative impact on the neighborhood as a whole.
Dr. James Thompson posted today about the accuracy of stereotypes, citing a paper from physicist and HBDer Emil Kirkegaard and Julius Bjerrekær titled Country of origin and use of social benefits: A large, preregistered study of stereotype accuracy in Denmark in which they asked a nationally representative sample of the Danish population to estimate the amount of benefits people who were from 70 other countries were receiving. They state:
After extensive quality control procedures, a sample of 484 persons were available for analysis. Stereotypes were scored by accuracy by comparing the estimates values to values obtained from an official source. Individual stereotypes were found to be fairly accurate (median/mean correlation with criterion values = .48/.43), while the aggregate stereotype was found to be very accurate (r = .70). Both individual and aggregate-level stereotypes tended to underestimate the percentages of persons receiving social benefits and underestimate real group differences. In bivariate analysis, stereotype correlational accuracy was found to be predicted by a variety of predictors at above chance levels, including conservatism (r = .13), nationalism (r = .11), some immigration critical beliefs/preferences, agreement with a few political parties, educational attainment (r = .20), being male (d = .19) and cognitive ability (r = .22). Agreement with most political parties, experience with ghettos, age, and policy positions on immigrant questions had little or no predictive validity. In multivariate predictive analysis using LASSO regression, correlational accuracy was found to be predicted only by cognitive ability and educational attainment with even moderate level of reliability. In general, stereotype accuracy was not easy to predict, even using 24 predictors (k-fold cross-validated R2 = 4%). We examined whether stereotype accuracy was related to the proportion of Muslims in the groups. Stereotypes were found to be less accurate for the groups with higher proportions of Muslims in that participants underestimated the percentages of persons receiving social benefits (mean estimation error for Muslim groups relative to overall elevation error = -8.09 %points). The study was preregistered with most analyses being specified before data collection began.
Seems like this is what the propaganda of “diversity being our strength does”, have us lower our expectations for things that are obvious. This shows that ‘stereotypes’ are, more often than not, based on fact. Stereotypes arise because people of a certain group may be overrepresented in crimes and people’s negative average experience around others. They are clearly based on fact.This notion of stereotypes being wrong because they’re just prejudiced assumptions is wrong. Stereotypic thinking arises as a natural defense mechanism—a defense mechanism to keep the vehicle safe so the replicator can replicate. Everything we strive to accomplish, everything we do to have a good life is to attract a mate, have children and then take care of those who you are genetically similar to.
Western politicians should take note of this research and attempt to work immigration policy around the structure of the research (and ‘stereotypes’). The denial of human nature that has permeated the West has caused this nonsensical immigration policy. The denial of human nature, believing we are “blank slates” is another cause for this as well. Better known as “pathological morality and altruism“, this is the cause for the current cucking of Europe.
Everything we strive to accomplish, everything we do to have a good life is to attract a mate, have children and then take care of those who you are genetically similar to. Racial/ethnic diversity impedes this from occurring.
Robert Putnam waited years to publish his study, thinking of a way to spin it to show diversity being good, to show it as “our strength”. However, he published it (as any good scientist should do, regardless if they agree with their findings or not) and proved that, at least in the neighborhood context, diversity decreased social trust even showing desertion rates to be higher in heterogeneous groups. Kierkegaard’s paper shows that stereotypes are accurate (though the amount of benefits Muslims received was underestimated), confirming what is already known from general experience. Replicators are what drives ethnocentrism, “selfish genes” are the cause for people wanting to be around genetically similar others since genetically similar others share the numerous amounts of copies of the same gene. This gene-centered view of evolution is one of the many reasons why diversity is negative in the social context. Diversity is clearly not our strength, in fact, it negatively enhances our strength. Diversity in the social context is a net-negative for all races/ethnies in the long run.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
The question of whether diversity is “good” for us is a value question. You offer Putman’s study that shows diversity in communities reduces trust and cooperation in those communities and I do not challenge his conclusion. I call your attention to the following two excerpts from his study:
“In the long run, however, successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities.
Thus, adapting over time, dynamically, to immigration and diversity requires the reconstruction of social identities, not merely of the immigrants themselves (though assimilation is important), but also of the newly more diverse society as a whole (including the native born).”
You posit EGI as something that is “good” and desirable. EGI is an evolved trait, it is only “good” when it is advantageous in the environment that is faced.
We (the US) do not have a homogenous society; we have a very diverse society. Extolling the virtues of EGI when the unrestrained exercise of that trait is not advantageous to the whole group (every US citizen) is not “good.” I think that “we” would be better off in the long run trying to work on the execution of the ideas behind the two excerpts that I quote.
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Notice how he gave an anecdote of race being ‘socially constructed’ (he is right with the example he gives, but I can’t help but wonder what he thinks of actual genetic structure between humans and whether or not that constitutes race or not). Giving an example of his family member from Costa Rica who asked if she was ‘Hispanic’, then he says how Miriam “was learning about the complicated way in which Americans today divide up the world, and in the process she was reconstructing her own social identity.”
Though, ‘Hispanic’ is not a race, nor is it really an ethnicity. It’s just cultural background and language. Any race can be ‘Hispanic’. Alberto Fujimori, former President of Peru, ethnic Japanese man who emigrated to Peru as a child. Is he ‘Hispanic’? The average American’s view of ‘Hispanic’ is a short brown Indian. However, ‘Natives’ are their own distinct race. I get what he’s saying here. But his overall point I believe he was trying to make was that all races and ethnies are ‘socially constructed’ and that to ’embrace diversity’ is to change these so-called ‘human constructs’ of race we have put on people.
What kind of “reconstruction of ‘social identities'” would have to occur do you think? Why should native-born people have to change their lifestyle for immigrants who want to live in their country?
Right. EGIs are evident all over America. For the most part, people segregate along racial and ethnic lines. Hell, schools are more segregated today than they were 40 years ago. What does that tell you?
That even with the forced diversity, people still follow their EGIs whether they realize it or not.
To ‘reconstruct social identities’ and create ‘more encompassing identities’?
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“Though, ‘Hispanic’ is not a race, nor is it really an ethnicity.”
Right, I think that the government needs to stop creating categories.
“Why should native-born people have to change their lifestyle for immigrants who want to live in their country?”
I don’t think that the native-born should; the burden should be on the immigrant to conform and adapt. That being said, I think that if you allow immigration, whether actively or by non-enforcement of the law, you should be prepared to make some accommodation to the immigrants until they can assimilate. My opinion is that we need an immediate immigration hiatus across the board until such time as we get back on track economically and politically.
“To ‘reconstruct social identities’ and create ‘more encompassing identities’?”
Yes, I think that we need to sublimate or de-emphasize race and ethnicity and get back to creating an “American” identity. We have many Americans of mixed ethnicity and race and I don’t like the idea of forcing them to choose one part of their heritage over another. I admire people, like Tiger Woods, who absolutely refuses to play along with that forced either/or identity game. It is an affront to the dignity of the individual to try and force them to discard a part of their heritage just so they can be pigeon-holed into slots and categories that have been “constructed.” I don’t like it at all; I wish some dickhead would try to tell me what parts of my heritage I should care most about.
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That they do. Leftists should have no problem using the term as they believe it’s a social construct anyway (it is, it’s a social construct of a biological reality). But it obviously doesn’t reflect underlying genetic structure. The creation of new ethnic and racial categories creates more changes for so-called victim classes to arise as well.
Well said. Agreed. If we were to get rid of all of our illegal immigrants (I’m talking all of them including anchor babies) and then be extremely selective with IQ tests and the like, it’d work out much better for us. Less crime. Higher quality of life for all parties. How far would you take the accommodation of new immigrants? I think they should most definitely be fluent in English. Nothing irks me more than speaking to someone who hardly speaks English, especially someone who’s been here for years.
You make a good point. America—despite being supposedly ‘tolerant’ to others puts a huge emphasis on race. From government, down to schools go every facet in our life it’s thrown in our faces. It is partly a divide and conquer strategy. Fragment the American people with petty race riots and they won’t think about more important things like the direction of their country as a whole, they’d be thinking about the manufactured strife that’s made to distract them.
Most people’s idea of race is a social construct in the true sense. How would an American identity look to you? Yea forcing people to play identity politics is retarded because not everyone cares about what the proles do to have their ‘voice’ be heard.
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If my memory serves me correct, some of these negatives still persist even when IQ of the immigrant is taken in perspective, but I would question is it of relevant significance? Most heavy immigration stems from people leaving shit holes moving to prosperous societies, and since their society is a product of their genes we naturally see negative consequences brought to these 1st world countries.
If a country’s immigration system gave top priority to intelligent and skilled individuals would we see a significant problem with diversity? I would imagine some, but would it be of much significance?
Diversity certainly doesn’t need to be celebrated, but if there was going to be a topic to vilify, IMO it would be immigration not centered on skills and intelligence. Not to say that I don’t welcome the research into the study of diversity. It is a topic that seldom faces any scrutiny.
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Controlling for IQ should ameliorate some of the problems. Read The Bell Curve to see what happens when you control for IQ and look at effects of what controlling for IQ does. It doesn’t explain every single between-race difference but it does explain a lot (for instance it doesn’t explain why black women have more children, it’s because they’re r-selected while Europeans are K-selected.
That we do.
Differences would be greatly reduced. Equalizing the environment along with different ethnies having similar wealth will close a lot of gaps greatly between MENA peoples and others. It’d be better for social capital too.
I wouldn’t mind limited (extremely limited) immigration if they were IQ tested (good luck with that. The government made it illegal to test prospective employer’s IQ because it was “too good” a predictor of how well one would be at the job. The same would happen here. I’d like to see more studies like this as well. I’m going to look into Putnam’s references this week end, specifically the ones he uses talking about the positives of diversity.
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“I’m going to look into Putnam’s references this week end, specifically the ones he uses talking about the positives of diversity.”
Good, let us know what he has to say. I think diversity in all aspects is a good idea, different points of view, different ideas to consider, etc. I think trade and migrations have been an integral part of our civilizations and I am not inclined to do away with them, we just need to be in control and not let it control us. Think of it in an evolutionary sense, the broader the array of genes, the better equipped a population is to deal with changes.
I am opposed to all immigration at this point, Einsteins and beauty queens excepted.
Serious thought should be given to the effects of the brain drain on the developing and undeveloped countries. They are not going away and they are producing millions of economic migrants. Unless you want them all to come here we should consider “forcing” the cognitive elites in these countries to stay where they are and improve their own countries and we will just have to muddle through without them. The second point is that many of the most radicalized immigrants are not the proles, but some of the better educated.
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Will do. I agree that diversity in some aspects is good, diversity in thought being the biggest one. Everyone thinking the same and having the same viewpoints leads to stagnation.
For a country as a whole, yea but a nation is only as good as people in it (ie intelligence).
We should definitely have stricter immigration laws.
I agree. We first have to recognize that racial and ethnic differences in intelligence exist everywhere, they are heritable and that they have an effect on a country’s development and quality of life.
You’re right about the more radicalized ones being better educated.
Many suicide bombers come from middle-class backgrounds, which further proves the case for genetic interests being the cause for this. The majority of Al-Qaeda members come from educated, middle-class backgrounds. Even for Palestinian suicide bombers, none of them were poor, uneducated, simple minded nor depressed.
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“We first have to recognize that racial and ethnic differences in intelligence exist everywhere, they are heritable and that they have an effect on a country’s development and quality of life.”
Yes, but this is a complete negation of the prevailing ideology. It will take a long time before this “Blank Slate” ideology can be displaced. In my opinion, we should be more practical and pragmatic in a political approach. For example, we know that the benefits of Head Start are temporary and we know why. Instead of pushing to end Head Start, we should push for Head Start for every child.
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Head Start fails because the heritability of IQ increases from childhood to adulthood. We most definitely should end Head Start since it doesn’t work as expected.
Other measures to raise academic performance should be looked at, but Head Start needs to go.
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“but Head Start needs to go”
Head Start does not need to go. Simple fairness requires that every child have the same opportunities. We need to rename it and have quality daycare for every child, not just favored groups. This is also a way that low skilled individuals can be helped to form stable families. It takes two people earning a wage at the low end of the SES in order to have a better chance at family formation and success.
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Will renaming it do anything? It’s like calling it DYFS then changing the name to DCF. Is DCF all of a sudden a good program because the name has changed?
HS clearly doesn’t work. We clearly need think up different program. It should be abolished even if it is fair, because the gains from HS fade out a few years after the program is over. Seems like a waste of time, no? Arthur Jensen spoke out about HS 50 years ago. We’re just now coming to our sense on HS and how bad it is, the gains are meaningless because the genes “turn on” as puberty is reached, genetic ceiling, blah blah blah. You know what I’m going to say.
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I know what you are saying, you don’t understand what I am saying. Maybe you do understand and don’t see quality education for all and equality of opportunity as goals.
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I do understand what you’re saying and I fully believe in equality of opportunity, but why continue such a program that’s shown to have hardly any efficacy on educational attainment and IQ gains; the two variables it was supposed to raise?
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“the benefits of Head Start are temporary and we know why”
“have quality daycare for every child, not just favored groups.”
“This is also a way that low skilled individuals can be helped to form stable families. It takes two people earning a wage at the low end of the SES in order to have a better chance at family formation and success.”
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The low end of SES being the poverty line of 12,000 dolled a year? Quality daycare should be available for all parents I agree there. But really, it won’t do anything. Home environment is effectively 0 at adulthood. How would you want to go about this? We know how and why HS doesn’t work, what would you propose to have it work better? The point of HS is to raise academic achievement and IQ, but neither work. I agree with equality of opportunity, but when the programs attempting to give equal opportunity to children doesn’t work and it’s shown to be a huge waste of money, why continue the program and not try to develop a cheaper program that has longer lasting gains in the variables that are attempted to be raised?
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“The point of HS is to raise academic achievement and IQ, but neither work.”
The point was to raise achievement for low SES and minorities to higher SES and non-minority levels; this part is what didn’t work, and we know why.
High quality day care, high quality pre-pre-K and high quality K and high quality elementary education is good for all students, it just won’t overcome the genetics and produce equality of outcome.
I support high quality education and day care for all children. Let’s give every child a head start, forget the name.
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Why didn’t it work? Genetics.
I agree. However, (in older teens) high-quality education doesn’t close any racial gaps. Everyone should have equality of opportunity. But forcing equality of outcome is wrong, which is what most poor would like to see.
I, again, agree. But when the results that are expected don’t come to fruition, then what?
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” Everyone should have equality of opportunity. But forcing equality of outcome is wrong, which is what most poor would like to see.”
I think most poor people accept that some are more capable than others. When there are numerous questions about equality of opportunity, it is human nature to blame someone or something other than yourself for failure.
“I, again, agree. But when the results that are expected don’t come to fruition, then what?”
Then you have policies in place that ameliorate the worst effects of SES failure.
For example, you have something like Social Security thereby forcing them to save from current consumption for their retirement.
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Yes. In some cases, it may be true. But in most cases, they themselves are the cause for their place in life. Blaming others for their own downfalls is wrong, they should just accept that they’re not as apt as other people.
Well, when robots start to do the menial labor jobs and displace millions of American workers, I would not be opposed to a type of UBI for people, but then the problem is how we would get the money for that. When automation becomes big in first world countries taking the menial jobs, we need to think of ways to ameliorate these problems. I believe that a type of UBI would be best for these changes that will occur in our country.
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