LINK: I was reading a post at the Amerika blog on a new Danish survey evaluating the, by now, well catalogued pathologies of diversity. The findings of which tend to mirror those of liberal Robert Putnam who found that “People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to `hunker down,` that is, to pull in like a turtle.” That’s a well advised response given diversity’s tendency to shoot first and scream racist later.
The findings from both papers suggest that diversity tends to erode social capital and civic cohesion. That perspectives tend to harden into distinct contours where tribal divisions are manifest. And the more people view institutions as non-responsive (or even hostile) to their own implicit affiliation, the less involved with and supportive of those institutions they become. They ultimately withdraw to a viscerally defensible perimeter. This being perfectly intuitive to anyone even vaguely honest with themselves, and an insight that could be gleaned just as easily by venturing into the urban outdoors for an hour.
Though neither of these studies address, to the extent I have seen, the most malign aspect of our diversity submersion. That is not the effects on society at-large or its institutions. Nor the prosaic observation that proximity + diversity = furrowed brows. But rather its profoundly corrosive effect on relations within group. Contrary to popular narrative, diversity hasn’t put whites at the throats of oppressed “minorities.” It has put them at the throat of each other.
Diversity shuts down dialogue and cleaves irreparable fissures between otherwise amiable acquaintances. Venture onto any forum that hosts such discussions and note the venom dripping off fangs. Its prime vintage reserved for in-group apostates. Conservatives (broadly applied) regarding their counterparts as traitorous lunatics, with liberals reciprocally seething at their evil bigoted brethren. You want hate distilled to pure essence? Here is where it may be found in abundance. The irony of goggle-eyed vein-bursting liberals deploying that term as a bete noir seems wholly lost in the purple-faced apoplexy. I hate you so much, you hater is really quite an amusing sentiment if given a moment’s consideration.
Though amusement is hardly the end-result. Most of these bitter skirmishers are neighbors, co-workers, or even kin. They live, laugh, and love together. They are all children of the same endowment and stewards for what will be mutually bequeathed to their own. That both have come to view the other as little more than moral filth is quite a diverse accomplishment. And one that seems fairly intractable at this point.
Unlike others, whites police in-group. This means cultural felons are largely those alike. The right feels a moral responsibility to endure while the left is equally committed to merge. Both despise the other for their profane resistance. In a homogenous society these debates would be over tax policy and bouncy-ball. Instead they are existential. And friends otherwise become implacable enemies. This is the real fruit of diversity. It’s a detail the devil doesn’t mention.
