You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

0
2

[–] Etular [S] 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

I must know: what do you think about Robert D. Putnam's findings that increased ethnic diversity results in decreased civic and charitable participation and the former majority "hunkering down like turtles." http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3479078

I must admit, I've long been interested in reading Putnam's work, but haven't got around to doing so myself. From the summaries you provided of it, though, it seems the two key concepts worthy of note are that of "bonding social capital" vs. "bridging social capital", and what a society's aims should be pertaining to that.

Of course, there are many different definitions of "multiculturalism" and many will also disagree with this perspective, but I don't think the two are completely irreconcilable. The idea of the cultural mosaic, for example, seems to hold the view that distinctive are separate cultures can coexist in a society, where little to no attempts to assimilate individuals into a wider culture are necessary. From what I can see, this allows for the coexistence for both bonding social capital (i.e. homogeneous cultures living together, albeit separately from others), and bridging social capital (i.e. the ability to facilitate communication between heterogeneous groups, for example, at the bowling alley).

Some may call this "ghettoisation", "segregation" or "self-segregation" and seek to disperse such groupings (with good reason, especially when such areas may end up socio-economically underdeveloped), but there is certainly also evidence pointing towards how these groupings may be beneficial - Steve Bruce from Aberdeen University (a sociologist of religion, admittedly, but whose work arguably be generalised to the topic of migration), for example, notes how these groupings exist and provide a function of aiding in cultural transition and cultural defense. Bruce argues that these groups provide a sense of security and belonging, a "safety net" of sorts in uncertain times, as people transition from one cultural background to another. He believed this role is only temporary, and subsequent generations will eventually homogenize into the primary culture over generations. However, he also believed that aggressive attempts to assimilate, or individuals feeling threatened, will also lead to a cultural defense, where they will return to that safety net as a base of social support.

Nevertheless, do address your specific point - of a decline in civic and charitable participation in particular - I'd say it's something of interest. Sadly, even in a case of correlation (and possibly even causation), I'm not aware of any other work that's been done pertaining to this, and I believe one of the key areas within Sociology should be in seeing how this issue can be resolved, and going into more depth on the underlying mechanisms of how this occurs and manifests itself (i.e. if increased immigration leads to increased segregation, even if we do know the reasons, what are the specific processes that occur by individuals leading to this increasing of segregation and how does segregation occur? Is it self-segregation, segregation by the majority, or both?). In analyzing the latter point, I take some interest in the work that Thomas Schelling has done on the topic (part of which, regarding the notion of agency/individual choice in the process, can be viewed interactively in a simplified form online here), although arguably even this doesn't explicitly state how to fix the issue, albeit it does give further reinforcement as to why, specifically, a more heterogeneous society may lead to lower participation: It has a "preference", however small, not to associate with individuals of a different group, with these small preferences leading to large disparities and creating isolation.

In resolving the issue there is Allport's Contact Hypothesis, which believes (simply enough) that discriminatory and prejudicial attitudes in particular may be reduced through increased contact between heterogeneous groups, but even this both begs the question of how this can be facilitated and whether this will effect segregationist attitudes (on either side) in any way. There are policies of interculturalism which have tried to find ways to facilitate this contact.

All in all, this seems to be a topic - in my opinion - where there aren't really any definite answers, but for which we seem to be getting a good understanding and may even be getting closer to a solution as we begin to understand all the separate and potentially-influential variables that might be involved.

Also, what about immigrant cultures that abuse human rights, such as cultures that practice female genital mutilation, honor killings, and other trappings of Islamic fundamentalism? Clearly, mutilating girls' genitals is inferior to not mutilating genitals, so what would you do when an inferior culture immigrates to a superior culture? This isn't a relative or "Western standards" question, this is a question of . Sikhs are South Asian, Pakistani Muslims are South Asian, and Romani are genetically South Asian but the Pakistanis are raping white girls in Rotherham, the Romani teach their children to be criminals and have blood feuds, and the Sikhs are doing neither, so while there may be a genetic component it certainly isn't a genetic component introduced when H. Sapiens Sapiens first entered South Asia. The latter 2 problems must therefore be due at least in part to ideology--in other words, culture.

In one of the Sociology modules I've been on here at university (albeit, taught from an anthropological perspective), they've really been trying to hammer the whole culturally-relativistic idea of "Saying a culture is superior or inferior is ethnocentric!" into our heads, but I don't entirely think that's a useful paradigm to work by, I think it's quite dismissive and do think that these problems need to be addressed.

One video I posted on the subverse does address this and notes how multiculturalism as an ideology needs to tackle this issue. Overall, I think it's a point of noting how, although groups can be permitted to live within their own communities and with their own cultures, there has to be a sense of civic nationalism involved - insofar as there is to be a consensus, even if not on absolute adherence to the primary culture's values, then at least an adherence to the laws that govern the society. If we follow the Hobbesian idea of the Social Contract, this very notion of adherence to laws is a fundamental of society nevertheless.

Again, it comes back to the case of, if these individuals aren't adhering to the laws, we need to find out both why and what can be done about it. As someone interested in Sociology, part of my role involves having to be optimistic that a suitable answer can eventually be found to deal with social issues, even if it takes a lot of time to get there. Even in terms of culture, as a society we need to be clear on what aspects of culture are to be tolerated and opposed, and valid justifications for why this may be the case.

Pertaining to religious fundamentalism, Bruce (2000) also tackles this in his book "Fundamentalism", in which he argues that more modern manifestations are more a reactionary response to secularization etc., although this could also link in with his cultural defense hypothesis again. It's noted that a sense of ideological cohesion (i.e. a common enemy) and a disenfranchised set of potential recruits also helps foster fundamentalist sentiment, and may be used to explain the likes of terrorist acts and honor killings.

As for FGM, as you say, it's something which needs to be tackled, but isn't an exceptional cultural practice. Although it's seen as having significantly lesser side effects, male circumcision may also be seen as a similar trapping in our culture, as well as the Italian castrati tradition. In some cultures, they even go as far as penile subincision. It is something that still does need to be tackled, of course.

0
2

[–] Sieg_Heil_EFS 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago  (edited ago)

>In one of the Sociology modules I've been on here at university (albeit, taught from an anthropological perspective), they've really been trying to hammer the whole culturally-relativistic idea of "Saying a culture is superior or inferior is ethnocentric!" into our heads, but I don't entirely think that's a useful paradigm to work by, I think it's quite dismissive and do think that these problems need to be addressed.

Lemme guess: anthropologists adopted that mentality so they could observe things like forced underage marriages without instinctively interrupting the ceremony and no longer being allowed near the tribe.

Remind me, when your professor objects to the killing of indigenous people in Australia, to tell him/her that they're being ethnocentric and Anglocentric because Aboriginal Australian culture is 60,000 years old and thus has no concept of human rights. If that's not the case, he's applying a different standard and applying lower expectations to Australian Aborigines. People who aren't extremist would call that thinking---"boongs will never measure up to white standards"--racist.

>Nevertheless, do address your specific point - of a decline in civic and charitable participation in particular - I'd say it's something of interest. Sadly, even in a case of correlation (and possibly even causation), I'm not aware of any other work that's been done pertaining to this, and I believe one of the key areas within Sociology should be in seeing how this issue can be resolved, and going into more depth on the underlying mechanisms of how this occurs and manifests itself (i.e. if increased immigration leads to increased segregation, even if we do know the reasons, what are the specific processes that occur by individuals leading to this increasing of segregation and how does segregation occur? Is it self-segregation, segregation by the majority, or both?).

All of my this.