Given what I said, why is this question even relevant in your eyes? Can you explain why you asked me this? I am genuinely curious.
If you have a preference for a cultural environment, why can't other people?
Again, what is "cohesion?" Everyone being generally the same or everyone working together? Which of those two things seems more important? Do you at least concede that you don't necessarily need the red bit to have the blue bit?
The blue. I never said anything about people "being the same", but the greater the linguistic and cultural diversity in an area the harder the blue is to achieve.
Culture is as important a difference between people as are hobbies... This is a huge part of the problem. You aren't your "culture". Just as you aren't your "religion" and you aren't your "hobbies". We are human beings, first and foremost. All of the rest of that stuff is just noise. Noisy noise, to be sure... but that mostly has to do with people with opinions like yours.
If you think that your values, worldview and cognitive frames of reference make no more difference than hobbies, it might be that you don't quite understand the issue as well as you think.
I'm a 1st generation immigrant minority where I live. You can't help but notice cultural differences and how they impact thought and behaviour.
There are often points of incompatibility, and in these cases, at least, one party has to adapt. I generally see that as my responsibility as it would be arrogant to expect people to change their actions based on my cultural preferences.
If immigration made 80% of the people share my cultural background this would radically change the society, and I could understand why many people might find the domination of a foreign culture to be disquieting and unpleasant.
When you are a small minority, you tend to have to adapt to the host culture. When you became a majority (or a sizeable minority) you tend to colonise part of their country for your own culture.
As long as people like you keep talking in the ways that you are, yes, I agree, a pipedream held by those who can see through all these ridiculous religious/cultural/racial trappings for being just fluff and mundanity. Yours is a juvenile response, in my estimation. Esteem yourself as you will.
People who advocate your view tend to be advocating the universality of their own values. It is implicitly supremacist and assumes the only reason people could disagree is ignorance and backwardness.
I find it equally juvenile to consider deeply engrained cultural differences to be 'fluff and mundanity'.
Ironically, to integrate diverse people into a cohesive society requires a strong common identity (religious, patriotic, local, etc)
I believe the goal should be to educate everyone as much as possible, and try to give them perspective on the meta-structures of the human realm of activity. See "what's under the hood", beyond all the arbitrary trappings we apply to ourselves in order to call ourselves "[insert label here]".
Educate people in the superiority of your culturally conditioned outlook apparently.
And that's a fun system by your estimation? Not in need of any sort of updates/changes/fixes?
No it's terrible. And where I live, such fears have occasionally broken out into severe violence.
But sense in trying to work toward otherwise, if possible, I feel. Sounds like you've given up.
No, I just think the one-size-fits-all approach is exactly the wrong way to maximise the benefits and mitigate the problems of living in a diverse, interconnected world.
And can you inform me why those immigrants felt the need to turn to crime? Were they criminals where they came from? Or, if born in the neighborhood(s) you're describing, were their parents criminals in their original home country? It is far more complicated than you are trying to make it out to be.
I love arguments like this made by people who don't actually have to live in the neighbourhoods they talk about.
If you are an 80 year old woman living alone who won't walk the streets at night, have 5 locks on your reinforced door because people keep trying kick it in to rob you, and none of your neighbours speak the same language as you let alone look out for your well-being, getting a lecture about the socio-economic causes of crime from someone who lives in a safe area isn't usually all that great a comfort.
And I would, again, argue that it is people with ideas about their precious culture exactly like yours that help to install these impedances, even if they aren't entirely aware that that is what they are doing. They think they are "preserving" or "protecting" something by keeping these "others" at bay. When, instead, everyone could simply be free from bigotry and free from being treated so differently. Free to be whoever they are culturally, just as you are free to be so right alongside them.
You do understand that many immigrant communities are amongst the most chauvinistic, and least likely to embrace progressive, tolerant values?
In many European cities, a gay person is most likely to face homophobic abuse in areas with high levels of immigration. Would such a person be a "bigot" if they were wary about mass immigration from countries that, on average, have far less progressive attitudes towards homosexuality?
Again, you are saying others should live by your cultural values, and expressing a hostility towards those who think differently to you. You seem to find your culture precious, just not extend that courtesy to others.
Here you are, basically stating that some people who come from particular countries are simply criminals, and when your neighborhood is made up of 80% these people, you can expect as a matter of simple fact that your neighborhood is going to decline and that that is all their fault. You should be ashamed of yourself.
No, that's you making things up based on your own prejudices. You clearly understand very little about my views.
