Diversity And Distrust

Robert Putnam, of Bowling Alone fame, has done new research showing that “that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.” [HatTip to Steve Sailer]

The core message of the research was that, “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he said. “We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”

Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, “the most diverse human habitation in human history”, but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where “diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians’ picnic”.

Of course these findings are not really new; they fill the literature of organizational management, as in this, for example, from 1998:

don’t know that conflict as a general phenomenon is on the increase. There has always been conflict over scarce resources, for example. However, I do know that the workplace is becoming increasingly diverse, and diverse people by their very nature have more differences than a homogeneous group. This certainly creates more opportunity for conflict.

These findings, or observations, comport well with what many people regard as an irony: the elite campuses that demonstrate the most abject devotion to “diversity” are often the campuses with the most racial conflict and contention. Here, I suspect, however, that it is not so much the fact of diversity that causes the conflict as that making a fetish of it tends to make all those groups brought in to provide the “diversity” acutely aware that are regarded not only as “different” but as victims. It magnifies chips on shoulders into veritable log-sized planks in various platforms of discontent.

Say What? (12)

  1. Hull October 11, 2006 at 8:50 am | | Reply

    Well, I’m convinced. We should just go back to segregation.

    I anxiously await the next studies that show that Blacks were better off enslaved and that Jews really benefited from the Holocaust.

  2. John Rosenberg October 11, 2006 at 10:45 am | | Reply

    Well, I’m convinced. We should just go back to segregation.

    Oh, now I get it. Our choice is between racial classifcation, racial assignment, racial monitoring to make sure we have the right mix of all races everywhere … or segregation.

    I had missed that before.

    I anxiously await the next studies that show that Blacks were better off enslaved and that Jews really benefited from the Holocaust.

    I dunno, Hull. Your arguments are getting a little vague. It’s hard to tell what you really think of the people who disagree with you. Maybe you could be a little more emphatic next time, maybe even considering claiming something a little over the top just to make your point. Asserting that people who believe in colorblind racial equality are like slaveowners or Nazis is just so mundane these days….

  3. Shouting Thomas October 11, 2006 at 10:58 am | | Reply

    Hull, when I was younger I tried to live in black communities. I discovered that blacks really don’t want whites living in their communities. Well, some of them did, but it only takes a few thugs who threaten (and sometimes attack) your children on a daily basis to convince you that you might be better off living among your own kind.

    When I read your comments, and those of Cobra, I find myself astounded that you elevate abstract idealism about race above the reality of practical experience.

    People choose, I think, to live among their own kind because they feel safer and they communicate better. Blacks aren’t any different than whites in this respect in my experience.

    What you, and Cobra, seem to be insistently proposing is that the government force people to live in integrated communities when they simply don’t want to do this. Nor do most people want to send their children across town to satisfy your ideal of racial integration.

    Are you willing to subject your children to the endemic violence of inner city black neighborhoods to satisfy the abstract ideal of integration? If not, you are just blowing hot air.

    I actually tried when I was much younger to place my children in an inner city school. I had to pull them out to save them from the daily threat of physical assault by black gangs. Does this mean that I’m in favor of a return to segregation and Jim Crow?

    Do you have any practical experience in making personal sacrifices toward this ideal of integration, or is this something that you are proposing for other people?

  4. Dom October 11, 2006 at 11:42 am | | Reply

    Hull, John beat me to the punch, but I was about to ask if you are commenting on the wrong post. What in the post, or the original article, makes you think anyone prefers segregation?

    The article goes a long way in explaining a fairly constant phenomenon: That Daisy Lundy and others, or the constant yelping for sensitivity programs, always occurs in settings that force a racial balance.

  5. Hull October 11, 2006 at 11:42 am | | Reply

    Your post and the study you cite argue that: “The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined,” because “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down.”

    Similarly, one could argue that the effect of emancipation is worse than had been imagined because in the presence of emancipation we [fill in the blank negative term that effects society – hunker down; argue; have conflict; riots etc.]

    Along the same lines: the effect of ending the Holocaust is worse than had been imagined because in the process of ending the Holocaust we [fill in the blank negative term that effects society – hunker down; argue; have conflict; zionism; Jewish lobby, etc.]

    Both points share the same flawed logic as your post and the study you cite.

    You and your cohorts are better off arguing for your so-called “colorblind racial equality.” Arguing against diversity is foolish on its face and easily dismissed. Is diversity a bad thing in your stock portfolio? Is stock diversity “worse than had been imagined”? How about when choosing a mate? Is diversity a bad thing when choosing a mate? I think people with Tay Sachs or Sickle Cell Anemia might beg to differ. What about in argiculture?

    http://www.new-agri.co.uk/01-1/perspect.html

    Also, the fact that I disagree with people or use a strongly worded analogy does not show “what I really think of people who disagree with me.”

  6. Dom October 11, 2006 at 5:21 pm | | Reply

    Why in the world did you link to an agricultural article on a post like this? “Diversity” in agriculture has nothing to do with “Diversity” in racial quotas. (I hope I never have to write that sentence again.)

  7. Anita October 11, 2006 at 5:55 pm | | Reply

    Powerline (a blog) has a peice about muslim cab drivers refusing to pick up passengers that have liquor with them because it is against islam. Diversity is not just a matter of looks. It is a matter of different habits. all our ideas about diversity, liberal ideas, are based on the idea that we are all the same. But we are not all the same. As we can see, everyone does not have the same attitude towards religion, that it should be live and let live and about tolerance, etc. when liberals talk about diversity, they assume that there are certain proper values, such as tolerance, that we all share no matter how diverse we are in other ways. but tolerance is a value of some cultures, not of all. So diversity demands that we tolerate intolerance – just one more crazy example from the diversity school

  8. David Nieporent October 12, 2006 at 1:53 am | | Reply

    Your post and the study you cite argue that: “The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined,” because “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down.”

    Similarly, one could argue that the effect of emancipation is worse than had been imagined because in the presence of emancipation we [fill in the blank negative term that effects society – hunker down; argue; have conflict; riots etc.]

    The difference is that the only argument for diversity is utilitarian: it supposedly provides all these benefits. If in fact it doesn’t, then the idea that there’s a compelling government interest in diversity flies out the window.

    On the other hand, emancipation is an inherent good, which needs no further justification.

  9. Cobra October 12, 2006 at 8:00 am | | Reply

    David writes:

    >>>”On the other hand, emancipation is an inherent good, which needs no further justification.”

    Then why did emancipation take so long? Why did America ignore an “inherent good?” Why was there such an opposition to emancipation to the point where people were willing to die to prevent it?

    Robert Putnam writes:

    >>>”Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, “the most diverse human habitation in human history”, but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where “diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians’ picnic”.”

    I find this line very intriguing, because, despite the spin my anti-affirmative action type friends here want to put on it, Putnam goes beyond RACIAL diversity in his theory. If Swedes (Northern European Whites) don’t trust Norwegians (Northern Eurpean Whites), and they’re practically indistinguishable physically, the AAA types argument AGAINST diversity programs fly apart.

    In fact, I would wager that a VAST majority of the anti-diversity comments expressed here would dry up quick if the White Anglo Saxon hegemony in America showed the SAME LEVEL of derision and discrimination against non-WASP whites that their forefathers did in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.

    It’s a matter of whose ox is being gored, IMHO.

    –Cobra

  10. Hull October 12, 2006 at 9:39 am | | Reply

    Shouting Thomas said:

    “Do you have any practical experience in making personal sacrifices toward this ideal of integration, or is this something that you are proposing for other people?”

    Sir, I live in an extremely “urban” section of a large city on the East coast. Whites, Blacks (mostly Blacks), Asians, and Latinos live in my neighborhood and since I’ve been living there, things have been fine. I have attended schools that were dominated by one race and schools that were far more ethnically diverse. Same in the workplace.

    I admit that there are occasions when I feel unsafe or I worry about my girlfriend. But I’d take that any day over living in some homogeneous suburb.

    As for compelling diversity: If schools choose to hold diversity as a goal that is the school’s choice. Just like emphasizing athletics or religion is the school’s choice. That choice is not compelled and there are several school options available to you if you want to be with people of your own group (yeshivas, HBCUs, schools in places where very few minorities live).

    Diversity in your living communities: I don’t care where you live or who you choose to live around. You can live wherever you want. I have never argued that anyone should be forced to live anywhere.

    Diversity in the workplace: Yes, I think diversity in the workplace should be a goal that employers strive for. I don’t place it higher than the goal of achieving whatever ends your business must achieve but I think employers should try to include minorities (including Black owned businesses reaching out to other races).

    If you choose to live in your echo chamber, homogeneous, communities by all means go right ahead, but don’t try to act like diversity itself is the cause of distrust or animosity among people.

  11. Hull October 12, 2006 at 9:50 am | | Reply

    Also this:

    “The difference is that the only argument for diversity is utilitarian: it supposedly provides all these benefits. If in fact it doesn’t, then the idea that there’s a compelling government interest in diversity flies out the window.

    On the other hand, emancipation is an inherent good, which needs no further justification.”

    That’s your opinion. Your point about diversity could (foolishly) be applied to emancipation as well: there may be negative consequences to emancipation or to diversity, that does not make either an unworthy pursuit. That was the point of my initial post.

    I think diversity is an inherent good.

  12. Shouting Thomas October 12, 2006 at 10:49 pm | | Reply

    “If you choose to live in your echo chamber, homogeneous, communities by all means go right ahead, but don’t try to act like diversity itself is the cause of distrust or animosity among people.”

    Perhaps, Hull, you should go back and carefully read what I have said. You are obviously a young man. The arrogance of your remarks is characteristic of a young man.

    I live primarily in Jersey City. Perhaps you should do some research on the demographics of that town.

    I am a blues musician. I’ve played with black musicians since I was 12 years old.

    You have not said whether you have children. If you do not, you should think carefully before you condemn people who are trying to make the best choices for their children.

    Maybe diversity is a good thing for you. Has it occurred to you that others might want to live in a different way than you do? Why are you so concerned with forcing others to live as you want?

    I once (when I was in my 20s) was quick to judge middle class Americans, just as you are. How wrong I was! Middle class Americans, particularly white Americans, are the fairest, most conscientious and most charitable people who have ever walked the face of this earth.

    I strongly suggest that you learn to temper you rhetoric until you are old enough to have better judgment. You are intoxicated with your own self-righteousness.

    I live part time in Woodstock, NY. Halo preening is the poison of the left. I know. I’ve been around it for 35 years.

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