Cultural assimilation is a huge part of why America became great. Can you imagine if every single nationality/ethnicity lived in their own neighborhoods to this very day, doing business only within their own societies, participating only within their own cultural heritage?
That way lies separatism and creates an us/them mentality within the nation, and one that is very easily cued, paving the way to discrimination.
Thee is always going to be one culture that dominates a country, so trying be multicultural is pointless, but that doesn't mean people of various backgrounds can't come together under this one culture.
+all the pointsDoes this mean you'll be abandoning your minority fundamentalist Christian culture in favour of coming together under the mainstream non-fundamentalist culture?
Or put another way, you seem to be erroneously assuming that you're part of the majority which must be conformed to.
@ Aleksey
You can call it fake as much as you wish - but its still a real force. These are things that occur naturally within communities, not things that are manufactured by politicians or whatever "masterminds" you think are creating this "fake" identity Aleksey.
Things that occur naturally do not have such fancy names, multi-culturalism. Nor they are so obsessive. Nor so important for rich to propagate them.
Things that occur naturally do not have such fancy names, multi-culturalism. Nor they are so obsessive. Nor so important for rich to propagate them.
There's a difference between assimilation and integration. "Assimilation" implies that minorities are absorbed into the majority, which is evidently not the case in the United States, which probably contains more distinct ethnic groups than other country on the planet. "Integration" only implies that people are able to live comfortably besides one another.Cultural assimilation is a huge part of why America became great. Can you imagine if every single nationality/ethnicity lived in their own neighborhoods to this very day, doing business only within their own societies, participating only within their own cultural heritage?
Now we are getting some self awareness.merely the product of the minds of some idle folks
Now we are getting some self awareness.
I think one thing that is always missing from these sorts of discussions is that identity is fluid and plural: you can have multiple different identities, and can identify with multiple different cultures, flitting between them depending on which pub you're in, which friends you're with, whether you're at work, university, home, or with family, what sport's game you're watching, etc etc etc. This is one thing that feminists get right when they talk about intersectionality; though they are coming at it from a different angle, it encapsulates rather well my experience as an ethnically Indian guy who was born in South America, grew up in a middle class village in Wales, and now lives in a heavily Muslim/Bangladeshi area of East London.
Multiculturalism, to me, ought to recognise that an individual can be multicultured, too. To that end, it shouldn't, as luiz describes, try to pigeon hole people into a single culture, or claim that problems facing "people of X culture" are common to all or even a majority of that culture, or unique to that culture. I think multiculturalism is simply being agnostic towards different cultures, tolerating them, and really just not giving a rat's ass about other cultures in general. That's what multiculturalism means to me, anyway.
Well, multiculturalism is bad when its about compulsory loving foreign cultures, as luiz describes.
I think multiculturalism is simply being agnostic towards different cultures, tolerating them, and really just not giving a rat's ass about other cultures in general. That's what multiculturalism means to me, anyway.
Which sounds like a strawman tbh sitting here in very multicultural Melbourne.
taillesskangaru said:Which sounds like a strawman tbh sitting here in very multicultural Melbourne.