At this point there are basically no arguments coming from multiculturalists. Just a kind of snobbish contempt (for the people who actually must live with the consequences of these policies) and a determined naïveté. It’s striking: they make claims about other cultures that they KNOW to be untrue. But it’s fashionable, so it’s fine. As long as the West suffers in their asinine comparisons they can continue to look and feel righteous… around other multiculturalists (i.e., rich people).
A truly exquisite blend of delusion and social cowardice…
Reality needs to bite. When I was teaching one of my female colleagues was a classic liberal leftist. One parent and teacher evening she encountered the father of one of her muslim students, very middle-class, wearing a suit, well-spoken. When she stood to shake his hand he refused, saying that he would not shake hands with a woman. This stunned her, brittle illusions fell away in an instant. Next day she was still furious. She'd been struck by a reality she never suspected.
I know a woman who had similar views and experiencd the same from a student. She hasn't stopped smarting about it yet, months afterwards, and her attitude has definitely changed!
I have some American co-workers who are expats in Singapore. They seem to be quite happy there. Both are raising their families there - I suspect partly to raise them in a safe and relatively drug free environment. They have been there for years. I worked there for a while and had no problems with the location - other than it being an overgrown mall of a city. But I preferred it to Manhattan and Seattle, the other cities I have worked in as an adult.
Singapore is an interesting mix of Chinese - European (counting America as European) and Indian culture. But does it count as multicultural as you have discussed it? The environment there definitely suppresses peasant / hillbilly low cultures.
Singapore is, as the T-shirt says, a FINE place to live and for sure they don't let the riffraff in. So it's multicultural up to a point and that point is more or less the level of ethnic cuisine.
Technically Singapore is one of the most religiously diverse places on the planet, on top of being multi cultural in the “interesting ethnic food” sense. It looks like this because the government has cracked down on “third world” behaviour and sectarian politics for decades. The policies work, and they do have popular support. Which is why I suspect Western progressives typically despise Singapore. They cannot accept that Singapore style intrusiveness and harshness, is one of most effective ways to pressure immigrants from non Western cultures to conform more closely to the sort of norms that make life well, more civilised.
You're basically right, but I would put a lot of it down to time preference as well as culture. The Swiss are perfectly happy with a multicultural country composed of French, Italian, German, and Romansch speakers, but they all pretty much have low time preference, and are all basically Western.
However, the extent to which people from non-Western cultures have radically different attitudes about things like the rights of women, children, minorities, private property, etc., must also be taken into account, and that's basically ignored by the Left because the Western working class won't vote Left anymore, so they need to import replacement voters instead, and have been doing so ardently since the 1990s.
Very good summary. The proof is in the pudding, where proponents of diversity is our strength tend to live in very non-diverse areas and hang out with non-diverse people. Certainly not people with diverse views. The other ‘strength’ of diversity is its utility in clearing out one’s own culture. The Western progressive has no wish to be enriched and informed by the cultural and religious heritage now more available than ever; he just doesn’t want his own cultural and religious heritage. Maybe the fake heritage can survive, but not the other bits, especially the religious bits that get in the way of just doing whatever it is you want to do.
As someone who has immigrants among their friends and loved ones, I've had some growing pains in accepting the fact that some cultures are fundamentally incompatible and cannot coexist in the same space. Many people manage to escape the boundaries of destructive cultures and find productive and meaningful lives elsewhere, and more power to them, but they're in the minority. The majority are, ultimately, products of their root culture.
What one should do with that information is up to individual discernment. My feeling is that people moving from highly dissimilar cultures would need to be subject to increased scrutiny and pushed to assimilate to the host culture.
It's astounding the naivete of taking in so many immigrants. Walk around some areas of Germany and see groups of Muslim women covered head to foot who couldn't look more out of place, not remotely assimilated nor looking like they ever would be.
Also, as a group, US residents are violent by global developed world standards, but I suspect only a subset of Americans visit Denmark, which is why they show up as model immigrants or tourists.
Support for multiculturalism is adopted for social status, I agree. We seem to have an innate preference for altruistic or compassionate people. What's interesting is that the compassion is being extended to outgroup members and the cost is borne collectively, not by the person displaying the compassion. The virtue signaler is attempting to gain status by declaring his desire to commit the groups resources to people outside the group.
What you are describing is essentially "moral free riding".
Benefits for me - costs for thee.
This fits well into discouse about female-typical behavioural norms that Lorenzo & HelenD have covered extensively in regard to prestige vs propriety modes.
It is somewhat ironic to see immigrants bringing more conservative cultural values into Liberal western countries. Westerners complain that these foreign values interrupt their cultural norms and standards, however, it was the liberal values that they embrace which lead to the import of those illiberal migrants who won't shake hands with a woman. It seems a society can only drift so far to the left before an internal or external stimulus pushed it back rightward.
At this point there are basically no arguments coming from multiculturalists. Just a kind of snobbish contempt (for the people who actually must live with the consequences of these policies) and a determined naïveté. It’s striking: they make claims about other cultures that they KNOW to be untrue. But it’s fashionable, so it’s fine. As long as the West suffers in their asinine comparisons they can continue to look and feel righteous… around other multiculturalists (i.e., rich people).
A truly exquisite blend of delusion and social cowardice…
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/kleptocracy
Most progressive& left beliefs are fashion and always have been.
This was noticed many decades ago.
This recent quote from Rupert Lowe seems highly appropriate
"If ‘diversity’ was actually our strength, they wouldn’t have to keep telling us it is"
https://meme.aho.st/if-diversity-was-actually-our-strength/
If diversity was a strength, 🇮🇱 would be hoarding it all to themselves.
Reality needs to bite. When I was teaching one of my female colleagues was a classic liberal leftist. One parent and teacher evening she encountered the father of one of her muslim students, very middle-class, wearing a suit, well-spoken. When she stood to shake his hand he refused, saying that he would not shake hands with a woman. This stunned her, brittle illusions fell away in an instant. Next day she was still furious. She'd been struck by a reality she never suspected.
I know a woman who had similar views and experiencd the same from a student. She hasn't stopped smarting about it yet, months afterwards, and her attitude has definitely changed!
At some point like that reality snaps and “diversity is our strength” flips to "diversity became our weakness".
Yet she no doubt championed. This is the reality in France in 2026.
I have some American co-workers who are expats in Singapore. They seem to be quite happy there. Both are raising their families there - I suspect partly to raise them in a safe and relatively drug free environment. They have been there for years. I worked there for a while and had no problems with the location - other than it being an overgrown mall of a city. But I preferred it to Manhattan and Seattle, the other cities I have worked in as an adult.
Singapore is an interesting mix of Chinese - European (counting America as European) and Indian culture. But does it count as multicultural as you have discussed it? The environment there definitely suppresses peasant / hillbilly low cultures.
Singapore is, as the T-shirt says, a FINE place to live and for sure they don't let the riffraff in. So it's multicultural up to a point and that point is more or less the level of ethnic cuisine.
Technically Singapore is one of the most religiously diverse places on the planet, on top of being multi cultural in the “interesting ethnic food” sense. It looks like this because the government has cracked down on “third world” behaviour and sectarian politics for decades. The policies work, and they do have popular support. Which is why I suspect Western progressives typically despise Singapore. They cannot accept that Singapore style intrusiveness and harshness, is one of most effective ways to pressure immigrants from non Western cultures to conform more closely to the sort of norms that make life well, more civilised.
Lord Finkelstein- is tribal.
He’s a tribesman.
We just went through a refresher clinic on tribes;
No one outside the tribe is human. Possibly outside the village.
There’s no point in appealing to morality or pointing out hypocrisy, you are not human.
You are talking uppity livestock. Any tribe, although some haven’t codified that everyone else is livestock.
None of this is new or secret. Never was.
You're basically right, but I would put a lot of it down to time preference as well as culture. The Swiss are perfectly happy with a multicultural country composed of French, Italian, German, and Romansch speakers, but they all pretty much have low time preference, and are all basically Western.
However, the extent to which people from non-Western cultures have radically different attitudes about things like the rights of women, children, minorities, private property, etc., must also be taken into account, and that's basically ignored by the Left because the Western working class won't vote Left anymore, so they need to import replacement voters instead, and have been doing so ardently since the 1990s.
Very good summary. The proof is in the pudding, where proponents of diversity is our strength tend to live in very non-diverse areas and hang out with non-diverse people. Certainly not people with diverse views. The other ‘strength’ of diversity is its utility in clearing out one’s own culture. The Western progressive has no wish to be enriched and informed by the cultural and religious heritage now more available than ever; he just doesn’t want his own cultural and religious heritage. Maybe the fake heritage can survive, but not the other bits, especially the religious bits that get in the way of just doing whatever it is you want to do.
As someone who has immigrants among their friends and loved ones, I've had some growing pains in accepting the fact that some cultures are fundamentally incompatible and cannot coexist in the same space. Many people manage to escape the boundaries of destructive cultures and find productive and meaningful lives elsewhere, and more power to them, but they're in the minority. The majority are, ultimately, products of their root culture.
What one should do with that information is up to individual discernment. My feeling is that people moving from highly dissimilar cultures would need to be subject to increased scrutiny and pushed to assimilate to the host culture.
Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism) also opposed all forms of nationalism except her own, Zionism.
Japan on that graph 😂😂
Well said - this, EXACTLY.
It's astounding the naivete of taking in so many immigrants. Walk around some areas of Germany and see groups of Muslim women covered head to foot who couldn't look more out of place, not remotely assimilated nor looking like they ever would be.
It is remarkable how the violent crime stats line up with the home-country's general economic growth and prosperity.
Some outliers---Kuwaitis are very violent in Denmark (but sit on huge pots of oil at home).
Argentina's economy is struggling, but evidently Argentines are model immigrants.
And everybody's favorite nation of Japan, the very best immigrants, who likely upgrade where they go.
When it comes to economic growth and national prosperity---culture is king?
Should Chapter 1 in Econ 101 texts be about culture?
It is hard to separate culture from incentives as culture affects how you cognitively map significance.
It's also hard to separate culture from genetics.
The "Kuwaitis" in Denmark are probably Palestinians that got kicked out by Kuwait.
I wondered about that.
Also, as a group, US residents are violent by global developed world standards, but I suspect only a subset of Americans visit Denmark, which is why they show up as model immigrants or tourists.
violence in the US, by racial group is not much different than the rest of the developed world
Support for multiculturalism is adopted for social status, I agree. We seem to have an innate preference for altruistic or compassionate people. What's interesting is that the compassion is being extended to outgroup members and the cost is borne collectively, not by the person displaying the compassion. The virtue signaler is attempting to gain status by declaring his desire to commit the groups resources to people outside the group.
What you are describing is essentially "moral free riding".
Benefits for me - costs for thee.
This fits well into discouse about female-typical behavioural norms that Lorenzo & HelenD have covered extensively in regard to prestige vs propriety modes.
It is somewhat ironic to see immigrants bringing more conservative cultural values into Liberal western countries. Westerners complain that these foreign values interrupt their cultural norms and standards, however, it was the liberal values that they embrace which lead to the import of those illiberal migrants who won't shake hands with a woman. It seems a society can only drift so far to the left before an internal or external stimulus pushed it back rightward.
Diversity is division. A house divided cannot stand.