Multiculturalism vs Melting pot

Hard Truth said:

How should that be enforced?

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This is a thread about preferences, not forced obedience.

If the really bad stuff burns off while cooking, melting pot on the important stuff, and multicultural on the flavoring (like entertainment and cuisine and style).

Variety is great on everything except things like oh, variety of how we treat human rights, or allow economic freedom, etc.

Peter Grimm said:

I am for multiculturalism and I think anyone who wants people to assimilate in to a "melting pot" is actually racist or just xenophobic on some level. We shouldn't kowtow to racists and bigots, nor should we kowtow to fear and xenophobes (I'm looking at you, Arizona).

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Nationalism and xenophobia can go hand-in-hand. That being said, nationalism is good. The melting pot concept is actually quite damned liberal, really. It somehow suggests that groups of foreigners can come together and join the collective, free from the labels of the past, seen as equals. That doesn't seem to be a national motto all that often elsewhere. At least, that was half​ the intention. The other half was certainly less than glamorous.

Canell said:

Please, choose sides. :notlook:

I for one who wants different cultures but I also think they should stay apart, not mix together in a Tower of Babylon. For example, If one wants to imigrate to a country, one should adopt the culture, not try to impose his/hers on the locals. What do you think?

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I think America being known as the melting pot of the world was still valid in the 1990's. My wife who became a naturalized citizen around 1996 was taught that there were no hyphenated Americans at that time, that regardless of race, religion, color, creed, where one came from that we are all Americans. That question was on her test she took.

I think since then the hyphenation of Americans have tended to segregate us. That it has emphasized the differences in us instead of uniting us. Abraham Lincoln once said a house divided will not stand. That is exactly what is happening to America today, we are being divided and one race is pitted against another.

Sure it should not be expected for those who just arrived in this country to not retain the language and customs of the country they came from. But by the second generation that generation will have become more American than whatever country they came from and by the third generation, completely American. I like to think as a melting pot, we take the best from where ever and get rid of the bad. That the American culture is ever changing and improving by the newly arrived. By dividing us into segments of Multiculturalism and the hyphenation we are achieving an unforced form of apartied.

Perotista said:

I think America being known as the melting pot of the world was still valid in the 1990's. My wife who became a naturalized citizen around 1996 was taught that there were no hyphenated Americans at that time, that regardless of race, religion, color, creed, where one came from that we are all Americans. That question was on her test she took.

I think since then the hyphenation of Americans have tended to segregate us. That it has emphasized the differences in us instead of uniting us. Abraham Lincoln once said a house divided will not stand. That is exactly what is happening to America today, we are being divided and one race is pitted against another.

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Which is rather interesting really. In the 1980s and 1990s, multiculturalism was all the rage, either for or against. That's why I am somewhat amused when I read "I think since then," when in fact the "since then" was a while before she took that examination.

Fiddytree said:

Nationalism and xenophobia can go hand-in-hand. That being said, nationalism is good. The melting pot concept is actually quite damned liberal, really. It somehow suggests that groups of foreigners can come together and join the collective, free from the labels of the past, seen as equals. That doesn't seem to be a national motto all that often elsewhere. At least, that was half​ the intention. The other half was certainly less than glamorous.

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Well whatever it is, I don't like it. If we're talking about adults, then they have the right to speak whatever language they want, vote however they want, take whatever job they want, dress however they want, etc.

The idea that they should assimilate to some arbitrary norm is patronizing and robs them of their god-given dignity.

Peter Grimm said:

Well whatever it is, I don't like it. If we're talking about adults, then they have the right to speak whatever language they want, vote however they want, take whatever job they want, dress however they want, etc.

The idea that they should assimilate to some arbitrary norm is patronizing and robs them of their god-given dignity.

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Part of it is patronizing. That's the whole point. Each nation-state you visit damned well better think that it is unique, carries with it an identity that you have to belong to in order to fit in. Mainstream multiculturalists in the United States have hardly removed themselves from that notion. All they did was modify it to a small extent.

Fiddytree said:

Part of it is patronizing. That's the whole point. Each nation-state you visit damned well better think that it is unique, carries with it an identity that you have to belong to in order to fit in.

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"Fitting in" is pretty low on my priority list. Any attempt to force me to "fit in" via legislation is immoral and against natural law.

And that goes for every other immigrant as well.... Mexican, European, African, Asian, etc.

Cephus said:

This is a thread about preferences, not forced obedience.

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Ought it become socially expected? If so, then that is enforcement.

Peter Grimm said:

"Fitting in" is pretty low on my priority list. Any attempt to force me to "fit in" via legislation is immoral and against natural law.

And that goes for every other immigrant as well.... Mexican, European, African, Asian, etc.

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They don't have to do it by legislation. They do it by culture. Whether the marketplace is English, the absorption of the national holidays, the speeches, the mythology of the country. It's all part of the abstract attempt to foster a collective identity, which in part is done to modify or remove certain previous societal preferences. It's hardly sinister. It just is.

Cephus said:

100% melting pot. There should be no multiculturalism whatsoever. People need to come together, take the best parts of various cultures and put them together into a superior whole.

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Good luck with that. You know who else talked like that? The Nazis. Mind the company you keep.

Peter Grimm said:

Good luck with that. You know who else talked like that? The Nazis. Mind the company you keep.

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Except they didn't. That whole Germanic supremacy thing didn't encourage other cultures to contribute to the Reich.

Canell said:

Please, choose sides. :notlook:

I for one who wants different cultures but I also think they should stay apart, not mix together in a Tower of Babylon. For example, If one wants to imigrate to a country, one should adopt the culture, not try to impose his/hers on the locals. What do you think?

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I think that you're hoping for an impossibility. Nothing short of an event that ends all mass media (most especially the internet) and slows international travel to a crawl can stop the mixing of the cultures. And that's the way it's always been - when people moved to a different nation, they tended to go where there were people like themselves. That's how we got Chinatowns and Little Italys and Little Havanas and even an occasional Little Mogadishu.

But you really shouldn't gripe about the mixing of the cultures, because English is now the international language. There's over two hundred people in China who are learning English (if poorly) as you read this. Most nations have their traffic signs in major cities in both the local language and English...and often just in English. In fact, it is normal for English to be taught in elementary schools in much of the world.

And it's not just the spread of the English language. When I go overseas to major cities, I can find almost any American fast-food joint I want (though they're often changed to fit the local expectations of flavor, such as the sweeter meat of the burgers in Manila). Starbuck's is almost everywhere. And in Manila, when you dial 9111111 (like we would if we're REALLY in danger here in America) you get - wait for it - Pizza Hut. And I'm not making any of this up.

So it's really unrealistic to hope that the cultures would not mix - they simply will, especially given the advance of mass media and travel. No one could stop it if they tried, short of a general thermonuclear exchange. I would suggest, then, to adapt, and to learn to enjoy the ride.

Fiddytree said:

They don't have to do it by legislation. They do it by culture. Whether the marketplace is English, the absorption of the national holidays, the speeches, the mythology of the country. It's all part of the abstract attempt to foster a collective identity, which in part is done to modify or remove certain previous societal preferences. It's hardly sinister. It just is.

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I have first hand knowledge and experience with this, so let me share some examples.

When I was 6 years old and growing up in Colorado, my teacher asked my mom to come and speak to the class about Sweden and our different customs and all of that. She did. A few days later, as I was going to sit with my friends for lunch, one of the kids stood up and said "Only AMERICANS are allowed to eat here." Everyone else joined in, and I had to eat lunch by myself.

Luckily, kids have short memories and by the next day I was hanging out and eating lunch with my friends again. Turns out what had happened is my friend had gone home talking about Sweden, and his redneck dad told him "America is the greatest country on earth" and the kid took it the wrong way... and the other kids were just following the ring leader.

As a kid, I always felt embarrassed by my parents accent and I never wanted them to speak Swedish in public. I hated feeling so different from everyone else and I was jealous of all the kids who were just normal Americans.

When I was 15, my family moved from Colorado to Chile in South America. I was easily a head taller than everyone else, and clearly there was a racial difference too. I can't say it was all bad - the girls loved me and everybody treated me like I had money even if I didn't - but EVERYONE treated me like an outsider. It culminated one evening when I was outside waiting in line for a concert with a couple of my hispanic American friends when a gang of Chileans came up to me "Oye GRINGO!"

I was jumped by 10+ thugs just because of the color of my skin and because I was speaking English. I fought my way out of it but not before fracturing a couple bones and getting cut up pretty good.

When I was 17, my family and I moved back to Sweden. You would think that would be a good thing, but having left Sweden at the age of 3 I had an accent, and I couldn't read or write at my grade level in that language. So rather than attend a Swedish public school I attended a school largely populated by British expats. There, it was not the other students who gave me a hard time, but the teachers. The way our classes were structured, I had the same 5 teachers for my two years there. My English teacher was british and must have had a personal vendetta against Americans because he took to correcting my pronunciation whenever I said anything in an American accent. He also marked off any time I spelled something the American way (example "gray" instead of "grey," "color" instead of "colour," "tire" instead of "tyre" etc) and so I had a difficult time making it through his class.

When I complained and said I needed good grades to get in to college, he simply said "If you colonials want to spell TYRE incorrectly you can do it on our own continent."


You see, it's a dirty aspect of human nature but whether you're American, Chilean, or European, people don't like outsiders.

Well, I don't like people who mistreat outsiders.

I've since grown up, and I've come to embrace my Swedish heritage, my height, my strength, my American spelling, and everything people tried to beat out of me when I was growing up. Those things are part of what make me who I am and I wouldn't give them up for anything.

I have a special place in my heart for Mexican migrants and for the immigrants in Europe who come from Africa and other places because I understand what they go through. I want so see them treated with dignity and I wish them the same success I have had.

Fiddytree said:

Which is rather interesting really. In the 1980s and 1990s, multiculturalism was all the rage, either for or against. That's why I am somewhat amused when I read "I think since then," when in fact the "since then" was a while before she took that examination.

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It very well could be. But for the most part I didn't see it.

Peter Grimm said:

Good luck with that. You know who else talked like that? The Nazis. Mind the company you keep.

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The Nazis were Christians. Mind the company you keep. :roll:

Cephus said:

The Nazis were Christians. Mind the company you keep. :roll:

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Your personal allergy to revelation notwithstanding, it wouldn't have worked anyway. Nazi's don't like consolidating non-Germanic cultures into Nazi society.

Cephus said:

The Nazis were Christians. Mind the company you keep. :roll:

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LOL no they weren't. When did Jesus say "love thy neighbor, and then put him in a concentration camp."

Oh that's right, he didn't.

I see the point in the OP of parent cultures being displaced, and I don't think it has to do with the method but rather the speed of immigration. Really, in most developed places, immigration has no rhyme or reason. Globalization has caused a huge influx of foreigners into the more prosperous regions, without adequate time to let the parent cultures adjust. It's really quite disruptive.

I think it's a little of both.

The social base - "freedom, justice, and the American Way" LOL! - has to stay pretty homogeneous or we're no longer a country. (That's not to say there's can't be gradual change!) Everyone has to believe in and accept the same basic principles of freedom and law because that's our foundation in the West.


But things like clothing and music styles, slang words and concepts, various social traditions and social "myths" (like hanging lights through the winter solstice or knock on wood) - we can all learn from that. Also, having those things around us teaches tolerance, another good thing for a civilized society or it ends up xenophobic and stagnate.

Hard Truth said:

I have never heard of a liberal defend or advocate tolerance (for example) for a wife beater in the USA because that was the custom in his homeland. That is a false claim.

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I made no claim that liberals did this.I said multiculturalist leftists. You are awfully confused if you think the two are the same.

Hard Truth said:

A liberal will argue that keeping an immigrant from beating his wife when that was acceptable back home requires a respectful and culturally sensitive approach to be most effective.

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An actual liberal would view the dynamic in terms of power,and would do all in their power to protect the chattel from abuse at the hands of her owner. It was not "cultural sensitivity" shown slave owners that ended the practice of slavery, and only multiculturalists prattle on about showing cultural sensitivity towards the oppressor instead of doing anything about it by way of holding accountable those engaging in it.

Hard Truth said:

Liberals will also argue that invading or dominating another nation and forcefully imposing our customs, even if they are more enlightened, is not a good approach because it is likely to create a backlash. It is best to quietly and sensitively use non-profit advocacy to encourage positive change within the other country as much as possible. In some cases, sanctions and/or political pressure should be used to prevent major human rights violations, force/violence is rarely the most effective way to change other cultures, it should be reserved for genocide level atrocities.

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Multiculturalism has nothing to do with what happens outside a country,only what happens within. Foreign policy discussions are off topic here.

Peter Grimm said:

LOL no they weren't. When did Jesus say "love thy neighbor, and then put him in a concentration camp."

Oh that's right, he didn't.

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Jesus didn't say fondle the little boys either, but alas....

Not just a melting pot, but slowly cooking melting pot. Only the third or fourth generation can be 100% American.

loader said:

Not just a melting pot, but slowly cooking melting pot. Only the third or fourth generation can be 100% American.

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Every American citizen is 100% American. Just because they don't talk, look, or act like you doesn't mean they're any less "American" than you are.

Fiddytree said:

Jesus didn't say fondle the little boys either, but alas....

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I don't have time for this kind of bigotry. Certain people are just going to be hateful I guess...