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Multiculturalism vs Melting pot

Multiculturalism or Melting pot?

  • Multiculturalism

    Votes: 4 12.1%
  • Melting pot

    Votes: 21 63.6%
  • I can't make up my mind

    Votes: 1 3.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 7 21.2%

  • Total voters
    33

Canell

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The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture. It is particularly used to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the United States;[SUP][/SUP] the melting-together metaphor was in use by the 1780s.[SUP] [/SUP][SUP][/SUP]
After 1970 the desirability of assimilation and the melting pot model was challenged by proponents of multiculturalism[SUP][/SUP][SUP][/SUP] who assert that cultural differences within society are valuable and should be preserved, proposing the alternative metaphor of the mosaic, salad bowl, or "American Kaleidoscope"—different cultures mix, but remain distinct.

Source: Wikipedia

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 don't think the way people see multiculturalism today is correct. I think multiculturalism today is basically the same as a melting pot, which also doesn't work or rather, if it does work, it comes with massive social disadvantages and social strife as different people, in an effort to gain some identity as a group, maximize superficial differences versus substance differences, so superficial differences become "oh so important" while the real kind of differences, substance differences, become irrelevant or undesirable all together.

To give an example of what I want to say. If you as a multiculti moron today, what is more diverse? A group of 5 people that are all of different races or a group of 5 people that are all the same race, he'll say: the group that is of different races ; because that is in his mind, the diverse one, and that is superficial differences. the correct way to go about it is to ask "well what do each of those people do in each group and what do they believe in?" And then I can say: Well in the one of different races, they're all 5 people of different races but are all web designers with the same training and aptitude, atheists and socialists (let's say) but in the other group of one race, each of them is a doctor who is a christian and a liberal, the other is a mechanical engineer who is an environmentalist, the other is a psychologist who is an atheist, the other is a electronical engineer etc. You get the point, people of different backgrounds, truthfully unique in all their opinions and knowledge who can complement one another and have some interesting dicussions. Those would be the group I would rather be friends with or go out with a beer with. ofc, this is an analogy, a metaphor for what I am trying to say.

So the first group is a multiculti dream because multiculti people are idiots, the 2nd group is the correct form of multiculturalism in the sense, that diversity is good but the correct kind of diversity. You want to have diversity with substance behind it, not just for show, not just for flash. When you do that, you get the wrong kind of multiculturalism, what I call multi-culti because it seems like a fanatical cult that worships multitude for the sake of multitude. And you get tensions and you get social strife and radicalism on all sides because that's just what you get.

Now John Cleese isn't someone I care about when he isn't doing comedy or bashing americans for their silly belief that american football is actually football... so that's why my comment is not related to his comment. It's just my opinion on the whole thing about multiculturalism. You find multiculturalism everywhere in the world, the world is truely a multicultural place but you don't experience another culture by importing people who contribute nothing to their culture en mass. People who do gap the cultural bridge and enhance both societies by doing so are people who have an affinity for their own culture. So great chefs, artists, poets, writers, comedians, all the people who have an affinity to their own society where they were born and raised in, and can attune to the new one they moved to and bring some of their talent and put it to good use.

In other words, if you want to eat indian cuisine, you don't import 1000 indians from India, you bring just 1 who can cook good indian food and have him open a restaurant. Ofc, I don't know why you would want to kill your toilet on a regular basis but w/e, to each his own.
Same with chinesse food, not fast food chinesse food, the other kind. Import a few people who know how to cook it properly and they'll be successful and bridge the gap between nations and people. And more so, if you want to experience the whole chinesse culture, don't import 1.000.000 chinesse, go to China and experience the real thing, the whole package and take in as much as you can, then come home, and tell your friends how fascinating it is. And as more and more people go to China and experience Chinesse society and all that, and as Chinesse grow more familiar with your people, a relationship of trust and friendship and mutual benefit is formed and when people of some artistic talent travel, they bring back to their society more than you and I can. Tourism, traveling... these are the real and only ways in which culture grows and enhances and in which people understand one another better and form better ties and things grow. Not mass immigration of the plebes.


Now ofc, those are exotic examples. Europe is blessed with dozens of unique and varied and intersting societies and cultures and for centuries it has been under the correct way of multiculturalism. That's why you had artistic currents flow through all of Europe, bringing unique expressions of themselves in each nation. The Baroque is different in Italy than it is in Spain or in England. The Romanticism current has brought many literary and poetic geniouses to bring to life countless works of art that defined and enriched each nation and people... etc.

A lot to say...

tl;dr: multiculturalism as it is practiced today is BS, it's not multiculturalism and it's mostly bad, it's multiculti nightmare. Multiculturalism, the real thing, has always existed and is an organic process and it doesn't destroy or shallows a society, but enriches it. Cornershop culture (bunch of people isolating themselves to turn their neighborhood/street into a ghetto) is detrimental and only serves to create social disharmony and tensions and needs to stop.
 
I am for multiculturalism but the parent culture has more dominance in terms of law and order, constitution, military, etc. By dominance I mean the values of the parent culture should prevail at the cost of the values immigrant culture.

Not entirely assimilation for they get to keep their culture. It just is not supported from the majority of the parent culture related to key government pillars.
 
My parents were immigrants. I believe in the melting pot, they integrated very nicely into the American culture and did not lose their identity. They also didn't expect everyone around them to pay any special respect to their cultural heritage.
 
The question is slightly silly one, imho. These are not two alternative options. A nation or community doesn't take a vote on whether to be one or the other. I see multiculturalism and assimilation as stages in the development of a society. Migrants on arrival in a new home tend to hang on to their own culture, especially if they feel themselves to be vulnerable, and possibly even more so if they moved because they were forcibly displaced. That seems normal from an anthropological point of view. Often cultural practices are one of the very few things migrants are able to bring with them.

With time the migrant community and the host community will interact and both will find their cultures being influenced one by the other, and changing as a result. During the early stages of interaction the country or region where the interaction takes place will be, to a greater or lesser extent, multicultural and it behoves both hosts and arrivals to work for peaceful and cordial co-existence. As time progresses, the society that is built will naturally become an amalgam of the aspects of the cultures that have interacted. It will naturally, no great political force or effort needed, become a melting pot. Assimilation will occur, after all you cannot force people to assimilate; examples of places where this has been tried proves the impossibility of it.

The problem that lies in this kind of discussion is that people will always want their own culture, the one that they grew up with and with which they are familiar, to dominate and see alterations in it, as caused by the effects of newer arrivals, as something negative. Sometimes they might be negative, and sometimes the process of adaptation and assimilation will be less than peaceful, certainly rarely without problems. Recognising the inevitability of social change would be a good first step towards a society coming to terms with and peacefully co-existing in a time of rapid evolution and when migration and mobility are at an all-time high.

No doubt there are those who would prefer that all peoples remain where they are born, that migration never happened, but it always has and it always will.
 
These are not two alternative options.

OK, AB, let's talk African Americans. Once upon a time, before they ancestors were taken to America, they didn't know a single word in English and spoke their native African languages. Today their mother tongue is English and virtually all those African languages are forgotten. They have blended into American culture, if we presume that language and religion are primer identities.
Let's talk Turks in Germany now, more than 2 million, if I recall correctly. They have been there for what, 50+ years? Have they blended? Generally speaking, no. They keep their mother tongue and probably will continue to do so. They keep their religion. I'm talking people who are born and grew up there in Germany.
You know what they say, when in Rome, do like the Romans. :peace
 
It is the same thing just different phases of immigration. Multiculturalism happens at the start and overtime (70+ years) it becomes a melting pot. Look at the US. When the Irish and Italians came they were not very welcome and actually hated, and multiculturalism happened. You had Irish and Italian cultures in various ghettos around the US, surrounded by the local culture. Fast forward 100 years and the Irish and Italian cultures have melted into the over all US culture and become part of it.. aka a melting pot.
 
Multiculturalism has a great many meanings, everything from a sort of relativistic angle to a newer form of cultural pluralism. Despite the necessity for some of multiculturalism's viewpoints, I am mostly in agreement with the notion of the melting pot. The problem is that there is a large degree of exaggeration as to the extent America was a melting pot. The public emphasis was toward "the new race" but that did not necessarily mean ethnicities actually followed it.
 
I believe the key to either option is choice.

If a person chooses to change their lifestyle when they move, great. If they choose not to, and cling to their language and traditions, great.

The only time it's a problem is when there is a conflict, and we have some pretty clear laws about what needs to be respected, and what doesn't.

Things like special diet and clothing should respected, unless there are specific reason why this isn't possible. Religion-based social laws only matter if they can be passed by the secular government.

If the rules don't cover the situation, that's why we have courts.
 
Multiculturalism as a political doctrine is predicated upon double standards and these double standards are a product of overcompensation brought on by guilt. Instead of the same standards being applied to all people, multiculturalist dogma demands that different standards apply to some, and inevitably these double standards support practices that are extremely illiberal in nature. It is really quite racialist when it gets right down to it as certain groups are afforded greater leeway when it comes to their lack of respect for human rights.

What galls me is the Orwellian nature of the multiculturalist leftists being the chief impediment to the advancement of human rights to all people by supporting knuckle-dragging backwardness that is so extremely conservative in nature as to be off the charts. Hypocrites all.
 
OK, AB, let's talk African Americans. They have blended into American culture, if we presume that language and religion are primer identities.

They've created their own distinct culture, separate from other people with the same religion and language.
 
I'm not much for this 'all or nothing' crap when it comes to these bipolar disCUSSions.

I don't want a bleaching vat removing all flavor, nor a 12 grain bread barely held together by a tiny bit of flour.

I like my stews with chunks of ingredients big enough to taste the different flavors but still benefiting from the harmony of a good simmer.

Fact is our culture worships individualism, some might say to a fault- libertarianism is based on that, there is our me- first culture, and I got mine to hell with the rest of you guys tribe.

same on multiculturalism, we can become so focused on our differences we forget what drew us together.

But even after 150 years we still celebrate the differences of Irish Folks, but seem a tad put-off Hispanic folks like a day to do everything the Irish do but with more spice. I gave up counting the number of people who are quick to tell me they are some part EYE-talian. Love to hear the various accents when i go to Lawton, where spouses from around the world mingle with boot scootin' Okies.

And when it comes to multi-culturalism even 'real' Americans get into the act with 'I'm from Texas' and Valley girl chic. Our 'American' culture varies from region to region. Here in Oklahoma you can find little hottie teens running around in designer cammy that a New Yorker wouldn't be literally caught dead in. Texas loves to use the death penalty and northern states have outlawed it.

So I'm not so sure I'd focus too much on immigrants as a big driver of 'multi-culturalism'. Well unless you count Texans as immigrants... ;)
 
OK, AB, let's talk African Americans. Once upon a time, before they ancestors were taken to America, they didn't know a single word in English and spoke their native African languages. Today their mother tongue is English and virtually all those African languages are forgotten. They have blended into American culture, if we presume that language and religion are primer identities.
Let's talk Turks in Germany now, more than 2 million, if I recall correctly. They have been there for what, 50+ years? Have they blended? Generally speaking, no. They keep their mother tongue and probably will continue to do so. They keep their religion. I'm talking people who are born and grew up there in Germany.
You know what they say, when in Rome, do like the Romans. :peace

Well, you outlined my very point. The last Africans shipped to the USA arrived in 1859, 155 years ago. Most arrived 200+ years ago. In 100+ years from now those German-Turks and German society will have assimilated one with another to a huge extent. It's a matter of time, not something intrinsically incompatible about one community with another.
 
I'm for cultural plagiarism. Take their good **** and dump their bad **** - call it your own.
 
They've created their own distinct culture, separate from other people with the same religion and language.

And unique dialect. Or at least dialect that only sounds good when spoken by them. Plagiarism of their music has had starkly different results, the Brits and the French have the rosetta stone when it comes to doing that well.
 
Its a nonsensical choice. Immigrants will always bring their culture with them and will also adopt aspects of the dominant culture. They will also influence the dominant culture. As they create new generations many aspects of the family's homeland culture will fade away and a few will remain for a few more generations.

It is cruel, intolerant and unnecessary to expect immigrants to abandon their old culture immediately. It is intolerant and stupid to expect the dominant culture to be immune to influence from new immigrants. Someday soon dim sum, tacos and falafels will seem as all-American as pizza, hamburgers and french fries.
 
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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.
 
Multiculturalism as a political doctrine is predicated upon double standards and these double standards are a product of overcompensation brought on by guilt. Instead of the same standards being applied to all people, multiculturalist dogma demands that different standards apply to some, and inevitably these double standards support practices that are extremely illiberal in nature. It is really quite racialist when it gets right down to it as certain groups are afforded greater leeway when it comes to their lack of respect for human rights.

What galls me is the Orwellian nature of the multiculturalist leftists being the chief impediment to the advancement of human rights to all people by supporting knuckle-dragging backwardness that is so extremely conservative in nature as to be off the charts. Hypocrites all.

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. 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.

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.
 
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.

How should that be enforced?
 
Inb4 white Americans claiming to be very knowledgeable about cultural affairs.

Ah, crap. I'm already too late.
 
OK, AB, let's talk African Americans. Once upon a time, before they ancestors were taken to America, they didn't know a single word in English and spoke their native African languages. Today their mother tongue is English and virtually all those African languages are forgotten. They have blended into American culture, if we presume that language and religion are primer identities.

African Americans, as a group, have not had the best success being seen as strictly "American", either for themselves or in the eyes of whites.
 
Oh please.

Until well into the 20th century public school was being taught in the German language all over America.

It wasn't until the 1950s that Pennsylvania ended the requirement that government forms and documents be available in both English and German.

My mother grew up in the Polish section of Jersey City NJ.

If you weren't Polish, and weren't in the company of a local, you could pretty much rest assured that you were going to get your ass kicked.

My father's side of the family grew up in the Irish sections of Jersey City, Newark, and Brooklyn.

Until early in the 20th century you were better off being black than Irish when it came to seeking employment in many parts of the country.

It usually takes newly immigrated populations three or four generations before they begin "melting" into America.

The idea that Mexicans or Indians or Arabs should do something in a single lifetime that it took the 19th and 20th century's European immigrants nearer to a century to do is absurd.
 
Multiculturalism has benefited Canada greatly and will continue to do so, besides we don't really have a culture for them to melt into.
 
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).

If you don't believe me, go to a white supremacy website for kicks and read what they write.... all they do is rail against "multiculturalism."

Multiculturalism is a good thing. God made us all different and we should embrace those differences rather than trying to force everyone to assimilate to some stupid norm.

Source: I'm an immigrant, and I'm not giving up my Swedish traditions, language, or heritage. I'm proud of it. If that bothers you, go pound sand.
 
Things a xenophobic racist says:

"We should build a fence to protect our border."

"Everyone should learn to speak English"

"We need to secure the border before any other steps are taken on immigration reform"

Calling immigration reform "amnesty"

etc.
 
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