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There's been a ton of bashing of immigrants and the idea of assimilation here recently. Lots of doom, not a lot of hope or true attempts at understanding. I'd like to briefly outline a positive case for immigration and assimilation, looking at three major groups throughout history.
First we have Rome. Famously Rome is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, empires an lights of civilization in the Western world. In many ways the Pax Romana and the heights the Romans achieved paved the way for the modern Western order. The United States' governmental system is in large part explicitly modeled on the Roman system.. How did Rome achieve so much success? Many scholars believe it was their ability to assimilate new peoples into their culture, and make them productive members of society. There's even a word for it: Romanization. (Or if you prefer, the less politically correct 'civilizing of barbarians.')
Going from their example, we have the many great and powerful Islamic empires. Now before everyone spouts off about how intolerent Muslims are, I agree. For many historic reasons Islamic states nowadays are the opposite of an immigrant loving place that's open to assimilation. Ironically, some scholars claim that:
From this perspective, Muslim Empires were tolerant, while modern-day Muslim states lack toleration. The past tolerance expressed itself in the regulation of the local religious diversity under the purview of the Islamic judges (qadis).
There's a lot of definitional games here, but Muslim empires were certainly notable for assimilated other 'People of the Book', i.e. Christians and Jews, which even their contemporary Christian states thought was insane. Many Muslim empires were much stronger than European nations at times, especially during the so-called Dark Ages.
Finally, we have America. I won't rehash this too much, as I think it's practically inarguable that America is a nation founded on the principle of immigration, religious freedom, and has levered it's ability to assimilate masses of immigrants to become the greatest nation in the history of the world.
The point of all these examples is to say that yes, immigration is difficult. And yes, modern Western nations may not be in a perfect spot to assimilate immigrants, there are many flaws with social programs and how immigration works currently. I'll concede all those points.
However, I think the reason immigration and assimilation is so attractive to so many intellectuals lies in the potential! If your culture can figure out a way to bridge gaps between different cultures, ethnicities, and groups, if you can truly make disparate peoples unite under one flag, one cause, one set of ideals, you can rule the world. The tail benefits of successful immigration policies are massive.
It's a major mistake to sneer at modern issues with immigration and say it's a doomed project when so much of our culture exists because of cultural plurality.
Sure. Not everyone wants to rule the world, though. The Swiss seem to have prioritized not ruling the world, and it worked really well for them. Why not be like the Swiss?
Like what, specifically?
It may be true that parts of our culture exist because of cultural plurality, but it's definately true that other parts only exist because of cultural homogeneity, and that in fact those parts fall into cacophonous incoherence the instant that homogeneity goes away. You know, little things like free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion, our traditions of civil society generally, our systems of Justice, the principles of democracy itself... minor stuff really, compared to raw GDP and the welfare of the soulless, sociopathic distributed intelligence we call megacorporations, but one might be forgiven for holding a certain fond nostalgia for these minor relics of a bygone era.
People sneer because the multiculturalist message has been proven a lie over and over again for decades, and all the charity has been burned away. Neither you nor any other advocate of multiculturalism is willing to face the basic reality that your previous collective efforts have broken our societies in ways that cannot easily be fixed, and rather than apologize for this and sit quietly in the corner while we try to mitigate the damage, you just keep swinging the hammer. We point to disastrous result after disastrous result, and the response is an eye-roll and a "oh, you're bringing that up again, move on already".
Religious freedom is not a conceptual primitive, and the thing we apply the term to bears no resemblance to the naïve interpretation of the phrase. A more accurate title would be "freedom for religions we collectively don't consider too weird or awful", and it is only common assumptions born of cultural homogeneity that allow us to ignore the problematic edge cases enough to mistake it for a fully-generalizable value. "Freedom of religion" is a consequence of cultural homogeneity and peaceful conditions, not a creator of them.
America suffered considerable negative effects from previous waves of immigration, and repeatedly banned all immigration for lengthy periods of time on its road to the cultural successes you trumpet. Its ability to assimilate masses of immigrants pretty clearly no longer exists, given that its own people can't stand each other or find enough common ground for mutual long-term cooperation.
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