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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32659 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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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:

How can the current state of political violence in Muslim countries be reconciled with the often-invoked tolerance of the past multicultural and multireligious Muslim Empires? One way to address this conundrum is to distinguish between toleration and tolerance. The former refers to the modern institutionalised protection of religious, ethnic, and gender differences through the rule of law, while the latter implies organic mechanisms specific to communities to accommodate differences.

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.

Well what happened to the Roman Empire? Did it get ransacked by hordes of Goths, Huns, Franks, Vandals, Visigoths when its people/political leaders became too soft to lead their own armies?

What happened to the Islamic Empires? They ate eachother until the Ottomans remained, then the Ottomans were consumed by nationalism (the Young Turks , the Arabs, the sorry story of Armenia).

What happened to the British Empire? It was the largest in population and land area, ruled territories across the world, mobilized very diverse peoples. Yet it disintegrated within living memory because its non-British constituents didn't want to be part of it. Only the settler colonies had real affinity and made sacrifices for it. Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa actually made an effort in the world wars. India would've fought on either side, they didn't care for the empire they lived in. Of the 40,000 Indian POWs after the disastrous Singapore campaign, 30,000 joined the Japanese Indian National Army.

The INA's members were viewed as Axis collaborators and traitors by British soldiers and Indian PoWs who did not join the army,[21] but after the war they were seen as patriots by many Indians.[21] Although they were widely commemorated by the Indian National Congress in the immediate aftermath of Indian independence, some of the members of the INA were denied freedom fighter status by the Government of India.

Ruling over multiple nations is a source of instability. Nations all want their own states and always have. The history of multiethnic empire is like a horror movie, watching and waiting for nationalism to rip it apart. And, per horror movie conventions, there is a lot of blood.

And what is happening to the American Empire? I agree that immigration can be a source of economic strength. If you look at the names of people writing AI papers, a great number seem to be Chinese or Indian. Yet what is it doing to the cohesion of the USA? Why is it that the US can't even fill the ranks of its army anymore? Could it be that immigration and the diminishing status of the founding, British-derived American population is sapping American strength? Who wants to die for the North American Economic Zone? What is going to happen when the US faces a serious crisis?

“A man does not have himself killed for a half pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him.” Napoleon

I'm not totally against immigration but it should be done slowly and carefully. You can put Scotland and Wales and England together to get Britain (but even that is not easy, as a quick glance at a history book will reveal). Mass immigration is a historic anomaly and dangerous. You trade legible gains like brainpower and economic growth for illegible loss in communal trust (all those papers showing how diversity lowers cohesion), a loss of the spirit needed to make sacrifices for the country.

No, the answer here is that the average western white has simply gone soft. Accustomed to a lifetime of obscene wealth and decadence, the white has become completely blind and ignorant to the grim, flesh-and-blood realities of living in the third world, which suffers from orders of magnitude less wealth and access to resources than the west. Whites have no understanding of malnutrition, poverty, hostile climates, lack of access to healthcare, lack of social safety nets, nor lack of generational wealth.

How is this not exactly the same thing that some of our local white supremacists say about the Jews, except with a few word substitutions?

I categorically reject white supremacy and antisemitism.

To deny that western whites live in materially more wealthy and comfortable circumstances than the third world is, plainly, ignorant.

I'm pretty sure that Western Jews live in materially more wealthy and comfortable circumstances than the third world. So I don't see how that's responsive.

(And if your answer is "Jews do, but not because of their religion", the answer is of course "whites do, but not because of their race".)

For that matter, Western Jews live in materially more wealthy and comfortable circumstances than white supremacists.

You're responding to half of my post and ignoring the other half. I'm sure that if you live in the third world, Western whites are doing better than you. I'm also sure that if you live in the third world, Western Jews are doing better than you. How are these different? Are you claiming that Western Jews aren't doing better because of their religion, but Western whites are doing better because of their race?

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