Posted on 06/26/2007 10:37:33 AM PDT by SirJohnBarleycorn
Robert Putnams sobering new diversity research scares its author.
Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities. He fears that his work on the surprisingly negative effects of diversity will become part of the immigration debate, even though he finds that in the long run, people do forge new communities and new ties.
Putnams study reveals that immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups, but also within the groups themselves. Trust, even for members of ones own race, is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friendships fewer. The problem isnt ethnic conflict or troubled racial relations, but withdrawal and isolation. Putnam writes: In colloquial language, people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to hunker downthat is, to pull in like a turtle.
(snip)
Though Putnam is wary of what right-wing politicians might do with his findings, the data might give pause to those on the left, and in the center as well. If hes right, heavy immigration will inflict social deterioration for decades to come, harming immigrants as well as the native-born. Putnam is hopeful that eventually America will forge a new solidarity based on a new, broader sense of we. The problem is how to do that in an era of multiculturalism and disdain for assimilation.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
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