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The downside to diversity.

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The downside to diversity.

This is an old article, and I remember when this came out the left lost it. Long read, but a good read.

IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

“The extent of the effect is shocking,” says Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.

The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm large-scale immigration causes to the nation’s social fabric. But with demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling social changes that Putnam’s research predicts.

 

“We can’t ignore the findings,” says Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. “The big question we have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?”

The study is part of a fascinating new portrait of diversity emerging from recent scholarship. Diversity, it shows, makes us uncomfortable — but discomfort, it turns out, isn’t always a bad thing. Unease with differences helps explain why teams of engineers from different cultures may be ideally suited to solve a vexing problem. Culture clashes can produce a dynamic give-and-take, generating a solution that may have eluded a group of people with more similar backgrounds and approaches. At the same time, though, Putnam’s work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more diverse populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of collective needs and goals.

His findings on the downsides of diversity have also posed a challenge for Putnam, a liberal academic whose own values put him squarely in the pro-diversity camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad news, Putnam has struggled with how to present his work. He gathered the initial raw data in 2000 and issued a press release the following year outlining the results. He then spent several years testing other possible explanations

When he finally published a detailed scholarly analysis in June in the journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he faced criticism for straying from data into advocacy. His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of diversity can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.

“Having aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining such social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep talk,” wrote conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent Orange County Register op-ed titled “Greater diversity equals more misery.”

Putnam has long staked out ground as both a researcher and a civic player, someone willing to describe social problems and then have a hand in addressing them. He says social science should be “simultaneously rigorous and relevant,” meeting high research standards while also “speaking to concerns of our fellow citizens.” But on a topic as charged as ethnicity and race, Putnam worries that many people hear only what they want to.

“It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity,” he writes in the new report. “It would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is both feasible and desirable.”

Putnam is the nation’s premier guru of civic engagement. After studying civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his attention to the US, publishing an influential journal article on civic engagement in 1995 that he expanded five years later into the best-selling “Bowling Alone.” The book sounded a national wake-up call on what Putnam called a sharp drop in civic connections among Americans. It won him audiences with presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and made him one of the country’s best known social scientists.

Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced decline in “social capital,” a term he helped popularize. Social capital refers to the social networks — whether friendships or religious congregations or neighborhood associations — that he says are key indicators of civic well-being. When social capital is high, says Putnam, communities are better places to live. Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier; and more citizens vote.

 

The results of his new study come from a survey Putnam directed among residents in 41 US communities, including Boston. Residents were sorted into the four principal categories used by the US Census: black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. They were asked how much they trusted their neighbors and those of each racial category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes and practices, including their views on local government, their involvement in community projects, and their friendships. What emerged in more diverse communities was a bleak picture of civic desolation, affecting everything from political engagement to the state of social ties.

Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his hands. He worried about coming under some of the same liberal attacks that greeted Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s landmark 1965 report on the social costs associated with the breakdown of the black family. There is always the risk of being pilloried as the bearer of “an inconvenient truth,” says Putnam.

After releasing the initial results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time “kicking the tires really hard” to be sure the study had it right. Putnam realized, for instance, that more diverse communities tended to be larger, have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility among their residents — all factors that could depress social capital independent of any impact ethnic diversity might have.

“People would say, ‘I bet you forgot about X,'” Putnam says of the string of suggestions from colleagues. “There were 20 or 30 X’s.”

But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to “distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.”

“People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’ — that is, to pull in like a turtle,” Putnam writes.

In documenting that hunkering down, Putnam challenged the two dominant schools of thought on ethnic and racial diversity, the “contact” theory and the “conflict” theory. Under the contact theory, more time spent with those of other backgrounds leads to greater understanding and harmony between groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity produces tension and discord.

Putnam’s findings reject both theories. In more diverse communities, he says, there were neither great bonds formed across group lines nor heightened ethnic tensions, but a general civic malaise. And in perhaps the most surprising result of all, levels of trust were not only lower between groups in more diverse settings, but even among members of the same group.

“Diversity, at least in the short run,” he writes, “seems to bring out the turtle in all of us.”

The overall findings may be jarring during a time when it’s become commonplace to sing the praises of diverse communities, but researchers in the field say they shouldn’t be.

“It’s an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the challenges created by diversity,” says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser

In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina demonstrated that roughly half the difference in social welfare spending between the US and Europe — Europe spends far more — can be attributed to the greater ethnic diversity of the US population. Glaeser says lower national social welfare spending in the US is a “macro” version of the decreased civic engagement Putnam found in more diverse communities within the country.

Economists Matthew Kahn of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15 recent studies in a 2003 paper, all of which linked diversity with lower levels of social capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked, for example, to lower school funding, census response rates, and trust in others. Kahn and Costa’s own research documented higher desertion rates in the Civil War among Union Army soldiers serving in companies whose soldiers varied more by age, occupation, and birthplace.

Birds of different feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are also less likely to look out for one another. “Everyone is a little self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff,” says Kahn.

So how to explain New York, London, Rio de Janiero, Los Angeles — the great melting-pot cities that drive the world’s creative and financial economies?

The image of civic lassitude dragging down more diverse communities is at odds with the vigor often associated with urban centers, where ethnic diversity is greatest. It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, is a liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of emerging research suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to driving productivity and innovation. In high-skill workplace settings, says Scott Page, the University of Michigan political scientist, the different ways of thinking among people from different cultures can be a boon.

“Because they see the world and think about the world differently than you, that’s challenging,” says Page, author of “The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies.” “But by hanging out with people different than you, you’re likely to get more insights. Diverse teams tend to be more productive.”

In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of creative culture.

Page calls it the “diversity paradox.” He thinks the contrasting positive and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities, but “there’s got to be a limit.” If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it’s easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as well. “That’s what’s unsettling about his findings,” Page says of Putnam’s new work.

Meanwhile, by drawing a portrait of civic engagement in which more homogeneous communities seem much healthier, some of Putnam’s worst fears about how his results could be used have been realized. A stream of conservative commentary has begun — from places like the Manhattan Institute and “The American Conservative” — highlighting the harm the study suggests will come from large-scale immigration. But Putnam says he’s also received hundreds of complimentary emails laced with bigoted language. “It certainly is not pleasant when David Duke’s website hails me as the guy who found out racism is good,” he says.

In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a broader context by describing how social identity can change over time. Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to “more encompassing identities” that create a “new, more capacious sense of ‘we,'” he writes.

Growing up in the 1950s in small Midwestern town, Putnam knew the religion of virtually every member of his high school graduating class because, he says, such information was crucial to the question of “who was a possible mate or date.” The importance of marrying within one’s faith, he says, has largely faded since then, at least among many mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.

While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.

In his paper, Putnam cites the work done by Page and others, and uses it to help frame his conclusion that increasing diversity in America is not only inevitable, but ultimately valuable and enriching. As for smoothing over the divisions that hinder civic engagement, Putnam argues that Americans can help that process along through targeted efforts. He suggests expanding support for English-language instruction and investing in community centers and other places that allow for “meaningful interaction across ethnic lines.”

Some critics have found his prescriptions underwhelming. And in offering ideas for mitigating his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for stepping out of the role of dispassionate researcher. “You’re just supposed to tell your peers what you found,” says John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “I don’t expect academics to fret about these matters.”

But fretting about the state of American civic health is exactly what Putnam has spent more than a decade doing. While continuing to research questions involving social capital, he has directed the Saguaro Seminar, a project he started at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that promotes efforts throughout the country to increase civic connections in communities.

“Social scientists are both scientists and citizens,” says Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, who sees nothing wrong in Putnam’s efforts to affect some of the phenomena he studies.

Wolfe says what is unusual is that Putnam has published findings as a social scientist that are not the ones he would have wished for as a civic leader. There are plenty of social scientists, says Wolfe, who never produce research results at odds with their own worldview.

“The problem too often,” says Wolfe, “is people are never uncomfortable about their findings.”

Michael Jonas is acting editor of CommonWealth magazine, published by MassINC, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank in Boston.

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Categories
Education Life Links from other news sources. Politics The Courts The Law

Winning for now. California school district’s critical race theory ban, transgender notification policy stand for now, judge rules.

Visits: 10

Winning for now. California school district’s critical race theory ban, transgender notification policy stand for now, judge rules. In the last election three new board members joined the Temecula school board.

Board members Joseph Komrosky, Danny Gonzalez and Jen Wiersma, elected in 2022 as what was then a Christian conservative majority on the five-member board, voted in for the ban. Board members Allison Barclay and Steven Schwartz, who have often opposed initiatives of the board majority, voted no.

Here’s what I find interesting, and we will see if this will stand. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Chino Valley, and a judge last September granted Bonta’s request for a temporary restraining order to block that district from enforcing its policy. In the Temecula case, in which the district’s policy is based on Chino Valley’s, Keen made the opposite ruling.

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Emotional abuse How funny is this? Life Links from other news sources.

A real stress breaker. NYPD Dance team.

Visits: 9

 

A real stress breaker. NYPD Dance team. The team isn’t an official part of the department, but that didn’t stop the plenty of reactions dunking on the dancing itself. When I saw this, I had to agree with a person on X who said something about defunding the police.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) defended the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) dance crew after a viral video of the team performing last week sparked online criticism.

“This team SERVES and protects! Honored to join the NYPD Dance team at City Hall. I think it’s so important that our women and men in uniform have outlets like this to express themselves and bond. They work hard on the clock and dance hard off the clock — like true New Yorkers,” Adams wrote Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter.

 

 

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Abortion rights? Commentary Corruption Life

What started out as a good thing, turned into a disaster. IVF.

Visits: 16

What started out as a good thing, turned into a disaster. IVF. We have milions of women who suffer from infertility,  So the IVF was a good way to go. But somewhere along the line it went south.

Some were depositing hundreds of eggs. Others treated it like a grocery store. Pick the blonde over the red head. Green tyes instead of brown. And now the courts rule the eggs are humans.

So for some reason the far left white progressives think that this is a bad thing. One of their fears is that the eggs won’t be labled and they would be stuck with a birth defect child.

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Commentary How funny is this? How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Life Links from other news sources. Sports WOKE

Actress who didn’t get a part in Yellowstone goes after the program, KC Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

Visits: 17

Actress who didn’t get a part in Yellowstone goes after the program, KC Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. Some no n ame oscar nominated actress who couldn’t get a part on the hit show Yellowstone went after the show and the KC fans for their Indian inspired Tomahawk chop.

She also went after the San Francisco 49’ers for using the name 49ers. Claimed Indians were mistreated. Why go after Yellowstone? “Delusional! Deplorable!” she responded when asked about the way Yellowstone portrays the west. “No offense to the Native talent in that. I auditioned several times. That’s what we had.”

And then the Chiefs. There are many ways that you could interpret the name “chief.” It’s not just the name that bothers me. It’s hearing that damn Tomahawk chop. Every time, it’s a stark reminder of what Hollywood has done to us, because the Tomahawk chop directly ties to the sounds of old Westerns where we were not playing ourselves, or if we were, we were merely backdrop actors. It’s this ‘claiming’ of that sound and saying it’s in ‘honor’ and the commodification of who we are as people. It’s great to love the game and your players, but it still hurts.

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Biden Biden Cartel Commentary Corruption Government Overreach How funny is this? How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Life Links from other news sources. Media Woke Opinion Politics Progressive Racism Racism. Reprints from others. Satire Stupid things people say or do. Weaponization of Government. White Progressive Supremacy WOKE

Friday Funnies.

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Friday Funnies.


I consider Tucker a mentor of sorts. I strive to be more like Tucker.















Brought to you by Google.

The brainwashing of our youth – by social media corporations is out of control. Unfortunately, for all of us – it isn’t going to stop.

“We know best. We are going to remake the world. We are going to reshape kids around the world”

The government has a remedy for this type of unlawful business practice. The 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act has bee utilized many times to break up monopolies. The Sherman Act outlaws:

“every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade,” and any “monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize.”

Google is out of control. They have not only monopolized the internet, they have monopolized the control of advertising. Both business strategies are being challenged by the DOJ in two separate lawsuits. Meta is also being sued for unfair business practices, as it has gobbled up its competitors in a series of buy-outs.




Or you might be watching MSM exclusively and using Google as your search engine.

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Commentary Government Overreach Life Links from other news sources. Weaponization of Government.

Stories making the headlines in California. Former National Guard General Sues Newsom for Antisemitism. And more.

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Stories making the headlines in California. Here’s a few stories that are news makers in California. Several have drawn National attention.

Former National Guard General Sues Newsom for Antisemitism.

 

 

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Back Door Power Grab Just my own thoughts Life Opinion Politics Uncategorized

Why Donald Trump won’t be found guilty. Four other sloppy people did worse.

Visits: 83

Why Donald Trump won’t be found guilty. Four other sloppy people did worse. All five were sloppy and we know 100% what four did was illegal. Jury is out on the fifth. Who are they?

Both Clintons, Pence, Biden, and Trump. All had documents or Tapes that were Government Property. Bill had tapes that were government property and he used them for his book. Recorded folks without their knowledge.

Hillery had the illegal server and destroyed it plus erased the server. Pence had classified documents at his personal home, and Biden had classified documents all over the country.

Trump had classified documents he said he declassified. Bill Clinton didn’t claim that he declassified the tapes. Hillary, Pence and Biden did not have the authority to have those documents.

Five people who yes were sloppy in how they handled this. But for some reason only one was charged with crimes. The one who may have had a right to those documents. Donald Trump.

 

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Abortion rights? Biden Cartel Child Abuse Commentary Life Links from other news sources. White Progressive Supremacy

New Hampshire Democrat says kill your baby, don’t even think about killing mine.

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New Hampshire Democrat says kill your baby, don’t even think about killing mine.  Rep. Amanda Toll, D-Keene brought her beautiful one week old daughter on the New Hams hire House floor.

She gave life to a beautiful baby girl. What’s puzzling is that she claimed that by having an abortion when she was a teenager gave her the strength to have this baby. Sorry but telling others to kill their baby so they can have one down the road is sick.

She cradled her week-old daughter while defending a proposed state constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights up to 24 weeks and allow the procedure beyond that when deemed medically necessary.

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Biden Biden Cartel Commentary Life Links from other news sources. Opinion Terrorism Uncategorized

We did the bombing, now what?

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We did the bombing, now what? Let’s hope this was successful and will continue. Hopefully our warning them ahead of time didn’t minimize this. And if Iran retaliates, we have a more measurable response.

FAST FACTS:
  •  

    The United States launched retaliatory attacks in Iraq and Syria on Friday. This came in response to the drone attacks in Jordan that killed three American soldiers.

    U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) stated that airstrikes were conducted against more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.

    Shortly after the attacks were confirmed, President Joe Biden warned “If you harm an American, we will respond.”

    The White House stressed Friday evening that the United States is not looking for war with Iran.

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