I would think the easiest method to measure cultural similarity would be intermarriage rates. Immigrants from nations with high marriage rates with native-born citizens are very likely to have proximal cultures.
Not sure about the UK, but there is plenty of data about racial intermarriage in the US. Parsing the data down by ethnicity and citizens is likely more challenging.
Great post. To people in favor of open borders, or no cultural restrictions on immigration, I like to propose a thought experiment: imagine we did not have global warming but global cooling. Two million native Britons move from the UK to Saudi Arabia, attracted by more bearable temperatures and abundant jobs. Does Saudi Arabia change as a result of this? And would you expect the native Saudis to be happy about those changes? And if you think the changes to Saudi society would be positive by your system of values - more rights for women - why would you imagine that the movement of two million Saudis (or other Arabs) to the UK would produce equally positive changes in our world?
Yes, this type of thought experiment should make it obvious to everyone. The threat of being labelled a racist however, probably prevents many people from speaking up.
That was based on Huntington's "Emerging Alignments" analysis from over 20 years ago. It was not meant to be taken as a recommendation, simply as an example.
In addition to your Africa vs Orthodox observation, I would personally move Japan higher up.
"Culture matters, and a desire to preserve one’s culture is not only natural, it’s commendable. Even when that culture is Western."
Why is it that the host culture must always take a back seat to everyone else? I think you are trying to see both sides, but the sophist approach is what leads to these conundrums we are in.
If the west were to shut down "immigration" for the next ten years, the west would flourish and begin to crawl out of this diversity hole it's been digging for the past thirty years, and the rest of the world would be no different. That, seems like the best option to this westerner.
I think you misunderstand my last sentence (or I was not clear enough). I, thought, based on what the rest of the article stated, that it would be seen as a somewhat sarcastic critique of how many on the left view culture, specifically that they all matter but the Western ones.
Country of origin is not enough of an indicator. In your examples is an Egyptian family. Egyptian Muslims and Egyptian Copts (Christian) are not at all the same game though both practice female genital mutilation even among the "most enlightened" layers of those societies. Religion must come into it. As per asylum, note that Christians in Africa are being slaughtered.
You're right but then I wasn't trying to provide a perfect solution just point out the flaws in the current one and provide a simple example of what could be done. That said, the more complicated a system you come up with the more bureaucrats get hired to manage it.
Given the difficulty of African-American integration in the US, even decades after the end of the Civil Rights Movement (extraordinarily high crime, for instance), I think that Africa should be ranked pretty low in terms of culture. Ditto for the difficulty of Western Europe in integrating Muslims. US Muslims and British Africans integrate better, but they are more select groups (more cognitive elites) and thus a merit-based system would take them into account as well by selecting for both skills/education/IQ? and culture.
As a side note, though, I'm all in favor of also using IQ testing as a part of the merit component. Some people might have lacked the opportunities (such as spare money) to pursue a fancy education but might nevertheless have a lot of innate capabilities.
Of course, this also addresses the question of how we handle refugees. If someone says that they're an ex-Muslim apostate and actually a liberal, should we take them at their word or presume that they are lying in order to get asylum?
By all means, if it will increase immigration, use keyhole policies. (See Bryan Caplan’s Open Borders)
But I would remind everyone that if such was the case in Europe in the first thousand years of the common era, we would all be counting with Roman numbers. Forget about algebra and other advanced mathematics.
I'm not talking about excluding people. I'm arguing that some cultures assimilate better than others and that there's nothing wrong with valuing Canadian or Western culture.
The primary issue isn't who is being let in but how many. If the government is unwilling to set reasonable immigration levels then we should be more focused on who gets in.
1000 Chinese (or Indian, or Irish) immigrants will become Canadian eventually. 100 Million Chinese (or Indian, or Irish) will not. They will transform Canada into the culture they came from. Yes, 100 million aren't being let in, I'm just using exaggeration to make a point.
I am all for half-measures or any other keyhole approaches that would lead to better immigration policies. However, I find such arguments, that some large number of people from X culture will change “our” culture into X, as specious.
One only has to look at China or India (both have approximately 1.4 billion people) to see that they live in market economies more like Canada and the U.S. and share many other values in common with our countries.
When I hear critics of immigration say such things, what many of them are really saying (without actually saying it) is that they want people who look like them and go to their churches.
I object to such a world view only to the extent that it should promote the use of immigration laws that violate the principles of liberty. No one should be forced to associate with people who are different, but on the other hand, no one should have the power to infringe upon the liberty of free movement and free association.
Your concern—“They will transform Canada into the culture they came from.”—begs an important question. If they love their culture, why are they leaving their home country?
You are coming surprising close to accusing anyone who wants to place limits on immigration or who values their own culture of being a racist. There is more to culture than valuing a market economy and culture and skin color are two different things.
I could just as easily say that "when I hear people argue for open borders what many of them are saying is they want people to look after their children, clean their houses, and tend their gardens in their walled gated communities and then go home to their poor neighborhoods when the day is done. Would that be a fair assessment?
You dismiss the extent to which people value their own cultures and how much that comes into play when discussing mass immigration. You'll note I said "mass immigration," not immigration.
Your version of "liberty" would mean the end of the nation state. You're entitled to that opinion, just don't assume everyone who disagrees with you is a bad person.
The obvious answer to your last question is "for a better life," but wanting a better economic life does not mean wanting or being willing to give up your own culture.
You and I are unlikely (an understatement) to reach an agreement on this. You either believe "when it Rome..." or you don't. You either believe immigration has both economic and cultural impacts which matter, or you don't. You either believe in a melting pot or multiculturalism.
You know as well as I do that defining a culture is impossible. Listing off a number of actions that define a culture will always be incomplete. That doesn't mean that different cultures can't be identified when you see them. Yes, I spent 20 years in the US and have visited many different locations. The US has subcultures but that doesn't mean that there aren't other cultures that are completely different. The Japanese have a social norm against eating while walking in public because it can be seen as inconsiderate to others. We do not. If you dropped a million Americans (or Canadians) into Japan would the Japanese not be justified in disliking our behavior? Would that make them chauvinistic or would it be understandable that they'd want to maintain their culture? Even if they couldn't define it precisely?
My position is simply that immigration must take economics and culture into account and be limited, in part because high immigration levels are a shock and breed conflict and dissatisfaction. It is well known that nativist feelings have historically aligned with periods of high immigration. When large numbers of immigrants arrive, especially if they are culturally, racially, or religiously different, nativist sentiment tends to surge. It is driven by economic anxiety, cultural fears, perceptions of national identity being threatened, and political scapegoating.
You welcome not to like it but you cannot deny it.
I completely respect your point of view. As I’ve said, whatever gets the ball rolling in the direction of more immigration is acceptable to me—I believe in tradeoffs, not perfection.
Now I will address a couple of your points.
First, the “Melting Pot” is a myth. It came into existence early in the 20th century due to a play by that name, The Melting Pot" by Israel Zangwill.
America is not a Melting Pot; it is really a “Salad Bowl”, with distinctive cultural communities coexisting, more or less (I cannot speak for The Great White North). As Bill Murray explained:
“We’re all very different people….
We’re Americans with a capital A. Do you know what that means? Huh? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We’re the underdog. We’re mutts.” (Stripes—1981)
Japan is the definition of a chauvinistic country. That is their choice. I never thought of America being a chauvinistic country, but Trump played that card and it was a winning hand.
When I hear or see the word “multiculturalism” I do not equate it with cultural pluralism—“a society where multiple ethnic and cultural groups coexist, each maintaining its distinct identity while interacting within a larger society”. Instead, I would explain multiculturalism as a complete denial of Western culture and its values—“the culmination of human progress and achievement; its focus on reason, science, and individual liberty.” Multiculturalism is a form of agnosticism, which denies the existence objective knowledge because it refuses to know anything for certain, thus opening up the door to the arbitrary and the absurd.
Finally, I don’t like what you have correctly observed and accurately described about our two countries. And I do agree with your assessment but I can still express my position that such a policy is as wrong and immoral as the Jim Crow laws were.
Our human nature expectation is to periodically go out to explore, to have difference experiences, but to always come back to our familiar home. Too much multiculturalism makes for an unfamiliar home. Nobody wants that.
Said another way, we can appreciate and respect different cultures until they are forced on us by allowing excessive immigration in excess of numbers that can assimilate.
I believe it takes two generations before cultural assimilation is achieved. My friends whom are the children of immigrant parents still hold some of their parent's home cultural beliefs and practices, but their children have adopted 100% American values and beliefs for better or worse.
Perhaps in order to not be tarred with the "racist" brush, there should be a "values" component instead of an "origin" component. While often related, they are not always. I don't think anyone would complain about a moderate person possibly escaping their intolerant homeland for the more open West. The radical fundamentalists are the problem, not the countries they hail from. secondary and tertiary screening would help.
Yes but the problem with values testing is that it can be faked. You can’t fake your country of origin. You’re right but might penalize the “good” people in that region but there is no perfect system and I’d rather be safe than sorry.
I would think the easiest method to measure cultural similarity would be intermarriage rates. Immigrants from nations with high marriage rates with native-born citizens are very likely to have proximal cultures.
That would be an interesting analysis. If you can find the data.
Not sure about the UK, but there is plenty of data about racial intermarriage in the US. Parsing the data down by ethnicity and citizens is likely more challenging.
Great post. To people in favor of open borders, or no cultural restrictions on immigration, I like to propose a thought experiment: imagine we did not have global warming but global cooling. Two million native Britons move from the UK to Saudi Arabia, attracted by more bearable temperatures and abundant jobs. Does Saudi Arabia change as a result of this? And would you expect the native Saudis to be happy about those changes? And if you think the changes to Saudi society would be positive by your system of values - more rights for women - why would you imagine that the movement of two million Saudis (or other Arabs) to the UK would produce equally positive changes in our world?
Yes, this type of thought experiment should make it obvious to everyone. The threat of being labelled a racist however, probably prevents many people from speaking up.
Thanks for reading!
>African is more compatible than Orthodox
What the hell
That was based on Huntington's "Emerging Alignments" analysis from over 20 years ago. It was not meant to be taken as a recommendation, simply as an example.
In addition to your Africa vs Orthodox observation, I would personally move Japan higher up.
"Culture matters, and a desire to preserve one’s culture is not only natural, it’s commendable. Even when that culture is Western."
Why is it that the host culture must always take a back seat to everyone else? I think you are trying to see both sides, but the sophist approach is what leads to these conundrums we are in.
If the west were to shut down "immigration" for the next ten years, the west would flourish and begin to crawl out of this diversity hole it's been digging for the past thirty years, and the rest of the world would be no different. That, seems like the best option to this westerner.
I think you misunderstand my last sentence (or I was not clear enough). I, thought, based on what the rest of the article stated, that it would be seen as a somewhat sarcastic critique of how many on the left view culture, specifically that they all matter but the Western ones.
Sorry if that was unclear.
This is nonsense. The only advantage of diversity people mention is food variety. Big deal.
No one has ever given an example of a new idea etc from immigration.
It is hardly "nonsense" to suggest that a people of different backgrounds might view the world differently and thus have different ideas.
Neither immigration nor diversity should be goals for their own sake but both can be useful if managed correctly.
It's an extreme example, but the Manhattan Project and the American space program had a more than minimal immigrant contribution.
Country of origin is not enough of an indicator. In your examples is an Egyptian family. Egyptian Muslims and Egyptian Copts (Christian) are not at all the same game though both practice female genital mutilation even among the "most enlightened" layers of those societies. Religion must come into it. As per asylum, note that Christians in Africa are being slaughtered.
You're right but then I wasn't trying to provide a perfect solution just point out the flaws in the current one and provide a simple example of what could be done. That said, the more complicated a system you come up with the more bureaucrats get hired to manage it.
Given the difficulty of African-American integration in the US, even decades after the end of the Civil Rights Movement (extraordinarily high crime, for instance), I think that Africa should be ranked pretty low in terms of culture. Ditto for the difficulty of Western Europe in integrating Muslims. US Muslims and British Africans integrate better, but they are more select groups (more cognitive elites) and thus a merit-based system would take them into account as well by selecting for both skills/education/IQ? and culture.
As a side note, though, I'm all in favor of also using IQ testing as a part of the merit component. Some people might have lacked the opportunities (such as spare money) to pursue a fancy education but might nevertheless have a lot of innate capabilities.
Of course, this also addresses the question of how we handle refugees. If someone says that they're an ex-Muslim apostate and actually a liberal, should we take them at their word or presume that they are lying in order to get asylum?
By all means, if it will increase immigration, use keyhole policies. (See Bryan Caplan’s Open Borders)
But I would remind everyone that if such was the case in Europe in the first thousand years of the common era, we would all be counting with Roman numbers. Forget about algebra and other advanced mathematics.
I'm not talking about excluding people. I'm arguing that some cultures assimilate better than others and that there's nothing wrong with valuing Canadian or Western culture.
The primary issue isn't who is being let in but how many. If the government is unwilling to set reasonable immigration levels then we should be more focused on who gets in.
1000 Chinese (or Indian, or Irish) immigrants will become Canadian eventually. 100 Million Chinese (or Indian, or Irish) will not. They will transform Canada into the culture they came from. Yes, 100 million aren't being let in, I'm just using exaggeration to make a point.
I am all for half-measures or any other keyhole approaches that would lead to better immigration policies. However, I find such arguments, that some large number of people from X culture will change “our” culture into X, as specious.
One only has to look at China or India (both have approximately 1.4 billion people) to see that they live in market economies more like Canada and the U.S. and share many other values in common with our countries.
When I hear critics of immigration say such things, what many of them are really saying (without actually saying it) is that they want people who look like them and go to their churches.
I object to such a world view only to the extent that it should promote the use of immigration laws that violate the principles of liberty. No one should be forced to associate with people who are different, but on the other hand, no one should have the power to infringe upon the liberty of free movement and free association.
Your concern—“They will transform Canada into the culture they came from.”—begs an important question. If they love their culture, why are they leaving their home country?
You are coming surprising close to accusing anyone who wants to place limits on immigration or who values their own culture of being a racist. There is more to culture than valuing a market economy and culture and skin color are two different things.
I could just as easily say that "when I hear people argue for open borders what many of them are saying is they want people to look after their children, clean their houses, and tend their gardens in their walled gated communities and then go home to their poor neighborhoods when the day is done. Would that be a fair assessment?
You dismiss the extent to which people value their own cultures and how much that comes into play when discussing mass immigration. You'll note I said "mass immigration," not immigration.
Your version of "liberty" would mean the end of the nation state. You're entitled to that opinion, just don't assume everyone who disagrees with you is a bad person.
The obvious answer to your last question is "for a better life," but wanting a better economic life does not mean wanting or being willing to give up your own culture.
Why should anyone have to “give up” their culture?
I know that you have spent plenty of time in my country. Ever go to Miami? Or New Orleans? Ohio (Amish country)? What is our culture?
Anyone who “protects” “their culture” without defining what their culture is, isn’t a racist, they are a chauvinist.
But define your terms. What are you protesting?
You and I are unlikely (an understatement) to reach an agreement on this. You either believe "when it Rome..." or you don't. You either believe immigration has both economic and cultural impacts which matter, or you don't. You either believe in a melting pot or multiculturalism.
You know as well as I do that defining a culture is impossible. Listing off a number of actions that define a culture will always be incomplete. That doesn't mean that different cultures can't be identified when you see them. Yes, I spent 20 years in the US and have visited many different locations. The US has subcultures but that doesn't mean that there aren't other cultures that are completely different. The Japanese have a social norm against eating while walking in public because it can be seen as inconsiderate to others. We do not. If you dropped a million Americans (or Canadians) into Japan would the Japanese not be justified in disliking our behavior? Would that make them chauvinistic or would it be understandable that they'd want to maintain their culture? Even if they couldn't define it precisely?
My position is simply that immigration must take economics and culture into account and be limited, in part because high immigration levels are a shock and breed conflict and dissatisfaction. It is well known that nativist feelings have historically aligned with periods of high immigration. When large numbers of immigrants arrive, especially if they are culturally, racially, or religiously different, nativist sentiment tends to surge. It is driven by economic anxiety, cultural fears, perceptions of national identity being threatened, and political scapegoating.
You welcome not to like it but you cannot deny it.
I completely respect your point of view. As I’ve said, whatever gets the ball rolling in the direction of more immigration is acceptable to me—I believe in tradeoffs, not perfection.
Now I will address a couple of your points.
First, the “Melting Pot” is a myth. It came into existence early in the 20th century due to a play by that name, The Melting Pot" by Israel Zangwill.
America is not a Melting Pot; it is really a “Salad Bowl”, with distinctive cultural communities coexisting, more or less (I cannot speak for The Great White North). As Bill Murray explained:
“We’re all very different people….
We’re Americans with a capital A. Do you know what that means? Huh? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We’re the underdog. We’re mutts.” (Stripes—1981)
Japan is the definition of a chauvinistic country. That is their choice. I never thought of America being a chauvinistic country, but Trump played that card and it was a winning hand.
When I hear or see the word “multiculturalism” I do not equate it with cultural pluralism—“a society where multiple ethnic and cultural groups coexist, each maintaining its distinct identity while interacting within a larger society”. Instead, I would explain multiculturalism as a complete denial of Western culture and its values—“the culmination of human progress and achievement; its focus on reason, science, and individual liberty.” Multiculturalism is a form of agnosticism, which denies the existence objective knowledge because it refuses to know anything for certain, thus opening up the door to the arbitrary and the absurd.
Finally, I don’t like what you have correctly observed and accurately described about our two countries. And I do agree with your assessment but I can still express my position that such a policy is as wrong and immoral as the Jim Crow laws were.
Our human nature expectation is to periodically go out to explore, to have difference experiences, but to always come back to our familiar home. Too much multiculturalism makes for an unfamiliar home. Nobody wants that.
Said another way, we can appreciate and respect different cultures until they are forced on us by allowing excessive immigration in excess of numbers that can assimilate.
I believe it takes two generations before cultural assimilation is achieved. My friends whom are the children of immigrant parents still hold some of their parent's home cultural beliefs and practices, but their children have adopted 100% American values and beliefs for better or worse.
Great piece again
Perhaps in order to not be tarred with the "racist" brush, there should be a "values" component instead of an "origin" component. While often related, they are not always. I don't think anyone would complain about a moderate person possibly escaping their intolerant homeland for the more open West. The radical fundamentalists are the problem, not the countries they hail from. secondary and tertiary screening would help.
Thanks.
Yes but the problem with values testing is that it can be faked. You can’t fake your country of origin. You’re right but might penalize the “good” people in that region but there is no perfect system and I’d rather be safe than sorry.