NationStates Jolt Archive

I live in America so I really wouldn't know, I'm more looking for the European perspective

is it a good thing or a bad thing to have a nation based around one race and one culture?

Schrandtopia']I live in America so I really wouldn't know, I'm more looking for the European perspective

is it a good thing or a bad thing to have a nation based around one race and one culture?


Is it ok If I pretend you never asked that?

*sits back with beer and popcorn and gets ready for the firework*

*sits back with beer and popcorn and gets ready for the firework*



*sits back with Wilgrove* Pass me a beer will ya?:D

Well, the 'stans' of central asia were organized by the USSR around the majority ethnicity of the area, but got a totally unequal distribution of resources and land area, and also this kind of organization leads to kind of an us vs. them mentality and an extreme nationalism, like Nazi germany's Aryans.

[scratch=head] I know I had an asbestos shield around here, someplace.

Schrandtopia']I live in America so I really wouldn't know, I'm more looking for the European perspective

is it a good thing or a bad thing to have a nation based around one race and one culture?

Meh...sometimes it works...usually it doesnt.

The best homogenous societies...are one like Iceland...Finland, Switzerland and such...but even those arnt 100% homogenous.:(

Well, the 'stans' of central asia were organized by the USSR around the majority ethnicity of the area, but got a totally unequal distribution of resources and land area, and also this kind of organization leads to kind of an us vs. them mentality and an extreme nationalism, like Nazi germany's Aryans.

Europe seems to have overcome that though (unless I'm missing something)

It's good, in my view, so long as it doesn't lead to isolationism and xenophobia. Racially/culturally homogeneous nations do tend to fare better in Europe on the whole.

*sits back with Wilgrove* Pass me a beer will ya?:D

*pass him a beer* This will be fun.

*pass him a beer* This will be fun.
Empress...kinda sounds female, doesn't it? :p

It's good, in my view, so long as it doesn't lead to isolationism and xenophobia. Racially/culturally homogeneous nations do tend to fare better in Europe on the whole.

its going to make you're culture less flexable and slow the migration of skilled workers - is the exchange for greater internal harmony worth it?

Schrandtopia']its going to make you're culture less flexable and slow the migration of skilled workers - is the exchange for greater internal harmony worth it?
Not really. Like Atlantian Isles said, no European nation is 100% homogeneous. Those that tend to be close are in fact the most flexible of all nations (e.g Sweden). There is much cultural exchange within the EU itself even, just not to a degree that would upset homogeneity. As for the harmony, well it helps diminish government spending, so in a way, yes it is worth it. European nations interact a lot with outside nations. Immigration is not the only way to achieve cultural exchange.

Empress...kinda sounds female, doesn't it? :p


I am gonna put I am a female in my sig.


South Korea is classified as homogenous, but they actually have 500,000 migrant workers without citizenship. Sometimes Japan like to pretend it's homogenous, but its not. Its population is somewhere between 1% and 2.6% non-japanese.

I am gonna put I am a female in my sig.
With your nick I'd think it to be redundant. Oh well.

South Korea is classified as homogenous, but they actually have 500,000 migrant workers without citizenship. Sometimes Japan like to pretend it's homogenous, but its not. Its population is somewhere between 1% and 2.6% non-japanese.
That is pretty homogeneous though. Europe is usually around 95% homogeneous.

Schrandtopia']is it a good thing or a bad thing to have a nation based around one race and one culture?

Since race is a nebulous concept and culture is dynamic, I would think that having nations based on one race/culture/language/religion would not be a good thing...if not downright boring...but I was brought up in India which has huge diversity in every aspect (race/religion/language/culture/u name it...)...so I tend to be biased towards diversity...

yeah it works, but its stupid. becuase humans are retarded and so many of htem hate someone because of the way they look, if humans ever want to get far we really need to shapen up. and the nation will fail eventually. becuase once a new race it introduced BAM civl war, strife, panic, hate crimes, becuase of the reasons stated above. communism is nice, you think you better than someone? guess what, you get to go to a goolag and get worked to death. or just shot in the back of the head. No ALL humans are the same and equal. But most people are to stupid to realise it.

yeah it works, but its stupid. becuase humans are retarded and so many of htem hate someone because of the way they look, if humans ever want to get far we really need to shapen up. and the nation will fail eventually. becuase once a new race it introduced BAM civl war, strife, panic, hate crimes, becuase of the reasons stated above. communism is nice, you think you better than someone? guess what, you get to go to a goolag and get worked to death. or just shot in the back of the head. No ALL humans are the same and equal. But most people are to stupid to realise it.
If your post is strained, finely, you make some good points - especially on human stupidity. That doesn't offer a good argument against (relatively) homogenous nations existing though. It just shows what arrogance coupled with ignorance may lead to.

With your nick I'd think it to be redundant. Oh well.


That is pretty homogeneous though. Europe is usually around 95% homogeneous.

Not the part I live in. It's 84% here... And yes, it has caused some very real problems for everyone, but those problems are equally a result of the ignorance of the najority as the problems caused by the minority.

Not the part I live in. It's 84% here... And yes, it has caused some very real problems for everyone, but those problems are equally a result of the ignorance of the najority as the problems caused by the minority.
Yeah, Britain isn't exactly what I'd call the most vibrant example of homogeneity in Europe. It's still doing pretty well.

Yeah, Britain isn't exactly what I'd call the most vibrant example of homogeneity in Europe. It's still doing pretty well.

Not really.. since the July bombings and whatnot, Islamophobia is pretty rampant, and occasionally well-deserved. Problem is, there's never been any effort made to get people to integrate and as a result, there's a lot of militancy. But immigration is confined to some large urban areas in our country. Counties like Dorset and Wiltshire have virtually no ethnic minorities, where are one in seven people in London were born outside the UK. But I really shouldn't complain, as my family are Irish and came over here after the potato famine, anyway..

Meh...sometimes it works...usually it doesnt.

The best homogenous societies...are one like Iceland...Finland, Switzerland and such...but even those arnt 100% homogenous.:(

Switzerland? Homogenous??? You are aware they have four offical languages/cultures, yes? German, French, Italian, and Romansch. It's hardly homogenous.

Not really.. since the July bombings and whatnot, Islamophobia is pretty rampant, and occasionally well-deserved. Problem is, there's never been any effort made to get people to integrate and as a result, there's a lot of militancy. But immigration is confined to some large urban areas in our country. Counties like Dorset and Wiltshire have virtually no ethnic minorities, where are one in seven people in London were born outside the UK. But I really shouldn't complain, as my family are Irish and came over here after the potato famine, anyway..
Hence why I say areas with greater homogeneity tend to fare better in Europe. Either way, I do not think Britain is as bad off as it could be.

Switzerland? Homogenous??? You are aware they have four offical languages/cultures, yes? German, French, Italian, and Romansch. It's hardly homogenous.
It's also confederal. Hence its existence is viable and each confederal department is relatively homogeneous.

Schrandtopia']I live in America so I really wouldn't know, I'm more looking for the European perspective

is it a good thing or a bad thing to have a nation based around one race and one culture?

It's generally a bad idea to answer these kinds of questions, because if you say it's good, you're an evil racist idiot and deserve to die, and the conversation quickly becomes rather one-sided.

Still, having a nation based on something that is common to all its citizens (race, religion, whatever) is a very good thing, and the way things should be. Just think of Africa; many African countries have been in an almost constant state of civil war ever since becoming independent, just because the old European empires didn't pay attention to the borders between different tribes while colonizing.

Yugoslavia is another good example. And the ancient Rome. Just because a nation isn't homogenic, it doesn't mean the people don't consider themselves to belong in ethnic groups. Unless the immigrants and ethnic minorities do their best to be completely assimilated, they will create a lot of additional expenses to the government in the form of signposts in many languages, education of the immigrants' cultures and languages, and anti-racism campaigning to name a few. Normally the immigrants tend to be too proud (as they should be) to want to change their culture, and they will segregate themselves. Contrary to the popular belief, racism isn't normally caused by xenophobia or delusions of superiority; it's caused by negative experiences with the other ethnic groups.

Immigration of skilled workers would be a good thing, but too often the immigrants are poor and uneducated, and therefore not something one would consider a valuable resource to the nation. They put a strain on the society, especially if they come in amounts large enough to create ethnically homogenous communities of their own into the country.

It might be a good idea for people to "stop being racist", but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen. And thinking that all people are equal is preposterous, and such thinking is often a result of too much anti-racist brainwashing. Different people are just good at different things.

In conclusion, a multicultural nation might work, depending on the minorities, but I wouldn't want to try it. There are other ways for cultures to interact.

Having lived in America (Los Angeles, specifically, where I was born and raised), South Korea(Osan and Daejon) and England (Lincoln and Birmingham), I can definitely say that I've seen shining examples of both diversity and homogenity.

South Korea is an amazingly homogenous society. No, it's not 100%...what country is? But unless you're in Seoul or near a US military base, foreigners are extremely rare. But, because Korea was such a homogenous society, my husband and I made an extreme effort to wear Korean style (read: modest) clothing and we learned to read, write and speak Korean. There was definitely some prejudice. I recruited teachers and found that unless you were white, young and American, it was going to be tough going finding you work.

In England, I lived and taught in Lincoln, where in the school there was one black kid and three middle eastern (British termed Asian) kids. That was quite homogenous, and yet, racism was rampant.

Now, I'm in Birmingham, and things are exceedingly mixed. We live in a primarily Pakistani and Iraqi area and have no problems whatsoever. The middle eastern/indian population isn't incredibly racist (though there is a bit) but the whites are nearly psychotically racist! Everyone's a "wop/yank/paki/spic/chink/add-your-insult-here". Well-read, intelligent white people here are not as bad as the on-the-dole and low-income-housing (read council housing) tenants. Actually, it's mostly the low classes and the
poor (of which there's a *lot* in the UK, IMO) who have never been further than, like, ten miles from where they were born, who are the most prejudiced and racist.

But then, L.A. isn't so different. There's a lot of racism in the States. You may not see it, but it's evident when you're a part of my family. Daddy, lil bro and I are white (Bavarian), step-mom is half Chrokee, half black, adopted brother is black. Most of my boyfriends were Mexican. So, yes, going out as a family gets a *lot* of weird looks and nasty comments.

Personally, for the places I've lived, I can't say one way or the other that homogenity is good or bad. I've got a mixture of experiences. Perhaps it's just *educating* people that's the key???

DISCLIAIMER:::: This is just my two cents and these things I'm stating are due to my personal experiences of having lived in several different societies and cultures and my specific studies toward further education relating to sociology, criminology and the psychology of homogenous nations.

I can't comment on the scale of nations but sociology does have something to say on the effects of numerical ratios of social groups; tokenism and power rivalry all occur in different amounts depending on the ratios of people involved.


In social groups where very low percentages of a given group occur within the social setting these singular or handful of individuals end up being used as representatives of their entire social group: ala the single female in the workplace being used as an example of all womankind.

In social groups with a group that accounts for a low but not substantial portion of the social group as a whole a dominance/isolation social mechanic tends to be implemented. This occurs at roughly 10-15% of the minority representation.

The isolation dominance relationship slowly curbs as you get down to a more or less equal distribution right around 40-50%.


But what occurs are the extreme ends is actually quite interesting. It stands in stark contrast to what occurs in purely homogenuous groups, and this sort of data would be much more useful at the level of a nation for comparison if a nation which was entirely homogenous actually existed.




Empress: On a previous thread you espoused what seemed like support for a Xenophobic outlook at the cultural scale, and yet you find the concept of cultural homogeneity disturbing or wrong? Or am I missing something?

NT

Empress: On a previous thread you espoused what seemed like support for a Xenophobic outlook at the cultural scale, and yet you find the concept of cultural homogeneity disturbing or wrong? Or am I missing something?

NT
I will venture a guess, and say that it's because such threads usually lead to nowhere. That could've put her off it.

So far the discussion has essentially danced around the merits and flaws of homogenous versus heterogenous societies, but on the other hand it has remained relatively civil.


I suppose there is the possibility of acknowledged impasse, especially consdering the very real possibility of fundamentalist or extremist posters submitting their "opinons," but so far constructive argumentation seems to be occurring.

NT

Yes, it seems quite out of the ordinary for NS to be frank. Civil discourse is not the habitual course of action adhered to here.

Schrandtopia']I live in America so I really wouldn't know, I'm more looking for the European perspective

is it a good thing or a bad thing to have a nation based around one race and one culture?

Since when are European nations based on one "race" and one culture? France has a lot of cultural and ethnic diversity; a lot of immigrants settle here from northern Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, eastern Asia, and eastern and southern Europe. Have a wander through Paris' underground train stations and tell me if you still think our nation is based on one "race"...

There's a saying that comes up from time to time over here: "Première, deuxième, troisième génération: Nous sommes tous des enfants d'immigrés". ("First, second or third generation: We are all the children of immigrants.) Which is very true. At least in Paris and its suburbs, almost every French person you meet will have at least one immigrant parent or grandparent.

I remember when I was in my final year in lycée, it was a class mainly of girls, and the few boys (about eight or nine, myself included) were all of immigrant descent (English, Polish, Armenian, Beninese, Portuguese, Italian, Middle-Eastern...). And this was in a town with a lower number of immigrants than many other of the Paris suburbs. I myself am the son of an immigrant (English) mother, and on my father's side my great-grandfather was Welsh. My closest friends all have at least one immigrant parent (Italian, Tunisian, Guyanese...).

Nobody over here sees France as being mono-ethnic or mono-cultural. The main difference with English-speaking nations, perhaps, is that words such as "multiculturalism" aren't used as often, and, by comparison, France may seem rather more assimilationist. The idea being that there are French values ("les valeurs de la République") which should be accepted by all (democracy, freedom of speech, laïcité), and that any French citizen should ideally think of him- or herself as French first, and as a member of a cultural minority second. In practice, of course, almost every French person (at least in urban areas) has multiple cultural and ethnic identities.

France is one of the less homogeneous countries in Europe in any case. It is by no means a vision of perfection, however. It faces multitudinous issues, both social and economic. I am eager to see how it proposes solving them.

The Southern Poverty League identifies several Hate Groups in operation in each American state but one: Hawai'i - coincidently, the only state without an ethnic majority.

However, Hawai'i is Hawai'i, its prosperous and contains very little that would spark off ethnic anger.

History has taught us that being multi-ethnic has never been a detriment to a society until the advent of modern nationalism, which does distinctly advocate the partitioning of the Earth into states that correspond directly onto the homelands of nations. The problem is that there are very few pieces of land that are ethnically 'pure', many ethnic minorities are not recent immigrants but have been there as long, if not longer, than the ethnic majority.

At the risk of sounding cliched, I think the problem is a lack of education. People throughout the world often do not have adequate encounters will other peoples in order to not fear/distrust them. Immigration not only helps lift people out of poverty and provides valuable labour, but also makes a culture more dynamic and the people more tolerant.

[scratch=head] I know I had an asbestos shield around here, someplace.
I took it and glued it onto the front of my previously existing asbestos shield.