Too Much Diversity Really Does Cause Harm

I’ve talked about this a number of times. Now here’s some support from Harvard.

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 homogeneous 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. — Boston Globe

Diversity should always be an element of any healthy society, but it should be considered a tool for strengthening the whole, not a goal in and of itself.

We have to start making decisions in this country that benefit it — as a unit — in the long-term. This means, first and foremost, cultivating a united and cohesive population. What we’re doing instead is creating a series of countries within our own.

This study reinforces the fact that the groups we’re allowing in tend not to like each other. It constitutes guaranteed failure. If we are to succeed in this country we have to flirt with the devil; nationalism is a necessary evil in any country that wishes to survive.

We have to regroup and become one again before it’s too late.: