Does Multiculturalism work?

[madd0ct0r]

I don't think it's a problem that defines our society but I'm still of the opinion that there exists a mentality among many journalists, politicians and so on here in Sweden which basically boils down to: Immigration can only have positive side-effects. If anything negative happens it should be explained using their class, their gender, the architecture of their suburb, discrimination coming from Swedish people and so on.

Take the Oslo rape investigation from last year, almost every single case of rape where a woman was literally assaulted and forced to have sex that went to court was committed by a person born in the middle east or in Africa, and Norwegian police is not exactly known for being Gestapo which rounds up immigrants at a whim.
Take the fact that ambulances routinely have to wait for armed police-officers to escort them in many parts of Swedens larger towns.
Why do some people campaign for issues like "no human is illegal"? (i.e turn over responsibility for the immigration-politics to the human smugglers)

I just cant believe that all the trouble and insanity I've seen in relationship to Swedish immigration should be caused by my own far right delusions. And I can't agree that everything said on the internet on the subject can be compared to "9/11 bullshit" (though a lot of it can).

well, if you view immigration as a positive thing, then when something negative happens you are bound to look a little a deeper into the issue rather then immediately discard a core belief.
For example - most 'random stranger rapes' were committed by a person from the Middle East or Africa is a fact.
Middle Eastern are more likely to commit assault and rape is a conclusion, although I find it unlikely to be down to passports.

So, what factors are known to increase the chance of stranger rape? Violent tendencies, macho-cultures, social exclusion, genetics?
In the typical migrant low-skill laborer the middle two are certainly present, with the other two being options.
most migrants tend to be young, low-skilled males. An socially isolated, homesick young idiot is bound to cling to things that remind him of home, and that used to give him social status there - being tough, 'honour-codes', 'being the strong man,' ect.
If seeing a drunk girl walking home only inspires contempt, or a girl turning your invitation to mate down makes you feel like a failed man, then anger and violence follow.
I'm not excusing it. I'm not condoning it, they are the ones breaking the implied contract of multiculturalism and there is NO EXCUSE for their behavior. A reason is not an excuse, but it helps society to defuse the situation if there is a better idea of causation then 'he's middle eastern, they don't know any better there'


If there is so much trouble being caused, why is Sweden encouraging immigration? do the benefits outweigh the costs?

[Straha]

I don't think it's a problem that defines our society but I'm still of the opinion that there exists a mentality among many journalists, politicians and so on here in Sweden which basically boils down to: Immigration can only have positive side-effects. If anything negative happens it should be explained using their class, their gender, the architecture of their suburb, discrimination coming from Swedish people and so on.

Take the Oslo rape investigation from last year, almost every single case of rape where a woman was literally assaulted and forced to have sex that went to court was committed by a person born in the middle east or in Africa, and Norwegian police is not exactly known for being Gestapo which rounds up immigrants at a whim.
Take the fact that ambulances routinely have to wait for armed police-officers to escort them in many parts of Swedens larger towns.
Why do some people campaign for issues like "no human is illegal"? (i.e turn over responsibility for the immigration-politics to the human smugglers)

I just cant believe that all the trouble and insanity I've seen in relationship to Swedish immigration should be caused by my own far right delusions. And I can't agree that everything said on the internet on the subject can be compared to "9/11 bullshit" (though a lot of it can).

well, if you view immigration as a positive thing, then when something negative happens you are bound to look a little a deeper into the issue rather then immediately discard a core belief.
For example - most 'random stranger rapes' were committed by a person from the Middle East or Africa is a fact.
Middle Eastern are more likely to commit assault and rape is a conclusion, although I find it unlikely to be down to passports.

So, what factors are known to increase the chance of stranger rape? Violent tendencies, macho-cultures, social exclusion, genetics?
In the typical migrant low-skill laborer the middle two are certainly present, with the other two being options.
most migrants tend to be young, low-skilled males. An socially isolated, homesick young idiot is bound to cling to things that remind him of home, and that used to give him social status there - being tough, 'honour-codes', 'being the strong man,' ect.
If seeing a drunk girl walking home only inspires contempt, or a girl turning your invitation to mate down makes you feel like a failed man, then anger and violence follow.
I'm not excusing it. I'm not condoning it, they are the ones breaking the implied contract of multiculturalism and there is NO EXCUSE for their behavior. A reason is not an excuse, but it helps society to defuse the situation if there is a better idea of causation then 'he's middle eastern, they don't know any better there'

I am downright fucking flabbergasted that I am seeing views like this on this board of all places. What the fuck is wrong with you two?

You are at the same time denying these people any sort of individual agency AND condemning them using the 'correlation=causation' fallacy, while at the same time condemning other people for the same thing! ("If anything negative happens it should be explained using their class, their gender, the architecture of their suburb, discrimination coming from Swedish people and so on.") I am downright repulsed by you both.

If there is so much trouble being caused, why is Sweden encouraging immigration? do the benefits outweigh the costs?

Yes. Because people are equal in their individuality, no one person is inherently better than another. Any other stance is morally bankrupt and leads to all sorts of horrors beyond compare.



That said Multiculturalism is fucked up for a number of reasons. I encourage everyone to read some works of Judith Butler and Wendy Brown, amongst others, but I'll break down some of the majorly fucked up issues that can be tied to multiculturalism here:

1. It ties people down, and essentializes them. To take Germany, as an example, it says that Turks who come into Germany are intrinsically and unequivocally, in some way, Turkish, while Germans are intrinsically and unequivocally German, the French French, Americans American, Algerians Algerian, etc. It defines these people, and then prevents them from moving from every transcending that distinction. They will always, and forever, be of that "culture" and nothing can change that, no matter how hard they try or how wrong the appellation might be. This is fucked.

If you want to argue with me here, I'll gladly respond, but there's a hand-in-hand example that goes along with it. Imagine a transgender person. Imagine telling a trans individual, for ease of discussion a male to female, that because of the way they were raised/treated/acted/etc. they are forever and irreducibly male, and that they can never change that. That's what multiculturalism does to people.

2. It destroys personal integrity and responsibility. Look at the above posts, no longer is there a person committing a heinous crime of rape, it's a person who "is bound to cling to things that remind him of home, and that used to give him social status," including rape. It gives a back door excuse to the behaviour. You might say "No, sir! It's just a reason!" but it's not, you're saying, in one way or another, that this was something the person was bound to do. Had to do. They had an impulse that's overpowering, probably even beyond their control. This is the same reasoning behind insanity pleas at trials. "They were insane, they couldn't do anything about it, it made sense to them at the time." The only difference is you're saying the person in question is sane, and that it's their culture that's sick, and that compels them, inexorably, to commit these crimes.


3. It ends up making cultures "understandable" and then ends up demonizing them. Look at Maddoctor's post. How stereotypes can you count? It says that in Middle East, for instance, this kind of behaviour is to be expected, it is the norm, it how we can understand THEM. We can break down very complex societies into simple impulses ("Honor Codes" "Being the Strong Man") and get a understanding of exactly what these people do, and are capable of. It also lets us, in "the West" usually, understand exactly how we are better than THEM. We can understand the impulses that drive them to commit crimes, and we can prescribe remedies for those impulses. Ever wonder why the United States is in Iraq? It's because of this. "Those people don't understand democracy, freedom, and equality, and they hate us for our freedoms." It's not just the United States, the Netherlands is going through a spasm of this as well, and it creeps up in Europe too (look at France and veils.)

Multicultural ideas underpins and girds this mentality up. In its own unique way it is an ungodly evil unleashed on this Earth by people with nothing but the best of intentions at their heart. Does it 'work'? Perhaps, for some goals somehow, but it's disgusting to its core and is not ever possibly worth the price paid by letting it slip in through the door.

[ray245]

But isn't Japan still a pretty monoculture nation today, in comparison to the Western states? The same can be said about China, as the Han Ethnic group are essentially the only ethnic group in large parts of China.

Hang on a minute. Are you saying that is a nation's ethnic minorities don't make up a certain percentage of the population, that country isn't multicutura? Because frankly some of those ethnic minorities outnumber some countries in their own right, and I am not talking about small countries like the Vatican. Add the top two ethnic minorities and they outnumber my country. Some of them outnumber small European countries (by population) like Sweden, or small Asian countries (by population) like Mongolia.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if an ethnic minority is so small that the overwhelming majority of people in their nation even encountered them, the multi-cultural aspect of the nation is not very big.

[Zaune]

Straha, I think you might be being a little too harsh on madd0ct0r. He could have hit on a less controversial analogy, but it would be unscientific to ignore culture and background when analysing motives for violent crime.

[Metahive]

To take Germany, as an example, it says that Turks who come into Germany are intrinsically and unequivocally, in some way, Turkish, while Germans are intrinsically and unequivocally German, the French French, Americans American, Algerians Algerian, etc.

I'm the child of two korean immigrants, I don't look "german" in the least, and yet never have I encountered situations where people awaited from me, subtly or unsubtly, to "act my culture". Funnily enough, the only racism I ever encountered at all was by turkish ghetto thugs, even the one very right-wing pseudo-nazi I shared a class with in Highschool only ever threatened to brutalize me for acting like a smartass, not for looking foreign (and no, he told antisemitic jokes and the like, so he wouldn't have been afraid of PC).
While I agree that integration could have been handled better in Germany, depicting it like some sort of imposed "cultural" caste-system is overdoing it. I must also honestly say, I don't believe the situation of the Turks in Germany is just the fault of the system here.

[Straha]

Straha, I think you might be being a little too harsh on madd0ct0r. He could have hit on a less controversial analogy, but it would be unscientific to ignore culture and background when analysing motives for violent crime.

Oh? And how, pray tell, can you scientifically adjudicate the origins of the motive of a crime?

Regardless of whether or not I was too harsh on maddoctor I will state, unequivocally, that I am being far kinder towards multiculturalism than it deserves.



Metahive, my choice of Germany was largely arbitrary, though based in part on Merkel's recent comments on multiculturalism. I'm not trying to single it out as an example in and of itself in regards to the failings of multiculturalism. If you took it that way, my apologies.

[Zaune]

Oh? And how, pray tell, can you scientifically adjudicate the origins of the motive of a crime?

The same way one can scientifically adjudicate, or at least predict, every other aspect of human behaviour; with a big enough sample set and sufficient understanding of all the cultural and environmental factors acting upon said sample set.

[mr friendly guy]

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if an ethnic minority is so small that the overwhelming majority of people in their nation even encountered them, the multi-cultural aspect of the nation is not very big.

Can you rephrase that? Even trying to correct your grammar, I am still not clear what exactly you are saying with the second part, that the multicultural aspect of a nation is not very big. Usually multicultarism is "measured" by the number of ethnic groups (lets be generous and say ethnic groups of a reasonable size, so one refugee in a new country doesn't equal a new culture).

[ray245]

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if an ethnic minority is so small that the overwhelming majority of people in their nation even encountered them, the multi-cultural aspect of the nation is not very big.

Can you rephrase that? Even trying to correct your grammar, I am still not clear what exactly you are saying with the second part, that the multicultural aspect of a nation is not very big. Usually multicultarism is "measured" by the number of ethnic groups (lets be generous and say ethnic groups of a reasonable size, so one refugee in a new country doesn't equal a new culture).

I'm saying that such a countries like China is essentially a monoculture state in many areas, given that most Chinese hardly have the chance to encounter a person from a different ethnic group.

[Straha]

Oh? And how, pray tell, can you scientifically adjudicate the origins of the motive of a crime?

The same way one can scientifically adjudicate, or at least predict, every other aspect of human behaviour; with a big enough sample set and sufficient understanding of all the cultural and environmental factors acting upon said sample set.

My word...

How can you possibly understand "all the cultural and environmental factors" acting on a person? In what way is it even remotely possible to understand all the cultural factors influencing a person? What you are doing is the EXACT SAME THING I decried in my first post in this thread. Point 3. Go read it, and respond.

Moreover, you're extending a very subtle racism of your own. In order to use science as a legitimate tool of inquiry you need a base claim to some sort of objectivity, a way to isolate all extraneous variables. Cultures are complex, and interwoven beasts, and what you are saying is that A. other cultures have a pervasive effect on people, touching on every aspect of their lives and changing how they perceive the world and respond to it and B. we can analyze this objectively using science and quantify just how much of their actions are cultural and how much is 'man-made,' because we can be sure that our study won't be effected by our cultural heritage and history. Why? Because we are better than that. (For we: read "the West", "White European Male", or any of a number of other similar groups.) This sort of shit leads to stuff like the Bell Curve, and, in its more extreme forms, things like 'drapetomania'. It's also why the intellectual left tends to, more often than not, reject science and scientific discourse out of hand, and why the scientific method and form of inquiry has a really god damn hard time being accepted in a large swath of the third world.

[Dooey Jo]

I don't think it's a problem that defines our society but I'm still of the opinion that there exists a mentality among many journalists, politicians and so on here in Sweden which basically boils down to: Immigration can only have positive side-effects. If anything negative happens it should be explained using their class, their gender, the architecture of their suburb, discrimination coming from Swedish people and so on.

It's probably because such things, plus alcohol, are much better predictors for... negative activity than not being born in the country by parents also born in the country. What would you want the media and politicians to say?

Take the Oslo rape investigation from last year, almost every single case of rape where a woman was literally assaulted and forced to have sex that went to court was committed by a person born in the middle east or in Africa, and Norwegian police is not exactly known for being Gestapo which rounds up immigrants at a whim.

Ignoring that this seems to have pretty dubious sources in the first place (official documents say 30% of all suspects had Norwegian background), drawing conclusions from the number of convictions in a court is inadvisable at best. Especially concerning rape statistics. But please elaborate in what way this is a negative side-effect of immigration.

Take the fact that ambulances routinely have to wait for armed police-officers to escort them in many parts of Swedens larger towns.

Pretty sure this has been debated for years. What angle do you feel they are missing?

Why do some people campaign for issues like "no human is illegal"? (i.e turn over responsibility for the immigration-politics to the human smugglers)

I don't see what this has to do with multiculturalism specifically. Are you saying some humans are intrinsically illegal?

1. It ties people down, and essentializes them. To take Germany, as an example, it says that Turks who come into Germany are intrinsically and unequivocally, in some way, Turkish, while Germans are intrinsically and unequivocally German, the French French, Americans American, Algerians Algerian, etc. It defines these people, and then prevents them from moving from every transcending that distinction. They will always, and forever, be of that "culture" and nothing can change that, no matter how hard they try or how wrong the appellation might be. This is fucked.

Indeed. Sometimes it seems like political debaters have accepted the "immigration critical" world-view that people from a certain place, must be a certain way. The difference is that they instead think it's good. It would be nice if more people could view people for what they are: Individuals. But I'm pretty sure we don't have an official policy of "separate but equal value" and instead that anyone should be able to be considered Swedish (which is better at least, even though the "immigration critics" hate that idea and indeed further the idea that a Turk is always a Turk), and maybe some day the conservative government will start dealing with the rampant segregation (lol, as if).

[mr friendly guy]

I'm saying that such a countries like China is essentially a monoculture state in many areas, given that most Chinese hardly have the chance to encounter a person from a different ethnic group.

Ok, I think I am seeing where you are coming from. You are talking about multiculturalism from the perspective to "mixing" cultures, rather than the fact that other cultures exist within a nation's borders. This would expect to become more prominent with upward mobility and more ability to move between provinces for both Han Chinese and ethnic minorities.

Looking at say another multicultural country like the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kin ... nic_groups), Whites make up around 91% of the population. Depending on which sources you use, Han chinese makes up 92% of the population, so the mixture between the ethnic majority and minority groups are similar. I guess the difference is, the ethnic minorities aren't mainly living in one province, but are spread out.

[hongi]

2. It destroys personal integrity and responsibility. Look at the above posts, no longer is there a person committing a heinous crime of rape, it's a person who "is bound to cling to things that remind him of home, and that used to give him social status," including rape. It gives a back door excuse to the behaviour. You might say "No, sir! It's just a reason!" but it's not, you're saying, in one way or another, that this was something the person was bound to do. Had to do. They had an impulse that's overpowering, probably even beyond their control. This is the same reasoning behind insanity pleas at trials. "They were insane, they couldn't do anything about it, it made sense to them at the time." The only difference is you're saying the person in question is sane, and that it's their culture that's sick, and that compels them, inexorably, to commit these crimes.

It isn't the fault of multiculturalism that people think culture influences people in their actions. It's their fundamental idea about how culture works. Then they place the actions of immigrants in context with their form of determinism (as you might put it) and think that it's their culture that's ultimately to blame.

[Elessar]

But the differences within the Han ethnic group isn't as big as the differences between the various European ethnic group. The Han ethnic group has shared centuries of unified political and social history as compared to Europeans.

This is a silly statement. During the Communist movement at the height of Mao's power, there was a huge push by the state to simply ignore ethnicities. Your ancestry wasn't a matter, all were Chinese and so long as you identified yourself as a fellow comrade, that was that.

It went to such extremes that serious differences such as Manchurian families changed their family name to blend in.

What you see today is the result of that political environment. A detailed look at China's history would make a mockery of your statement that the Han ethnic group doesn't have 'as big as the differences between various' caucasians.

There has been a general policy trend in China to suppress dialects etc. and force everyone to speak only mandarin. That is of course meeting resistance, but it has been the trend.

Yeah, but places like Guangdong and Shanghai manage to resist the dominance of Mandarin pretty well.

Resist? The massive city of Shanghai doesn't have a single channel that broadcasts in its dialect.

For Guangdong, through outright riots and rebellion against the Chinese state. And even then that region of Canton is the only Chinese area that even has TV stations that broadcast in their dialect (Cantonese).

So yes, the ethnicities are so different that the political stranglehold of the Chinese state is required to make such massive changes. And the trend today is actually a loosening of regulations and a willingness to protect history and culture. Only as the realities of capitalism settle in will Mandarin become more entrenched (much like English is the language of business).

[Todeswind]

The Han Ethnic group are essentially the only ethnic group in large parts of China.

Yeah, considering that there are a number of ethic sub groups within the Han that is hardly a valid argument. Its like saying that Europe or America is mostly made up of caucasians.

There has been a general policy trend in China to suppress dialects etc. and force everyone to speak only mandarin. That is of course meeting resistance, but it has been the trend.

There was a general policy in the USSR to promote the universal use of Russian as well as to downplay racial tensions between the various ethnic groups in their European satellites as well but it did little in the long run to diminish ethnic and cultural frustrations.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if an ethnic minority is so small that the overwhelming majority of people in their nation even encountered them, the multi-cultural aspect of the nation is not very big.

Can you rephrase that? Even trying to correct your grammar, I am still not clear what exactly you are saying with the second part, that the multicultural aspect of a nation is not very big. Usually multicultarism is "measured" by the number of ethnic groups (lets be generous and say ethnic groups of a reasonable size, so one refugee in a new country doesn't equal a new culture).

I'm saying that such a countries like China is essentially a monoculture state in many areas, given that most Chinese hardly have the chance to encounter a person from a different ethnic group.

Regions tend to have some form of ethnic majority. Nobody would ever accuse America of not being multicultural because someone from rural West Virginia or North Dakota is statistically less likely to be dealing with a "conflicting" ethnic group than someone from a major urban area just because rural america is statistically more populated by caucasians.

And I feel I would be remiss not to mention that the Han ethnic group is a politically motivated blanket term for a wide range of ethnic and cultural heritages 92% Han chinese is sort of vague.

[ray245]

But the differences within the Han ethnic group isn't as big as the differences between the various European ethnic group. The Han ethnic group has shared centuries of unified political and social history as compared to Europeans.

This is a silly statement. During the Communist movement at the height of Mao's power, there was a huge push by the state to simply ignore ethnicities. Your ancestry wasn't a matter, all were Chinese and so long as you identified yourself as a fellow comrade, that was that.

It went to such extremes that serious differences such as Manchurian families changed their family name to blend in.

What you see today is the result of that political environment. A detailed look at China's history would make a mockery of your statement that the Han ethnic group doesn't have 'as big as the differences between various' caucasians.

But is the difference between a member of the Hakka and a member of the Hainanese during the 18th-19th century as big as the difference between a British and a Spaniard during those times?

[Todeswind]

But the differences within the Han ethnic group isn't as big as the differences between the various European ethnic group. The Han ethnic group has shared centuries of unified political and social history as compared to Europeans.

This is a silly statement. During the Communist movement at the height of Mao's power, there was a huge push by the state to simply ignore ethnicities. Your ancestry wasn't a matter, all were Chinese and so long as you identified yourself as a fellow comrade, that was that.

It went to such extremes that serious differences such as Manchurian families changed their family name to blend in.

What you see today is the result of that political environment. A detailed look at China's history would make a mockery of your statement that the Han ethnic group doesn't have 'as big as the differences between various' caucasians.

But is the difference between a member of the Hakka and a member of the Hainanese during the 18th-19th century as big as the difference between a British and a Spaniard during those times?

Perhaps not that pronounced by easily as well defined as the difference between the Germans and the Austrians or the Checks and Slovaks or the Fins and the Sweeds or the Americans and the Canadians.

[Spoonist]

@Todeswind
Minor nitpick;
Fins and Swedes does not compare as the rest of your pairs.
Although they shared a nation for half a millenia the language, culture and ethniticity is not the same. Fins are quite unique vs their neighbours, going back to the migration period.
Now Swedes, Danes and Norwegians are pretty much interchangeable unless you listen to nationalists.

[madd0ct0r]

You are at the same time denying these people any sort of individual agency AND condemning them using the 'correlation=causation' fallacy, while at the same time condemning other people for the same thing! ("If anything negative happens it should be explained using their class, their gender, the architecture of their suburb, discrimination coming from Swedish people and so on.") I am downright repulsed by you both.

...

That said Multiculturalism is fucked up for a number of reasons. I encourage everyone to read some works of Judith Butler and Wendy Brown, amongst others, but I'll break down some of the majorly fucked up issues that can be tied to multiculturalism here:

1. ... It defines these people, and then prevents them from moving from every transcending that distinction. ...

2. It destroys personal integrity and responsibility.... you're saying the person in question is sane, and that it's their culture that's sick, and that compels them, inexorably, to commit these crimes.


3. It ends up making cultures "understandable" and then ends up demonizing them. ...

Multicultural ideas underpins and girds this mentality up. In its own unique way it is an ungodly evil unleashed on this Earth by people with nothing but the best of intentions at their heart. Does it 'work'? Perhaps, for some goals somehow, but it's disgusting to its core and is not ever possibly worth the price paid by letting it slip in through the door.

Ahhh. Yeah, I do pick nice simple non-emotive analogies.

A better one is the behavior of gas particles in a box. If we want to know the forces acting on the box (society) we do not model the mass and velocity of every molecule (individual). We take the statistical effects to get the pressure. One air particle is assumed to behave like another (stereotyping).

I am not advocating your point 2 at all. An individual is an individual and remains responsible for their actions. For understanding people en masse (like the immigration question) integrating over the sum of the individuals is impossible. Statistical methods, with their horrible, dehumanizing, 'lump them all together' approach are required. They will not tell you much about an individual, hence 'The Bellcurve means whites are superior' proponents are well and truly fucking wrong.
Concluding a particular Middle eastern guy is more likely to be doing some raping from the above (now dubious) statistic is, as you said, wrong.

Number 3 is something that falls under what i would call 'cultural relativism'. Because all cultures are equal, and you shouldn't interfere with other's culture, things like female circumcision are ok. There's blatantly a problem there.
So, humans have certain inalienable rights, and for a culture to be 'permissible', ie tolerated within a actively multicultural country, it has to provide those basic rights first.
I say 'actively multicultural' to describe those countries that actively embrace the idea, support it and are quite happy for people to come from different backgrounds (like the UK, idealistically). This is in contrast to passively multicultural countries which just happen to have minority cultures, through immigration, geography or whatever.
To sum up, Cultural relativism bad, multiculturalism =/= cultural relativism.

Your first point, point 1, I really never thought about.
When the statistical box is as broad as 'immigrant from Northern Ireland' then no, nothing my father ever does will remove him from that box. Now, there is a much higher rate of mental illness amongst the NIrish (blame 20 years of the troubles for that)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_troubles
and so, statistically, you might well be interested in the 'immigrant from Northern Ireland' category. My father will appear in this category, as would my sister (born there, left aged 1).
Obviously in this case a little more fine detail would be appropriate eg, 'immigrant from Northern Ireland who grew up in Northern Ireland during the troubles (specified by a range of birthdates and a range of immigration dates)'.
Creation of this fine detail is essentially the same as what I was doing in my earlier post. Identify key 'markers' to allow the narrowing of categories to minimize the number of people stigmatized. I am uncomfortable with the words of that sentence, but it is exactly what I was doing before.
Of course, the finer the mesh gets, the less appropriate statistical methods are. Hence why conclusions about one person cannot (or should not ) be drawn based on a crude stereotype.

I think your entire hatred of 'multicultralism' is identical to my hatred of 'cultural relativism'. On the other hand, I quite like the idea of different cultures all living cheek by jowl. cross breeds are stronger and all that.

[Straha]

A better one is the behavior of gas particles in a box. If we want to know the forces acting on the box (society) we do not model the mass and velocity of every molecule (individual). We take the statistical effects to get the pressure. One air particle is assumed to behave like another (stereotyping).

I am not advocating your point 2 at all. An individual is an individual and remains responsible for their actions. For understanding people en masse (like the immigration question) integrating over the sum of the individuals is impossible. Statistical methods, with their horrible, dehumanizing, 'lump them all together' approach are required. They will not tell you much about an individual, hence 'The Bellcurve means whites are superior' proponents are well and truly fucking wrong.

You're trying to have your cake and eat it too. Your statistical analysis, which will inevitably be horribly flawed (see point 3 of my first post, my reply to Zaune above, or any common-sense book like Stephen Gould's Mismeasure of Man), is still making predictive claims about groups of people. For instance, you yourself were categorizing whole groups of immigrants as being effected by the drive to prove their manliness, and being bound by 'honour codes'. Whether or not you can boil it down to saying whether or not a, to use what you were posting before, random African immigrant in specific is more likely to rape someone doesn't fucking matter. What matters is that you are saying that the group of people he belongs to, through no elective choice of his own, is more likely to rape people. Therefore he is more likely to rape someone.

Moreover what you're doing is in no way responsive to what the people who apply to Bell Curve to mean "Whites > Blacks" are doing, if anything it goes hand in hand with it.

Concluding a particular Middle eastern guy is more likely to be doing some raping from the above (now dubious) statistic is, as you said, wrong.

This is how you shield the racism latent in your statement. "I'm not saying Ardeshir is more likely to rape someone. I'm saying that Middle Easterners in general are more likely to rape people."

Number 3 is something that falls under what i would call 'cultural relativism'.

No.

Because all cultures are equal, and you shouldn't interfere with other's culture, things like female circumcision are ok. There's blatantly a problem there.

Let's reread what I wrote, shall we? I say it lets people understand other cultures, then categorize what's wrong with them, and then prescribe remedies for those actions (from enforced sensitivity classes for certain migrants, to invading nations to spread democracy.) While I'm more than willing to scream bloody murder over cultural relativism, it ain't what I'm attacking.

To sum up, Cultural relativism bad, multiculturalism =/= cultural relativism.

What a wonderful and irrelevant straw man.
Let me sum up what I'm saying.
Multiculturalism = Bad.
Cultural Relativism = Bad.

Now that you've swung and missed your first time out, let's see if you can give a better response this time.

Your first point, point 1, I really never thought about.

Well there's your problem!

>snip stuff we'll deal with below<

Creation of this fine detail is essentially the same as what I was doing in my earlier post. Identify key 'markers' to allow the narrowing of categories to minimize the number of people stigmatized. I am uncomfortable with the words of that sentence, but it is exactly what I was doing before.

No you weren't, you lying sack of shit. This is what you said:

So, what factors are known to increase the chance of stranger rape? Violent tendencies, macho-cultures, social exclusion, genetics?
In the typical migrant low-skill laborer the middle two are certainly present, with the other two being options.
most migrants tend to be young, low-skilled males. An socially isolated, homesick young idiot is bound to cling to things that remind him of home, and that used to give him social status there - being tough, 'honour-codes', 'being the strong man,' ect.

In other words, you said "low-skill migrant laborers are almost certainly the victims of social exclusion, and come from macho-cultures, and they may or may not be prone to violent tendencies or genetic predisposition to rape people." There is no attempt to isolate key factors that effect individuals and cause 'problems', nor is there any attempt to reduce stigma. If anything you are stigmatizing these individuals as a whole by saying they are "certainly" socially isolated and pre-disposed to 'macho tendencies'.

If you're going to be this fucking disgusting don't try to hide behind a veil of excuses and outright fabrications, actually defend the consequences of your statements and back them up, or concede and get the fuck out of this thread.

(As an aside, saying that people have a genetic predisposition to rape is the exact sort of thing I'm calling you out for above, and which you tried to make it seem like you weren't accusing people of having. Nice to see you're being consistent.)

Of course, the finer the mesh gets, the less appropriate statistical methods are. Hence why conclusions about one person cannot (or should not ) be drawn based on a crude stereotype.

BUT. THAT'S. WHAT. YOU. ARE. DOING.
Moreover, your statistical methods are flawed no matter what you do, whether you cast the proverbial net wide or narrow. So don't even fucking try it, especially not when the results are going to cause more pain than good.

cross breeds are stronger and all that.

Do you try to be this fucking offensive, or are you really this stupid?

[madd0ct0r]

Wipe the spittle off your computer screen dear, it makes it hard to hear you.

"I'm not saying Ardeshir is more likely to rape someone. I'm saying the Middle Eastern Immigrant Social-sub-grouping has a statistically higher chance of being prosecuted for rape then the societal average ' *

(ASSUMING THAT BLOODY STAT IS VALID for the sake of argument. It's an analogy anyway. Another one would be the incidence of Master or Higher Qualifications within the 2nd gen Uk Indian/Pakistani/Bangaldeshi community )

It doesn't quite fit with your world view about me laughing demonically as I wield my wide brush of tar, but hey, why would I? If the evidence shows a correlation, there is probably causation in there somewhere (2nd or third degree causation, but hey). To continue with this analogy, I would argue that the reasons are social exclusion, macho culture amongst the sub-culture and the chance the guy was a moronic cunt (genetic or whatever, some people are just twats. In case further clarification is needed, I am not such a moron as to say an entire race is genetically prone to rape. Certain individuals within any race, yes. ).

The social exclusion would come from having moved across the world, to a place with a different climate, food and importantly, Language. If you can't speak with locals, it makes it very difficult to make deep friendships with them.

The macho-culture i was referring to is a reflection of the above, plus the idea that most young migrants are male. I am not saying Middle-Eastern people in the Middle East are macho, some probably are, some probably aren't, just like anywhere else (and frankly, I've not lived in the Middle East for long enough to make that judgment call). What I would stand by is that when you have a group composed mostly of young men who socialize mostly (or entirely) with each other, you end up with a macho culture.

Of course, if you can demonstrate the specific immigrant sub-group who are (or were alleged to be) the rapists were all highly educated, spoke fluent Swedish and mixed in widely varied circles (eg, university students) then the above argument is null and void.
As I'm sure you've pointed out, it is based entirely on the stereotype of young, male, uneducated immigrants being more likely to rape somebody; with me therefore guessing (nothing more) that a high incidence of rape within one immigrant sub-group indicates that immigrant-sub-group has a high proportion of uneducated young males.


Now, where are we?

As yes, the "I'm a lying sack of shit" part.
I'll leave it to others to call whether i was lying, but I think you have misunderstood me. see above.
Incidentally, if your immediate response is to accuse me trying to weasel out of it, of being inconsistent or continuing to lie, just check whether the 'misunderstanding' hypothesis fits what I originally said. I have always been talking about the sub-culture within the immigrant group, not the larger culture from which they originated. It may not have been as clear as it could have been.


And I'm not using conclusions from a wide net analysis to make snap judgments about individuals. As we agree, they are worse then worthless, often being positively misleading. When you are debating a Tory (UK Medium Right-wing party) about immigration and it's effects on society you can't integrate over the individuals, there's just too many of them.
When you are discussing drugs liberalisation, and it's affects on say, the sub-group of the population who have or are affected by CP or MS, you can't integrate over individuals, there's too damn many of them.

As for the various accusations of racism, I'm the product of (at least) three races and married to a fourth. My children will be 'Euro-Indo-Chinese'. I'm a 1st gen immigrant, a son of a 1st gen immigrant (who married the daughter of a 1st gen immigrant). The racist bullshit that my grandmother, my father, myself and my wife have all had to put up with in our times has left me with very little tolerance for either 'All Immigrants are evil' or the idiot ultra lefties who sit there with their fingers in their ears going 'lalala, everyone is equal, anything else is racism.'

EVERYBODY IS NOT EQUAL. Anybody, minority or not, has a chance of being a cunt or a saint. Society is not equal, but it bloody better should be.
If a social group, sub-culture or immigrant group is performing exceptionally well, or exceptionally poorly within the large society I want to know why, and what is needed to help those who need it.
If this means desktop warriors like yourself can bandy accusations such as

" it lets people understand other cultures, then categorize what's wrong with them , and then prescribe remedies for those actions (from enforced sensitivity classes for certain migrants, to invading nations to spread democracy

then so fucking be it. Since I like the concept of free movement of people, of multiple cultures living side by side and having the freedom to visit them as I want I will happily stand by the first part of your sentence. Sensitivity classes should also be mandatory for most people if you ask me.
I really hope you aren't accusing me of the final clause of your sentence. When I consider multiculturalism to be fundamentally about reducing cultural conflict, through education, compromise or tolerance, to lump me in with warmongering idiots is hyperbole at best, deliberately misleading at worst.

[Dooey Jo]

In case further clarification is needed, I am not such a moron as to say an entire race is genetically prone to rape. Certain individuals within any race, yes.

What is the difference between those two statements? Surely you must define "race" to mean a population of individuals that share some number of statistical genetic differences from some other population, and so it follows logically that one such difference could be the alleged predisposition to rape. You're just saying that happens to not be the case. "Immigration critics" (ah hell, let's just call them for what they are: Nazis!) are saying the exact same thing, only that many individuals in "certain races" possess such a fate.

[madd0ct0r]

Not all immigration critics are Nazis, a lot are just ignorant people concerned about their jobs and immeadiate family above all else.

Come to think of it, so were most Nazis...


Genetic Variation within a race is typically larger then the the variation between races (its a nebulous concept at best).
But yes, I'll accept your definition of "some number of statisical genetic differneces from some other population"

It does follow logically that an alleged predisposition to rape COULD be one of the markers, but does not mean I think it IS.
in fact, looking at the evolutionary game theory gubbins, it is expected to be present in nearly all populations at a very low level (it is only a successful strategy under very limited circumstances, and is out competed by mutual relationships the rest of the time).

the idea was presented in 2000 in this book
http://books.google.com.vn/books?id=xH6 ... &q&f=false

with the resulting furor eventually needing this: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/thouh/tho ... reface.pdf
I believe it was Stephen Gould who dryly commented the last chapter demonstrates why academics should not be in charge of social policy.

[madd0ct0r]

On p.173 we state: “Many men don’t rape and are not sexually aroused by laboratory depictions of rape.
This suggests that there are cues in the developmental backgrounds of many men that prohibit raping behavior.” Recent research by Neil Malamuth and his colleagues, detailed in our book, suggests that these cues or environmental factors may include growing up with adequate resources, father presence, and enduring social relationships. At the same time, this research identifies “rape proneness” in men as arising from developmental backgrounds that include poverty, father absence, and limited enduring relationships.

taken from the second of the two sources. (pages 7-8)

also

Although we emphasize that additional scientific investigation is needed to fully clarify how social learning during a boy’s development affects a man’s rape proneness, current knowledge may offer promise for reducing rape through new social policy. Though we are not policy experts and cannot formulate concrete social programs, we can imagine numerous avenues for the exploration of possible policy directions. For example, to reduce the number of boys raised under conditions of poverty
in industrial societies, some people might advocate taxation policies that lower wealth inequalities, coupled with more taxation revenues directed at socially disfranchised families. Others might instead suggest that divorced fathers be given tax credits when they reside near their sons and provide the sons with support. These are just a few of many possibilities that come to mind for using knowledge of rape’s developmental causes to attacking the problem.

emphasis mine.

If you have a bigot arguing for primary correlation (Middle Easterner's are more convicted of rape, therefore get rid of them to save our women) you can't just ignore the statistic and call racism. You have to look at the stigmatized group in more detail, see if there are OTHER causes that stand out and then point them out to the bigot, preferably with some suggestions for solving them. If they stick to their belief that skin colour, ethnicity, or passport is the chief cause, then you are entitled to call racisim

[Bakustra]

The problem (well, one of the problems) with using evolutionary psychology to support something is that it's all thought experiments that are not necessarily directly connected with genes, and are not likely to be. Using such a Gedankenexperiment to conclude that a genetic disposition to rape is likely is a faulty endeavour from the beginning, though at least it doesn't fall into the larger pitfall of evolutionary psychology, assuming evolution works on historical time scales and using that to conclude that modern gender roles are essentially hardwired.

The greater problem is that correlation does not absolve. Even if certain environments promote rape (and frankly, the discussion of rape is absurdly biased towards being jumped by a stranger, rather than more common scenarios, so I have doubts as to whether this is especially meaningful), then that does not mean that people lack agency and do not choose to rape, unless you're an incompatibilist determinist who is honest about your totalitarian beliefs.