Robert Putnam, the author of “Bowling Alone,” discovers that diversity has an unintended consequence:
Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.
I’m not surprised. Sociology, much of the time, validates common sense. People, in general, prefer to be around others like them. People fear that which is different and that which they do not understand. These are evolutionary characteristics that we probably inheirited from our ancestors thousands of years ago when we were trying to survive in a harsh and hostile environment.
The relationship between diversity and civic engagement, however, may not be as bleak as the study suggests. Most people who are active in their communities are middle-aged or older, and these people grew up at a time when the United States was more homogenious — in other words, mainly white and Christian. Today, however, the country is increasingly a mix of every ethnicity and religion in the world: white people will be a minority within decades, and Christianity is becoming less and less dominant on a cultural level. The generation that was most likely included in Putnam’s new study — older people, or those who tend to be the most active in their communities – witnessed this transition first-hand, and as a result, they have been subconciously nervous about the growing presence of other ethnicities and religions. This, in turn, led to the present levels of uneasiness in diverse communities.
However, the generation growing up today (and especially the ones that follow it) never witnessed (and will never witness) a United States in which the overwhelming majority of people are white and Christian, particularly in urban areas. Immigration, globalization, the Internet and intermarriage are all creating a United States that is melting pot — or patchwork quilt, if you prefer — on a level that no one could have forseen. More foreigners are coming to live in the United States. The Internet provides cheap, easy access to people of every religion and culture in the world. More people are choosing their own religions rather then merely accepting the ones in which they were raised.* People are increasingly comfortable with dating and marrying outside of their ethnicity and religion, leading to children who will be uneasily classifiable.**
To future generations, such a world will seem completely normal and natural. As a result, I predict that Putnam’s finding will soon become inaccurate. People will become more active in diverse communities because the entire country will be a diverse community. In other words, human nature will have changed.
Elsewhere: A new report states that Great Britain is in danger of breaking up due to multiculturalism.
* Right now the most popular religion to choose seems to be Islam (and click here and here to see why this might be worrisome):
** However, there are possible downsides. Children born of parents with two religions and/or ethnicities have problems establishing a personal sense of identity. In addition, increased multicultural attitudes may lead to a watering-down of existing cultures. In an interfaith family, the odds are good that their grandchildren will not be Jews. If preserving one’s culture is important, then this would pose an obvious problem.
