Multiculturalism Fails

Long time readers of my blog and Substack have heard tell of Harvard Professor Robert Putnam’s seminal study of multicultural communities. The study, entitled “E Pluribus Unum” dates to 2006 and demonstrates that they do not work, that the cost largely outweighs the benefits.

Now, Renu Mukherjee explains it in detail in the City Journal. She reviews Putnam and reprises his argument that multicultural communities undermine social capital and basic trust.

She writes:

“In more diverse settings, Americans distrust not merely people who do not look like them, but even people who do,” said Putnam. Diversity contributes a decline in “social capital,” Putnam found, eroding our “social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness.” Using data from the 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, a national survey of 30,000 individuals spread across 41 towns and cities in the U.S., Putnam identified a strong negative relationship between racial and ethnic diversity, on the one hand, and social trust, a common measure of social capital, on the other: the greater the level of racial or ethnic diversity in a community, the less the residents of that community trusted their neighbors, regardless of whether these neighbors were of a different race or ethnicity. For instance, while only 30 percent of residents in highly diverse Los Angeles and San Francisco said that they trusted their neighbors “a lot,” in racially homogenous areas of North and South Dakota, 70 percent to 80 percent of residents said they did.

Simply put, more diversity means that people are less likely to get along. And that means, strikingly, less likely to get along with people who resemble them.In a multicultural community it’s everyone for him or her self.

Residents of more diverse places had lower confidence in local government, local leaders, and the local news media; were less likely to give to charity or volunteer; less apt to work on a community project; enjoyed fewer close friends and confidants; and were generally less happy. “Like tools (physical capital) and training (human capital), social networks have value,” Putnam said. We rely on social networks at work to help us succeed at our jobs. We rely on them in our neighborhoods to deter crime and make us feel safe. And we rely on them in our personal lives to feel loved and supported. If racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S. hurt social networks, then we must reckon with its costs just as we take seriously its benefits.

So, if the American social fabric is frayed, almost to the point of incoherence, the reason might well be the push for diversity. Respect different cultures as equals and you will end up disrespecting all cultures, including your own.

As for how to overcome the problems posed by diversity, the solution lies in finding what Putnam called an encompassing monoculture, a singular culture that provides a national identity.

The first step in considering these adverse effects is determining how to mitigate them. According to Putnam, the answer is simple: establish a widely encompassing social identity for the affected community, one divorced from race or ethnicity.

Among those places where this occurs is the United States Army. In a place where everyone wears the same uniform, follows the same rules, speaks the same language and affirms patriotic loyalty to the nation… people do get along.

Or, I would say, they got along until the Biden administration decided to go all woke and to promote diversity:

The United States Army today has become a relatively color-blind institution. Systematic surveys have shown that the average American soldier has many closer inter-racial friendships than the average American civilian of the same age and social class. Yet barely thirty years ago, the Army was not a race relations success story. During the Vietnam War, one heard frequently of inter-racial “fragging”—that is, deadly attacks with fragmentation hand grenades among soldiers of different races. 

Or else, if you prefer, to clarify these points, we examine thoughts by one Peter Berkowitz, from Real Clear Politics:

To endure, a rights-protecting or liberal democracy needs citizens who regard themselves as engaged in a common enterprise. They must share a language. They must respect basic moral and political principles. They must take pride in their nation’s accomplishments while facing up to and correcting their country’s flaws by upholding the best in the nation’s traditions and heeding justice’s enduring imperatives. They must trust that as they generally follow society’s written and unwritten rules, so too will others. And they must partake of a broad commitment – that receives expression in the exercise of toleration and civility – to securing a freedom for each consistent with a like freedom for all. 

Nicely put. At the least, this tells us that multiculturalism is inherently damaging to the social and cultural fabric. Better to replace it with good, old-fashioned patriotism.

Please subscribe to my Substack, for free or preferably for a fee.