We're not Just Bowling Alone, According to Putnam

It was one of the more irony-laden incidents in the history of celebrity social scientists. While in Sweden to receive a $50,000 academic prize as political science professor of the year, Harvard's Robert D. Putnam, a former Carter administration official who made his reputation writing about the decline of social trust in America in his bestseller Bowling Alone, confessed to Financial Times columnist John Lloyd that his latest research discovery—that ethnic diversity decreases trust and co-operation in communities—was so explosive that for the last half decade he hadn't dared announce it "until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it 'would have been irresponsible to publish without that.'"

Whether you agree or disagree, this should at least give cause to stop and think - perhaps mass immigration and deliberate efforts to engineer diversity are as devisive and wrong-headed as forced segregation:

Study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity

By John Lloyd in London

Published: October 8 2006 22:08 | Last updated: October 8 2006 22:08

A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard University’s Robert Putnam, one of the world’s most influential political scientists.

His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.

This is a contentious finding in the current climate of concern about the benefits of immigration. Professor Putnam told the Financial Times he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it “would have been irresponsible to publish without that”.

The core message of the research was that, “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he said. “We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”

Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, “the most diverse human habitation in human history”, but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where “diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians’ picnic”.

When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. “They don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions,” said Prof Putnam. “The only thing there’s more of is protest marches and TV watching.”

British Home Office research has pointed in the same direction and Prof Putnam, now working with social scientists at Manchester University, said other European countries would be likely to have similar trends.

His 2000 book, Bowling Alone, on the increasing atomisation of contemporary society, made him an academic celebrity. Though some scholars questioned how well its findings applied outside the US, policymakers were impressed and he was invited to speak at Camp David, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.

Prof Putnam stressed, however, that immigration materially benefited both the “importing” and “exporting” societies, and that trends “have been socially constructed, and can be socially reconstructed”.

In an oblique criticism of Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, who revealed last week he prefers Muslim women not to wear a full veil, Prof Putnam said: “What we shouldn’t do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us.”

I found Putnam's last comment most disturbing: To 'construct' a new 'us' requires destroying the old 'us' and this exactly what our elite has been doing since the 1960s...Why should we have to destroy our current culture and society for some ideal that Putnam himself admits is detrimental to society? It strikes me as disturbingly arrogant - who gave Putnam - or our 'elite' a 'right' to destroy "us" or to decide we need a new 'us'? There are some places that become 'diverse' naturally - port cities, universities on some level - but there is still no explanation why this ideal should be forced on people who don't want it.

Personally, my ancient, Anglo-Saxon liberties: respect for individual rights, free expression and the right to bear arms, are not up for trading so metrosexuals at the New York Times won't be 'bored' by the lack of ethnic cuisine.

This does not mean I advocate some centralized authoritarian imposed culture - but rather, the Edmund Burke view of organic - not engineered - change and growth a society is "a contract with the living and dead and those yet to be born' vs Neocon world view that a centrally imposed ideology can trump (and should trump) the past, tradition and culture.

So am I some stogy old traditionalist? Somewhat, but interestingly enough, stable societies- with deep roots - are the ones that produce the most innovation (homogeneous Athens, Florence, Edinburgh come to mind) . You see when there are not riots going on, or having to fret over whether your classroom has a proper color balance, you can actually learn things.