August 15, 2007

• Interesting - I found this link to the journal article in question at his Wikipedia page.
• I'd heard this argument with regard to European welfare states some time ago, though am too lazy to scare up any links.
• One of the things that immediately strikes me about his data is that it looks heavily biased at the extremes, with not much variation through the middle. (I'm not using biased in a derogatory sense here. I mean that the line of best fit depends a lot on a handful of data points, mostly on the extreme right). See Figure 3 for instance. The data points for Silicon Valley and Rural West Virginia span almost the entire range of ethnic homogeneity (0.5 and 0.9 respectively) yet score about the same on the trust axis, with Silicon Valley a little higher. Intra-racial trust in Figure 5 looks to be the strongest but even there the correlation coefficient is not that high. That's not to say that there isn't some effect there, but the regression analysis shows a correlation coefficient of what looks to be about 0.6. That makes predicting ahead of time whether a diverse community is going to have high or low social trust....tricky. Personally I'd have to say that, purely in terms of the strength of the relationship, what's the big deal. Certainly the result has been jumped upon for political reasons, but as an actual outcome that needs to be addressed, there isn't much THERE there, if you see what I mean.
• OT, Hwingo, but you've been steadily bringing the interesting articles for some time now. Newsposts rarely hold much interest for me, but yours nearly always do, and your style of bringing teh newsfilter is IMO how it should be done. I nominate Hwingo for Good MoFi Citizen of the Month. You can pick up your Chillee Ugum-autographed neti pot and lifetime supply of cockpunch at month end. Downside is you have to make out with Koko.
• And eat some of those hockey puck bluehorse brownies...
• Honestly, I think social scientists/ethnologists/whateverists need to find better problems. What's next, the downside of democracy? Of clean, honest living? Of apple pies as grandma used to make?
• I'm not too worried about the apple pie, but those other topics sound potentially sort of interesting, actually. I assume you're thinking that these things are too obviously good for any discussion to be worthwhile. But social science would be dull (and dare I say rather bland?) if all the scientists were allowed to do was celebrate the virtues of democracy and clean, honest living. Or maybe I'm misreading you, fuyugare, and you think it's boringly obvious that democracy, clean honest living, apple pie, and ethnic diversity are so many crocks?
• Unfortunately, as with a lot of other research, social and political scientists follow the money when selecting their problems. Issues that support or detract from a given political agenda will always be more attractive because they can attract grants or notoriety.
• Maybe, though this particular research doesn't seem to have been driven by a political agenda.
• No tongue!
• I wonder how many of the neighborhoods have traditionally been diverse, and how many have only become so in the last generation or two. Because I've always thought of the benefits of diversity in terms of the long-term. People from different backgrounds are of course less likely to trust each other at first, but in a few years or within a few generations they may come to do so.
• To TUM's point, from the article: In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a broader context by describing how social identity can change over time. Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to "more encompassing identities" that create a "new, more capacious sense of 'we,'" he writes. Growing up in the 1950s in a small Midwestern town, Putnam knew the religion of virtually every member of his high school graduating class because, he says, such information was crucial to the question of "who was a possible mate or date." The importance of marrying within one's faith, he says, has largely faded since then, at least among many mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.
• And thanks, MCT -- with clearer nostrils I'll surely be able to find newer and better links -- and no worries, Koko, as I lost my tongue in a horrible industrial accident.
• What is "diversity" as it is being used here? . . . has found that the greater the [economic imbalance / language difference / hot chicks in those outfits and your woman is all cold like / must-see-TV-Thursday] in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. etc. Aye, there's the crux of the biscuit.
• I believe it's mostly ethnic & religious, innit?
• But isn't the term "diversity" here being invested with something that's not named? As, for example, an "artistic" painting. What makes it artistic? I RTA but I didn't read the actual study, where presumably the answer to this and many other questions are completely and satisfactorily answered.
• What's next, the downside of democracy? I think they should look into the possibility that: -if indeed (a) MCT is inordinately fond of blueberries -yet we assume that (b) due to their (i) odd unnatural color, (ii) smallness and (iii) goopy interior, blueberries are indeed food for bugs, -then it seems to inply that (d) MCT is, in fact, some sort of giant wisecracking bug.
• Essentially, his data sounds skewed to reflect "diversity" as populations of recently arrived groups whose ethnic and cultural identities differ from those of the surrounding population. Am I reading that right? However, eventually, populations in an area begin to take on another identity that is more communally based, at which point the so-called "social capital" begins to grow again. If I'm reading this correctly, it sounds like neither a surprise nor a problem, at least in the long term. In the short term, there is a period of adjustment due to mutual unfamiliarity between the groups in question, which becomes mitigated as knowledge about one another increases. Sounds like an endorsement of liberal hippy-dippy diversity celebration rather than an indictment, as greater understanding will accelerate the communities through the adjustment period.
• His whole argument amounts to, "These damn kids these days! Why back when I was a kid..." His definition of "community" is very narrow and posits without justification that the things that he values are the best.
• One day we will meet on the field of battle, you and I. Oh, yes we will.
• Honestly, I think social scientists/ethnologists/whateverists need to find better problems. What's next, the downside of democracy? Of clean, honest living? Of apple pies as grandma used to make? Yes, the world would be so much better off if we stopped asking questions so we can avoid potentially unsettling answers. Say, there's this war in Iraq I'm trying to sell...
• I agree with HW that these studies are valuable. Of course there are some who will point to the findings and say "diversity is bad", but the real value of this is it will allow us to pinpoint exactly what about diversity isn't working as planned, and make the small adjustments necessary to make it better. And yes, there are downsides to democracy, clean living, and apple pie.
• Downsides to pie? Lies.
• I'm resting my laptop on one of those downsides, MCT.
• I LIK PI
• Just had a slice of peach pie my gf made for my bday. Amazing. She's all, "I'm not happy with the crust; it's uneven, and doesn't look right." I reply, "Lemme help you out and make it disappear."
• Goddamn. Peach pie. Our peach crop was destroyed this summer, so I have been bereft of pie. This angers me more than I can tell you. I did have a blackberry pie, however, and have discovered the joy of putting berries and ice cream in a blender.
• [M]ake the small adjustments necessary to make it better That's about as bloody likely as us solving global warming. I mean, are you or are you not living in 2007? Civilization is in decline everywhere because absolutely no one wants to make "small adjustments".
• the joy of putting berries and ice cream in a blender Genius concept. Must try.
• I need look no further than my own ass for the downside of apple pie.
• Wait a minute -- am I resting my laptop on TUM's ass?
• pixplzkthx
• Pi is constant and transcendental but it is also known to be irrational.
• Well I like this argument, and I'm doing my bit by becoming less diverse - basically I just post the same, unfunny, mindless "joke" comment in every thread and tell you people what a bunch of gnat-molesting reptiloid futz-humpers you are and then OH GOD I'M SO LONELY
• *hugs quiddy*
• Civilization is in decline everywhere... I'm so glad I don't live in your world.
• I'm with rocket. Despite all sorts of reasons for doom and gloom, we are stumbling forwards in so many ways too. Loneliness is the price of genius, quid. Or crippling personality disorders and a strong and unpleasant body odour. Not that I'd know.
• Yeah, well, unpleasant odours are ten bushels to a shilling in communist China. Or so was my experience during my brief forays into the middle kingdom.
• You've sussed me out fuyu! I'm here because I can blend in.
• Everybody's the same here in Diver City.