freediver wrote on Mar 13
th, 2007 at 8:03pm:
Lack of diversity leads to an inability to adapt and change. Opposition to diversity inevitably means opposition to change. A lot of Japan's recent troubles are attributed to holding on to old traditions despite the obvious damage it is doing to their society. For example they are still a deeply sexist society. A society that squashes diversity destroys anything new and stagnates. That is why the middle east when from a technological powerhouse and cultural centre to a backwater, and China even earlier, and the same thing would happen to western society if you had your way.
That is not to say we should accept everyone and everything with open arms. It just means you have to have a valid reason for opposing something and trying to ban it, rather than responding to fear, grounded in ignorance.
This is spot on.
Quote:Fair enough. But you still should back up your arguments with some evidence and reasoning freediver, something which you generally lack.
If I might take the opportunity to do this for him. At the end of the agricultural revolution in Europe, most countries were at the same technological level. This was largely the guild system in which technical guilds held monopolies over the technologies they understood. Excessive competition and fear of cooperation stifled innovation. At this time England passed law effectively outlawing the holding of monopolies on ideas, causing information and knowledge to be freely spread horizontally throughout society. This
cultural shift was the spur for the British industrial revolution and a major reason why at this period in history Britain pulled far ahead of other European nations.
Fast track to post American revolution. By now Britain was the undisputed master of the industrial world, but it had become overly confident in its position and people were arrogant in the belief in British superiority in manufacturing. Britain produced quality products but industrialists in the USA believed they could enact a more effective system. Essentially whilst the British remained determined to produce quality goods the Americans began producing goods of 'good enough' quality at much lower expense than the British. This
cultural shift from the British system in the USA to a more modern approach led to the total American dominance in manufacturing by the beginning of the 20th century, whilst Britain languished in cultural conservatism.
Interestingly that post WW2, the USA is looking a lot like England did back then, with countries like Japan leading the way in 'lean' manufacturing methods and innovative systems to allow low cost quality products over the last half century. And now as freediver points out Japan is falling victim to conservatism while China and India are dominating the global economy through their own insistence on a
cultural shift.So you see, cultural diversity is strength. And you cannot simply say "what are they bringing to our country" because you simply can not predict how people of different cultural background will change with the influence of a new environment and how their differing influence will change our current cultural environment. Technology is the currency of dominance and who is to say the next great Australian invention is not going o come from a Chinese, Indonesian or Iraqi immigrant (for instance)? Our government after all seems very confident in the importation of skills from other countries.
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