America Diversifies Its Portfolio

Katherine Mangu-Ward | April 3, 2008

The popularity of inflammatory anti-immigration rhetoric aside, it appears that Americans are none too concerned about preserving a homogeneous national identity:

In contrast, Europeans, to varying degrees, would rather just have more of same. A neat new paper scopes out attitudes toward immigration and immigrants in the U.S. and Europe. Responses to a pair of statements are plotted above, with a pretty clear showing for American cultural and religious openness and love of diversity:

It is better for a country if almost everyone shares the same customs and traditions.

It is better for a country if there are a variety of religions among its people.

More on immigration here.

Via Matt Yglesias

Comments

|4.3.08 @ 11:08AM|#

I'm surprised at the religion response in the United States, I thought the secular European countries would care less about it than we do.

Charles|4.3.08 @ 11:13AM|#

I want to again take the inevitable Lonewacko appearance to ask:

LW, why do you type the way you do on Hit & Run, what with the missing spaces and all? I want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

|4.3.08 @ 11:16AM|#

Ha! America is the BEST! Take that Europe!!!!

BTW, we should let in more immigrants.
But not from Europe, I hear they're a bunch of intolerant backwards hicks.

|4.3.08 @ 11:16AM|#

Charles I'll save you the trouble. Lonewackos response would go something like this.

Clearly Reason doesn't understand the influence the MexicanGovernment is seeking. Does Reason realize that they desire a PowerBase here for PoliticalCorruption? A MexicanConsulate was even opened recently in (insert random city here). I guess Ornage-line Cosmotarians would love that!

Of course, Mangu Ward is just a lightweight who doesn't understand the real problem of IllegalImmigration.

Oh yeah, I have a site. Read more of me self-congratulatory bullshit HERE HERE and HERE.

|4.3.08 @ 11:18AM|#

I'm surprised at the religion response in the United States, I thought the secular European countries would care less about it than we do.

I'd guess that the various flavors of Christianity count as a "variety of religions" to most Christian Americans.

|4.3.08 @ 11:24AM|#

It is better for a country if almost everyone shares the same customs and traditions.

It is better for a country if there are a variety of religions among its people.

Sure, sure, but I wouldn't be too quick to discount the "deep libertarian" notion that a minimalist government can only be sustained when there is a robut civil society, which in turn requires a core of shared values.

|4.3.08 @ 11:25AM|#

Alright, we'll take the niggers and the chinks... but not the Irish!

|4.3.08 @ 11:28AM|#

I think a lot of Americans would respond in the negative to the first question and the affirmative to the second more because they feel that's how they're supposed to answer rather than that being what they actually believe.

Charles|4.3.08 @ 11:29AM|#

Cesar, wow. A little too good, actually.

Episiarch|4.3.08 @ 11:30AM|#

Europeans may be secular but that doesn't mean they're open to religions of any kind, other than legacy acceptance of Christianity. At least Christianity is part of their past, which matters to them.

Europeans are still tribalistic, though their elites have tried to beat it out of them with heavy-handed multiculturalism. It has become socially unacceptable to be caught widely and publicly hating on the Mulsims/other immigrants, but in private it is rampant.

PC|4.3.08 @ 11:30AM|#

I think we should open the borders to libertarian magazine columnists from abroad and put their salaries in the crapper overnight. Competition would be good for quality and it would reduce magazine costs.

Open borders would be fine if we could dismantle some of this welfare state first. Americans would do those jobs if it wouldn't put them in the poorhouse and up until recently many of those jobs didn't put you in the poorhouse. Natives then make a financial choice, do I do nothing and go on the dole or do something and make about the same as if I did nothing. They can also pay illegals more and save money because they don't have to pay all those other benefits that they would have to pay Natives.

Elemenope|4.3.08 @ 11:31AM|#

After reading the study, my question is:

What the fuck is wrong with the Greeks?

"Give me any word, I will show you Greek root."

"Kimono?"

"Ah, easy..."

Nigel Powers|4.3.08 @ 11:31AM|#

There are two kinds of people I can't stand. Those who are intolerant of other cultures, and the Dutch.

|4.3.08 @ 11:32AM|#

Elemenope-

Greeks are very big on their religion. Its still illegal in Greece to proselytize for any church other than the Greek Orthodox Church.

My guess it comes from being second class citizens in a Muslim Empire for so long.

|4.3.08 @ 11:36AM|#

Sure, sure, but I wouldn't be too quick to discount the "deep libertarian" notion that a minimalist government can only be sustained when there is a robut civil society, which in turn requires a core of shared values.

A fair point - and, I'll add, one that is not limited to "small government conservatives." A left-liberal could make the point about some level of solidarity being necessary to keep the activist government from being used by a majority to bludgeon, or just run over, some minority group.

But need "shared values" require cultural and relgious conformity? Could adherence to the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence, for example, play that role?

Elemenope|4.3.08 @ 11:37AM|#

My guess it comes from being second class citizens in a Muslim Empire for so long.

From my (albeit limited) experience with Greek nationals, they still hate the fucking Macedonians. I mean, honestly, Alexander the Great was how long ago?

|4.3.08 @ 11:41AM|#

But need "shared values" require cultural and relgious conformity? Could adherence to the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence, for example, play that role?

Joe every part of the mainstream political spectrum with the exception of certain Paleocons agrees with that. Paleocons would add something about an "Christian, Anglo-Saxon core" or some such thing.

From my (albeit limited) experience with Greek nationals, they still hate the fucking Macedonians. I mean, honestly, Alexander the Great was how long ago?

I find it funny they and the Turks hate each other so much, since my experience with both groups tells me they are way, way more similar than they like to admit.

Elemenope|4.3.08 @ 11:45AM|#

I find it funny they and the Turks hate each other so much, since my experience with both groups tells me they are way, way more similar than they like to admit.

My father was telling me about a "cultural exchange day" thingee that they had at work, and the Greek guy had a Mediterranean map...

...with Turkey labeled as "Asia Minor". Being kind of a smart-ass, my Dad goes to the guy:

"Don't you mean Turkey?"

The guy goes, "No, Asia Minor."

Dad: "No seriously, Turkey. Capitol: Istanbul."

Guy: "You mean Constantinople."

|4.3.08 @ 11:45AM|#

Europeans are still tribalistic, though their elites have tried to beat it out of them with heavy-handed multiculturalism. It has become socially unacceptable to be caught widely and publicly hating on the Mulsims/other immigrants, but in private it is rampant.

Hate, like fungus, grows best in the dark.

Scooby|4.3.08 @ 11:50AM|#

Istanbul was Constantinople, but now it's Istanbul not Constantinople. Why did Constantinople get the works? It's nobody's business but the Turks.

robc|4.3.08 @ 11:58AM|#

It will always be Byzantium to me.

J sub D|4.3.08 @ 11:59AM|#

I find it funny they [the Greeks] and the Turks hate each other so much, since my experience with both groups tells me they are way, way more similar than they like to admit.

Michiganders and Ohioans.

Episiarch|4.3.08 @ 12:04PM|#

You know, Scooby, old New York was once New Amsterdam. Why they changed it I can't say; people just liked it better that way.

BakedPenguin|4.3.08 @ 12:11PM|#

"It has become socially unacceptable to be caught widely and publicly hating on the Muslims..." (emphasis added)

Actually, it has become illegal to do so in most European countries.

Also - Cesar, very good, but you forgot "the CorporatistMedia like Reason would never ask the HardQuestions."

Not LW|4.3.08 @ 12:31PM|#

LW, why do you type the way you do on Hit & Run, what with the missing spaces and all?

This is just a guess, but since LW probably jerks off to his own blog posts he wants to be able to find them quickly, and such spacing makes it easier to google for.

Orange Line Special|4.3.08 @ 12:45PM|#

Up with diversity!

No, higher!

Higher still!

(Considering that most people on the MattY thread called him an idiot, perhaps Katherine Mangu Ward should have had someone else read the comments on that thread to her.)

|4.3.08 @ 12:46PM|#

Yup, self-congratulatory, self-satisfied bullshit.

Does he even realize how everyone can't stand him?

Charles|4.3.08 @ 12:51PM|#

Not LW,

I've heard that before, at least that it's for easy retrieval of his own posts for reasons unknown, but that just doesn't seem like enough.

|4.3.08 @ 1:03PM|#

Clearly, Reason is a lightweight newspaper that doesn't understand the threat of CatholicImmigration.

Why doesn't Reason ask FranklinPierece or WinfieldScott the hard questions, like the plans for a ContinentalRailroad being funded by the CatholicChurch so they may send swarms of IrishCatholics settle our fair ProtestantLands?

Perhaps its because Reason is being funded by PapalGold.

tarran the half Turk|4.3.08 @ 1:08PM|#

I find it funny they and the Turks hate each other so much, since my experience with both groups tells me they are way, way more similar than they like to admit.

What! We are completely different! They give food completley different names over there! Yes the food is the same, but the names are different! Seee?

Joking aside, when I was a lad, my family used to go weekly to a diner owned by a Greek family. One day my dad and the owner got to talking and discovered that they had been in the Greek and Turkish navies simultaneously and had even been on ships that were confronting each other. Next thing you know, two seamen are hugging and speaking broken Greek and Turkish to each other like long-lost friends. It was real sweet... Actually, to the 14 year-old me it was damn embarrassing...

Sven|4.3.08 @ 1:13PM|#

Is it so wrong to want to live in a country where all the women are tall, blond and Nordic-looking?

|4.3.08 @ 1:16PM|#

Is it so wrong to want to live in a country where all the women are tall, blond and Nordic-looking?

Theres always the upper-Midwest.

|4.3.08 @ 1:19PM|#

KMW,

In contrast, Europeans, to varying degrees, would rather just have more of same.

It appears that those degrees vary widely. As they likely do state to state and region to region in the U.S.

Note that of all the European countries only three score higher than 50% on the religion axis.

Abdul|4.3.08 @ 1:30PM|#

I can't figure out what the Norwegians were thinking when they said they felt a shared relgion is important to them. Staying home from Lutheran services on Sunday hardly seems like sharing a religion.

robc|4.3.08 @ 1:32PM|#

Theres always the upper-Midwest.

I lived in Wisconsin for 2 winters (the proper measure of time in those lands). Tall and blond were few and far between. Short and pudgy (almost like their diet consisted of brats and beer) seemed the norm.

Maybe Minnesota would have been better.

|4.3.08 @ 1:33PM|#

I think Wisconsin, particularly the part near the Lake, is much more Bavarian German than Scandinavian. Hence, short, pudgy, and a beer-brat diet.

Robc|4.3.08 @ 1:33PM|#

Abdul

As the Balkans made clear, whether you are staying home from church, mass, or mosque makes all the difference.

|4.3.08 @ 1:38PM|#

I guarantee that if they applied this survey to the Baltics, they'd get pretty serious challengers to the Greeks. The Latvians are second to none in desiring that everyone sleep through Sunday Lutheran services, especially those dirty Russians.

Scooby|4.3.08 @ 1:44PM|#

Note that of all the European countries only three score higher than 50% on the religion axis.

Note that ALL of them score higher than the US- even those chain-smoking nihilists in France.

|4.3.08 @ 1:51PM|#

I can't figure out what the Norwegians were thinking when they said they felt a shared relgion is important to them. Staying home from Lutheran services on Sunday hardly seems like sharing a religion.

I think it means "No Muslims."

|4.3.08 @ 1:52PM|#

Whoa.
This explains a lot about my Greek wife.

|4.3.08 @ 1:55PM|#

Episiarch:
Next you'll be saying that Istanbul was once Constantinople.
Are you trying to fuck up my day?

Episiarch|4.3.08 @ 2:10PM|#

Jamie, it's been a long time gone, Constantinople. Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night.

|4.3.08 @ 2:20PM|#

The capitol of Turkey isn't Istanbul, anyway. It's Ankara.

|4.3.08 @ 2:21PM|#

Note that ALL of them score higher than the US- even those chain-smoking nihilists in France.

It's my experience that chain-smoking nihilists want everyone to be chain-smoking nihilists.

|4.3.08 @ 2:50PM|#

Scooby,

Sure, but what is the real difference between the U.S. and say Ireland on that matter?

|4.3.08 @ 3:14PM|#

Pity no data for Serbia,Croatia,Bosnia or Albania

How about that newest member of the family of Nations Kosovo.

Or those fellow liberal democrats in Georgia and the Ukraine that Bush the 43rd is so eager to see included in NATO.

Orange Line Special|4.3.08 @ 3:40PM|#

Here's an interesting thought experiment for Reason (get everyone together and bring in as many helpers as needed):

Should Israel have open borders? If not, why not?

|4.3.08 @ 3:44PM|#

Maybe because they're technically in a state of war with their neighbors?

|4.3.08 @ 3:46PM|#

But hey, thanks for actually trying to engage people (even if it was a stupid point) rather than talking in the third person and self-linking.

|4.3.08 @ 4:31PM|#

But need "shared values" require cultural and relgious conformity? Could adherence to the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence, for example, play that role?

Adherence - real adherence, not just lip service - to the Enlightenment values expressed in the Declaration is not apparently consistent with the values of many cultures.

Including, apparently, the culture of the U.S. of A. these days.

|4.3.08 @ 4:38PM|#

MP | April 3, 2008, 11:18am | #



I'd guess that the various flavors of Christianity count as a "variety of religions" to most Christian Americans."

Yup, and all the other things that people worship are just the spawn of satan. Cults, you know. Nor really religion as Christianity is the only religion. And anyhow. Merica was founded as a christian nation and God is in control.

LarryA|4.3.08 @ 5:06PM|#

It is better for a country if almost everyone shares the same customs and traditions.
It is better for a country if there are a variety of religions among its people.

Actually, the questions/chart are misleading. In the culture/tradition question high conformity scores high, in the religion question high conformity scores low. Therefore the vertical scale should be marked "Don't share religion."

As a result the U.S. position is actually "let's have different cultures and traditions, but the same religion." Greece scores "let's have the same cultures and traditions, but different religions."

Orange Line Special|4.3.08 @ 5:56PM|#

Even if all Israel's neighbors put down there arms, the day after Israel opened their borders there'd no longer be a country named "Israel".

Open borders hacks: be prepared for that question being used to completely discredit you should I ever get the chance to engage you on this issue.

Neu Mejican|4.3.08 @ 8:49PM|#

LarryA,

From what I can tell they should be labeled.

"Support Homogeneity-Religion"
"Support Homogeneity-Culture"

It looks like the US is at the top on the ""let's have different cultures and traditions" end of things and around the middle on the question of religion.

Neu Mejican|4.3.08 @ 8:53PM|#

LarryA,

From the source study

Each item was coded so that high values equal support for homogeneity - i.e.
agreement with the first statement and disagreement with the second.

The figures in the study make it clear.

US is at the extreme low end on both questions.

See Figure 1 on page 6 of the study.

|4.3.08 @ 10:20PM|#

Actually, LoneWacko, now that you mention it Arab migrant workers are very common in Israel.

|4.3.08 @ 11:11PM|#

I wonder how Canada and Austrailia would rank on this plot?

|4.4.08 @ 3:32AM|#

Hate, like fungus, grows best in the dark

Word.

|4.4.08 @ 8:46AM|#

"Hate, like fungus, grows best in the dark"

OMG, you guys at Reason crack me up. Everytime I come here, it's the same silly PC stuff. Grow up already. Bash Europeans all you want, most of you descended from us.

Anyone of you guys, did you ever think about how the chart would look like with Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Israelis, Saudis, Sudanese or any random African country?

Ah, you can't.. That's right.

You know why you can't, you mule-brains? None of these countries would admit millions of immigrants, like Western countries do.

PC makes you stupid, stop making fools out of yourself.

LarryA|4.4.08 @ 9:52AM|#

Each item was coded so that high values equal support for homogeneity - i.e.
agreement with the first statement and disagreement with the second.

That makes the difference. I didn't have time to get all the way down to page 6.

Bash Europeans all you want, most of you descended from us.

It's also accurate to say most of our ancestors left Europe behind, and that trend continues. I have several European immigrant friends who can't stand what's happening to their countries and voted with their feet.

But I support the remaining European's rights to make their own decisions about such.

None of these countries would admit millions of immigrants, like Western countries do.

First, I think you should have left Israel off that particular list, since they do admit immigrants. (Although they favor Jews, they don't enforce any particular culture, hence the different political parties.)

Second, the rest of that list doesn't have millions of immigrants lining up to get in. In fact, most have lines of people hoping to get out.

|4.4.08 @ 10:31AM|#

"It's also accurate to say most of our ancestors left Europe behind, and that trend continues. I have several European immigrant friends who can't stand what's happening to their countries and voted with their feet."

Yeah, like they couldn't stand all "the hate" and ran away from the fascist Europe-to-come.. Are you really serious? Most Europeans emigrate, because of mass immigration, Islamization in particular. Or how about this. They move away for better career opportunities. I'll give you that.

"But I support the remaining European's rights to make their own decisions about such."

Thanks! I couldn't care less what Open Border nutters think, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

"First, I think you should have left Israel off that particular list, since they do admit immigrants. (Although they favor Jews, they don't enforce any particular culture, hence the different political parties.)"

Yeah right, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for you too. Get serious. Israel is a selfstyled Jewish state, prefers Jewish immigrants explicitly (and I support that, good for them.), etc., etc. But, that's not OK for, say, France. If they would make special laws for people from Quebec et al, you'd call 'em pigs. Come on, one standard for all.

"Second, the rest of that list doesn't have millions of immigrants lining up to get in. In fact, most have lines of people hoping to get out."

Yeah, so? What does it matter for the sake of argument? No-thing.

The principle is that these countries are explicitly racist (or in Reason-speak "haters"), but that doesn't make a bit of difference to you guys -- you couldn't care less. (PS when I say "you", I mean most people here.) It's only European nations, which are dismissed for their lack of cosmopolitism.

Don't you people laugh at your own rationale? Y'know, I like you libertarian guys, but for Christsake, grow up.

|4.5.08 @ 7:27AM|#

I mean, honestly, Alexander the Great was how long ago?

Right. Split the baby in half, no matter where the truth lies.
These guys try to produce ethnicity out of geography, but I guess Americans are no better in this, hence the support.

All my experience with Macedonians in the U.S. is constant talking of "Aegean Macedonia".
I didn't quite understand so I asked one of them what do they mean. He showed in the map Macedonia,(the province of) Greece. This is where I come from.

Maybe this can help you explain Greece's place on the chart.