Breaking News - Major Terrorist Attack In Oslo, Norway

[Slargos]

Japan seems to be working just fine.

Really? It is mired with an almost chronic stagnation, with highest suicide rate among the "civilized nations" and working hours and conditions that would be unacceptable not just to welfare state accustomed Norwegians, but pretty much anyone in Europe. As I said, if you want autarky, you need to pay a heavy price.

The price you pay for multiculturalism is going to be infinitely higher, you simply won't pay it all at once.

[Martinus]

But yes, attempting to keep dissent down by suppression will only cause it to explode sooner or later. You reap what you sow.

Exactly. Which is exactly what the anti-multiculturalist crowd is proposing, only on a global scale.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm a strong advocate of immigration as I think it can be the fuel of a country's economy, especially if the country has low natural birth rate.

However, and I am biased, I prefer the melting-pot to multiculturalism. To me the viewpoint that immigrants should live in their own separate societies as part of the larger host country's culture is the worst kind of "-ism" (I won't say racism or nationalism or whatever because I don't want to get into a wank fest over what proper "-ism" it should be termed.)

To me thus multiculturalism says this:

1. The immigrants home culture must take precedence over the culture of their host country, for them personally it is extremely important they maintain their own distinct culture.
2. The host country's culture must not be diluted by mixing directly with the immigrants culture, otherwise it would "dilute" the host country's culture.

Instead, there is this desire to have a "patchwork" society in which there are multiple distinct cultures that do not significantly mix together. That to me is the worst way of doing things and I think it can lead to horrible results all around. It makes it harder for immigrants to become part of mainstream society and to succeed economically (many of multicultural Europe's immigrant groups have much higher unemployment rates than the country at large) and it also leads some in the "host culture" to feel that they are being slowly made into minorities in their own land, in essence it makes them feel as though they are being invaded and conquered by a thousand cuts. I am not talking about whether that actually happens or doesn't happen, only about how certain people feel--and I think that is how this Breivik fellow indeed felt. You shouldn't model your society based on the actions of a mad man, but it doesn't hurt to sometimes correctly recognize that the mad man was a result of a certain system. To me one loan gunman killing 100 or even 500 people isn't reason to change anything, so that is neither here nor there. But the two points I outlined above are to me, much more significant in the long term than a single person killing a lot of people.

In the United States our immigrants have not had their culture destroyed by the greater American culture. Instead, they adopted a culture that was foreign to their own, but in doing so they changed American culture itself and made American culture better for it. It also has meant that the children and grand children of these immigrants have essentially had no limits on what they can achieve in America.

[Martinus]

Japan seems to be working just fine.

Really? It is mired with an almost chronic stagnation, with highest suicide rate among the "civilized nations" and working hours and conditions that would be unacceptable not just to welfare state accustomed Norwegians, but pretty much anyone in Europe. As I said, if you want autarky, you need to pay a heavy price.

The price you pay for multiculturalism is going to be infinitely higher, you simply won't pay it all at once.

Conversely, the price Japan is paying is getting more and more insufficient to get them what they want. Eventually they will be left by the wayside by the fastest growing economies, such as the BRIC.

The situation of Europe is like that of landed, feudal nobles at the beginning of the industrial revolution. We have bold upstarts (the BRIC for example) which we tend to ignore (although more and more, we see kings begging for loans from the bourgeoisie - just see how our relationship with China has changed) and we have our serfs and workers who are becoming more and more "uppity" and want to get into the position we have (i.e. the poor, immigration-exporting countries). If we respond by closing ourselves off, we will end up on the guillotine.

[Martinus]

I'm a strong advocate of immigration as I think it can be the fuel of a country's economy, especially if the country has low natural birth rate.

However, and I am biased, I prefer the melting-pot to multiculturalism. To me the viewpoint that immigrants should live in their own separate societies as part of the larger host country's culture is the worst kind of "-ism" (I won't say racism or nationalism or whatever because I don't want to get into a wank fest over what proper "-ism" it should be termed.)

To me thus multiculturalism says this:

1. The immigrants home culture must take precedence over the culture of their host country, for them personally it is extremely important they maintain their own distinct culture.
2. The host country's culture must not be diluted by mixing directly with the immigrants culture, otherwise it would "dilute" the host country's culture.

Instead, there is this desire to have a "patchwork" society in which there are multiple distinct cultures that do not significantly mix together. That to me is the worst way of doing things and I think it can lead to horrible results all around. It makes it harder for immigrants to become part of mainstream society and to succeed economically (many of multicultural Europe's immigrant groups have much higher unemployment rates than the country at large) and it also leads some in the "host culture" to feel that they are being slowly made into minorities in their own land, in essence it makes them feel as though they are being invaded and conquered by a thousand cuts. I am not talking about whether that actually happens or doesn't happen, only about how certain people feel--and I think that is how this Breivik fellow indeed felt. You shouldn't model your society based on the actions of a mad man, but it doesn't hurt to sometimes correctly recognize that the mad man was a result of a certain system. To me one loan gunman killing 100 or even 500 people isn't reason to change anything, so that is neither here nor there. But the two points I outlined above are to me, much more significant in the long term than a single person killing a lot of people.

In the United States our immigrants have not had their culture destroyed by the greater American culture. Instead, they adopted a culture that was foreign to their own, but in doing so they changed American culture itself and made American culture better for it. It also has meant that the children and grand children of these immigrants have essentially had no limits on what they can achieve in America.

I am pretty certain a lot of Europeans think of the melting pot concept when they talk about "multiculturalism".

People expect immigrants not only to feel loyalty to their new country here, but also to pretty much change their religion, customs, language etc. and even then they won't be the "true nationals" because this requires you to have a specific skin color and ethnicity.

[Martinus]

Also, I think it is a bit disingenuous for Americans to look down upon Europeans and talk about their melting pot superiority. The melting pot doctrine developed when the majority of immigrants to the US were fellow Europeans (or, at most, Latinos, who are also pretty European - at least their are Christian). When non-European, non-Christian immigrants were coming - and not that many did - they were slaughtered, like the Chinese in California, or deprived of constitutional rights - like the Japanese during WW2.

You never had to deal with mass immigration from Muslim countries.

[OttoVonBismarck]

If I wanted the opinion of an infamously idiotic Polish faggot I would have said so.

[OttoVonBismarck]

America has by the way, done a fine job of integrating people from Asia. Yes, Japanese Americans suffered during WWII but now they are very integrated. We have lots of immigrants that come from Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, the Philippines and we have significant immigration from India.

We do not have the same issues that Europe has had because our population is vastly larger, at the level of population of the United States - 300 million, it is essentially inconceivable that you would have a large enough mass migration as to constitute a significant portion of our population. Much of that is because the United States collected Europes excess people for 150 years and we continue to breed at a higher rate, so we are less susceptible to being put in the position of European countries. But that's a result of our historic melting pot society, it is because of that society we have such a large population.

[Slargos]

Hate to burst your bubble, but the population of Europe is a bit higher than that of the US. 

[Viking]

I think we do need some definitions here, since everybody seems to have his own definition of multi-culturalism. The thing is that it is a word with alot of associations to it outside of it's definition. I'm going to make a stab at it..


Multi culturalism is a set of ideas and attitudes which include
- the idea that no culture is superior to another culture
- the idea that inherited culture is vital so self image and self worth and must be cultivated
- the idea that assimilation is an act of hegemonic cultural repression
- the idea that one's own successful; since non failed culture has developed multi culturalism in it's own sphere; seeks to impose hegemony on other cultures

This is very much a case of the ideas of the '68ers with their post-modernism and cultural relativism and rejection of truth and Truth as mere constructs surviving into today. Obviously I am against it.

The US melting pot works precisely because you can bring your own food, your own god and your own music, but you will damn sure adopt the american dream and the values of the enlightenment. Multi-culturalism and cultural relativism means that societies like Norway cannot insist that immigrants adopt the norwegian dream and cannot insist that immigrants adopt the values of the enlightenment because we cannot, as a society, assert that our values are better than theirs.

[Slargos]

http://translate.google.no/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aftenposten.no%2Fnyheter%2Firiks%2Farticle4182373.ece

I don't know whether to  or  or 

[OttoVonBismarck]

Hate to burst your bubble, but the population of Europe is a bit higher than that of the US. 

I'm talking about individual European countries, not Europe as a whole. If all of Europe's Muslim immigration was evenly distributed based on percentage of European total population cross all of geographical Europe (including European Russia) then this issue would not be nearly as notable.

[Viking]

I am pretty certain a lot of Europeans think of the melting pot concept when they talk about "multiculturalism".

People expect immigrants not only to feel loyalty to their new country here, but also to pretty much change their religion, customs, language etc. and even then they won't be the "true nationals" because this requires you to have a specific skin color and ethnicity.

Europeans do not think of the melting pot, or, if they do, they do not understand the melting pot.

The problem here is that Europeans (except england and possible also france) do not accept the concept of assimilation. They cheer multi-culturalism but if their neighborhood fills with pakis they move. They don't associate with them, join the same clubs, organisations or have immigrant friends (unless they are token). One of the results of this is that those who try to assimilate are rejected and are forced by society to be defined as the minority and thus will find themselves forced into a self image that includes the worst reactionary and oreo (from the US black on the outside white on the inside criticism of bill cosby) hating elements of society. A person can only take so much repetitive "whites hates us", "whites are racists", "we are oppressed" bs, validated by multi-culturalists, before they start believing it. Once they believe it they are lost to society.

[Josquius]

So what was with some Islamicists apparently claiming responsibility for this when they caught the guy and he was actually a far right anti-muslim sort?

[Martinus]

If I wanted the opinion of an infamously idiotic Polish faggot I would have said so.

Gee, nice ad hom. Go fuck yourself, cunt.