Ethnocentrism

[Anomalocaris]

You can’t make an alloy if you think the process of putting different metals together is too messy. It does make some metal molecules afraid of the future, however. They use to be the only metal around and if you are one of those molecules you think god has been good to you. Now you know you are not one of those other metal molecules that is needed to make the better alloy, and you no longer can be sure your type of molecule really will still be paid the highest, or only, price, per pound.

[Plague Happy]

You can’t make an alloy if you think the process of putting different metals together is too messy.     It does make some metal molecules afraid of the future, however.   They use to be the only metal around and if you are one of those molecules you think god has been good to you.    Now you know you are not one of those other metal molecules that is needed to make the better alloy, and you no longer can be sure your type of molecule really will still be paid the highest, or only, price, per pound.

I've never heard anyone argue that all countries should be multicultural. Only western countries.

[Anomalocaris]

You can’t make an alloy if you think the process of putting different metals together is too messy.     It does make some metal molecules afraid of the future, however.   They use to be the only metal around and if you are one of those molecules you think god has been good to you.    Now you know you are not one of those other metal molecules that is needed to make the better alloy, and you no longer can be sure your type of molecule really will still be paid the highest, or only, price, per pound.

I've never heard anyone argue that all countries should be multicultural. Only western countries.

Many countries survived this long as a result of being an alloy of multiple cultures without admitting it or your realizing it.

The west has a particular need to overtly encourage multi-culturalism because western cultures are demographically moribund.   So it need to integrate people of other cultures or else the west will go down the demographic toilet through depopulation over the next 100 years just like Japan.

The world will become wealthier as ever more people become middle class.  The comparative advamtage the west has enjoyed since indutrulization will diminish to nothing.     If 600 million westerners don’t want to be marginalized because when the 3 billion Indians and Chinese who have become just as wealthy and therefore command 5 times the economic power, they don’t have any skin in the game of the western culture, then they had better try hard to not make western culture obnoxious through ethnocentrism and instead make it more familiar and integral to the culture of the people who will reach developed status over the next 100 years.

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Ultimately, no one else has skin in the game of any strongly ethnocentric culture.    If demography and size is not on its side, then Such a culture will likely diminish and perish, or be absorbed wholly into some else;s melting pot when it has shrunken to the point of being just the size of a allying element in some else’s metal.

You either set up a melting pot on your terms now, or be melted into some one else;s melting pot on their terms later.

[no one]

Just accept me as the Supreme Chancellor of Earth.

I will ensure cultural dominance for the chosen few.

[The Grand Nudger]

I've never heard anyone argue that all countries should be multicultural. Only western countries.

Why would multiculturalism be good for the west, but no one else..or..if you prefer, why would a person arguing for multiculturalism think so?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Multiculturalism (as a practical fact as opposed to a political ideology) is a fait accompli. All that remains is for the political aspects to catch up.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

I've never heard anyone argue that all countries should be multicultural. Only western countries.

Why would multiculturalism be good for the west, but no one else..or..if you prefer, why would a person arguing for multiculturalism think so?

i think he is arguing the west should not embrace multiculturalism because no one else appears to be doing so.

My answer is china and india has operated melting pots of culture through their entire histories, only they do it even more messily and on even less forgiving terms for new participants.    the last 250 years is an aberration.   In the next 100 years the world will return to something closer to the relative economic power that prevailed during most of the last 2000 years.  the west  can either embrace multiculturalism now, ahead of the curve and create a melting pot on its own terms, or it can reject reject multiculturalism now, and fall behind the curve and become a insignificant cobstituent of a melting pot set up on the terms of china and india over the next 100 years.

The truth is in western civilization is less than 10% of human civilization.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'd say that any country that fails to embrace multiculturalism is setting itself up for needless conflict. With boru on that one. People are going to like each other, people are going to like things about each others cultures. They're going to adopt and there's going to be transfer. All we determine is how painful we're going to make it for ourselves and others. I think your comments about the wests need to quickly get ahead of that curve are understood in that light. A china on our (past or legendary) better terms would be a positive thing for the entire world - and, as you note, on an even more massive scale by default. Similarly, us going down the road of cultural isolation would be harmful if for nothing other than our (current) outsized influence.

[Anomalocaris]

the first mover advantage that the west had enjoyed for last 2-3 centuries made western civilization central to human progress and shape the world and its perception on our terms.

the first mover advantage is fading fast.   after it has faded, the west’s destiny would become ever more dominated by the fact that all of the west combined, and by no means it is unified, is half as big as either china or India, by itself.

and the west may try to postpone it, but almost certainly it can’t stop it.   and unseemly methods to temporarily postpone it, such as ethnocentrism, will only increase its marginalization when it arrives.    what the west needs to do is to make the path to giving it some relevance in a world dominated by cultures with a much longer history of superiority than the west.

ethnocentrism will be somewhat akin to cultural suicide.

[Plague Happy]

I'm saying that all countries should be ethnocentric. The problem is, everyone wants western countries to welcome the whole world, but no one is suggesting the same for any other countries (not that they should). The best civilizations have been created by the west, which is why so many want to go there (when was the last time you heard of a german wanting to live in Somalia?). They pretend that they're there to somehow enrich the west or improve it, presumably out of the kindness of their hearts, but in reality they simply want the advantages that the west has. At the same time, the culture of those western countries gets diluted and turned into a multicultural mess that makes no sense. People (most importantly, the native population) lose a sense of belonging and community. They become strangers in their own country. Piling up loads of different cultures and ethnicities on top of each other is a terrible idea.