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Peterdjones comments on Rationality Quotes November 2012 - Less Wrong
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Compared to what? If you have a sitation, where de facto, severla cultures are under a single politcal authority with a predominant culture, there are only so many things that can happen:
1) The minority culture(s) are physcially expelled--pogroms.
2) Wall are built within the state--apartheid, ghettos
3) The minority cultures are foricibly homogenised or converted
4) The minority cultures are tolerated.
I think it is pretty clear that 4 is the least ugly. Even if it needs a little bit of (3) to work. Which is where most of the controversy comes from.
In point 4 you misuse the word pogrom, while deportation may include pogroms those aren't a necessary feature. And even when violent they often in the long term solve many difficult problems and resolve sources of conflict, see the population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
5) The multi-ethnic state is broken up along ethnic lines
This can occur violently or relatively peacefully as in the dissolution of Czechoslovakia or the independence of Slovenia. Other times they are accompanied by violence see the independence of Ireland or Greece or some anti-colonial movements. This was the ideal in large part was behind the self-determination. See also self-determination.
6) The state is already practically mono-cultural, simply don't allow immigration where the immigrants are unlikely to assimilate
Now depending on the features of the society option 6 might mean practically no immigration (Japan) or relatively high levels (19th century France or America for white immigrants) depending on various factors.
I could have included extermination, and I could have been accused of baising the issue even more
That is the extreme of (2). Aparthied-era SA included "independent homelands".
I was assuming that it isnt. You cant' solve the problem of de facto multi-ethnicity by wishing it had never happened.
Extermination was indeed historically used by states (especially in newly conquered territories) but to me it seems to be a separate solution from deportation or expulsion. Sometimes however deportation was used as a cover for extermination.
By formulating it as you did originally you imported negative connotations. By picking this particular example you again import negative connotations. Many of these are pretty reasonable. Independence imports positive connotations, many of these are pretty reasonable. But you seem to refuse to accept the latter. Why?
In any case I think there is a big difference between setting up say a Millet system or some other kind of separation in the same state and dissolving the state entirely and have each cultural community be sovereign.
Isn't this a narrow perspective? Just because this isn't a solution to existing multicultural societies like say the US it doesn't mean it isn't a viable solution for many other societies (such as say Japan or Finland).
Only because you've chosen the alternatives in order to favour it. "The melting pot", as a description of America's former waves of immigration, does not fit any of them.
"(4), oh, and with a little bit of (3)" is glossing over the problem, trying to save an unsalvageable idea by changing the words used to express it. Besides, a multiculturalist would give you stick for using the word "tolerated", which is insufficiently accepting these days. Try "celebrated", which suggests happy friendly things like colourful street parties and festivals, framing cultural differences as dressing-up games.
So what does it fit? (2) was tried at one time --Jim Crow. The US has not has a sngle consistent approach.
Are you sure it is not a differnt idea? Are you saying anythign with the label "mutlicuralism" is unsalvageable, irrespective of what it is*?
Some subtypes of MC-ist might. But werent you just saying that 1-4 are not exhaustive?
An alternative not on your list: immigrants aspiring towards assimilation into a single culture to which they give their allegiance, superseding their original one, of which nothing remains but the dressing-up aspects.
I am saying that the concept described by the Wikipedia article I linked, which seems to me an accurate statement of what "multiculturalism" is generally used as a name for, is incoherent. Privately using the word differently doesn't change that. "(4) with a side order of (3)" looks more like a rationalisation of the incoherence of the original concept than a decision to use the word to name something else.
ETA: On further thought, I might be being too inflexible. One might certainly present a model of how people of multiple cultures should coexist as "multiculturalism", even if the model deviates substantially from the current one that goes by that name. One would, in effect, be presenting the model as a new interpretation of a deeper, unchanging fundamental concept, superior to the previous interpretation.
Certainly, that describes the history of Euler's Theorem: mathematicians coming to a better understanding of the underlying concepts and finding better expressions of mathematical truths. But then, there is an unchanging objective reality in mathematics. In sociology, not so much. Instead, one has to adopt the methods of religion, presenting a new concept as merely a better understanding of the old.
In a different subthread*, the line of reasoning went that this does not positively "deal with" multiculturalism, but rather eliminates or prevents it. This seems to be part of what is happening in Japan; IIRC they deliberately filter immigrants for willingness to blend in, though they do so in more politically-correct terms.
* This one, though most of the replies that are most relevant will probably be hidden, since it appears Peterdjones is being heavily downvoted on this topic for some reason.
I think that's a wrong question. I'm pretty sure the above was mostly just a reminder that policy debates should not appear one-sided.
EDIT: Never mind, that comment is the opposite of that.