See any burka-clad women taking to anyone other than their husband or custodian. Any Taliban-looking dudes yukking it up with Hassidic Jews or identifiable Christians? This is such a common error. What is certainly true of SOME immigrants is not true of all. Call me crazy, but I dunno, why don't we admit the liberal ones and exclude the illiberal ones.
“Cosmopolitan tolerance” sounds nice, and would be fine insofar as that goes.
But at some point, and recognizing that everyone’s “bridge” might be different, nonetheless I think reasonable people can agree that somewhere on the continuum of burkhas, rape and grooming gangs, and sharia law, it becomes a bridge too far.
No country has suffered from judging people based on their merits instead of origins. However, what is happening now is that, for example, British officials keep refusing to prosecute blatant immigrant criminals because that's "racist" while arresting Britons who complain until the Rotherham gang which raped thousands of children finally becomes too big to cover up. Or, in some French suburbs, women are being harrassed and threatened until they don't dare to go out in public alone, like in this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gZFGpNdH1A. You say feminism is bad and market forces can liberate women on its own, but not only has this not happened under Sharia for thousands of years, but cultural forces are apparently strong enough to re-enslave previously emancipated women. Free migration only worked in New York because people were willing to enforce the law on migrants.
I think this is an important point. People often conflate open immigration with judging people based on merit and behavior instead of origin. However, in practice what we have seen is immigration and a refusal to judge people's behavior if they have the right origin. That seems to be the worst of both worlds.
I think that Bryan consistently fails to apply the concept of subjective value to his analysis. *He* prefers living in a cosmopolitan, tolerant society, and to be fair, I tend to as well. But not everyone does! Most of the USA doesn't live in NYC, and doesn't *want* to live there.
If individuals were allowed unrestricted freedom of association, you probably wouldn't get the same level of opposition to immigration. But we've long since decided as a society that the benefits of prohibiting discrimination are worth the costs, so struggles between competing preferences are going to bubble up to the national policy level.
Is it fair to lay the undoubted evils of the current situation in Europe at the feet of "cosmopolitan tolerance"? Isn't it rather a matter of the elites permitting/encouraging criminality in order to divide the people and thereby grab more power?
Ten years on, are you still this unequivocal about the advantages of cosmopolitan tolerance? I’d still prefer to live in a cosmopolitan-tolerant society, and I think we’re both lucky to live in the U.S., where cosmopolitan tolerance has been an unalloyed good. The best hypothetical arguments for immigration restriction seem to just not be empirically true here.
But I think if you look at European countries or Canada (the UK seems to be the grimmest example), excessive cosmopolitan tolerance seems to have resulted in some degree of social crisis and justified authoritarian measures.
Also as someone who also lives in the UK, I think we're seriously in need of more cosmopolitan tolerance.
In my opinion, the grooming gangs scandal has almost nothing to do with race or multiculturalism, and everything to do with a long history of the police force failing to protect teenage girls in this country, particularly in northern England (take the Yorkshire Ripper case for example, which was rife with victim blaming). Of course the far right have had a field day basically blaming only/all Pakistani men, and generally riling up hatred against immigrants and minorities.
As someone who has lived in the UK for the past 40 years, my feeling is that we certainly don't have excessive cosmopolitan tolerance. The political class undoubtedly feels compelled to proclaim its adherence to cosmopolitan tolerance, however, in my opinion, we would benefit from more cosmopolitan tolerance among ordinary people.
OK, maybe immigrants are good for cosmopolitan tolerance, but just what is cosmopolitan tolerance itself good for? You don't tell us, and it's not self-evident.
Dear Brian, tolerance is very important! But there is a big downsize when it comes to non tolerant and non integration willing immigrants without economic perspective. Here in Germany, UK and France we have very bad results in being tolerant to immigrants that are not even thinking about being tolerant to us. The non socialist (US liberals) germans for example are fed up to pay big money for millions of non working immigrants who furthermore present a very big number in criminal statistic and dominate the cities by now. When you go into most larger cities you do not see any non muslim person any more - that is more than tolerance can bear.
Me and my family we are traveling a lot around the world, But when I go somewhere else I do not behave like a conquerer but as a guest and make business not theft. This is quite different from the mostly muslim people I meet in our own cities.
And just to be clear, neither I nor my family have ever met people from non muslim Asia with this bad attitude. And furthermore there are tolerant muslims, but even they mostly stand still when it comes to any problems with other muslims.
Hitler formed his ideas of social organization living in post-World-War-I Vienna in the 1920s. It was VERY cosmopolitan. My mother grew up there at the same time (didn't know him).
"Bringing the world’s nationalities together to rub shoulders humanizes the Other. It dissolves paranoid anxiety. It tests in-group bias against palpable facts. Simply strolling around New York makes nativism intellectually and emotionally hard to sustain."
I'm not sure about this. The Jews rubbed shoulders with Christian Europeans for centuries, yet were rewarded with the Holocaust and countless other pogroms. Same for Armenians and other minority groups in the Ottoman empire.
> I can’t even figure out what social disasters nativists will try to pin on cosmopolitan tolerance.
Me neither.
It's funny, though, how the cities that exemplify cosmopolitan tolerance change so much over time. I mean 100 years ago you'd have taken Alexandria as your example, maybe, or Casablanca. Or maybe Shanghai, Vienna, St Petersburg, Yokohama, Beirut, Lahore, Sarajevo, Bombay, Constantinople, or New Orleans.
We shouldn't forget those cities that paved the way!
Answer is easy--just look at Europe right now. Their tolerance extends to tolerance of random stabbings, church burnings, rapes, and currently machete slashing ( in London only last week).
My strong impression is that on average immigrants tend to be MORE patriotic and willing to sacrifice for the country than natives. As is the first generation born in the US.
BTW, New York City is not America. You know that, right?
See any burka-clad women taking to anyone other than their husband or custodian. Any Taliban-looking dudes yukking it up with Hassidic Jews or identifiable Christians? This is such a common error. What is certainly true of SOME immigrants is not true of all. Call me crazy, but I dunno, why don't we admit the liberal ones and exclude the illiberal ones.
“Cosmopolitan tolerance” sounds nice, and would be fine insofar as that goes.
But at some point, and recognizing that everyone’s “bridge” might be different, nonetheless I think reasonable people can agree that somewhere on the continuum of burkhas, rape and grooming gangs, and sharia law, it becomes a bridge too far.
No country has suffered from judging people based on their merits instead of origins. However, what is happening now is that, for example, British officials keep refusing to prosecute blatant immigrant criminals because that's "racist" while arresting Britons who complain until the Rotherham gang which raped thousands of children finally becomes too big to cover up. Or, in some French suburbs, women are being harrassed and threatened until they don't dare to go out in public alone, like in this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gZFGpNdH1A. You say feminism is bad and market forces can liberate women on its own, but not only has this not happened under Sharia for thousands of years, but cultural forces are apparently strong enough to re-enslave previously emancipated women. Free migration only worked in New York because people were willing to enforce the law on migrants.
I think this is an important point. People often conflate open immigration with judging people based on merit and behavior instead of origin. However, in practice what we have seen is immigration and a refusal to judge people's behavior if they have the right origin. That seems to be the worst of both worlds.
I think that Bryan consistently fails to apply the concept of subjective value to his analysis. *He* prefers living in a cosmopolitan, tolerant society, and to be fair, I tend to as well. But not everyone does! Most of the USA doesn't live in NYC, and doesn't *want* to live there.
If individuals were allowed unrestricted freedom of association, you probably wouldn't get the same level of opposition to immigration. But we've long since decided as a society that the benefits of prohibiting discrimination are worth the costs, so struggles between competing preferences are going to bubble up to the national policy level.
Is it fair to lay the undoubted evils of the current situation in Europe at the feet of "cosmopolitan tolerance"? Isn't it rather a matter of the elites permitting/encouraging criminality in order to divide the people and thereby grab more power?
Ten years on, are you still this unequivocal about the advantages of cosmopolitan tolerance? I’d still prefer to live in a cosmopolitan-tolerant society, and I think we’re both lucky to live in the U.S., where cosmopolitan tolerance has been an unalloyed good. The best hypothetical arguments for immigration restriction seem to just not be empirically true here.
But I think if you look at European countries or Canada (the UK seems to be the grimmest example), excessive cosmopolitan tolerance seems to have resulted in some degree of social crisis and justified authoritarian measures.
Also as someone who also lives in the UK, I think we're seriously in need of more cosmopolitan tolerance.
In my opinion, the grooming gangs scandal has almost nothing to do with race or multiculturalism, and everything to do with a long history of the police force failing to protect teenage girls in this country, particularly in northern England (take the Yorkshire Ripper case for example, which was rife with victim blaming). Of course the far right have had a field day basically blaming only/all Pakistani men, and generally riling up hatred against immigrants and minorities.
As someone who has lived in the UK for the past 40 years, my feeling is that we certainly don't have excessive cosmopolitan tolerance. The political class undoubtedly feels compelled to proclaim its adherence to cosmopolitan tolerance, however, in my opinion, we would benefit from more cosmopolitan tolerance among ordinary people.
OK, maybe immigrants are good for cosmopolitan tolerance, but just what is cosmopolitan tolerance itself good for? You don't tell us, and it's not self-evident.
Dear Brian, tolerance is very important! But there is a big downsize when it comes to non tolerant and non integration willing immigrants without economic perspective. Here in Germany, UK and France we have very bad results in being tolerant to immigrants that are not even thinking about being tolerant to us. The non socialist (US liberals) germans for example are fed up to pay big money for millions of non working immigrants who furthermore present a very big number in criminal statistic and dominate the cities by now. When you go into most larger cities you do not see any non muslim person any more - that is more than tolerance can bear.
Me and my family we are traveling a lot around the world, But when I go somewhere else I do not behave like a conquerer but as a guest and make business not theft. This is quite different from the mostly muslim people I meet in our own cities.
And just to be clear, neither I nor my family have ever met people from non muslim Asia with this bad attitude. And furthermore there are tolerant muslims, but even they mostly stand still when it comes to any problems with other muslims.
Hitler formed his ideas of social organization living in post-World-War-I Vienna in the 1920s. It was VERY cosmopolitan. My mother grew up there at the same time (didn't know him).
"Bringing the world’s nationalities together to rub shoulders humanizes the Other. It dissolves paranoid anxiety. It tests in-group bias against palpable facts. Simply strolling around New York makes nativism intellectually and emotionally hard to sustain."
I'm not sure about this. The Jews rubbed shoulders with Christian Europeans for centuries, yet were rewarded with the Holocaust and countless other pogroms. Same for Armenians and other minority groups in the Ottoman empire.
Tolerance of liberty should always take priority, and that includes tolerating freedom of association.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/toleration-a-libertarian-viewpoint
> I can’t even figure out what social disasters nativists will try to pin on cosmopolitan tolerance.
Me neither.
It's funny, though, how the cities that exemplify cosmopolitan tolerance change so much over time. I mean 100 years ago you'd have taken Alexandria as your example, maybe, or Casablanca. Or maybe Shanghai, Vienna, St Petersburg, Yokohama, Beirut, Lahore, Sarajevo, Bombay, Constantinople, or New Orleans.
We shouldn't forget those cities that paved the way!
Isn’t just now the best time for a nativist in the western world to make the case for cosmopolitanism run amok?!
Answer is easy--just look at Europe right now. Their tolerance extends to tolerance of random stabbings, church burnings, rapes, and currently machete slashing ( in London only last week).
My strong impression is that on average immigrants tend to be MORE patriotic and willing to sacrifice for the country than natives. As is the first generation born in the US.
BTW, New York City is not America. You know that, right?