SeekerBlog

Richard Fernandez notes:

Harvard Political Science Professor Robert Putnam has an interesting study on the effects of ethnic diversity on trust, according an article at the Financial Times. In short, multiethnicity undermines trust within communities.

…But if Putnam is correct, then one of the central tenets of multiculturalism — that it brings people together if they simply “respect” each others differences — immediately requires qualification. In fact, it becomes entirely conceivable that the multiculti program is actually the driver behind many of the tensions which are now rising in places like France, the Netherlands and the UK.

James C. Bennett has written several compelling articles and books [The Anglosphere Challenge] on the contrasts between high-trust and low-trust societies [trust me, you want to live in the former]. Bennett makes a strong case that the Anglosphere uniquely has all of the positive attributes that foster a high-trust society. From the book blurb:

Despite repeated predictions of the decline of America and the other English speaking nations (the anglosphere) as the world’s pathfinding cultures, James C. Bennett believes that their collective lead will only widen in the coming decades under the impact of the next wave of technological revolution.

Coining the term network commonwealth to describe the loose political entities now emerging in the world based on a common language and heritage (of which anglosphere is the first), Bennett believes that traits common to these entities–a particularly strong and independent civil society; openness and receptivity to the world, its people, and its ideas; and a dynamic economy–have uniquely positioned them to prosper in our time of dramatic technological and scientific change, provided they remain true to the demands of these traits.

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