Comment on "Ethnic diversity drains altruism"

February 12, 2008

EDS. Once again, we find that ethnic diversity leads to less altruism and less cohesive communities. But the lead researcher, Ernest Healy, remains optimistic, suggesting that "government help" overcome the problems. So I guess we can expect  initiatives for mandated altruism and coerced cohesiveness. The philosopher asks, is mandated altruism still altruism?

Ethnic diversity drains altruism

theage.com.au

Feb. 11, 2008

Excerpts: MIGRANTS from non-English-speaking countries are less likely to be volunteers than Australian-born people or migrants from English-speaking nations, a study shows.

Ethnically diverse neighbourhoods have lower levels of volunteering even among their Australian-born residents. ...

When you create societies from mixed backgrounds it may not lead to overt violence … but to something scarier, a withdrawal from the civic sphere," Dr Healy said, "a feeling of less connectedness." ...

The findings appear to support research by Robert Puttnam, of Harvard University, that ethnic diversity can hasten a withdrawal from "collective life".

Dr Healy said the assumption that multiculturalism leads automatically to strong cohesive communities without government help may have been naive. [more]