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Diversity Is A Stupid Idea
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bigverne



Joined: 12 May 2004

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 12:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Look where cultural segregation got us...


However, if you look at countries like the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sri Lanka, they might well say 'look where diversity got us.'

And ironic that you should choose to trumpet diversity, when you chose to live in possibly the least culturally diverse nation on the planet.
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Homer
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PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 2:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
And ironic that you should choose to trumpet diversity, when you chose to live in possibly the least culturally diverse nation on the planet.


All the more reason to 'trumpet' diversity. As for Korea being the least diverse country on the planet...that is your opinion. It is certainly not a diverse country but I would venture to say that other more dictatorial countries are less diverse. Just my opinion. Diversity does exist here on a very small scale and it is not always welcomed. However as a married man here in Korea I have seen the changes brought upon by opening to the outside. In discussions with my in-laws (especially my mother-in-law) we often discussed how the family saw my marriage to her daughter. A few were not sure in the beginning but now had completely accepted the marriage. She also often said that things had changed since her youth when it would have been much more difficult to marry a foreigner. This is no universal experience, it is just what I have encountered.

In the long run it is inevitable that diversity will only become more and more of a factor of life in many countries. Migration and inter-mixing is taking care of that and thank god for that!

No one can say that diversity does not entail some problems or that it does not sometimes create tensions. However, in the long run it leads to better understanding of the differences. It is definitvely not bad nor does it automatically lead only to problems.

As for Rwanda that was not diversity that was an engineered social difference between two groups that was put into place by colonial Belgium when they took control of that country during the colonisation era. They put one group in power and told them they were the rulers and identified another group as being inferior. That is not diversity that is divide to rule.
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mithridates



Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 2:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a few questions for the op:

If I'm a white guy living in Korea and I meet an Arab Sufi on the train, should I hang out with him? Are we all just messing up with the Korean homogenous society anyway so it doesn't matter, or am I allowed to pretend that I'm back home and decide that he's interfering with my Anglo-Saxon background?

If I'm from Seoul and I meet a Korean guy who is clearly from Jeolla Nam-do, should I hang out with him? It may be insulting to my Goguryeo background to hang out with someone whose family originally comes from Baekje.

If I meet a white guy from Canada who has been in the mideast before and has become a muslim, and a black guy from Nigeria who originally was but since became Christian, which one should I hang out with?
If I post on this thread in agreement with the op, and later on the street am accosted by a Korean who thinks that Korea should be for the Koreans and that I should go home, am I allowed to get mad at him, and if so, why?

If I'm in Seoul and I see a white guy reading a book on Jihad, an Eastern European guy reading a book on Sufism, and an Arab guy reading the bible, which one should I hang out with and why? (I have to pick one)

If I'm in agreement with the op and want to 'do something about it', what would be the most practical approach to get rid of diversity? If we are to go about it by expelling immigrants, would it apply only to first-generation immigrants, particularly religious ones, ones who have been in my country under ten/twenty years, those making under a certain salary, etc. What's the best criteria, and how to remove diversity without facing an international backlash? Also, how do I explain removing immigrants from my land when my family arrived here a mere 140 years ago from Scotland?


And no, I'm not being facetious in the least. How do we answer these questions? Does the op or any of the others actually have a plan of action? I would like to hear it in detail, if possible. I'm assuming that's it's somewhere along the lines of limiting immigration from certain countries, but I'd like to hear about how much it would be limited, whether there are any exceptions, whether the ideas themselves would actually be be legally feasible, and so on.
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Ya-ta Boy



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 5:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Aren't immigrants allowed into the US and other countries because those countries need the labor force?

If farmers had to pay a decent wage to the migrant workers, wouldn't the cost of food increase enormously? There was a report a few days ago that the wages paid in the meat-packing plants has slid from $21 an hour down to $9 an hour.

Without immigration who would clean the homes of the rich?

If there is any justifiable anger on this issue, direct it to the proper target, not the poor schmuck who's trying to put food on the table for his kids.
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dulouz



Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: Uranus

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 5:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The concept of diversity sounds good. The practice is turning out really bad. The proponents have turned out to amoral. Being tolerant means not being able to say anything bad about illegal immigrants. Its not a "guy trying to put food on his table". Its about businesses lying manpower when they want more profit and less accountability. Its about a border war and a land grab. Its about Finsbury Mosque its about having to tolerate polio and TB.

Its so delightful to insist that a Utopia is right around the corner when the sun is shinning and then so important to be missing when the riot police overtime payroll bills need to be paid.

Asians bought us the wonderful dot.com boom. Then they shipped the work back home and the business failed. They took advantage of multiculturalism but didnt contribute much.

Liberals can't control their pet brown people. Do you really lose it that much or do you do it on purpose?
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R. S. Refugee



Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 6:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Diversity?

Let me check with the Kansas State Board of Education on that and I'll get right back to ya. Very Happy Laughing Wink
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dulouz



Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: Uranus

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 7:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

RS are you refering to Brown V Board? Desegregation is a failure. That didn't work either.
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sonofthedarkstranger



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 11:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Diversity is not an "idea" or a "concept," it is reality. You might as well get used to it.

I know, it's too bad all the different peoples of the world didn't stay in their allotted little plots of land forever, never venturing beyond the borders, never intermingling or interbreeding. Damn them. Curse the human migratory tendency.
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sonofthedarkstranger



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 11:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

bigverne wrote:
However, if you look at countries like the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sri Lanka, they might well say 'look where diversity got us.'


Diversity is not to blame, it's people who can't accept it as a basic fact about our world.

Your argument is akin to saying "diversity gets diverse people killed." In other words, you are blaming the Holocaust on the fact that there were Jews in Germany. You're not really going beyond that.

It just seems to me that the world is a big place with a lot of different climates--hot places and cold places. So you're going to have racial diversity. And people wander. So the races get mixed up.

It just seems silly to resent this fact.
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R. S. Refugee



Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 12:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dulouz wrote:
RS are you refering to Brown V Board? Desegregation is a failure. That didn't work either.


No, I was referring to Scopes Monkey Trial II in Kansas this past week where they've been working extra hard to make Kansas the laughing stock of the western world by seeking to overthrow evolution and re-define science to include exploration of supernatural as well as natural phenomena.

That is, they want to teach religious belief in science classes in the form of creationism (now renamed, "intelligent design"). I wonder if that means that scientists will now be going to church on Sunday and demanding equal time with the minister or priest to present a science lecture on carbon dating or some such natural phenomena. Very Happy

And desegregation was not a failure either. I'm from the former slave states of America where de jure segregation was in force until the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s with seperate rest rooms, water fountains, bus terminal waiting areas, whites only restaurants, etc., and blacks were prevented from running for public office and from voting. Those forms of de jure segregation no longer exist, so there has been some degree of success.

Obviously, it could be much better like so many other things in our seriously deteriorating "democracy" nowadays. But if you want to say that desegregation was a failure, you need to:
1) define desegregation
2) define success
3) explain the current situation
4) contrast the current situation with the definition of successful desegregation.

Otherwise, it's just so much hot air and prejudice and means very little. (No offense intended.) Very Happy Laughing Wink
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bucheon bum



Joined: 16 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 2:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dulouz wrote:

Asians bought us the wonderful dot.com boom. Then they shipped the work back home and the business failed. They took advantage of multiculturalism but didnt contribute much.


Uh yeah. Founder of netscape is white. One of Yahoo's founders is white (both native born americans). One of google's founders was born in the Soviet Union.

Yes, silicon valley is just run by Asians. Rolling Eyes Oh, and so are all the venture capitalists that made the .com boom happen. And don't forget all those stock brokers that hyped the .coms. You know Wall St., it's a freaking mini-China.

Dude, you are a either an ignorant pissant or a really bad troll; I haven't decided which yet.


Last edited by bucheon bum on Fri May 20, 2005 2:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
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bigverne



Joined: 12 May 2004

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 2:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Diversity is not to blame, it's people who can't accept it as a basic fact about our world.


What do you mean, 'a basic fact about our world'?

Sure countries like the US are pretty diverse, but there are also many countries which are not, and have never been, culturally diverse. Most countries in Europe are still made up of one ethnicity that makes up 90% of the population. For countries like the USA, built upon waves of immigration and sharing a national identity not based on ethnicity this is less of a problem. For countries with little history of immigration or diversity it can cause serious problems, particularly when the recent arrivals share little in common with the indigeneous populations and sometimes no desire to integrate. Should these countries still be told to 'celebrate diversity'?
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sonofthedarkstranger



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 2:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was talking primarily about the world in general, and I guess the US secondarily, as the OP is American and writes about LA. I think it's pretty sad and ridiculous for a guy living in LA to not accept diveristy in LA as a basic fact of the world he lives in. If he can't handle it, he should leave.

I wasn't really talking about Europe, but since you mention it, from my perspective I don't see why people should feel threatened. Diversity doesn't bother me. Maybe it's just the way I grew up. I don't feel somehow threatened or undermined by people who don't look like me or talk like me or eat the same food or pray to the same God. Who cares? I would never tell anyone they had to "celebrate" diversity. I would however tell them to accept it.

Sure, there are pockets of the world that aren't diverse at all, and for the record I agree that Korea is the least diverse country in the world. I disagree with Homer that there are other, even less diverse places. I don't think there are.

As for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, my understanding is that neither of those situations involved "recent arrivals," the ethnic tensions there were longstanding and had deep roots.
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Paji eh Wong



Joined: 03 Jun 2003

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 3:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Diversity Is A Stupid Idea


Life is a stupid idea.

Multicultural societies tend to have a lot of within group (/nation) friction. See the USA or Malaysia. Older, unicultural societies have a lot of between group friction. See East Asia.

You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.
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mithridates



Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 5:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Since no-one has responded to my request for more detail, I will assume that the bit about less diversity is just a bit of bewailing.

Looks like some countries have found ways to make diversity work.
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