You seem to be confusing a strong culture with not embracing new ideas. Those aren’t intrinsically linked.

Encouraging immigrants to adopt Western values like gender equality, support for democratic ideas is a good thing, not a bad thing.

The part that concerns me, is that this always seems to be one-sided - "You will be better if you adopt our values"

Rarely does anybody make the statement that "My adoption of your values will improve me"

Implicit subtext is that, all of my values are better than yours. Strikes me that this is probably quite unlikely.

Actually, if I move to a new country, part of why I'm doing that is because it's better than my country, so their ideas/values are better than mine. So the adoption of these ideas/values will make me better.

The chances that 100% of their cultural values/ideas are better is probably pretty slim. And most people are moving for economic reasons, not cultural ones (though the two are often tightly coupled).

Take a move from the US to Canada. I might prefer Canada's nationalized health system to America's every-man-for-himself system. But, I might also prefer American's highly interventionist foreign policy and take that preference with me when I move. [Not claiming I believe in either, just an example]

>The chances that 100% of their cultural values/ideas are better is probably pretty slim. And most people are moving for economic reasons, not cultural ones (though the two are often tightly coupled).

The reason the new country is economically better is most likely due in some part to their culture, not just luck or geography.

This doesn't mean that 100% of their cultural values are better, of course. But you should, if immigrating, take a very careful look at their values, because there's likely some very important things that have caused that country to do so well and for your former country to not do so well.

So you're saying that an American immigrating to Japan should resist learning about Japanese culture or the Japanese language?

I _think_ what the poster tried to say is:

"Now as I have been welcomed in this country I am willing to adopt their habbits because I want to be part of this community and the community will accept me more easily when I am doing so."

What are you basing this interpretation on?

I agree 100%. Thanks for putting that in a way my comment didn’t fully reach.

> Encouraging immigrants to adopt Western values like gender equality, support for democratic ideas is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Says a person who is undoubtedly western. You might not get the same response from someone in China or Saudi Arabia.

It is a good thing.

>You might not get the same response from China or Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, if you’re not a man you might not even get a response. Or you could get beheaded.

[0]From Wikipedia:

In September 2011 a Sudanese migrant worker was beheaded for "sorcery",[37] ... Other forms of general discrimination, such as a lack of freedom of religion for non-Sunni Muslims, are also applicable.[12] ... The international organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) describes these conditions as "near-slavery" and attributes them to "deeply rooted gender, religious, and racial discrimination".[12] ... Trade unions, strikes, and collective bargaining are banned for both Saudi citizens and foreigners alike.[32]

Western values? Do you mean money? :P

Is there an actual argument for multi-culturalism being better for a nation? The argument for a homogeneous culture is easy to make. But multi-culturalism isn't obvious.

I would say that there is a lot of obvious evidence for the horrific failures of trying to impose a single culture in a place where multi-culturalism already exists. These failures have been so bad that the idea of cultural purity has earned a bad name.

The argument of what would be better if we started from scratch will hopefully never be relevant since most of us are in nations with multiple cultures.

It's you exaggerating with

> cultural purity

What next no-argument will you show up with, Rasenwahn of the Third Reich or Eugenics?

The OP said that

> the argument for a homogeneous culture is easy to make

and you end the discussion by speaking of the devil and the devil shows up?

How do you create a homogeneous culture out of a heterogeneous one? It's been tried so many times and it has either failed or been judged an atrocity.

Some people want to keep their culture, so you can either force them to change, move them, kill them, or stay multicultural. To avoid being terrible you just have to let others be and trust them even though they are different.

I don't believe I'm exaggerating that cultural homogeneity is a really ugly idea with a terrible history and it is hard to make an argument for it on a national scale.

>How do you create a homogeneous culture out of a heterogeneous one?

The U.S. used to do it to a certain extent. It was a part of the process of becoming American by joining the "melting pot" of cultures and becoming genuinely American. The idea of multiculturalism in America is relatively recent.

You can have both. You can learn English and about American culture while sticking to your own. In this way not only you don't lose anything, but also gain an advantage. Yes, you can get away with not speaking English in some areas of the USA (and not understanding some social/cultural cues), but it's hard to live in this way in the long term, especially if you plan to have a family.

Britain and Germany did very well in the 19th century, arguably better than now.

I don't see that many new ideas other than incremental improvements on things that are essentially from the Apollo/Concorde age.

Not integrating encourages isolation and resentment.

A nation becomes divided along linguistic lines when it has many different languages in use within its borders. In a nation as diverse as the US, it is of critical importance that there be unifying forces acting to bring us together against the natural tendency for division and divisiveness. Sharing a common language is one of these unifying forces, and when you share a common language with someone it's possible for you to share and grow your common common culture.

You see, when people do not share language, they are culturally isolated. I do not believe in forcefully imposing some American culture on all immigrants. What I want is cultural mixing, as has happened throughout America's history, but this can only happen within the context of a shared language.

It's baffling to me that some people are so resistant to this basic idea of linguistic unity. Building and maintaining a strong nation, just like building and maintaining any relationship or community, requires effort and care. Sure it takes effort to learn English, but the fruits of this effort are a stronger more united America and is an important step for new immigrants integrating into the American family. Remember that in the process of integration, there is also sharing, cooperation and community building.

> It's baffling to me that some people are so resistant to this basic idea of linguistic unity.

The problem, at least from my perspective, is that the issue is so often used as a proxy for less noble motives.

This comment is simply false. We can have a robust sharing of ideas and cultures all within the context of a single language.

In speaking a common language we gain tremendously both in unity and the opportunity for increased cultural sharing. Imagine a family in which everyone speaks different languages. There would be little interaction; the family would fall apart. Nations have historically fractured in this way along linguistic boundaries, and by not encouraging a single language in a country, we invite division, balkanization and national fracturing.

I'm curious as to why you are against a single language dominating in a country. Are you uncomfortable with people being expected to make the effort to learn a new language? Or do you just not care about nations (or the USA in particular) as units and don't mind if they fall apart.

Imagine if different areas of the United States still spoke the languages of first-generation immigrants.

You'd have the French, German, Dutch, English, native tribes, Spanish...

Not the United States of America, but the United States of Austria were actually a serious proposal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Greater_Austr...

The issue usually isn't ethnic tensions, it's usually disenfranchisement expressing itself through nationalism.