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Robert Putnam:
To strengthen shared identities, we need more opportunities for meaningful interaction across ethnic lines where Americans (new and old) work, learn, recreate, and live. Community centers, athletic fields, and schools were among the most efficacious instruments for incorporating new immigrants a century ago, and we need to reinvest in such places and activities once again, enabling us all to become comfortable with diversity.
Sheltered within Harvard's artificial society, it has apparently escaped Putnam's notice that Americans, in part because they have fallen into low trust habits, aggressively self-segregate, so that no matter how many community centers or soccer fields you build, nothing short of an Army batallion will cause them to mix in appreciable numbers. It's likely that affirmative action has heightened ethnic consciousness among the black middle class by making them materially dependent on their ethnic classification and by encouraging them to maintain this advantage by finding racism in any "non-ideal" numerical distribution.
The first thing Putnam misses here is that the very transition from a high trust to low trust society lowers the effectiveness of previous methods of assimilation--the assimilation of Mexicans, for example, is made much more difficult by the fact that assimilation no longer functions well in today's low trust society. Whereas in the early 20th century American society boasted strong institutions and a homogenous majority culture that helped assimilate waves of (relatively compatible) immigrants, early 21st America features weakened institutions, a fractious culture and relatively less compatible immigrants. Crime, social dysfunction, and atomization have added to group conflict.
In short, each succeeding wave of assimilation occurs with reduced efficiency, until assimilation breaks down completely--at which point you effectively have a nation within a nation. This contradicts the oft-repeated claim that past assimilation is somehow proof of the inevitability of future assimilation. In fact all signs point to assimilation having greatly slowed down for all identifiable groups.
Putnam also ignores the fact that, even when past assimilation of immigrants occurred more or less smoothly, some groups such as blacks remained distinct and were essentially managed as a subgroup lacking full standing as citizens. As politically incorrect as it is to say so, this may have been an important factor in the relative orderliness of interactions between these groups and the cultural majority. That is to say, high trust and high cooperation were preserved by maintaining rigid social boundaries with groups deemed too different.
Putnam argues that diversity has had long term economic benefits, but we are at present in a very poor position to confirm this. In fact, the opposite appears to be true--diversity appears to have greatly increased the intensity of resource competition, pushing individuals toward more aggressive tactics and lower levels of economic cooperation (as the logic of game theory becomes more evident). This aggressive competition has increased the number and variety of winner-take-all scenarios, exacerbating income inequalities and further decreasing cooperation and unity. (The "fiscal dividends" that Putnam finds as a result of increased diversity have ended up concentrated among a relatively small elite.)
But another, underexplored complication in the transition from a high trust society to a low trust society is the dysfunction that arises in institutions created by a high trust society and then tasked with meeting the needs of a low trust society. Law enforcement, welfare programs, economic regulation, and enforcement of social norms are all implicated. As the population becomes more atomized as a result of diversity and economic conflict, group arbitration becomes a greater issue.
To take just one example, the trend in law enforcement has been toward quasi-militarization of police and greater use of force. More aggressive criminal behavior and reduced cooperation from the public have reduced trust between police and private citizens. Surveillance has also increased, as police look to technology to help deal with rising crime rates. Federal policing has increased, which when combined with militarization of police activity may represent a long-term shift toward practical nullification of the Posse Comitatus Act.
The past three decades have seen an increasing fragility of social institutions due in part to the effects of low trust behavior on high trust originating institutions. As generations shaped by relatively high trust social norms die out, we can expect further ramifications across most aspects of daily life. In my view Putnam is wrong; diversity will not bring long term benefits, it will exacerbate existing social problems created by low levels of trust. The most likely resolution will be a new normal with high levels of group conflict, weakening legal and social structures, and a less empathic, crueler society.
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