Ethnic division

AVI has a post with a question on "racial consciousness" in the US, and what changes are in view. He thinks there's a rise in "white consciousness" and worries that it will be bad for the country. I incline to agree, but think it needs to be subdivided a bit further than race. Red white≢ blue white; hispanic subcultures are not the same, and so on.

We have a problem: what is an American? The legal definition involves people living within certain borders or descendents of same or those who successfully apply to be citizens. But that definition by itself is a fairly frail reed when you want to provide the sense of "we're all in this together" that you need to keep a nation together. If you don't have that sense, you don't have a willingness to defend each other or sacrifice (in taxes) to pull each other up after disasters. (We also need to understand what we mean by a good citizen--Grim has been discussing that.)

Quite a few people (at least 2%) are sufficiently uninterested in the "all in this together" that they molest other citizens. We say "they're just bad people" and lock them up, but the attitude, though not usually criminal, is widespread.

So how do you get unity?

You can appeal to tribal loyalties; we're all basically white, or Protestant, or something. Except that we aren't, of course, so appeal to tribal loyalty splits rather than unites. That doesn't stop people who see temporary political advantage, and we've already got problems with ethnic tribalism.

You can appeal to ideology: we're the people that believe in liberty and democracy and that this country has the best exposition of liberty. Except that we don't teach that very much anymore, and without breaking a sweat I can find people who don't believe the country is good and others who don't value constructive liberty (though they're fine with liberty of entertainment).

You can point out enemies abroad and say we have to unite to oppose them. Except that never works for long; eventually somebody always sees political advantage in allying with the enemy.

So we stick with the legal definition and cross our fingers that nobody presses the matter too hard.

We're being pressed hard. It has been worse (1861), so there's no guarantee of failure, but it looks bleak.

To try to avoid further splintering we have a kind of compact that we won't talk about certain topics which highlight differences between ethnic groups. We seem to fear that the harsh light of knowledge will not bring peace but a sword, so we don't want to know certain things, and if we're compelled to see them, we construct a narrative that makes it less harsh.

What is likely to happen if we do notice that ethnic crime isn't driven by "poverty" or "an oppressive system" but their own subculture?

I suppose the first question is what can we do about it if we find that it is true? Cultures don't change in a flash, and having a government in the censorship business is not safe. We can stiffen rules of behavior, require schools to teach rules of civics and manners, quit worrying about disproportionate imact, demand a single language, and so on.

That isn't going to make the subculture feel any more a part of the rest of the country. It will almost certainly make it worse in the short term, and we already have plenty of demagogues hard at work to take it from there. It will put the rest of the country into an asymmetrical relation to that subculture, which isn't so good for "we're all in this together." A lot of people from other subcultures will take that as an opportunity to consider themselves personally superior, and we know how that plays out.

Is that going to be worse than what we have now? If we keep pretending and kicking the can down the road will the problematic subcultures and their demagogues fade away? I don't believe the trends point to a "fading away," but apparently a lot of people do, or want to.

I'm certain, though, that nuance and careful analysis will go out the window either way: if we keep pretending then there is no analysis and if we stop pretending the shouting will drown out the thinking.