Comments Posted By racrecir
Displaying 1 To 1 Of 1 Comments
CAGE MATCH: ASSIMILATION VS. MULTICULTURALISM
I remember back in the early days of the Internet listening to an older associate talk about how great it was to spend time in AOL groups. Not me, I thought. Well, that all changed, and now I spend way too much time on the Internet. As this person described his enthusiasm to me at the time, you can engage very esoteric interests with people you may not otherwise meet. People from across the country and around the world. So here is an example of people 'hunkering down' -- a reason to be less concerned about who your neighbors are and what's going on in the community. And let's face it, there's a huge diversity of relatively narrow interests that people can have.
Beyond that, I suspect that there are additional factors that can account for the study's findings, and that the factors cited are one cause and maybe not even the dominant cause. The author is correct in his reluctance to release the findings but not primariy because it will be used as a political football or that antidotes should be included, but because the research is likely poorly designed. No doubt, he's observed something, but it is likely a thin slice of a multi-dimensional dynamic.
At the very least, this study deserves years of quiet peer-review and integration into a more comprehensive theory that includes cognitive and personality factors, for example. For John Leo to attempt to elevate this to immediate practical import is simply unethical. The study's author's fears in releasing this are justified, but he needs to more concerned that his cause-effect relationship is partial at best and needs to spend more thinking about alternate and additive explanations that would delimit the findings' usefulness in drawing sweeping conclusions.
Comment Posted By racrecir On 27.06.2007 @ 11:45
