The more diverse we are, the less trustful we become?

On October 8th, in Financial Times, John Lloyd wrote the article, “Study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity”, introducing a new problem the American Society faces as it becomes more diverse. Harvard Professor Putnam’s study shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone.

This can be a disturbing finding to Americans since the United States has been a big immigration nation. Putnam says, “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down. We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.” His study shows that the trust in Los Angeles, which is a highly diverse community, is the lowest.

Steve Sailer, in his blog, gives another light to this problem. He brings back the article that he wrote five years ago, “Diversity causes Bowling Alone”, as a response to Putnam’s book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community . There, he gives a counter example in Chicago uptown, where the community of great diversity is still friendly and interactive. However, he still believes that there are some difficulties that a diverse community faces. The list he writes entails the following: the language barrier, the high crime rate, the inter-community hatreds, some immigrants’ background where there was no trust among neighbors, and the fundamental difficulty of multicultural unity.

Many American political scientists have strived to define American values, culture, and society. Putnam’s study adds another layer to the understanding of America. He provides an answer to deal with this situation: “What we shouldn’t do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us.”