General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Here's why 52% of British voted to leave [View all]Igel
(35,307 posts)You can't claim X is the reason for a fact if X started after the fact.
Meanwhile, Rwanda, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Argentina, Russia. Assimilation, war, tension, genocide have been the standards when you get a lot of "diversity." It's not stable as long as every group gives more importance to its group identity than to an identity that units all the groups. But once you have that, you get assimilation because then the only different eventually becomes trivial differences like skin color or nose shape--there's nothing cultural keeping them separate.
The true "American exceptionalism" is thinking that in 4000 years of recorded history showing how identity groups (don't) get along we're suddenly different. Groups get along with there's something bigger and more important than the group you identify with that you either team up against or all embrace. Or when all the groups are conquered and equally unempowered, so that government acts as a referee and a distributor of favors that it controls.