Some people think there are too many people in the world. Others think they’re just not properly distributed. That is, too much food is where the locals don’t need it, and too little of it is where the locals do. Either way it’s a problem. If the problem is the latter, i.e. distribution, then the obvious solution is to let migration achieve the requisite equilibrium. But if it’s that demand will exceed supply no matter what we do, i.e. overpopulation, then the solution is well-defended borders.
    That, at any rate, is from the bird’s eye point of view. But from our perspective – where by ‘our’ I mean those of us in North America, Europe, and the Antipodes – we have a more immediate problem. We’re not having enough kids of our own to take our teeth out. But neither do we want to let ‘those’ people into the country to do these jobs. Not because they can’t be trained – of course they can – but because, well, we prefer to be with others of our own kind. And because twenty years from now the people who’d be taking our teeth out today will be running city council. And when that happens, it shall follow as the night the day, there’ll no longer be Christmas carols playing in the park.
    Hence the inevitable conflation of conservatism with bigotry. Conservatism is about preserving our way of life. Bigotry is about dissing theirs. The conservative tries as best she can. But when disparate ways of life are forced to share a common space, chaque a son gout can’t always cut it. And when it can’t, we’re left little choice but some (however mild) species of apartheid.
    All of these forces – economics, our way of life, our bigotries – are currently in search of an equilibrium here in the West. As are each of us as individuals. And as individuals, each of us embraces multiculturalism on one front, conservatism on another, and, yes, bigotry on a third. Are we being inconsistent? The question is a category mistake. We’re juggling change.

Categories: Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Social and Political Philosophy

Tags: bigotry, conservatism, immigration, multiculturalism